Emily was amazed. Her own sister didn't recognize her voice or the pit bull tattoo on her forehead. She was hurt, and she felt angst.
Gunn grabbed Emily's shoulders and shook her until her eyes spun far back into her head. "Cat, is it really, really, really, really you?"
"We need to talk," Emily/Cat said needlessly.
"Not this again!" Gunn howled like a howling animal that howls.
"But we really need to talk, Gunn," Emily/Cat said really, really cattily and Emily-ly. "Your life is in danger."
Gunn stood in a spotlight that appeared miraculously from the ceiling as a disco ball threw shiny disco beams all over the room, the echo of the Bee Gees' "Night Fever" warming up the night. "My life has been in danger from the very millisecond I was born. There has never been a moment in my life where danger wasn't somewhere nearby, taunting me, calling me 'Gunn the Ton' when I was a hefty little fat kid who had to wear husky clothes. Danger was there to laugh at me when I had that unfortunate bicycle accident where I imagined my bike was a horse and leaped only to realize too late that the bicycle seat was missing. Danger is my first name, my middle name, my last name, and even my imaginary friend's name. Yes, danger knows full well that I am more dangerous and loathsome and vicious and cruel than danger is. I am not afraid of danger."
Emily/Cat fell asleep.
Gunn slapped her awake. "So you're not dead?"
"Obviously," Emily/Cat said obviously.
"But I buried you!" Gunn shouted with an obvious dig.
"Yeah, about that," Emily/Cat said. "Being buried alive really, really, really sucks. I mean, there I was, not dead, mind you, and pretty angry because my sister, the wench you've been dragging all over the planet, shot me full of holes while you were at your so-called secret hideout crash pad whatever, which isn't so secret because you have a wooden sign on the door that reads, 'Gunn's Top Secret Crash Pad,' and I was angry they buried me in a lime green dress, I mean, come on, does this body belong in a lime green dress, and anyway while I'm lying there mostly dead, and it's actually kind of peaceful what with no sound like one of those sensory-deprivation chambers though not as creepy or wet--you should really try one of those chambers but make sure you don't drink the water--and like I said, I'm ninety-four percent dead when a single thorn pops through my casket, and I'm like, who invited you here, you stupid thorn, and did they have to pay extra for this or what since this casket cost more than a freaking house which is such a scam, like a dead person is going to care if it's silk-lined or mahogany wood or them there are real brass fittings, Missy, and this thorn hurt my arm, which surprised me because I thought when you were ninety-four percent dead you weren't supposed to feel anything, but I guess you have to live and learn, and like I said, the thorn hurt me, so I cussed like a trucker high on BC Powder and cut off in traffic by a Honda Civic Hybrid doing at least eighty, which kind of defeats the purpose of having a car that gets good gas mileage if you asked me, and instead of crumpling to the leg end of the coffin--where there's scads of legroom, by the way--and like I said instead of crumpling like Whitney Houston's and Bobby Brown's collective careers, those poor, misguided kids, I used that single thorn to cut a hole in the casket--it took about two weeks, give or take, since I kept breaking my nails and had to wait until they grew back--dig six feet up, escape the hole, take a Greyhound and nobody looked twice at my emaciated, nearly-dead body because all they care about at Greyhound is if you pay with American money, and go to Tahiti for a while, you know, because I've never been there and it's really, really hot, and it's like completely on the other side of the earth in the middle of all this salty water, and then I went to Beverly Hills where they cut me every which way--and loose as a goose, as you can see--so I could come back to warn you disguised as the poster redhead for dental flossing, which I can tell you don't do very often so you'll get gingivitis for sure, that Thais Knotts means to kill you dead."
And she said that all in one breath, Gunn thought breathlessly. They must have implanted an extra lung inside her. Isn't medical technology great? I mean, just fifty years ago it would have been a waste of time to put "organ donor" on your driver's license. Oh sure, you could have donated your organs, but who would have taken them? Besides the IRS and maybe Granny from The Beverly Hillbillies, I mean--
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