Ruby and I skidded around the end of the picket fence and ran towards
Marwick. My own house’s front door burst open with a horrific crack of
fractured wood.
He bellowed, “Ruby! Get back here!”
But we were already through her front door. She slammed it behind us,
and together, we scrambled to lock it.
“He’ll try to kick the door down,” Ruby hissed.
I glanced around us. The living room wasn’t far away, and I tugged on
her sleeve to get her to follow me. I grabbed the end of one of the couches
while she took the other side. We dragged it back down the hallway to prop it
against the door.
The metal handle jiggled as Raul tried to turn it. Then there was silence
for a second, followed by a crashing, pounding noise as he began kicking at
the wood. He bellowed Ruby’s name with each blow. It had become a chant,
the meaning of the word lost in the furious screams of “Ah-na, Ah-na, Ah-
na!”Then he fell silent. Ruby and I had our shoulders braced against the sofa,
holding it against the door. Ruby’s eyes were round and desperate as she
glanced at me.
I licked my lips. “Are the other doors locked? The windows?”
“Not all,” she whispered back.
“Go, quickly.”
We pushed away from the couch and darted in different directions, racing
to lock everything before Raul could reach it. I started in the living room,
checking that each of its three windows were secure. As I bolted the third, a
hand slammed against the outside of the pane. I sucked in a breath and leapt
back. Raul’s face, distorted with pure fury, glared in at me. He turned his
hand into a fist and punched the glass. The pane exploded. He reached
through, seeming not to notice or care that fragments of glass were slashing
his arm, and tried to grab at me. I’d already moved out of reach. The pane
was too small to crawl through, and the hand retreated.
My head throbbed, and my lungs burned. I pressed a hand to my chest as
I scanned the empty window, then forced myself to keep moving. I heard and
occasionally saw Ruby darting through the rooms opposite. More than ever,
she looked like a deer, her eyes huge with terror and her long legs propelling
her through the house like springs.
We met at the back door, bolted it together, then hauled the kitchen table
in front of it. Ruby gasped in shaking breaths as she leaned across the wood.
“Did he hurt you?”
“No.” My head throbbed from where I’d hit the floor, but I doubted it was
serious. “Do you think he could climb the walls to get to an upstairs
window?”
She swallowed. “Probably not. Maybe.”
“We’ll lock them just in case.”
Sharp banging on the door made me flinch. Raul had made his way
around to the back of the house. The handle jiggled then fell still, and a
moment later, Raul called out, his voice softer and coaxing, “Ruby, honey,
don’t be like this.”
She shot me a look. We slipped away from the back door and towards the
stairs.
Raul’s voice floated to us, almost whining. “I want to talk, baby. I miss
you. I miss us . Why are you being like this? I just want to talk!”
We crept up the stairs. Raul was silent for a moment, then there was aloud thud followed by a swear word as he punched the door.
“He’s drunk,” Ruby whispered. “He gets like this when he’s had too
much.”
“Ah-naaa .” The word was a plaintive whine. “Why are you doing this to
me? Do you want me to beg? I miss you, baby. We weren’t so bad together,
were we?” He paused, then the voice took on a hint of anger. “You need me.
Stop being so dramatic, and stop embarrassing yourself. Come and unlock the
door. Now. Before I start getting angry.”
We moved through the upstairs rooms one at a time, locking windows.
Raul was silent for nearly a minute, then he bellowed in frustration and began
kicking the door again. Ruby and I ended up in the blue room, surrounded by
her dolls, their eyes glowing in the moonlight. We crouched behind her desk
and listened as Raul raged and swore and beat against the door so hard, I was
afraid it would break.