26 March 2014 – Devens Regional High School, Shirley, Massachusetts

The whispers were the worst.

Sabrina could ignore the looks from the other students and some of the staff, but many of the whispered comments – which weren’t really whispered – were hurtful. Her friends rallied around her and tried to insulate her from the worst of it, but they weren’t all in the same classes as she was. The ones who were in her classes were outnumbered and couldn’t stop all the talk.

She tried to keep her spirits up by remembering when the first reporter got brave enough to knock on her grandparents’ front door. Her father answered, and that reporter immediately asked him for an interview.

“You’re trespassing on private property,” he told the woman who shoved a microphone under his nose as soon as the door opened. “I know for a fact there’s a ‘NO TRESPASSING’ sign at the end of this driveway. Four men ignored the signs around the property next door the other night, too. I’m sure your sources have told you how that worked out for them.”

Her father then suggested the woman look up the full text and translation of Voltaire’s phrase ‘pour encourager les autres.’ The woman stared at her father, not understanding.

“Dans ce pays-ci, il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres,” her father recited in French. Another blank stare. He translated for the woman.

“In this country, it is wise to kill an admiral from time to time so to encourage the others.” A pointed glare preceded the door rattling in its frame when he slammed it shut. Sabrina had to admit that her father’s implied punishment for trespassing had been funny.

Alex and Ryan returned to Lancaster not long after their father chased the reporter away. Both sat wide-eyed as they heard Sabrina and their parents discuss the events of Saturday night. They recognized their house on the news coverage the night before, but to hear their sister recount those events was something else. Before Ryan walked out of the living room, he gave Sabrina a look like he didn’t know who or what she was. Her eyes filled with tears as the brother she’d once been close with walked away. Alex stepped up to her and wrapped his little sister in a crushing hug.

“He’s a butthead, ignore him,” he whispered. “You’re my little sister and I love you no matter what, though I’m going to be extra careful not to ever piss you off from now on.” Sabrina squeezed him back.

Mr. Lanier checked in with her mid-week to make sure she was doing okay. That was another high point on her emotional rollercoaster but of course, as soon as he walked, away Cassie Provencher started up her shit again.

“She needs to be expelled!” Sabrina heard the girl sermonize to a group of her hangers-on. “There isn’t a place at this school for someone capable of doing that!”

Sabrina was fed up. Before Ruby and Naomi could stop her, Sabrina shoved her way past her friends and strode across the hall. She stood right behind Cassie glaring at the back of her neck.

“Got something to say to me, Provencher?” she asked, shaking off her friends’ hands when they tried to pull her away. Cassie had to retreat a step when she turned around or she would have been nose-to-nose with her angry classmate. She gulped but said nothing.

“I notice you’re not so brave when someone calls you on your bullshit. That only confirms what I thought about you, and that is you’re nothing but a common bully. So, what is it exactly I need to be expelled for?” The other girl just blinked at her. “While you’re busy soiling your panties because I’m in your face, Cassie, allow me to boil Saturday’s excitement down for you and your pack of hyenas: it happened because I said ‘no.’

“Do you understand what I just said? I said ‘no,’ and those assholes were going to do it anyway. We tell the meatheads around here that no means no, but apparently you feel that’s only true if the person saying it is someone you like. Here’s a news flash for you: I don’t give a shit if you don’t like me, and I don’t give a shit if your friends don’t like me. What I do give a shit about is not being taken against my will like some peasant girl from the Middle Ages!”

“Y-y-you …” Cassie stammered, “y-you killed those men!”

“With extreme prejudice, Cassie! And that’s a choice I’d make again!” She saw Cassie’s bunch turn pale. Sabrina gave the group her best version of a killer’s stare before someone whispered in her ear.

“Come on, Badass! They’re not worth it.”

Sabrina watched the other girls run away. She waited until they were out of sight before turning back to her friends. The adrenaline wore off leaving her feeling drained. She accepted a long hug from Tommy before the others hugged her too. Sabrina gave Erica an apologetic smile as she bent down to hug her.

