window to me. Gabriela followed.
“Is your grandmother okay?” my mom asked me.
“Yes,” I said. “She’s with Lula.”
“She won’t be okay when I get done with her,” my mom said. “I’m going to put her in assisted living somewhere far away. Georgia or Texas or Slovakia. I told her to give the keys to Benny and she wouldn’t do it. And you’re no better. You went along with it all. And look what happened. I got kidnapped. They put me in the trunk of a car.”
“I know. I’m sorry but we need to discuss this later.”
“In the trunk of a car!”
“Not now, Mom. We need to get out of here.”
I grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the tree line. We were halfway across the hardscrabble yard when one of the men walked around the side of the house. He shouted to his partner and fired a shot over our heads.
Gabriela turned and fired two shots, hitting the gunman on the second. He went down to the ground, and we ran into the woods. Gabriela caught up to us and turned us in another direction.
“We want to circle around the house and go toward the road,” she said. “Slow down and try not to make noise. There’s a rusted-out Airstream camper just past the house. We can use it for cover, and I can try to pick them off one by one.”
We bushwhacked through the undergrowth, listening to the men shouting to each other back at the house and in the woods behind us. Gabriela was leading the way. She looked like she knew what she was doing, and she was dressed for the job. Camo cargo pants, a formfitting V-neck olive drab T-shirt, and thick-soled, spike-studded boots. Small camo backpack. Olive drab utility gun belt sized for a woman.
Gabriela held her hand up and we all stopped and listened. Someone was stalking us. Dried leaves and twigs were crackling under his footstep. I could see a sliver of silver peeking out of the thick vegetation in front of us. It was the Airstream.
Gabriela motioned for us to go. We covered half the distance to the camper and a man burst out of the woods in front of us, holding us at gunpoint. Without a moment of hesitation, I pulled a Potts. I staggered sideways a little, rolled my eyes back in my head, and did an Academy Award–winning faint, grabbing hold of my mom and pulling her down with me.
The instant we hit the ground, Gabriela went airborne, looking like G.I. Ninja. She planted her boot to the man’s chest, he let out a whoosh of air, and the gun dropped out of his hand. Gabriela kicked him hard in the crotch with her toe spikes. He went to his knees and rolled into a fetal position.
“He was the one who locked me in the trunk,” my mom said, getting to her feet. “Asshole,” she yelled at the guy, and she kicked him in the vicinity of a kidney.
Another thug came out of the woods and went for Gabriela. I rushed over and yelled “Hey!” He turned to look at me, and I smashed him in the face with my gun butt. Blood gushed out of his nose and I hit him again.
“Ow,” Gabriela said. “Nicely done.”
A police chopper flew low over the yellow ranch house. Red and blue lights flashed on the driveway. We could see parts of the house through the trees. It was surrounded by men in black SWAT gear. I recognized them as Rangemen. We walked out of the woods, and by the time we reached the house the yard was filled with cars. Local cop cars, Rangeman SUVs, and two EMTs. The last car down the driveway was Lula with Potts and Grandma.
Lula, Grandma, and Potts parked and hurried over to us. Grandma grabbed my mom and hugged her close. “Are you okay?” she asked. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know,” my mom said. “I think so. I was really scared. They locked me in the truck of a car. And they put duct tape across my mouth.”
“They did that to me, too,” Potts said. “It was uncomfortable. I don’t want to have that happen anymore.”
My mom turned to me. “Thank you for rescuing me, but you could have been killed. I saw your face in the window and I had such a mix of emotions. Relief that I might be able to escape and horror that you might be captured or worse. Those men were