Violet rolls her eyes when Beau can’t get Jud off of him.
“Useless man,” she mutters. Louder—though Violet needn’t raise her voice—she calls out to them. “Judson, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t kill my big brother. He’s pretty useless, but I don’t want Mama to cry.”
Unsurprisingly, that is enough for Jud to move his boot from Beau’s throat. Beau coughs, sputtering as he rolls away from where Judson stands with a stoic calm.
“Thought we were here to kill one another?” Tanner calls back.
Violet’s response is a snort.
Tanner watches with unease as she unsheathes a polished dagger.
“If you’d like me to kill you, Tanner, I will.” She speaks the words with the same sort of disinterest as a store clerk who discusses the weather with a person passing through.
“I didn’t say that,” he adds with a grim smile. He’s going to tell Violet he’s not here to die—Tanner’s here to kill her before she can kill them.
The words dry up in his throat as Merle releases a wounded howl. Both he and Judson exchange a glance before calling back to their dad.
Judson holds out a staying hand at Tanner who is wound tighter than before. He cocks his head, clearly straining to hear something Tanner can’t quite discern. He’s not been training enough these days and his skills have grown rustier than he’d like to admit.
Jud makes a small gesture that tells Tanner Dad says everything is fine causing Tanner to relax a small bit. Glad that they aren’t going to go down into the yard and find their father in a pool of his own blood.
“Daddy’s just mad about the boy. If your dad gives him up we will go on our way and call this business done.”
It horrifies Tanner how easily she can talk about taking her nephew. Taking Lyric. Most likely taking him to undo him from existence. A fact that doesn’t seem to bother Violet—killing a monster is just another day in her damned life after all.
“Why? What could he possibly want with Lyric?” Tanner asks with a snarl. Though—in his heart—he knows what they want with Lyric.
A truth that turns his stomach.
“You’re not as stupid as my brother, I’m sure you can guess,” Violet shrugs. Tanner can and he doesn’t like the implications.
“You can’t have him. You’ll have to drain every last drop of my blood and take the hide from my bones before I let that happen.” Tanner steps into position. Intending to put his steal throwing hatchets to good use. Might as well show Judson that Tanner paid attention when his brother bothered to show him things.
Back when they were still something closer to friends.
“We have as much right to him as you do,” Violet says with a calm tone. Tossing and easily catching her dagger.
“No, you don’t. When Sterling left Tallulah a mess he gave up every right he had as a father.” His eyes and mind silently work to determine the force and spin needed to bury the sharp edge of his hatchet in her chest. Damn keeping her alive if her intentions are to take Lyric to put a bullet between his eyes. “He had years to come back and stand up to your shit of a father. That was his choice and you should respect it.”
“Except now he’s here—clearly home to claim what’s his,” she taunts.
That’s when Tanner lets his emotions get to him, and he throws his hatchet. Violet is ready for his reaction, easily moving so that it misses her as she throws a dagger of her own. It lands true, in his left side. Tanner howls at the feel of blessed silver burning his skin. Intensifying the pain.
“Stupid puppy,” Violet simpers, but he can see the amusement sparkling in her bright eyes. “Beau,” she says to her brother when a whistle—so high it hurts Judson’s and Tanner’s ears—sounds. “We gotta go.”
There’s a flash, blinding them both when they try to follow. The effect lasts long enough for the Savages to get away.
“Dad,” Tanner shouts with a panic in his voice. “Jud, I smell Dad’s blood.”
“He’ll be all right,” Jud says with a calm that doesn’t reach his eyes. “He has to be.” Those words are spoken like a prayer.
Down in the front yard, Dad is lying prone. Wounded but alive, with burns around his eyes that will fade in a few days time.
“Dad,” Tanner sags with relief as he gets under one of Dad’s arms to help him off the ground.
Jud lifts Merle from under the other arm.
Weakly, Merle sputters, “Tallulah Rose.”
“She’s fine, I’m sure,” Tanner replies. Distracted by worrying about getting his dad into the house—to assess him for further damage. “They seem to be looking for Lyric.”