“He’s mine,” Erica whispered. Sabrina tried to pull back, startled. “Relax, girl, I’m joking. Geez, you’re wound too tight.” Erica looked up at Sabrina. “Okay everyone, kid gloves around Sabrina for a bit!”

“Sorry, Erica, I’m still a little keyed up from this weekend.”

“Ya think?”

“You want to be careful about saying stuff like that to people like Carrie, Sabrina,” Tommy warned. “She’ll twist your words around until people think those men were peaceful Jehovah’s Witnesses spreading the Good Word and you just snapped.”

“True dat,” Shawn chimed in. “Bitch be crazy and she’s not afraid to destroy someone if she sets her mind to it.”

“Shawn?” Sabrina asked.

“She’s another one Ruby and I went to school with in Ayer. I watched Cassie tear one of her former friends apart because one day the girl developed a conscience. That girl was an Army brat so she transferred out our Eighth Grade year.”

“There isn’t much of a hockey season left to distract us from this kind of drama, either.”

“Nope.”

Sabrina looked at the gaping holes inside the house after contractors finished tearing out all the damage from the home invasion. Sections of the wall were missing from the kitchen and along the staircases leading upstairs and down to the basement. At a maximum distance of about five yards – and less than three in the kitchen – the buckshot hadn’t spread much and it punched through the bad guys she shot. The sheetrock in both locations hadn’t fared well, either.

The rugs on both staircases had to be ripped out, as had sections of the floors where blood had pooled before the bodies were removed. Blood soaked through the seams of the hardwood and into the subfloor. Her parents opted to rip out the hall and office floors, rather than replace the blood-soaked sections.

Blood splatter from her shots in the kitchen – the chest shot to one intruder and the neck shot to the other – had covered the wall next to the basement stairs and another wall inside the stairwell. The .33-caliber pellets had torn those up, too. The shots fired in the front hall required repair work up into the second-floor hall as well.

The next day sheetrock patches, taped and mudded but unsanded and unpainted, covered those gaping holes. Keiko would choose new paint colors for the walls despite her initial request to restore the house to exactly the way it appeared before. Plywood patches filled the holes in the subfloors and made it safer to walk around.

Wandering down into the basement, she saw the framing and sheetrock around the huge bank of windows in the family room had been removed. Thick, steel-framed polycarbonate sheets were screwed to the framing just behind the original glass panels. That would prevent someone from using them as an easy entry into the house. The door out to the back yard was replaced with a vinyl-clad, solid steel door braced with a lock bar across the inside. No one would break through that entry without explosives.

Her father had also upgraded the security system. The equipment which once occupied a small corner of the mechanical room was gone, replaced by an upgraded system inside a thick, steel cabinet with the components labeled. The cabling entered the cabinet through steel conduit. The cabinet had even been spray-painted to match the color of the wall next to it to help it blend in. Sabrina noticed one component’s label read ‘cellular backup communications link.’ A matching painted steel cover for the cabinet sat off to the side waiting to be screwed in place.

Back upstairs her dad showed her the new security app on a tablet. A version would also be downloaded onto each of the family’s phones. The app required the user to enter a PIN before providing thumbprint verification to open it. It was light-years ahead of what they’d used before. All the cameras had been upgraded to enhance low-light and infrared imaging. And the button for the panic alarm was much larger and more visible.

A six-foot-tall faux wrought iron fence now ringed the property line and was the only outward change to the house.

“Sabrina, would you and your mother step in here after you close up?” Doug Daoust asked. The Shockers were knocked out of the first round of the playoffs two weeks ago, so that night’s class had been Sabrina’s first back at the dojo since October.

“Hai, Sensei.”

The two women walked into his office five minutes later and Doug waved them to seats. He sighed and addressed Keiko.

“It’s starting, Keiko.”

“So soon?”

“’Fraid so …”

“What has?” Sabrina asked.

“Parents have started canceling lessons and keeping their kids home.”

“Because of me? Because I defended myself?”

“Yes. Some of them told me that if your actions are the result of being a student here, they don’t want to see their kids develop the same ‘violent tendencies.’”

