by Tess Sharpe
“I met her when she was dancing at the club, and I just—”
“Bennet!” Bobby yells again, and this time, he moves. Not toward me, but toward his brother.
“Busy, get him!” I tell her. She leaps forward, sinking her teeth into Bobby as he reaches for his brother, right arm raised to punch him into submission and silence. He howls, trying to shake her off, but it’s no use. Once Busy’s got her teeth in you, she doesn’t let go unless she’s ordered.
It’s one of my favorite things about her.
Busy puts Bobby on the ground fast, and I walk forward, calling her off after I plant my boot on his chest. “Stay down,” I order him. “Your brother and I are talking.”
He spits at me, which is the stupidest fucking thing in the world to do because he’s on his back and it ends up in his face. I roll my eyes in disgust.
Like I said, not a ton of brains rolling around in Bobby’s skull.
I look up at Bennet. “How long?” I ask him.
“A few months,” he says, not looking down at his brother. “But only at the club. I’d just buy dances. But she finally agreed to see me outside of the club, and I just—I love her, Harley. We love each other.”
That tone in his voice again. Fucking shit. Love. Like that matters. Like that’s going to help the hell he just brought down on them.
“She has kids, Bennet,” I say. “She hasn’t even been clean for two years yet. She doesn’t have a job anymore, and I’m betting that’s because of you.”
The red in his face rises higher and higher until it almost blends with his hair. “I want to take care of her. I don’t want her to dance at that club, guys looking at her all the time. I don’t like it.” His eyes scrunch up in pain just like they did when I broke his arm more than a decade ago in the graveyard. He really has it bad for Jessa. Fucking moron.
“That’s not your choice to make,” I say, the anger rising in my throat. “And you’re not taking very good care of her—you didn’t even know your uncle beat the shit out of her!” My voice rises to a shout, fury filling the space between us. “She’s been missing for three days now. If you’re so hell bent on taking care of her, how the fuck could you not notice?”
“I—”
“No more bullshit, Bennet,” I interrupt viciously, snapping my fingers for Busy. She growls once more in Bobby’s face and then trots back to my side. I bring my attention back to Bennet, who shrinks behind the counter, looking nervously at Busy.
“You stay the fuck away from Jessa. If you come across the river, if you even come near the Ruby, I’m going to blow your big and your little head off.” To drive in the point, I lower my gun eight inches, pointing it right at his crotch. He gulps nervously and stays silent.
I turn and unlock the door, jerking it open. I have places to be. I don’t have the time it would take to beat an answer out of them.
“You two aren’t doing anyone any favors not telling me where Carl is,” I say, the .45 still trained on them both. “When I find him, I’m going to tear that fucker apart. You tell him that. You tell him I’m coming.”
I duck through the open door and run. I can hear Bobby shouting, “Get the shotgun, you stupid bastard!” and Bennet swearing back at him as Busy and I race across the parking lot and jump into my Chevy. I pull an illegal U as both of them come running out. Bobby’s got a sawed-off shotgun in his hand, and a second later the sound of buckshot pinging against pavement fills the air behind me.
But I’m already out of range.
It’s time.
Fifteen
I’m almost eighteen when I break Bobby Springfield’s nose.
I’m at the Shasta County Fair with Uncle Jake. It’s this tradition of ours. He’s been taking me every year for as long as I can remember. When Momma was alive, she’d come with us, but she hated heights, so it’d be Uncle Jake and me on the Ferris wheel, high as the clouds. When I was little, I always wanted to go around and around until I was almost sick with it. Hell, a few times I think I did get sick.
I still love going with him, after all these years. We play the rigged carnival games, and he stands back, smiling, as I draw a crowd at the shooting booth. I hit target after target, even though the toy gun’s so off balance it’s hard to shoot straight, and I end up winning a stuffed bear the size of a toddler.
“What are you going to do with that?” Uncle Jake asks as we lug it away from the shooting stand, toward the food booths, where fried Snickers bars and other horrors wait.
