I'm running, stumbling in the snow, waving a piece of paper.  The flyer.  AUCTION, it says.  CRANE-PACKARD COLLECTION, it says.  There's a green Explorer in front of me, Ian's Explorer, and he's there with Doctor Edward in the front seat and a shadow in the back.  "Ian!" I'm yelling.

He gets out of the truck as I reach the door, and takes my elbows like he expects me to faint.  "Lexi--"

I don't let him start.  "What, what's this, what happened, everything's gone."  I wave the flyer at him.  Ren's mother, I think.  It must have been her, she did something, got in here and did something.  My words tumble over and over, out of control, and he won't look at the paper even though I'm all but stuffing it into his mouth.  "I think Becka Packard must have, she must have done something, she sold, they--"

"I know, Lexi, it's okay."

His voice, so calm and quiet, stops me cold.  "You know?  About?"  I look back at the warehouse, the horrible empty warehouse, and then back at Ian.

"Yes, I know."  He takes the flyer from my hands, still talking in that calm voice.  "It wasn't Becka, don't worry.  I was in control of it.  We auctioned the cars and bankrolled the money, to help--"

I feel the angry-snake in my gut, twitching.  What is he saying?  Auction?  Like the flyer.  His idea?  I reach up and smush my fingers across his lips, to make the words stop.  I hear myself say, "yousoldourcars?" in a tiny, breathless voice.

Ian doesn't say anything for a long moment.  I realize that Gray is in the car, too, and having a witness to this, a stranger, makes me feel even more broken.  Ian breaks the moment by taking my fingers from his lips.  "Yes, I did," he says, his voice full of tough love or some other stupid misguided thing like that.  "You can't drive any more, Lexi.  You're not fit to.  Now come on home, okay?"

He doesn't understand, any more than Dr. Zheng did.  That's so fucking pathetic I can't even look at him.  He's not a stranger--he knew us, goddammit.  And he still doesn't get it.  And now he's ruined everything Ren and I built, and I feel completely hollowed out.  With a wordless noise of disgust, I turn around and walk away from him, back into the garage.  I hear Doctor Edward say, "Great," in a very un-doctorly way, but don't look back. 

What I really want, no, what I really, really need to do is get mad.  Exceptionally mad.  Ren was good at getting crazy mad, when it was justified.  He had the kind of mad that would suck the air out of the sky, the kind of mad that seemed to absorb light, and then he could just direct all of that anger right at whatever deserved it.  He was a laser of rage, when he needed to be.   That's what I need.  That's the kind of mad that I need.

Trouble is, I've made a habit of calming down.  I mollify easily, I'd rather everyone was happy and not angry, and I always calm down before I get honestly, seriously mad enough to have an effect on anything.  Except for that time with Dr. Zheng, of course, and that was the angry-snake talking. 

Oh, yes, that coiled snake of anger, deep in my belly, shifting restlessly.  It's sitting on top of a bottomless well of rage, has been for most of my life.  I've learned to sit on it, to hold it back, to ignore it. 

I'm going to let it out.

I look around the empty warehouse again, and then just let it loose.  Something inside me seems to unclench.  It comes from my belly, from somewhere below that even, it races up through my chest, up my throat, to my open mouth, and when it hits the air it turns into a word, ripped right out of my soul:  "FUUUCK!"

The power of the scream doubles me over, leaves my throat feeling as if I've gargled gunpowder, and causes Glen to bolt up out of the Town Car.  It feels wonderful.  I stand up straight, look at Glen, and scream again, louder.  "FUUUCK!"

I want the car.  I want to go home.  Right now.

"Glen," I say as sweetly as I can.  "I've had a bit of a something come up.  Would you mind waiting here for a few minutes?"

"Sure," he replies, keeping his distance discreetly.  I wonder what he sees in my eyes.  Whatever it is, it's enough to make him not come within eight feet of me, and he grabs his briefcase out of the front seat as he hops out of the car.  I thank him, hop into the Town Car, and drive out of the warehouse.  Through the door.  Backwards.  The metal door buckles outward, then splits in half, ejecting me into daylight.   It sounds like an explosion.  Ian's Explorer is right where I thought it was, and I miss it by a few inches, screaming backward.  I get a glimpse of Doctor Edward and Ian with their hands thrown up, a reflexive move because of all the snow I'm throwing on them.  A snap of the wheel once I'm past them, dial in some steering and flick to D and I'm going forward and proud of my snowy bootlegger turn. 

`    The big Lincoln sings underneath me.  The all-season tires aren't happy on the snow, so I drive in a series of controlled drifts, sliding around curves rather than turning, using violent stabs of the brakes to rotate the Town Car like a rally car.  I'm mad, mad for real, and it feels good.  When was I supposed to do the anger part of that stupid grief twelve-step program, anyway?  Maybe this was inevitable.

The pain is almost physical.  Our cars are gone.  Impossible.  True.  They're gone, all of them, just like Ren.  I haven't been without a car since high school.  It's like losing a limb.  I feel like a mother cat who's returned to the den and found all of her kittens missing.  It's completely irrational but I can't help thinking how pissed he'd be, and that makes me stay angry and feel small and worthless all at the same time.

The wintry wonderland spins around me, white trees white sky white woods, and soon I'm pointed back at my house and that stupid Estate Wagon that Martin vandalized is still stuck out front with a big wedge of snow pushed up in front of it.  I drive into the wedge, making the snow compact and form a short steep ramp.  The road and trees and horizon drop below the Town Car's hood and I'm slammed into the seat as the car leaves the ground, and I can see bits of the Buick's grille and front fascia spiraling off into the sky ahead of me.  Then lift, a heartbeat of delightful free-fall, and--RUNCH--the horizon comes back and stops a bit lower than it used to be.  I've mounted the station wagon.

I shut the motor off, wiggle a bit to make sure the Town Car's not going to fall, then unbuckle the seatbelt and jump out.  It's a six-foot drop into the snow, it's like jumping into a pillow, perhaps a bit harder at the last bit.  I look back and Doctor Edward's Town Car is parked on top of the Buick, whose windshield is shattered and whose roof is buckled.  Good.  I smile (probably bitterly) to myself, thinking that I've just wrecked another doctor's car.  If they would've just let Josie take care of me, none of this would have happened.

The angry-snake carries me back to the house.  When I slam the front door open, Nikki's there.  She starts to say something, but I don't even listen to her.  I shout, "Eat my fuck!" at her without the slightest divergence from my nitro-burning trajectory for the stairs.  If she has a response to that, it's lost to history.  I don't stop until I reach the attic. 

As I climb the hidden staircase in my attic, there's a crash and a sound of tumbling from up there.  The air's chillier than usual, too; it's Marion.  I see instantly that she's turned over a shelf full of boxes, spilling their contents everywhere.  Papers are drifting lazily through the air, and one of the boxes of clothes was Ren's.  I look for the ghost, but don't see her as she's in poltergeist mode.

On top of the mess is my bow, and the quiver as well, the whole kit.  The quiver is the one with the broadheads, not the target points.  The dangerous ones Ren bought not for hunting, but because they looked so damn cool.  I pick the bow up; it's cold.  My eyes glare at nothing as I strap my forearm guard on.  I was planning to practice anyway.  No better time than the present.