“As opposed to developing raped- or dead-like tendencies?” Sabrina growled through gritted teeth.

“Apparently.”

“So, what do we do, Douglas?”

“Nothing, Keiko. Not a damned thing. You and Jeff have been coming here since before the kids were born, almost twenty years! You trusted my daughter to watch your daughter and her brothers as babies. I have no qualms about any of you continuing to work here or about you and Jeff continuing to be my business partners. Those parents can pull little Johnny or little Sally out of here as far as I’m concerned. We’ll weather the storm and come out the other side stronger than we went in.”

“Dad, the blocked calls are starting to come through again,” Sabrina told her father in late April.

“I was afraid they might,” Jeff sighed as he adjusted one of the exercise machines in their gym.

“Who do you think it is this time?” She increased the running program’s speed on the treadmill.

“I’m guessing it’s whoever is on the next rung of the ladder down to Hell.” He sighed again. “Did you schedule that lesson with Hamish for this weekend since Moose has to go away?”

“Yeah …”

Jeff raised an eyebrow in a very Keiko-like way at his daughter’s sighed response. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know, Dad. Moose seems a little distant since those guys broke in.”

“Since those guys who broke in or since you took out those guys who broke in?”

“Probably the second one, unfortunately.”

“Princess, I know it’s not what you want to hear, but if I had to choose between still having a daughter or my daughter still having a boyfriend …”

“I get that, Dad, I do but the Prom’s less than three weeks away and he hasn’t even asked me to go with him yet!”

“So? Why don’t you ask him if you want to go so badly, Sadie Hawkins?”

Sabrina rolled her eyes at her father, also a very Keiko-like mannerism. She’d ask Moose tomorrow.

Parental logic was so damn inconvenient at times, especially when it made sense.

“Hey, Moose.”

Moose Smolinski glanced over his shoulder as he put things away in his locker. “Oh, hey, Sabrina,” he replied before turning away.

‘That’s not exactly boyfriend behavior …’ she thought. “Moose, are we going to Prom together? It’s only about three weeks from now.”

Moose sighed and closed his locker before turning around.

“Sabrina, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Even though she half-expected it, Moose’s reply knocked the breath from her.

“Why?” Sabrina asked as she fought back the tears.

“I’m sorry. I just can’t get past what you seem to be capable of, that kind of violence. It bothers me when I think about it.”

“As opposed to my being kidnapped or killed? We’re hockey players! We’re used to violence! It’s not a genteel game like golf or tennis!” Moose said nothing. “So, you’re breaking up with me, is that it?”

Moose still said nothing. He just stood there by his locker looking at her, and she couldn’t tell what his look meant. She finally turned away and stomped down the hall.

Storm clouds followed Sabrina to History class where she threw herself into a chair. Classmates turned to watch. Some of them turned away from what they saw as drama while others moved toward it. Ruby was the first to hug her, knowing the anger and pain on her friend’s face because she used to carry it around herself.

“What’s wrong, Sabrina?” Vic Thurmond asked.

“Moose …” she croaked.

“What? He wasn’t stupid enough to break up with you or something, was he?” Vic laughed until Faith Henderson, his girlfriend, smacked the back of his head. He looked turned and caught the looks from the others near Sabrina. He looked back to his teammate: “Oh, shit, he did? I’m sorry, Sabrina.”

Sabrina didn’t remember much from her classes before lunch. In the cafeteria, the boys from her group stayed well away while their girlfriends and Sabrina’s other female friends clustered around the heartbroken girl.

“He’s a dumbass!” Naomi whispered after Sabrina told them the story.

“Got that right,” Erica commented. “Do you know what you’re going to do about it yet, Sabrina? The rest of us are going to the Prom and we expected you to be sitting with us. It won’t be the same if you’re not there.”

Sabrina shook her head and wiped away tears.

“We could forget about it and go somewhere else as a group if you want to?”

That idea only made her shake her head harder. “I can’t ask you guys to give up Prom because I’m not going.” She looked over to where Moose sat with people from his class, then turned away with renewed sadness and anger burning in her chest.

“We don’t want you sitting at home that night, alone and moping, either,” Desiree Washington pointed out. Shawn’s girlfriend drew nods of agreement with her comment.

“Thanks, Desiree, I’ll think about it.”

Two mornings later Sabrina felt a little better about the breakup. After a couple of nights of good sleep, she decided that she would join her friends at Prom, regardless of whether or not she had to go alone. It hurt to see Moose when she walked into the school that morning, but she got over that faster than she expected.

‘Instead of ‘going stag’ would it be ‘going doe’ because I’m a girl?’ she wondered. It didn’t sound right to her ears if that was the case. She sighed and opened her locker.

An envelope fluttered to her feet. Puzzled, Sabrina picked it up off the floor. The block lettering of her name revealed nothing about the person who put it in her locker, except that it made her think maybe the person was male.

Reading the enclosed card proved her hypothesis – the sender was indeed a boy. A smile spread across her face as she read the note written inside while holding two Prom tickets in her hand. The missive only asked that if she didn’t want to attend with him that she simply return the other ticket so he could still go with his friends. Sabrina looked up and located the sender.

Pete Knapp turned from his locker to the tap on his shoulder. His eyes widened and his stomach flipped with butterflies when he saw Sabrina. A peck on his lips and a firm hug startled him.

“Thanks, Pete,” Sabrina whispered. “I’d love to go to Prom with you.”

“Really?” he smiled when she released him and stepped back.

“You wouldn’t have asked me if you didn’t mean it, right?”

“Very true.”

“So, what made you do it?”

“You looked so miserable the other day,” he said with a blush, “and both Vic and Faith told me ‘Now or never, dude.’ So, I chose now.”

Sabrina smiled at him. “Good for you, Pete. Will you still have time to rent a tux?”

“I already reserved one. I was going to go and hang out with Vic and Faith anyway, but since this chance presented itself …” He shrugged. “Now I don’t have to worry so much about being in the way of my friends.”

Sabrina skipped into the house after the bus dropped her off that afternoon. Her dad looked up from his computer when she poked her head into the office.

“Well, you look like you’re in a better mood than the last couple of mornings!”

“Hi, Daddy!”

“‘Daddy?’ Oh, boy. What is it, and how much is it going to cost me?”

“Dad! Why would you say that?” Her father stared at her. “Oh, fine! I’m going to Prom!”

“Oh. Well just tell me how much the dress costs, then,” he replied while turning back to his laptop. He must have felt Sabrina’s glare because he looked back up. “Aren’t you going to tell me who the lucky boy is? Not that I should assume it’s a boy …”

“Dad … Yes, it’s a boy. It’s a boy from the team again – Peter Knapp.”

“The really shy one?”

“That’s him! He put a card with a pair of tickets to the Prom in my locker this morning. He said I could have one of the tickets even if I didn’t want to go with him.” She told him the story. “We’ve agreed that we’re just going as friends, nothing more.”

“Well, good for him! That took a lot of guts. So, are you over Moose already, then?”

She sighed while flopping into a chair. “No, but this certainly helps. What Moose said and did hurt. I mean, Pete was already a friend, but it makes me feel better to know that others outside my group of closest friends don’t have a problem with what happened here.”

Jeff glanced down at the brand-new hardwood floor in his office before looking back up.

“You do realize that you just gave his confidence a really big boost, right?”

“What do you mean, Dad? I agreed to go to the Prom with him as a friend, that’s all.”

“Right. You said you kissed him. A shy kid like that who probably has a crush on you? It’s a blast from the past for me, that’s for sure!”

“You admitting that you’re shy and have a crush on me is a little weird, Dad. Not to mention gross.”

“Your sense of humor is a little too much like mine, you know? What I meant was, your story made me remember how I felt before I started dating Aunt Pauline.”

“You used to date Aunt Pauline? I thought you just went to high school together?”

“I dated her from the night Uncle Chris and I won the state hockey championship in March of 1985 until the day before she left for UMass a year and a half later. She was my first, you know?”

