The Don's Animal-Talking Little Girl novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: The Night House

I told Teo in the car, word for word, with Dilly asleep against the cat in the back seat.

He didn't say anything.

He just drove faster.

When we got home he put eight men on the grounds instead of four.

He walked the garden wall himself with a flashlight, every foot of it.

"Move her upstairs," he said.

Gran was sitting up in her hospital bed by the French doors with the television on.

"No," she said.

"Bernice."

"I've been up those stairs once in my life, in your arms, and I'm not doing it again for a man with a mustache."

"He threatened you."

"Everyone threatens me. I'm seventy-one and I cheat at cards." She turned the volume up. "Sit with me if you're worried. The both of you are making the room tense."

So I sat with her.

I pulled the armchair next to her bed, in sweatpants and one of Teo's T-shirts.

The shotgun lay on the floor beside me.

I still hadn't fired it.

Teo kissed the top of my head and went back out into the dark.

The cat slept on Gran's feet.

The house went quiet around one.

At two-ten the crows started.

I'd never heard crows at night. Nobody has.

It came from the garden wall, dozens of them at once, screaming.

The cat stood up on Gran's bed with her back arched and her eyes on the French doors.

Out in the dark, past the roses, two shapes came over the top of the wall and dropped into the flower bed.

I didn't wait.

I kicked the brakes off Gran's wheelchair and got her into it, tube and tank and all, fast.

"My teeth," she said.

"Leave them."

"I will not leave them."

I grabbed the glass off the nightstand and shoved it in her lap.

Dilly was already at the bottom of the back stairs in her nightgown, the white bird on her head.

"The crows say two men," she said. "On the wall. One has a big gun and one has a little one."

"I know, baby. Come on."

I pushed the wheelchair with one hand and held Dilly's wrist with the other.

Through the kitchen, past the pantry, down the cream hall.

The steel door was open, the way Teo had left it.

Behind us the first shot went off outside.

Then a lot of them.

I got Gran and Dilly in and pulled the door shut and threw the lock.

It was very quiet in there.

The shots outside sounded like somebody beating a rug three houses down.

Dilly sat on a cot with the cat in her lap, and the white bird went inside her nightgown collar and hid.

She didn't translate anything.

← Chapter 15 · All chapters · Chapter 17 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend