Nightstruck - Jenna Black Page 0,73
goat battered the wood of our door all to hell, letting in plenty of arctic blasts, but it turned out the door had metal reinforcement in the middle, and that was too much for the goat to break through. Instead, we had to listen to the impact of its metal head with the metal door. By the time it and Piper wandered away for the night, both Luke and I had pounding headaches from all the noise.
* * *
After that, Dad decided we needed to fortify all the second- and third-story windows, just in case. They were all sturdy casement windows, but the panes were bigger than those on the first floor, and it wasn’t impossible to imagine someone being able to crawl through if the glass was broken out.
He was so exhausted he could barely see straight, and yet he spent most of a day installing towel rods across the windows to serve as bars, because getting someone to install real bars or grilles would take forever. He also nailed some plywood over the holes Billy had left in the front door. He was supposed to be taking some time off to get some rest, but when I suggested that maybe Luke and I could take care of things, he blew me off. He was still feeling bad that he wasn’t home with me every night, and fortifying our house seemed to ease his conscience.
He was stretching himself too thin, and everyone but him could see it. It was all I could do not to wrench the hammer out of his hand when he hit his thumb while trying to patch the front door.
“I’ll be fine, Becks,” he said as he shook his hand and waited for the pain to ease. At least he hadn’t broken any bones.
Shortly after he finished installing all those towel rods—which were noticeably crooked—his cell phone rang, and he got into a heated conversation with someone he kept calling Sir. I suspected it was the mayor, and it turned out I was right. Over my dad’s protests, he’d been ordered to take the night off and try to get eight full hours of sleep. Thank God. I didn’t like the idea of my dad getting into a car and driving to work when he was so tired he couldn’t see straight.
“You’re going to bed and wearing earplugs as soon as you finish dinner,” I informed him.
“Yes, Mother,” he said with a weary smile.
I then did something I hadn’t done in … well, forever, it seemed. I gave my dad a spontaneous hug.
“I love you,” I told him, squeezing hard. I knew my mom was still giving him hell about not having gotten me out of the city before the quarantine hit. I also knew she kept badgering him to somehow use his connections to find a way to sneak me out—like I should be given special treatment because I was the police commissioner’s daughter. Even if he’d found a way, I’d have refused to go. I didn’t like dealing with our city at night, but the idea that I should be allowed to leave when no one else was went against everything I believed in.
Anyway, I knew my dad was hearing criticism and general nastiness from every side, every day, and I knew he was trying his hardest. He deserved to be reminded that, even though we’d fought a lot lately, I did still love and appreciate him.
“I love you, too, Becks,” he said, his voice suspiciously hoarse. “And I’m sorry I’ve left you alone so much.”
“Don’t be. You’re doing your job. I get that.” Even if my mom didn’t. She and my dad had loved each other once, but I think even before the marriage went sour, the current situation would have had them at each other’s throats.
Our moment of father–daughter bonding ended when Luke rapped on the back door, just in time for the evening curfew, but I think my father felt better about things because of it. My mom has the guilt trip down to an art form, and he’s pretty susceptible to it.
Even though my dad was home, Luke would still be spending the night at our place, because his mother was on yet another night shift at the hospital. As usual, I made dinner. Both Dad and Luke offered, but Dad was supposed to be on R & R and Luke was still a guest in our house, so I considered the cooking to be my responsibility.
The fact that