Sabrina stuck her fingers in her ears chanting “LA, LA, LA!” over and over while shaking her head.

Jeff waited for her to stop and pull her fingers out of her ears. He smiled at her once she did.

“And Aunt Allison, too.”

Sabrina gave him a look. “Dad, only one of them could have been your first!”

Jeff rolled his eyes. “Aunt Pauline was my first girlfriend. Aunt Allison and I dated the last half of our senior year at Thompkins before I joined the Army and met Uncle Ken.” He smiled at the memories in his head.

“Pauline kissed me under the Garden stands in full view of Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Kara, Uncle Chris, her parents, and about half the school after we won that championship. Even if Prom is as far as you and Pete go, it’s going to be good for him in the long run. He’ll learn – if he hasn’t already – that no one is out of his league.”

“Well, I’ve already kissed him – today, in the school hallway after I found that card in my locker.”

“Well, as long as you wait until your heart is healed or mostly so before you go any further with Pete than a few kisses to say thank you. That’s why it was five months before I started dating Aunt Allison after Aunt Pauline and I broke up because my heart wasn’t ready.”

Sabrina shook her head. “I can’t believe you’re still such good friends if you had that kind of relationship with both of them. I’m assuming you had that kind of relationship with them, not that I want to know.”

“I did, Sabrina. Don’t give me that look – you brought it up! Seriously, I think it’s because in both relationships we understood that there was a known end coming and we could prepare for it. Pauline and I agreed to break up before she left for college. Allison and I agreed to date right up until I left for the Army.

“The fact of the matter is that I’m incredibly lucky to still be friends with both of them, and with your Aunt Heather, too.”

“So what are they going to build in the basement, Dad?” Alex asked while the whole family used the gym together that weekend.

“A panic room.”

“Is that why they moved all that dirt away from the foundation?”

“Right, Sabrina. They’re going to make that room big enough for us to stay comfortably for a while. We can use it as a storm shelter, too.”

“And the space the contractors marked off in the boys’ room?”

“A rapid evacuation system, otherwise known as a fire pole,” Jeff told Ryan.

“A fire pole?”

“Yes, Ryan, to speed us to the basement should we need it. There will be access to the pole in the kitchen, too, along with switches at both places for lights in the basement’s mechanical room where the panic room will be.”

“Seems like a bit much, Mom.”

“Need your father and I remind you of the night in April when men tried to abduct your sister?”

“Uh, no.”

“And you best get your butt down there if we ever tell you to, Ryan, or I’ll kick it back up that pole.”

“When’s it going to be done, Dad?”

“The excavation and concrete work should be done by the end of July, Sabrina, and the finish work by the time you guys go back to school.”

Sabrina sighed in relief as the Cessna sprang off the runway and into the sky. After the week she’d had, she needed this lesson.

“I was wonderin’ if I’d see ye today, lass,” Hamish commented from the seat next to her. “Yer father told me ye’ve had quite the week. Quite the month.”

“Aye, Uncle Hamish, I have at that.”

Hamish cast a long look at the teen after hearing the touch of brogue in her voice. “Are ye makin’ fun of me, lass?”

“Never, Uncle Hamish!” Sabrina was hurt at the insinuation.

“Relax, lassie, I know that! I was tryin’ to have a bit o’fun with ye! Tæ lighten the mood!”

“Sorry, Uncle Hamish. Things are still a bit too fresh, and my break-up didn’t help any.”

“The lad’s a bloody fool if ye næ mind me sayin’ so, Sabrina. And yer new lad’s already shown himself to be more of an upstandin’ sort than the other!”

“Pete’s hardly my ‘new lad,’ Uncle Hamish. He’s a teammate and a friend. We both understand I’m not ready for anything else at the moment.”

“And that night at yer house? Have ye been havin’ any trouble from that?”

