Page 237 of The Seven Rings
“Drink that, get your breath back. Does anything hurt?”
“I think I fell mostly on my ass. Maybe rapped my head a little.”
Moving behind her, Trey ran his fingers through her clouds of hair, checking for injury.
“Not hard enough to bring up a lump.”
“Lucky me.” Cleo closed her eyes, sipped. “I just need another minute.”
From the tablet, the Eagles sang “Take It Easy.”
“That’s right. Take it easy. There’s the kettle.”
“The ashwagandha, Son.”
“The what?”
Cleo smiled a little at Trey as Sonya walked back to the kitchen. “It’s good for stress, anxiety, emotional trauma. Sonya knows.”
“Okay then.” Trey laid a hand on Cleo’s shoulder, relieved she no longer shivered. “I’m going to put these guys out awhile.”
“I heard them barking. It helped knowing they were there.” Closing her eyes, Cleo stroked the cat, who stayed in her lap. “She’s fine here.”
“We let the dogs out when we went down to the gym,” Sonya murmured as Trey led them to the door.
“I know. Somebody let them back in to try to help.”
Metallica roared out with “The House Jack Built.”
“Thanks, Jack.”
While the tea steeped, Sonya made more coffee.
She brought it all in, then nudged what was left of Cleo’s coffee aside. “Half a teaspoon of honey, just the way you like it.”
“Thanks. And thanks for the lift down, Trey. I don’t think my legs would’ve handled it.”
“You tell us,” Sonya suggested, “then we’ll tell you. What happened, Cleo?”
“A rude awakening. I’m sound asleep, and the next thing I know, I’m floating three feet in the air. Then the banging, the crashing, the fire’s roaring like a furnace, but the room’s cold as a meat locker. Noise everywhere. Blood running down the walls, then she dropped me. I think I screamed before it knocked the breath out of me. Pye’s hissing, her back’s arched.”
She sipped some tea, then squeezed Sonya’s hand. “Just exactly the way I like it. I was going to go down, find you, because it was everywhere, the banging, the bonging, the howling. Then the windows slammed open, and I saw it. I saw it coming.”
Unable to stop the shudder, she paused.
“That bird of hers,” Cleo continued. “And the windows were open this time. I’ve tried putting some protection around the house, but I’m no Imogene Tamura. I didn’t have the damn BB gun.”
She paused, drank more tea. Steadier for it, she continued.
“I got up, fast as I could, and grabbed my labradorite ball. The bigone. About softball size,” she told Trey. “It’s coming, and I knew I’d never get to the door even if I could get out. So I threw it, just as that thing came through the window. I screamed and I threw it as hard as I could.
“It went right through it.” Stopping, she shivered, drank more tea. “I saw it go right through, and I thought—at least I think I did—maybe it can’t kill me, but it’s going to do some serious damage. And that bastard’s going to kill my cat.”
She set down the tea, covered her face with her hands.
“Jesus, holy Jesus.”
Rising, Sonya wrapped her arms around Cleo.
