The Book of Lies - Brad Meltzer [64]
“What the hell’s wrong up there?” my dad calls from below.
“Zombie possums. They want our brains,” I yell back.
My dad pauses a moment. “Serena doesn’t like possums.”
Next to me, Serena grabs my arm, clutching it against her chest. It’s the absolute opposite of her usual guru Zen confidence, and I hate to say it, but there’s something strangely reassuring in knowing she can flip out just as easily as the rest of us.
“Do your breathing,” my dad calls out from below.
It doesn’t help. She grips my arm even tighter, unable to move toward the possum.
“Serena, it won’t attack us,” I promise.
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes. I do.” I go back to my old hostage training. Give them calm and they’ll find calm. I keep my voice slow and steady. “Let’s just . . . keep . . . going.”
She’s still shaking. “Cal, I can’t do this! Uhhh, it’s so— Look at it! If it pounces—”
“It’s not pouncing, okay? It’s just a protective mother.”
“Those’re the worst kind!” she says, shutting her eyes and refusing even to look.
I take a small step forward, and the possum raises its rear end like it’s about to leap.
“What’s it doing!?” Serena asks, her head buried in my shoulder.
“Nothing,” I reply, taking yet another baby step.
Hunched over, we’re less than four feet from the hole. The possum hisses again, baring its teeth.
“Cal . . .”
“It’s just watching its kids,” I lie as Serena again freezes. I try to tug her forward, but she won’t budge. “Serena, as long as her kids are safe, she won’t do anything.”
With her eyes shut, Serena nods but doesn’t move.
“Serena,” my dad calls out, “find your center—”
“Dad, enough already!” I yell.
I can slow my speech and make more reassurances, but instead, I flex the arm that Serena’s gripping and take her hand in my own.
“Serena, you take three baby steps and we’re outta here.”
Still holding Serena’s hand, I take another step. Her grip goes from vise, to clinging, to— She takes the smallest of mini-steps. It still counts.
“There you go,” I say as we finally move forward.
“You lied about the distance, didn’t you?” Serena asks. “It’s more than three steps.”
“Not anymore,” I tell her.
She ducks down quickly, knowing the possum must be close. She’s right.
Up above, perched on the edge of the rafter, the possum peers straight down at us. Its pointy nose doesn’t move, not a single sniff—and its milky eye looks more yellow thanks to the light shining up from below.
Two hands appear through the hole in the floor. “Serena,” my dad calls out, “I’m here.”
We fidget and fumble—my dad guiding her ankles to the ladder, me still holding one of her hands—as we help her squeeze back through the rabbit hole.
She sinks slowly, like she’s being sucked down a bright well. There’s a metal clink: her foot hitting the ladder. I’m on my knees, reaching down into the hole as she finally opens her eyes and looks up at me.
“When we tell this story,” she warns, “it ends with me killing the possum with a rock.”
“Of course—your marksmanship alone . . . plus your deft hand and strong will—”
“Don’t oversell it, Cal. Now let’s get outta here. I need to throw up.”
She lets go of my hand, and as my cheeks lift, I realize that it’s the first time in the past twenty-four hours that I’m actually smiling. And that Serena’s smiling back at me.
“Y’know, that’s the second time you saved me today,” she teases. “I owe you, Superman.”
“Must be the house,” I tease back. It’s nothing more than sharing a stupid joke. But, man . . . it feels good to share something.
“You’re just like him, aren’t you?” she calls up at me.
“Who?” I ask, assuming she’s talking about my father.
“Andrew. My brother,” she says. “He was protective, too—and the walls he kept around himself . . . just like with you, they’re too tall,” she explains. “But that’s why you brought me, isn’t it? To help you lower them.”
I’m about to remind her that we brought her only because we couldn’t leave her at the airport.
But I don’t.
“Cal, we really should get her to a hotel,” my dad interrupts,