“Well, Moose breaking up with me was a result of it, certainly, and there’ve been some idiots spouting drivel at school and around town.” She shrugged. “Sensei Doug tells the complainers that he might throw the Knox family out of the dojo the day after the Apocalypse happens but that they shouldn’t count on it, and that they can take their money and kids elsewhere. He also tells anyone who doesn’t like it to go shit in their hat, to use his words. Some people at school are giving me a wider berth than before, in case I ‘snap.’”

“Sounds like there is næ a lick of sense in the entire lot!” Hamish glanced over again. “Any nightmares, lass?”

“Some,” she admitted. “The one that first night has been the worst so far, the most intense, but there’ve been a few other small ones. They’ve mostly stopped now.”

“I’d tell ye to not lose sleep over the rotters an’ that they deserved every painful moment they felt, but I know the mind næ works that way. I was worried ye might feel guilty aboot what ye had tæ do. It took me forever tæ stop seein’ Kenna every night because I felt I shouldæ saved her.” The big man sighed. “Well, let’s not be wastin’ our time talkin’ aboot it any longer, lass. Let’s get tæ work on yer flyin’.”

“I still can’t believe she’s going to Prom already,” Sabrina heard her father mutter to her mother before she could step into the kitchen one morning in late April. She stopped just out of sight in the hallway where she could hear the conversation.

“Jeffrey, you also first went to the Prom as a sophomore, if I remember correctly.”

“And when was the last time you remembered anything incorrectly, Keiko? Especially when you could use such a memory against me?”

Sabrina heard the wet slapping sound of a dish towel hitting her father’s face. She knew what the sound was because she’d seen her mother throw one at her father after ridiculous statements in the past. Sabrina covered her mouth to hide her laugh.

“Just for that, Jeffrey, I should make you take Sabrina shopping for her dress and shoes.” Sabrina’s eyes widened in horror at that thought. “That is how I expected you to react, and our daughter would have worn the same expression had she heard me suggest such a thing. Thankfully, I took her to be measured for a dress once she told me Peter asked her to accompany him.”

“A custom dress?”

“Certainly. Do you not think Sabrina’s first Prom deserves such a dress?”

“What? Of course she does, Keiko …”

“Good, I knew you would see things my way, Jeffrey. Sabrina? You may stop eavesdropping now and get your shoes on. We have a final fitting for your dress scheduled in thirty minutes.”

“You okay, Dad?” Alex asked in the car on the way home from school on the day of the Prom.

“Huh? Um, yeah, Alex. Fine.”

Ryan coughed from the middle row of seats.

“What did you say, Ryan? I know it wasn’t ‘bullshit,’ because your mother and I haven’t taught you to speak like that.” Now all three kids coughed. “Well, it’s partially true, I suppose. Your mother didn’t teach you to talk like that.”

The kids laughed at that.

Later that afternoon, Keiko helped Sabrina with her hair before Pete and Mrs. Knapp arrived.

“Do you have any concerns about tonight, Sabrina?”

“What sort of concerns, Mom?”

“After your physical difficulties with Moose.”

“Those were because neither of us knew what we were doing the first time, Mom. The other couple of times were okay.”

Keiko raised her eyebrows at the ‘other couple of times’ comment but said nothing.

“Do you have any worries that you will encounter the same with Peter?”

“Ah, no, mainly because that won’t be happening tonight. We’re going to the Prom as friends, Mom.”

“Yes, you have said so, Sabrina. Things have a way of not going as planned, however.”

“I think you might want to worry more about what Alex and Nora might want to do tonight, Mom. They’ve been going out a long time.”

“I worry more about what Ryan and Chrissie might want to do tonight,” Keiko muttered. “They have only been dating for a month.”

“And Ryan doesn’t have Alex’s common sense. Don’t give me the stone-face, Mom, you know it’s true!”

“I must remain impartial, Sabrina. I cannot be seen playing favorites.”

Sabrina gave her mother another look before noticing how her hair now looked. “Wow, Mom! That looks great!”

“I am glad you like it. Let us apply your makeup and get you into your dress.”

