Despite the dig, it’s an invitation that’s hard to decline.
They are herded to the RV lot, filled with partying tailgaters. Elayna chuckles at the sight, smoke rising from grills, delicious smelling BBQs, lawn chairs, canopies, flags, even big screen TVs.
All Katrina sees is the booze.
“It looks like a refugee camp. Did you ever do this?” Elayna asks.
“All the time,” though she can’t remember the end of a game.
“Over there, the tall building,” she directs Elayna. It has been a few years since she’s been here, but it looks pretty much the same. Katrina points to the silver retractable canopy on the roof. “Up there.”
Elayna spots a parking space occupied by two young guys stretched out on lawn chairs. She rolls down her window, “Hi guys, can we squeeze in there?”
“Sure thing, babe!” one of them says.
Elayna mumbles something under her breath as she parks and turns the camper off. Turning to Katrina, she asks, “Ready?”
Katrina looks out over the parking lot.
Elayna follows her stare. “Numbers. Just numbers. Aren’t you the determinist? If they’re supposed to die, they’ll die.”
A shout comes from deep within her. “No! Katrina, we can’t do this!” Kate pleads, banging on the attic door.
Katrina might have followed through if it meant just setting the bomb off high in the atmosphere. It would have created a terrible mess, and in all likelihood killed a few people if it went off as planned, but the age of the device, and its trigger mechanism, it’s just too much of a risk with so many innocents involved, even for Katrina.
Katrina opens the attic door it, Elayna having given her the key. “I know,” she tells Kate.
Kate has already accepted she may never see her boys again, even thought Elayna has dangled that big juicy carrot in front of her. Katrina bought it hook, line, and sinker, but Kate could never be that selfish. It is all in God’s hands now, the lives of her boys, of all these people and her own.
“You’re right,” Katrina tells Elayna, who despite the assurance, looks wary. Perhaps it’s how she says it, or a look. For a moment, Elayna isn’t sure if she’s dealing with Katrina or Kate. “Let’s do it. We have a plane to catch,” Katrina says, flashing that devilish smile.
What Elayna can’t see is that somewhere inside the woman in front of her, among the trillions of sparkling neurons, a new entity has come into existence, born from the humility and wreckage that was once Kate and Katrina. The elements had been there all the time. What Katrina had lost, and what Kate had found and saved until they were ready to share it.
A gift, given by a power greater than herself.
An identity, a being filled with selfless compassion and a fearless understanding of reality’s truer nature. She has become the child she once was, and had always been. All that the years and man had taken away, lovingly restored to her. The innocence may be gone, but it is replaced with the wisdom of experience.
It comes to her in a voice from that distant past, a loving mother’s call to her little ballerina, “Kati! Come home, sweetheart!”
A mother’s love never dies; it lives on in the heart of a child, just as she told Robbie.
Kati smiles, finally at peace. She is home…and free.
In the lower cargo holder are the two big suitcases on wheels, the kind luggage handlers hate. Inside, wrapped in heavy lead-lined blankets used by dentists, are the bombs. It takes both women to lug them out.
The two frat boys in the lawn chairs, sunglasses on and cold beer in hand, watch in amusement. A football bounces off the side of the camper.
“You girls need a hand?” one of them asks. Elayna and Kati looked at each other.
“Sure!” Elayna says.
“No, no, we don’t,” Kati glares at Elayna.
“And what are your names, cuties?” Elayna asks.
The slightly taller one answers. “I’m Jay, he’s Randy.”
“Well I’m Elayna, and this is Katrina.”
“Kati,” she corrects.
Elayna gives her an odd look. “Kati.”
Kati turns to Elayna. “Get your stuff. We’re not coming back here.” While she chats up the guys, Elayna gets her things. A minute or two later, she emerges with a bag.
“You go, and wait for me.”
“Don’t be long,” Elayna cautions. “Just bring the bottle!”
“Right behind you.” She climbs back inside. Kati goes to the space beneath the sink and grabs the thermoses of her own blood she’s brought. They were trained to keep it handy, but she’d never thought of using it like this. She carefully pours one out on the carpeting in front of the bed. Then she takes the rest into the bathroom, pouring a little into the sink, and the remainder into the shower stall, careful not to get any on her.
“All gone.” Then gathering up the containers and her bag, she is almost out the door when she stops and turns around.
The vodka.
Its pull is irresistible. “Might as well,” she thinks.
Today will be written off. She is facing having to do things that she’d never do sober, and the alcohol takes all those inhibitions away. It’s been a while since she’s killed, though she hopes it won’t happen.
She laughs, “The Lord does work in mysterious ways.”
After a couple of good deep pulls, she stuffs the bottle into her bag, and takes off, locking the door behind her and tossing the empty thermos containers into the parking lot’s garbage cans.
The building is open, and now Kati will take the lead. It’s her turn to be the alpha female.
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