90: WOMAN AND WOLF

Bingo!

The lights go out.

I kick out my legs, jamming my foot into Lucien’s knee. He goes down with a grunt. The gun skitters out of his hand and I lunge for it, the darkness ebbing at my vision.

I hear the ring of a thin blade drawn as fast as lightning, the sound of bodies dropping, and then the lights come back on, flooding the room.

I gasp.

Mom.

Still in the hospital gown, mom is standing with a drawn katana that drips blood on the floor. The rest of Lucien’s men are bleeding out on the floor. Her braids have come undone, sweat making her short brown hair stick to her forehead. She grins at me, panting. “Surprise.”

I’m too stunned to even speak.

Exhilaration and relief and shock floods my system all at once, and I can only stare at her in disbelief, my mouth agape. I’d seen and felt Wilma’s presence creeping towards the light switches, but I thought she turned off the lights to give me the advantage.

But no. She’d turned them off for mom.

Mom, who’s awake, standing before me with