Thirty minutes later Sabrina watched Keiko descend the stairs to greet their guests. Nora and Chrissie’s parents had driven them both to the house, as Mrs. Knapp would with Pete before her dad would drive all six of them to the Prom. Keiko reappeared at the base of the stairs and looked up at her after the Knapp’s’ arrival, which was Sabrina’s signal to come down.

Sabrina had to concentrate as she navigated the stairs in her heels, something she wasn’t used to wearing. Her mother smiled at her once she safely reached the bottom.

“Are you ready?” Keiko whispered. Sabrina nodded, suddenly nervous.

When she stepped into the living room where everyone else waited, jaws dropped. People were used to seeing her in less-formal clothes around the school. Her father’s jaw didn’t drop, but she could read his lips.

“Holy shit.”

Trey Bellamy, Nora’s father, patted him on the shoulder in commiseration. He long ago understood exactly how pretty his daughter was, but he recognized Jeff just had that realization.

The one person who hadn’t reacted with surprise was Pete. He stood there with a shit-eating grin on his face which said ‘you suckers missed your chance.’ Sabrina was sure he’d wear that look all night. He wore an understated black tuxedo which matched his reserved personality. The tuxedo complemented Sabrina’s dress, a black, floor-length version of the dress her mother wore to an event with her father in 1991 – their first date.

“Gee, Keiko,” Sabrina heard her father mutter as Alex and Nora posed for pictures, “why does Sabrina’s dress look familiar?”

“I cannot imagine, Jeffrey. The dress is brand new, after all.”

“Uh huh …”

Sabrina smiled to herself when she noticed all three boys holding doors for their dates throughout the night as her father always did for her mother. She knew some girls would be offended if their dates did the same, feeling those actions were anachronistic and sexist, but Sabrina’s feelings matched her mother’s: they were signs of respect. Those other girls could ‘shit in their hats,’ too.

Pete, Vic, and Faith fit right in with the rest of her friends and the large group pulled two tables closer together to make talking easier that night. After a few dances with the boys who escorted them to the Prom, the girls began dancing with the others in their group. Erica even put on quite the exhibition of moves in her wheelchair. Few people outside their group approached to hang out or ask for dances, and none asked Sabrina, but Pete kept her entertained with his caustic wit and astute comments about their schoolmates.

“Sabrina, outside of your friends I’ve gotten to know tonight, few of these lunkheads would ever understand your depth,” he said to her during one of the last dances. “Thanks for allowing me to see more of it.” That earned him a kiss on the cheek and another tight hug.

Although they agreed to attend Prom as friends, Sabrina held Pete’s hand the entire ride home. He walked her to her front door while the other couples waited in the Suburban for her father to drive them all home.

“I had a nice time tonight, Pete. Thank you very much for asking me to go to Prom with you.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed yourself tonight, Sabrina.”

“You know, I don’t think anyone in the car can see us over here while my dad’s parked in front of the garage. You could kiss me good night before he drives you home if you wanted to.” Pete took advantage of the invitation and kissed Sabrina. It was soft and gentle and very nice. “You were a gentleman all night, Pete, thank you. I’ll be sure to let the girls in our class know that little nugget.” She kissed him again before walking inside.

“How was the dance, daughter?”

“It was nice, Mom. Pete’s a gentleman and we had a good time, tonight.”

“And was he rewarded at the door?”

“MOM!”

Keiko laughed and held up a tablet. On it, Sabrina saw the video feed from the front porch, and she blushed bright red. Her mother had seen everything.

“I guess Dad’s not the only parent I have to worry about …” Sabrina groused.

“Sabrina, do you honestly believe that I am less devious or sneaky than your father?”

“I guess I shouldn’t, huh?”

“Uncle Hamish, is it me or did you spend extra time locking up the hangar today?” Sabrina asked once airborne.

“Ye næ be wrong on that, lass. Someone be watchin’ the building. He’s been just sittin’ in his car out there the last few days, parked just off the access road.”

“That’s creepy.”

“Aye.”

“When did that start?”

“Monday was the first I’ve seen of ’im, or at least the car.”

“You know what my dad would say about that, right? He’d say …”

“‘Head on a swivel, Hamish.’ Aye, yer father can turn a phrase, lass.”

