Page 46 of When to Call a Blitz

But that night I got a text asking me to be here to drop Juniper off at school today since he has a last minute meeting. He said he would be home in time to get her from school though, so I can go home and, well, figure out what the hell I’m going to do for the rest of the day because I have no hobbies.

My plan was to just go home after dropping her off, because if I don’t have to get her what the hell is the purpose of hanging out there? But I realize as I’m pulling out of the school that I left my favorite sweatshirt on the couch, and that just simply won’t do.

The smell hit me like a train again the second I walked in, which leads me to this moment, ripping apart the house room by room.

“Heidi?” Emmett’s voice booms through the house. I exit the powder room and peek around the wall to find him standing at the door, his nose in the air, sniffing.

“I don’t know what the fuck it is, but it’s driving me nuts. Care to help?” I ask, skipping the pleasantries.

“I thought you were going home?” he asks, looking around.

I point toward the couch. “I wasn’t about to leave that sweatshirt here overnight. What else am I going to rot on the couch in later?”

Emmett raises an eyebrow.

“It’s not scratchy, Emmett. The fabric is smooth. I swear to god if a single piece of fabric scratches my elbows the wrong way I’m going to lose my mind. I needed to get the damn sweatshirt.”

He puts his hands up in surrender before following me back down the hall.

“You haven’t found what smells yet?” I ask him, peeking into his bedroom.

“I’ve had a little too much on my mind. Where have you looked?”

“Usual suspects. Kitchen, bathroom, garage. I’ve cleaned every single drain other than your bathroom and Juniper’s bathroom. I looked under couches and everything else. For whatever reason I don’t think it smellsstrongeranywhere, but I also haven’t ripped apart your bedroom or Juniper’s bedroom because I didn’t want to do that without permission.”

His jaw sets, his eyes wandering past me to the bedrooms. “You have permission,” he tells me, and we immediately get to work on Juniper’s room.

After about five minutes of cleaning, I make a mental note to have cleaning her room become a regular chore I encourage her to do, but overall it’s nothing crazy. An occasional cereal bar wrapper from under the bed, about five reusable water bottles littered at the base of her bed, a few books thrown next to her dresser. Nothing crazy.

But the second Emmett yanks open the closet, everything changes.

“What thefuck!” he yells, jumping back into me and sending me toppling. “Heidi! I’m so sorry, are you okay?” he helps me up, and it’s not until I snap myself out of it that I realize exactly why he bounced back.

Because in front of us sits four small, fuzzy black puffballs with white stripes down their backs.

I try to speck but nothing comes out. “Are—are those skunks?” I whisper finally, covering my face.

“Yeah,” Emmett says, examining them closer.

But the second he takes a step closer, there’s an angry grunt as a larger mamma skunk charges him, her tail up and ready to spray.

We don’t escape it.

“She’s grounded.” Emmett says as he retrieves the bag Briar left at the front door.

“Reasonable,” I mumble.

“What are we going to do about them?” he asks, panic creeping into his voice again.

I throw up my hands. “How the fuck am I supposed to know?”

“We need to get them outside.”

“Juni is going to have a fuckingmeltdown.”

“Heidi they’re fuckingskunks.”

“And your daughter is apparently a reincarnated Steve Irwin,” I hiss, unloading the bag onto the counter.

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