I look down at the bear. It’s kind of heavy. “I dunno. Give it to one of the kids at the Ruby, probably.”
“You remember that stuffed bear you used to carry around as a kid?” Jake asks as we weave through the stream of people. Cowboy hats bob along the top of the crowd, the smell of cheap beer and fried food thick in the air.
I shake my head and he seems surprised. “Really? You were always carrying that thing around. Your momma couldn’t even get it away from you long enough to wash it.”
I don’t want to say it, but sometimes, those years before, the ones where Momma was alive are hard to remember. The older I get, the fuzzier they are. It’s strange to think of a world before I knew what Daddy was. What I was expected to be.
“I bet I’d remember if I saw it,” I say as we fall into the line for burgers and fries smothered with melted cheese and grilled onions. “It’s probably up in the attic.”
“We should go through all the stuff up there sometime,” Jake says, and he says it carefully, like he’s not sure how I’ll react. “All your baby clothes are saved. And your momma’s jewelry. I think your grandma’s china’s somewhere up there. That’s yours, for when you get married.”
I snort. “I don’t think that’s ever gonna happen.”
Uncle Jake smiles. “You never know.”
I shift from foot to foot. The line is long, and it’s moved slow since we got in it. “I’m gonna run to the bathroom,” I tell him. I take the bear with me, so Uncle Jake doesn’t have to juggle it and the food.
The bathrooms are set at the very end of the double aisle that makes up the food section of the fair. The lights from the rides dance across the ground, the beeps and whirls and bells mixing with the hum of voices and laughter. Children run past me, fistfuls of red tickets in their hands.
I go inside the restroom and pee, washing my hands one by one awkwardly because I’ve still got the bear to hold. The bathrooms are on the edge of the fairgrounds. They’re isolated. And this late at night, as the night begins to wind down, pretty much abandoned.
I’m about to turn and head back to Jake when a movement out of the corner of my eye makes me freeze.
“Thought it was you,” a voice says behind me. “I smelled bitch in the air.”
The bear drops to the ground as I turn.
Bobby Springfield pushes off the tree he’d been lounging against. He takes after his momma—dark hair, big eyes—but his are mean. Bulging. His hair slicks across his forehead, dipping into his eyes.
“You grew up,” Bobby says, and his gaze settles on my chest. My skin prickles in that dreadful way all women know as he looks at me.
Bobby is way bigger than I am. Last time I came up against Bennet, we were around the same size. But Bobby?
Bobby’s going to be harder to take.
I square my shoulders and meet his eyes head-on. “We doing this?”
There’s no point in trying to sweet-talk my way out or running. I’m no coward, and this is one of those inevitable things—it was just a matter of time. I can’t back down.
I don’t really want to.
“Oh yeah.” He lunges, telegraphing his hit with his entire body. He’s big and he’s dangerous, but I’m fast. You have to be when you’re as skinny as me. The muscle I’ve got is hard-won, but I’m quick and I’m smart.
I go low, landing a solid blow to his diaphragm. He staggers back, but recovers almost immediately. This time I’m not fast enough.
His fist crashes into my jaw
and my teeth clack together. It’s a bone-shaking hit that leaves blood bursting in my mouth. He lands another, a fist to my shoulder that sends me spinning. Then he grabs me around the waist, yanking me into him, right off my feet. I kick out, but I’ve got nothing.
I jerk when I feel his lips graze my ear, something dark and feral curling inside me when he whispers, “When I’m done with you, you’re going to be bloody inside and out.”
I grit my teeth and jerk my head back—hard. The back of my skull crashes into his face, I hear the crunch of bone, and then he’s howling, his hands falling from their grip on me. My ears ring, my head throbs, and my mouth’s full of blood as I wriggle free.
I can’t wait to recover, even though my head’s spinning. I just round on him while he’s distracted. One precise kick to his crotch while he’s still clutching his bleeding, broken nose, and he’s down.