“He probably threw in a colorful adjective the first time he said it to you too, right?”

“Och, aye, he did. A word that’s næ appropriate for you, but suits yer father’s manner of speech.”

“‘Næ appropriate?’ You know I’ve probably used it before, right?”

“Is næ right, lass!”

“Oh, relax, would you? Ye think I be turnin’ intæ an ‘improper lass’ do ye, Hamish MacDougall?”

“Och! T’is the spirit of me sainted mother, it is! Ye sound just like ’er when ye talk like such, lass! Ye be makin’ the hair on the back o’me neck stand up!”

“Now I know how to keep you in line, then!”

Hamish shook his head. “Anyway, lass, I think ye be more than ready to solo. Isnæ much more I can teach ye aboot flyin’ single engine.”

“We’ve done single-engine VFR, but what about an instrument rating?”

“Aye, we can, lass,” Hamish admitted. “Although ye can solo now, ye cannæ get yer license until seventeen. We can do IFR training before yer solo or after, t’is up to ye, lass. That will næ take long for ye, so ye might also do multi-engine trainin’ after yer solo. I cannæ do that fer ye, but I know a local instructor who can.”

“I’d like to get as much training in before I – hopefully – head off to the Air Force Academy.”

“With as fast ye pick things up, ye’ll be flyin’ 747s before you head off tæ Colorado Springs, lass.”

“So, are you going to keep teaching at the dojo over the summer, Sabrina?” Jeff asked as they ran side-by-side down Lancaster’s back roads. Of the three kids, Sabrina’s workout routine was the one that matched their father’s the most.

“I am, Dad. Sorry.”

“Why would you feel sorry about that?”

“Because I’m not asking about a job at DMD again this year.”

“Honey, I didn’t think you would, especially since you’ve had so much fun teaching at the dojo since last year. That’s why I didn’t offer you a spot at DMD this summer, either.”

“I feel a little ungrateful.”

“Don’t, Princess. There are plenty of kids around who will happily take that job at DMD. It’s not like the paperwork that needs to be filed is waiting for you, specifically.”

“Still …”

“The job you’re in is perfect for you, Sabrina. It allows you a heck of a lot more human interaction than filing or washing CPR mannequins would. Not to mention that having you as an instructor has brought more kids into the place, along with some parents who sign up also.”

Jeff snorted and looked over. “The families who pulled their kids are far outnumbered by the families who replaced them. The number of women signing up for classes has gone up, as has child enrollment.”

“Damn, Jeff, are you planning on starting a war?”

“More like ending one if it comes to our doorstep, Steve,” he replied to the owner of Ferris’ Firearms.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m more than happy to take your money, but I don’t think I’ve ever sold six shotguns to a single person at the same time.”

“I told you what happened at our place this spring, Steve. If Sabrina here hadn’t been such a good shot or kept such a calm head … Well, I’d rather not think about it. Thanks again, Steve.”

“I can have one of the guys help you with things..?”

“Nah, we got it.”

Sabrina looked over while they placed the shotguns and ammunition in the back of her father’s Suburban.

“Mr. Ferris was right, Dad: all this does seem a little excessive.”

“Maybe, but you know I don’t believe in a fair fight when it comes to protecting my family.”

“Six shotguns and two flats of twelve-gauge, double-aught, nine-pellet buck?”

“Three of the new guns will be locked up downstairs in the new panic room, with the other three going into the safe in my office. Most of the new ammo will be stored downstairs, too.”

“Only because you don’t have room for much more upstairs!”

“With as much as you and I go to the range, we’ll go through it.”

“Why don’t the boys go with us much?”

“No idea. Just not something they’re as interested in, I guess. Your mom and I go every week or two while you guys are in school. I take Alex about once a month during your classes at the dojo, and Ryan when I can convince him to go – maybe once every couple of months.” Jeff glanced over. “I’d like to see you and your mom on the decision course that you and I did – I’ll bet on you this time. You tell your mother I said that and I’ll deny it, by the way.”