Chapter 4
You have to drive the tank home.
Zelda is the normal driver, you think, a Z carved clearly on the dashboard, but the three of them (the sisters? your sisters?) had fallen asleep in the back seat about thirty seconds after you had piled in, Captain Mooney’s blood still coating Bellona’s hands and face.
Gabby’s mask is off and she’s curled right on Zelda’s lap, the older girl leaning on the back wall with Bellona passed out on her shoulder. They look almost peaceful and you do not have the heart to wake them, so you drive home in silence, parking behind your apartment and pushing open the driver seat door as quietly as you can.
You are going to have to carry them in.
You cannot take all three of them at once, so you do three trips, up and down two flights of stairs. You take Bellona up first, barely able to lift the taller girl, and drop her on your own bed before padding back down.
Gabby is next, and she doesn’t even stir, just puts her head on your shoulder as you push the door open with your foot, ignoring the startled looks from other tenants.
You walk up the stairs as fast as you can, reconsidering your plan of leaving Bellona alone in your apartment with your breakable belongings, but you have a child (a literal child! You are taking after your father!) in your arms so you cannot run properly. So you power walk, in your super hero costume, to your apartment, and you put Gabby down next to Bellona and stumble back down to get Zelda.
Once you get the three of them situated, tucked in carefully under the covers as best as you could without waking them, you lay down on the couch in your flappy-hoodie (the sleeves cover your hands and it is soft and warm and weighted, a gift from Scott years earlier). It’s the early hours of the morning and you and the others smell of ash and blood but you do not focus on that, head running in a thousand different directions. How will you take care of them, how will you protect them, what if they are hurt?
You do not think you can sleep, but within a few minutes you are nodding off anyway, lock firmly bolted and eyes able to glance at the door to your bedroom and count three heartbeats still thumping.