I spit out a mouthful of blood on the grass. “That was the wrong thing to say to me,” I tell him, drawing my foot back and slamming it into his ribs. He lets out a choking gasp, blood pouring down his face as he curls into a fetal position. I kick him again, hard enough to fracture. He screams. Steel-toed boots come in handy.
I’m circling around him, ready to deliver the same treatment to his back when a clapping sound jerks my attention up.
I freeze, scanning the area, and then my eyes settle.
I haven’t seen Carl since that day six months ago in the feed store parking lot when I set Busy on him.
He stops clapping. “He raised you into a vicious little thing, didn’t he?” he asks.
Any other time, I’d be scared. But my body’s full of adrenaline and my mouth’s full of blood and I am fucking game to take him on.
“I’m not little,” I say, stepping over Bobby’s groaning body, heading toward Carl, fists curling. “And I’m not a thing.”
He smiles, a delighted leer that makes my stomach turn. “Gonna fight me, too? I thought shooting was more your thing. I watched you. At the shooting gallery. That’s quite a talent you got.”
For some reason, it makes me feel naked that he was there, watching me do the thing I do best. Like he’s intruded on something sacred.
I’m almost to him, just three more steps…
“Harley!”
Uncle Jake’s voice rings out, making me stop in my tracks. A shadow falls across Springfield, and Jake’s there, looming over him like a Reaper, putting his body between the two of us.
“Get the fuck away from my niece.”
“It’s free territory,” Carl says.
“You go nowhere she does,” Jake says, and his blue eyes glitter. The anger coiled in his body, in the ropy strands of muscles in his neck that tense with each breath, is frightening.
But I understand it.
I feel it too.
I hate him too.
“Well, I don’t know the girl, do I?” Carl asks. “Couldn’t predict she’d be here. I was just enjoying the fair with my nephew. Who’s bleeding on the ground over there, if you didn’t notice. Because of your girl.”
“He deserved it. And you were watching me,” I hiss.
“You draw the eye, darling,” Carl drawls. “Just like your momma.”
Jake leans forward, so he’s nose to nose with Carl. “I’m going to say this once,” he says. “She does not exist to you. And if I ever see you near her again…”
“What?” Carl laughs. “You gonna kill me, Jake? I’ve known you my whole life. You wouldn’t even go hunting when we were kids. You couldn’t pull the trigger on a man to save her life or yours. You’re a fucking pussy.”
Jake backs away, grabbing my hand, pulling me closer to him. “Things change,” he says. “You’ve been warned. Obey the fucking rules.”
Springfield doesn’t follow as Jake yanks me down the main drag of the fair, his grasp on my hand so tight that it smashes my fingers together.
“Are you okay?” he keeps asking, his eyes tracking ahead of us and his head turning to check behind us every few seconds.
“I’m fine,” I say, tugging at his hand, trying to lessen the pressure. I’m not, really. My face is starting to swell, and when I run my tongue along my teeth, I realize there’s one missing.
That fucking bastard knocked one of them out. It hurts like hell.
“Jesus Christ,” Jake swears, pushing through a crowd of rodeo clowns. “What the hell happened?”
“It’s fine, Uncle Jake,” I say. “I got the better of Bobby.”
We hit the exit gate, following the stream of people heading to the parking lot. Once he’s got us in his truck, safe in the cab, the doors locked, Jake doesn’t start the engine. Instead, he turns to me, his face serious.
“Tell me what happened.”
“It’s not a big deal,” I say, even though I still feel shaky from the adrenaline. “Bobby was just being a shit. He’s an asshole. In church, he likes to mouth swear words instead of singing.”
“What did Carl say to you?” Jake asks, his voice intense, and his hand suddenly on my arm.
I pull away from him, frowning. “He was barely there. He came along after I got Bobby on the ground. All he said was he was watching me shoot earlier.”
“I should have noticed him,” Jake says instantly. “Shit.” He closes his eyes, pushing his black cowboy hat back off his head. His thick brown hair—the feature we share—flops across his forehead, and he runs his hand through it, resignation settling over his face.