“No,” Dad shouts. Far more alert than he was seconds before.“No, they came for Tallulah Rose.”
Jud cocks his head—listening—after a few minutes he whispers one word.
“Fuck.”
18
Sterling
As Beaufort and his siblings go to Tallulah’s house, Sterling takes the coward’s route out. Deciding to back to Memphis’s place.
While he drives out to the old motel his song about Tallulah comes on the radio; it feels like an omen. One Sterling doesn’t quite understand, but it fills him with regrets regardless.
I’m sorry Loup, I’m sorry I left you to old dirt roads without warning. I’m sorry Loup, no one will love you the way I do. Doesn’t seem that way now, but one day you’ll know—I was forced to let you go.
He punches the steering wheel when he stops the truck in the dusty gravel parking lot. “Fuck.”
Leaning back in his seat, Sterling closes his eyes while releasing a chest heaving sigh and contemplating a cigarette. He decides against a smoke when he opens his eyes, finding Memphis standing there as he was that first night Sterling rolled back into town. This time however, Memphis has a solemn expression on his face and Sterling frowns as he climbs out of the cab.
“Everythin’ okay?”
Memphis jerks his head, indicating they should go inside. His body language indicating he’s afraid that they will be overheard. Sterling’s worry increases while they make their way through the paint-peeled door.
“Memphis, you’re scarin’ me, brother.”
“Ya need outta this town, son,” Memphis tells him with an urgency Memphis isn’t known for. This man is a leisurely human—he speaks slow, walks slow, works slow. Memphis’s philosophy being that life is meant to be enjoyed. Rushing only leads one faster to their grave, or so he’s always said.
“What?” Sterling asks, his mind trying to catch up to Memphis’s new pace.
Memphis throws open one of the doors in the front hall. There, in a chair, is a young boy—can’t be more than fourteen—curled up on a worn, brown sofa. Hair as dark as Tallulah’s and Sterling knows in a moment who this boy is. “That’s…” he can’t speak the name. The word lodges in his throat, Sterling has to swallow around the lump of it. “What’s he doin’ here, Memphis?”
“Lula was savin’ him from your daddy—she sent him here, hopin’ you’d keep him safe.” Memphis seems sad as he frowns down at where Lyric curls tighter around an old blanket.
He’s not a child, yet not quite a man. Something fragile and in-between—the reality makes Sterling huff out another sigh.
“How am I supposed to keep him safe?” He doesn’t know the first damned thing about kids. Sterling knows even less about raising them or keeping them safe from monsters as terrifying as Beaufort and Birdie Mae.
“You’re not stupid, Sterling. Use that brain of yours and figure it out.” Memphis tells him with a somber chuckle. Glancing at the clock, Memphis adds. “Faster you get outta here the better, ya hear? Sundown is on us and Savages are as quick as Graces. You got an hour lead at best—go as far as you can, as fast as you can. Someone’ll call you later.”
After a swallow Sterling nods, “Alright, get him in the truck.”
Lyric blinks awake when Memphis touches his thin, T-shirt covered shoulder, “C’mon, son, ya daddy here to take you someplace saf
e.”
That wakes him more and Lyric scrambles a little bit away. Wide hazel eyes—same color as Sterling’s—lock on him. He gives a rueful smile to that familiar gaze that peers back at him from an unfamiliar face.
“Hey, kid,” Sterling tries with as gentle a tone as he can manage. He holds out a hand—calloused from years outdoors with his own daddy and all the steel strings he’s been strumming in recent years. “I know you don’t know me, but I need you to trust me.”
Lyric glances at Memphis who nods. “Your mama wanted you to go with your daddy until things here settled down. She’ll come for you soon.” Memphis glances again at the clock on the wall. “You gotta go now, boy. Faster the betta.”
Sterling starts towards the truck, Memphis stops him by putting a hand on his broad shoulder. He tells Sterling, “Not that one. They know you’ll be in that rental. I got a car you can take.” There’s an old garage not far from the few buildings that make up motel rooms on the Boone property. In the building there’s a car cover that is blanketed with a fine layer of dust. Memphis pulls the cover away, revealing a car that’s a sight for sore eyes.
