A PERMUTED PRESS BOOK
ISBN: 978-1-68261-910-0
ISBN (eBook): 978-1-68261-911-7
Saintsville
© 2020 by Rex Films LLC
All Rights Reserved
Cover design by William Hyler
Interior layout and design by Sarah Heneghan,
sarah-heneghan.com
This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.
Permuted Press, LLC
New York • Nashville
permutedpress.com
Published in the United States of America
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
To the Eves of the world, you are more special than you know. And to the Maggies, don’t change a thing.
Chapter 1
I can’t go to sleep.
If I go to sleep, they will come.
Four white walls. A bed. A door. That is what I see. Day after day after day. Except when they come for me, then I see something else.
Teeth chattering, I am afraid.
Standing in the middle of my room—my cage—my legs have gone numb. They tingle and shake. Tilting my head to look above, the fluorescent lights flicker.
The laugh that escapes is bitter.
I am like that light now. On and off. Dark and light. Precariously close to dimming forever.
It’s always so cold in here. My filthy hospital gown thin and mocking.
I am alone. Left alone, but never for long.
They wait.
They watch.
When I am quiet. When I am weak. When my eyes are closed and I am dreaming dreamless dreams, that is when they make their move.
Hypnotized by the fluttering light dancing between my lashes, everything starts to dim. With a crash, I fall to the floor.
My head hits last, echoing on the solid concrete surface.
Only then does the door open, and they come.
All I can do is scream.
“No!” Eve shrieks, eyes snapping open. Her skull feels like it’s splitting in two. The sun’s rays bouncing off the hood blind her as she throws up her hands, hiding from the light. Grabbing onto the first thing she touches, she hangs on for dear life. Another set of fingers latches onto hers, digging their nails into her skin as she yanks. She realizes she is in a car as it veers left, then right, coming dangerously close to a poorly constructed barrier hugging the two-lane deserted freeway.
“Eve? What the hell, you psycho! Let go!” shrieks a woman’s voice beside her. Eve knows that voice, as a solid slap connects, distracting her long enough for the driver to successfully dislodge her grip.
Eyes focusing, she recognizes the shaking driver. White knuckles firmly clench the steering wheel as the redhead scowls at her, guiding them back into the center of the lane.
It’s her sister. Maggie.
And with that, she crumbles. Dawning realization hits as Eve sits frozen in the passenger seat.
Dream. It was all just a dream. And afterwards, she woke up, grabbed the steering wheel, and almost killed them both.
Groaning, she slides down on the cracked leather, burying her pounding head in her hands. She doesn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or apologize profusely while doing both. Embarrassment heats Eve’s pale face, the blood warming her pale cheeks.
Boom, boom, boom, her heart pounds. Minutes pass before she feels it start to slow. Her ragged breathing calming to an even inhale and exhale.
Everything felt so real! She was in that room—she was emaciated, afraid, and alone. And she was terrified of what was waiting outside that door. But what did she see? What had been coming for her? The details of her vivid nightmare are already starting to escape, leaving Eve like a house with no furniture. Uncomfortable and empty.
Taking a deep breath, she exhales.
Her head collides with the glass pane as Maggie floors it, swinging back into the opposite lane and then careening to the right.
“Ouch! What the heck?” Eve exclaims, but Maggie ignores her. The car violently jerks up and down as it leaves the safety of the asphalt, connecting with rugged potholes. Slamming on the brakes, they come to a complete stop. A cloud of dust chases them down, surrounding the classic automobile.
Her little sister jumps out of the car, throwing the door shut behind her. Slam.
Eve’s heart pounds once more. Not because of fear this time, but outrage. Maggie didn’t even give her a chance to explain before pulling this stunt.
Eve pauses, wondering how to calmly explain to someone that you think you might be losing your mind. Red curls bounce as Maggie stomps around the front bumper, only halting when she’s planted firmly outside the passenger side. Raising one of her combat boots, she kicks the front tire. More than likely fantasizing about her foot connecting with something other than rubber.
Shaking her head, Eve realizes that hours before—when she was thinking about how things couldn’t possibly get any worse on this road trip—she was wrong.
They had already been fighting across two…no, correction, three state lines. Yes, seizing the wheel of a moving vehicle during the aftermath of a nightmare was not her most shining moment. As much as Eve wants to justify her actions, she is drawing a blank as to “why.” All that she knows is that she woke up, panicked, and ironically enough, is about to be berated for her stupidity by her younger sibling.