“I have to talk to your father,” he says.
“No,” I say. Daddy’s out of town, and I probably have enough time to get my tooth fixed and for the bruises to fade before he’s back. If Uncle Jake tells him, then I’m screwed.
“Harley—” Uncle Jake starts.
“You can’t. It’s a miracle Daddy didn’t put me on house arrest when Springfield got out of prison. If you tell, he won’t let me leave the property anymore.”
“You don’t know that,” Uncle Jake says, but even he can’t keep the doubt from his voice.
“I am not ten anymore,” I say. “I’m grown. I work. I have the Ruby. He’ll keep me from all of that if you tell him.”
“Carl was watching you, Harley. You said it yourself.”
“Yeah, he was watching me,” I say. “He was watching me shoot. Something everyone made damn sure I was near perfect at. In a gunfight, you don’t think I could take Springfield down? I can outshoot and outdraw anyone around here.”
“There are more ways of fighting than shooting guns,” Jake says. “It’s a miracle you got the better of Bobby.”
“I got the better of Bobby because I am better than Bobby,” I snap, my pride bristling. “I got the better of him because no man threatens to rape me or any woman and walks away unhurt.”
Jake’s eyes widen and I refuse to look away. I am not backing down. Not when it comes to this.
I’ve seen what some of the women at the Ruby have had to survive. And I’ll do anything to spare any woman in this county from that.
“You shouldn’t have to fight,” Jake says.
I bite my lip, looking out the truck window. “Neither of us should have to do a lot of things.”
He sighs, staring at the steering wheel. “Duke will lose his mind if he finds out I’ve kept this from him.”
“He won’t find out.” I pause, and then I add the one thing I know will clinch it for Jake. “It’d start another war.”
I don’t know if it’s the truth; probably. Duke’s a fearsome man when it comes to me. And Springfield’s return has put him on edge.
I’m not gonna do anything to push him over that edge.
“Fine,” Jake says, finally. “We’ll keep this between us.”
I let out a long breath. “Thank you.”
I think I’m doing the right thing.
Later, I’ll realize I’m not.
Later, it’ll haunt me, because if I had let Jake tell Daddy, maybe we would’ve been ready.
Maybe Uncle Jake wouldn’t have d
ied for me.
Because of me.
In front of me.
Sixteen
June 6, 5:00 p.m.
It’s pretty easy to blow up a meth lab. One spark in the right place, and you’re golden.
The problem is, there are usually people inside. Sometimes it’s just the cooks. Sometimes they deserve it. Sometimes they don’t.
But sometimes it’s their wives. Their kids. Their clientele. Tweekers who’re so lost in it they can’t do anything but swirl down that drain.
Innocent people. Maybe messed up, maybe not good, not all the way through, but who the hell is, really, if you get down to it? We’ve all got grit buried deep. Dirty secrets and big mistakes.
This is gonna be secret, but it can’t be a mistake.
If you don’t want to hurt the innocents, you have to be careful. But if you don’t want to hurt anyone at all, you have to be perfect.
I was lucky. I’ve had to time plan it all out. Obsessively. Step by step. Plan A. Plan B. Plan C.
But time’s run out. No more planning. Just action.
Today, the trailer. Tomorrow, the warehouse. And then…
Then the house on Shasta Street.
A new pink bike with training wheels is parked in the house’s front yard, just the right size for a six-year-old.
I wonder if she knows, the little girl who rides that bike. What her daddy does.
At six, I didn’t.
But things change.
The cooks don’t know about the old mining road, but I do. It’s washed out in places, but I manage. I flagged the path to the clearing weeks ago.
I scale a tree and wait for dark. I feel numb instead of scared, and I think that’s for the best. My hands need to be steady. My mind needs to be quick. I can be scared later. It’s easier to go through with something when you don’t think too much about the consequences.
This is going to work. No one is going to die. And no one will catch me.
