The Guardian by Diana Knightley
Forty-eight - Kaitlyn
My heart pounded in my chest. A shrieking noise filled my ears, it came from myself but was matched by the young woman in the corner.
Lady Mairead, always the wiser, started going through his pockets, grabbing everything he was carrying and shoving it into her bag.
Agnie MacLeod tried to push Lady Mairead away and I aimed my gun at her. “Want a piece of me?” I said, because it was cool.
People were screaming outside the door. I climbed off the table, grabbed Agnie MacLeod, and held the gun to her head.
“Come with me,” I said, repeating it over and over, trying to be soothing, but not for her, for me. I was trying to calm myself down. Blood was splashed all over me, making me feel nauseous and anxious. A memory slammed into me of that day, years ago, when I had killed Donnan in a horror bloodbath. ”It’s going to be okay, just come with me, this is fine,” I held the gun to Agnie’s head. “You’re going to be fine, this is just a tragedy, I’m not usually like this. This isn’t what I do. I’m a mom...”
I backed us from the room.
Rebecca rushed up to Lady Mairead and said, “Let me take off your choker.”
Lady Mairead pulled up her hair and exposed the back of her neck. “Thank ye, dear.”
I dragged Agnie to the exit as Lady Mairead and the young pregnant stranger named Rebecca ran past me out the door. Lady Mairead called over her shoulder, “We are goin’ tae Elmwood, Kaitlyn, be safe!” as they burst out of the back door and raced down the dark back alley.
I made it out of the restaurant and shoved Agnie MacLeod down to the ground and pointed the gun at her. “Don’t follow me!”
I turned and ran through the dark night. I was following Lady Mairead’s shadow but she got to the end of the alley and turned right.
Not toward the hotel.
I heard old-timey style sirens wailing down the street. My feet pounded, my heart raced, or was it the freaking opposite? As I ran, I glanced down to see the gun still in my hand. I broke stride and kicked it behind a pile of disgusting smelling debris, then I ran again. I came around the corner and out onto a street full of people, all looking shocked, gawking at the sirens and the commotion — some turned to stare.
I said, “Oh my! There was a shooting! Down at the restaurant! I barely escaped with my life! Back that direction!”
The crowd cleared for me, stepped out of my way. I kept repeating, “Someone was shot! Over there! Down the street! I barely escaped!” I shoved my way through the crowd, aiming for the hotel, sure I would find the Original Lady Mairead here, there, somewhere.
I made it to the hotel. The doorman stepped in front of me, “What is...?”
“I’m a guest, room #310!”
“Lady Mai—”
“Yes! There was a shooting over at the restaurant! I was just there!”
He stepped back to let me pass saying something that I couldn’t hear, couldn’t understand, and didn’t process. I staggered to the front desk, having forgotten the name of the man there that was supposed to give and take my things from the safe, whoever he was, I managed, “I need my things — Lady Mairead, I was just here.”
He gestured me behind the desk, to hide my clothes, and opened the safe while I was mentally repeating, faster, faster, faster, faster.
He whispered, “Is Lady Mairead all right?”
“She’s not here?” I looked dazedly around the grand lobby. “She was supposed to meet me here. Maybe she got detained. We were in the restaurant. There was a shooting.”
“Hollywood has gone downhill with all these new people moving in here.” He pulled a drawer from the safe. Faster faster faster... The tray hit the counter and I grabbed the vessel.
He said, “Lady Mairead won’t tell me what it is...”
“Oh, this? It’s just a... um...” I tried to think of the history of the twentieth century and what might have been invented in 1926 but I was incapable of any coherent thoughts, so I said, as I backed around the counter, “One of those thingies, you know, that does the blink-blinks?”
He looked at me blankly as I backed toward the front door.
“You know, it goes spinny, you know, one of those things.”
“I have no idea what you are talking about.”
I made it to the front doors. Surprised that Lady Mairead, the one that had persuaded me to do this bullshit errand, or the one that had been at the dinner — neither were here to meet me, to tell me what to do next, to join me in my escape.
But that’s the thing about an escape, if they weren’t in the getaway car when it was time to get away, they would miss the whole thing.
The doorman opened the door for me and I rushed out into the dark night in front of the hotel. It was barely lit, and cool for Los Angeles, I had forgotten my wrap. I rushed down the street to the corner and up a half block and freaking spun that vessel, reciting the numbers to myself, going to Kilchurn, the clearing, and hoping to get there to help with whatever was happening. What had dickwad said — something big was happening?
Well, guess what.
It wasn’t that big, not anymore. Now he was dead. How big could his plan be when he died in the middle of it?
I would have cackled in evil mastermind laughter if I hadn’t been so freaking scared.