“Where did you find her?” Sterling inquires with a soft reverence, his hand ghosting over the chrome door handle. In too much awe to touch.
“Junk yard. Beaufort sold it as scrap.” Memphis touches the glossy black paint. “She was too pretty to let her get crushed. Worked out a deal with Mr. Kraig.”
That’s a story they will have to save for another day.
“She run?” Sterling asks.
“O’course she does, whatdya take me for? I drive her regularly. Just been a few weeks and I don’t like her gettin’ too dirty.” Memphis tosses the keys to the ’64 SS Nova at Sterling.
He catches them easily in his palms.
“Nothin’ is ever as good as comin’ home, is it?” Sterling asks, not expecting an answer.
“Dunno know, I’ve never left,” Memphis says as he draws Sterling into a fierce hug. “Now get outta here, run as far as you can before you gotta stop.”
“Carolina still in that house off Highway 96 near Nashville?” Sterling asks while Lyric starts loading up in the car. Subdued and still an unknown factor, but a person Sterling hopes to learn more about in the following days.
“I’ll give her a call and let her know you’re comin’.” Memphis promises, not noticing Sterling’s preoccupation with Lyric.
“Thanks, brother.” Another fierce hug—one Sterling is afraid to end—but he knows they can’t linger in Abita Springs. With a feeling of regret Sterling breaks off the embrace.
Climbing into the Nova takes him back all those years. Returns him to those stolen moments when he would climb in the back with Tallulah—hazel gaze focused on the way she’d bite her bottom lip and beg him to fuck her rougher.
Sterling swallows and squashes down the memory while glancing at the stoic profile of his son. Sterling wonders if Lyric was conceived in this very car. It would be a strange poetic circle. Bringing them back together in a loop of fate.
A cursed loop that ends with a Savage named Grace—Lyric is the embodiment of a futile love.
The engine kicks to life. Sterling lets the sound rattle him out of his thoughts as he throws his phone at Lyric.
Telling him, “Watch whatever you want, or listen to whatever you want. It’s gonna be a long drive.”
Lyric doesn’t respond. Holding up a device to show that he’s got a handheld game he can play instead. Sterling gives him a brittle smile, “Fair enough.”
19
Lyric
Mama always said his daddy had hair like spun summer wheat—the sort of silken gold woven by Rumpelstiltskin. The only thing she would say of his father that was kind and warm. A rare detail Tallulah shared during early morning twilight, those days she came home from a long evening at Miss Jorie’s. After those nights when the barflies would bet on who could down the most shots. Men twice her size would try to best her. Tallulah would drink them under the table with her bright laughter and her sparkling eyes.
As the highway lamps whip by they light Sterling’s hair up. A glowing, golden halo that makes Sterling appear even more handsome. Lyric believes he can see one of those hidden secrets about Sterling that his mother held fondly in her memories.
“You’re staring,” Sterling says with a chuckle, breaking their silence.
“I’m finding it hard to see the resemblances between us,” Lyric admits.
Sterling is handsome the way Judson and Tanner are handsome, only edgier than Lyric’s uncles due to the dark ink that creates stories in his skin. The unlit cigarette between Sterling’s lips is an added allure to the sort of girls who hope to tame a bad boy. Something he still doesn’t quite understand—Lyric is more interested in video games than girls. Which makes him feel like the odd man out when all of his classmates are interested in the things that all great songs are written about. Love, or more aptly—according to Merle—lust. Every boy he knows wants to be a Sterling and every girl he knows wants a Sterling, or a man like him, to part her legs for her first time. Odd to think about now that he knows Sterling Savage is his father.
“Funny,” Sterling says with a low voice that sounds exactly like a dad’s. Yet, it’s nothing of the voice Lyric always imagined. “I keep wonderin’ how my dad lived across the street from y’all. Wonder how he watched you grow and didn’t see me in you.” A bitter snort leaves Sterling before he continues, “Though, Beaufort never did look at me more than necessary.”
