Page 63 of Five Survive

“If you were driving a car,” Don was saying, “we might could have towed y’all.” He looked around, surveying the giant hulking shape of the RV. Red stepped forward, brushing against Simon at the threshold to outside. “This is quite something, isn’t it?” Don said, slapping the metallic side of the RV.

“Thirty-one feet,” Red said.

“Is that right?” Don said, a crinkle in his eyes as he looked up at her, pursing his lips to blow out a low whistle. “Well, I’ll be.”

“It’s my uncle’s.” Simon stepped forward, shooting the couple a smile. Red caught the sideways view, muscles straining in his cheek.

“Really?” Don asked. “And how much does something like this set you back?”

The static spluttered behind Red’s back, cutting out.

“Send them away,” the voice threatened, low and hissing.

Red held her breath.

“What was that, son?” Don looked up at Simon.

“I said I think it’s for people with more money than sense,” Simon chuckled, loudly, covering the static. “Like my uncle, I guess.”

“Right.” Don laughed politely.

“Well, we got no sense and no money.” Joyce joined in the laughter, her shoulders hitching. That was when Red’s eyes finally caught it, slipping over the side of Joyce’s shoulder, hiding in the folds of her tied-back hair. The red dot. Waiting. Ready to put a hole in her.

Red swallowed again, her smile stretchy and tight, pulling uncomfortably at her skin. Keep a straight face, just like she was taught. Give nothing away with her eyes. Face straight, story straight, all she had to remember.Can you remember all that, Red?

“How many does it sleep?” Don asked. “There are five of you, right?”

“There’s six of us,” Reyna corrected, a quiver in her voice that made Red think she’d seen the dot too. Reyna was premed; she knew all the soft and delicate things waiting there beneath Don’s and Joyce’s flesh, all the horrifying ways they could split apart in the path of a bullet. Insides that would stay inside, because they were going to send them away to save them. Red must have stopped smiling; Joyce was looking at her funny.

“You okay, sweetheart?” she asked.

Red blinked, pasted the smile back on. “Yeah,” she said, “you?”

“I’m finer than a frog hair split four ways,” Joyce answered. “But I’m worried about y’all and how we’re gonna get you on your way.”

“What happened to the window here?” Don asked, his feet shifting, eyes too, straying up to the shattered glass.

“Tree branch,” Reyna said, almost too quick, like Oliver’s lie had been waiting on the tip of her tongue. But it didn’t quite fit. “We were too big to come down this narrow road here, but we pushed through because we couldn’t turn back, next thing we know, tree comes through the window.”

“Right.” Don nodded, blinking slowly, like he was trying to picture it in the pitch-black behind his closed eyelids.

Red heard whispering behind her. Not from the walkie-talkie, from Maddy and Oliver, bent over the table, their backs to her.

She sidled away from the open door as Simon asked Don and Joyce about their new grandchild, and how the birth went.

Red stepped up behind Maddy, peered over her shoulder. On a piece of paper, ripped from the pad, Maddy was writing something with the felt-tip pen, waiting for Oliver to tell her the next word.

Red squinted to read the note.

Help, call the police. There’s an—

“Active shooter,” Oliver hissed at her, Maddy turning his words into scratchy black letters on the page. “We are trapped.”

“You can’t do that,” Red said, making Maddy jump, smudging the last word. She hadn’t known Red was right behind her. “He said he’d kill them.”

“How is the sniper going to know if I pass them this tiny note?” Oliver turned to her, a low hint of rage stirring in his voice. How dare she question him. He was the leader, didn’t she know? “He is hundreds of yards that way. He’s never going to know.”

“He might,” Red said, breath stalling in her chest. Come on, she had to do better than that.