“Huh,” their father said as the car slotted itself perfectly into the garage. “Security system just crashed. I hope it doesn’t call the police.”
The mother swore softly at her phone. “I can’t get it to respond.”
“I’ll reset it from the keypad in the kitchen.” Their father hopped out of the door and trotted up the steps.
“No!” The word slipped out of Louise. It tore something loose, and she was flooded with sudden certainty that if she didn’t stop him, she’d never see him again. She lunged between the front seats and slammed down on the horn. In the enclosed garage, the sound seemed like a sudden loud cry of pain. She beat on the horn, blaring it again and again.
“Lou?” Jillian cried while Nikola yelped in surprise.
“Louise!” their mother cried. “Louise! Stop that.”
Louise leaned against the horn, pressing hard. It screamed warning even as shots rang out upstairs.
“Warning!” Tesla barked in his deep Japanese man voice. “Intruders! Home security has been breached. Response code five! Secondary target requires assistance.”
The car doors all opened, and Tesla sprang out. Louise followed.
“Louise! Jillian! No!” their mother shouted.
Sounding like a grizzly-sized dog, Tesla went snarling up the steps.
There was an odd roar in the kitchen and a scream of human pain and another gunshot, this one sounding farther away.
“Louise, get back in the car! George!”
A moment later her father had swept her up and was carrying her back down the steps.
“Nikola!” Louise shouted, and then she realized that it was the robotic dog responding, not her baby brother. “Tesla, cancel response code five! Nikola! Nikola come back!”
Seconds later, she and her father and Nikola were all trying to fit into the front seat of the car. One of them leaned against the horn and it blared and everyone shouted in fear. And then the car was traveling backward out of the garage, horn still blaring, Louise, her father, and Nikola all flailing in the bucket seat.
“Get in the backseat!” their mother shouted.
Nikola tumbled into the backseat and Louise followed and the car swung around, its headlight picking out a man rolling on the sidewalk, his black shirt on fire. There were two more men getting into a black SUV parked two doors down.
Then they swept past the SUV, and the gunmen were left behind them.
The house looked like a tornado had hit it. All the drawers and bookcases had their contents scattered on the floor. The little television screen in the kitchen and the big screen in the living room were both shattered. Random holes had been punched into the walls and furniture overturned, its lining cut.
They had driven straight to the police station and then, with a squad-car escort, cautiously returned to the now-empty house.
“It was dark, and it happened so fast.” Their father was recounting what had happened while they huddled together on the front porch. “One of the girls started to beep the horn, and then something small — like a rat — jumped onto my shoulder — and then there were these flashes at the end of the hall, like bottle rockets going off — and some people ran out the front door. When we pulled out, it looked like one of the men was on fire.”
Their dad’s shoulders were covered with cake frosting. The rat obviously had been Joy. They’d been calling her a baby dragon — did that mean she’d actually breathed fire on one of the gunmen? Where was she now? Had she been hit by a bullet? She wasn’t inside Tesla.
The two police officers had checked the house to make sure it was clear and were now collecting evidence.
“Casings,” one cop said from near the door. “Nine millimeter. One, two, three, four — looks like a full clip. One lucky”—he glanced toward Louise and Jillian and changed what he was going to say—“dog.”
The other stooped and picked up something on the kitchen floor. “This is a slug. Here’s another. Looks like it hit something and deformed.” They looked around the kitchen, apparently searching for evidence of ricochets.
Louise wanted to search for Joy. “Can we pick stuff up or is this still a crime scene?”
“You can clean things up, sweetheart,” the police officer said.
“Aren’t you going to dust for fingerprints and. . and. . such?” their father asked.
“They only do that on television. For a robbery where no one is actually hurt, we just file a report.”