Lyric frowns but doesn’t press for more information. He’s never heard anyone speak a kind word about Beaufort Savage. The nicest thing anyone ever said about that man was that he was intimidating—which is a mild description.
They continue on without a word between them; Lyric looking out at the darkness beyond the lights of the highway. The only thing illuminated is the shiny blacktop, and that is disappointing in its inability to distract. Silence is pregnant between them again—Lyric doesn’t do well in heavy quiets. His mother isn’t good at being still either—she is a force of lightning, striking everything around her with her electricity.
He wishes she was here to brighten up this stale mood.
“So, kid, tell me about you. It’s a long-ass drive and there’s no point in spendin’ it like this. Promise I’m not as mean as I look.” His chuckle is deep, a soothing sound that calls to something in Lyric’s soul.
Speaks of home.
“There’s not much to tell,” Lyric shrugs. “You come from the same town as me. Bet you can tell me more about me than I could.”
Sterling snorts, “With a mama like Tallulah Rose there’s no way you can be that ordinary.” He clicks on his signal and gets into the left lane, while he’s turned away Sterling adds. “Bein’ a wolf makes you different than the average teen, I’d say.”
“Dunno, doesn’t come with many perks. I’m still considered a loser by my classmates.” Lyric leans his head against the cool glass of the window. “Girls think I’m a pest and guys think I’m a wimp.” Both things he doesn’t want to admit to a man who looks like everything Lyric wants to be now. Cool, a state of being Lyric will never attain.
“I remember those days.” Sterling tells him with a tone of reminiscence. “Only girl that ever gave me the time of day was your mama until the testosterone pumped me up.” The muscle in Sterling’s forearm jumps as he grips the leather-wrapped steering wheel. Lyric wishes he had enough muscle for that to happen.
“Yeah right, you walked out your mama a Greek god.” Lyric snorts in disbelief. He’s seen Beau and Beaufort and Miss Vivian Mae—none of them are anything to laugh at when it comes to looks. Mean as old Mister Savage is, he’s a damn good-looking man and neither of his sons’ apples fell far from the attractive tree. Old Miss Vivian Mae is an angel, one still pretty enough to make bag boys blush in the grocery store when they ask to help her out with her cart.
Sterling has a laugh that is like sunshine—warm and bright—a sound that chases ou
t the darkness around them. “I was the runt of my family. Beaufort swore I was the milkman’s because there’d never before been a Savage so scrawny.” He shakes his head, an old truth of hurt hiding in the sparkle of Sterling’s eyes. “First time for everythin’, I guess.”
Lyric shrugs, a hard thing to do with his head still pressed against the glass window. “I guess.”
To fill the stillness that lapses between them, Sterling turns the knob for the radio. “Highway To Hell” plays, and Lyric wonders if it’s an omen predicting the end of this journey.
Maybe I should’ve taken my chances in Louisiana with the devils I already know. He casts a glance at his still unconfirmed, yet confirmed, father and frowns.
This is a devil I’ve yet to learn.
20
Jorie
Tallulah misses her next shift.
The one that comes after the cleaning days are done. Jorie gets by just fine without her. She’s not looking to chase down a Grace when there’s another one Jorie’s avoiding.
After a second missed shift Jorie caves. Her resolves is weak when it comes to members of the Grace family.
Jorie closes up the bar—chasing off the last straggler. Ol’ Mister Smith requires a promise to see him the next night before he stumbles down the road, heading toward his home. A charmed smile lifts the corners of Jorie’s mouth for a moment, but it falls away when he’s covered by night’s darkness. Her final distraction gone, Jorie heads to her beat up truck. The old Silverado has seen better days, but it’s paid for and it rumbles to life with the same purr it gave the first time she turned the key.
The drive isn’t long enough to help her relax. Two songs she doesn’t really hear play from begging to end before she’s pulling into the driveway that sits beside the mailbox that reads Grace.
The Grace of a Savage Page 8