Not that Eve is surprised. Life has a way of continually letting her down.
Maggie’s small palm smacks against the window, causing Eve to jump. The harsh afternoon light casting her curves into silhouette.
“Get out!” Maggie rasps, slamming her fist this time against the glass barrier.
How did their lives come to this?
Straightening, Eve grinds her teeth as she manually unlocks the door, pulling the handle. The hinges creak as she exits, squinting at their rusted excuse for transportation.
All you needed to do was look at the pile of mismatched boxes filling the back end of their car, and take in their thread-worn clothing, to know that both of these women had landed on hard times. As much as Eve isn’t in the mood for more confrontation, she knows she has to make things right with, quite literally, the only person she has left.
“You!” Maggie paces back and forth, hurling her words like stones. “What the heck were you thinking? You don’t…do that!”
Maggie pulls her right arm back and then hurls the object in her hand. Her sister barely has time to register a set of keys as they whiz dangerou
sly close to her temple, causing her to squeal and duck. Her glasses fly to the ground, their absence immediately impairing Eve’s already-poor vision. Blindly patting the dirt, she locates her spectacles near her feet, wiping the dust off the lenses with the bottom of her shirt.
Firmly planting them back onto the bridge of her nose, Eve rises once more, flustered.
“We have one set of keys! One! And where is our…one…set…of keys? Now, thanks to you, somewhere out there!” Eve stabs the air with her finger, pointing over her shoulder.
Not waiting for Maggie’s response, she turns, scanning the dried foliage and cacti for a flash of silver—any clue, really, that would indicate where they might have landed.
Maggie’s hand roughly turns her older sister back to face her.
The two of them are total opposites.
Eve is tall and gangly, while Maggie is a foot shorter and nothing but curves. Eve has dark brown locks, shoulder-length and stick-straight, with messy bangs framing her square lenses. Maggie, a natural ginger, boasts a lion’s mane full of red curls—thick and unruly, cascading down her back. With her heart-shaped face, the youngest Abbott could have been straight out of a Renaissance painting…minus the nose ring and heavy coal lining her eyes.
Their eyes are their only resemblance. Bright blue and clear, cementing the fact that they are, indeed, related.
“What the hell was what? Do you seriously have a death wish?” Maggie demands, her voice cracking.
“I’m sorry….” Eve mumbles, staring at her dirty Converse.
Now pacing, Maggie croaks, “Just ‘sorry’?”
“Yes, sorry. This is me, expressing remorse for my actions.”
By this point, Maggie is so worked up she can hardly speak. Unshed tears glisten as she backs away, putting distance between them in more ways than one.
“Unbelievable…you…find…keys…I’m gonna sit…in…stupid…car.”
Her entrance back into the vehicle is just as dramatic as her exit, the driver’s side door slamming closed once more.
Looking to the barren desert in which they are now stranded, and back to her little sister’s rigid form inside the car, Eve decides to take her chances with the landscape.
Surprising herself, she snorts.
The giggles turn into full on belly laughs, and once Eve starts, she can’t stop. The absurdity of the situation is just too much.
“If you are going to lose our keys on purpose, could you not pick a hot wasteland in the middle of nowhere?” Eve yells, making sure Maggie hears every syllable. Rolling her eyes, Maggie flips Eve the bird, which only sets Eve off further. Wiping the moisture from her eyes, the eldest Abbott eventually sobers. The keys aren’t going to find themselves, and the setting sun would only further complicate her search.
First, false hope as she chases a reflection, mistaking a gum wrapper for them. Then, while perusing near a particularly large boulder, a snake decides to join in on her quest. Is it poisonous? Is she really in any sort of danger? She doesn’t bother checking before letting out a yelp and scrambling to the very top of a large boulder.
Which now, with a reptile somewhere below it, feels all too small. If the universe is trying to further punish Eve for her actions, it’s succeeding.
Witnessing the whole ordeal—minus the possibly dangerous reptilian part—Maggie rolls down her window and bellows, “What the heck are you doing?”
“There’s a snake!” Eve squeals, pulling her knees to her chest. She frantically examines the ground, scanning for any kind of movement.
“Did it bite you?”
“No!”
“Darn. Not my lucky day….”
“Maggie!”
“Kidding. Still nothing?”
“What do you think….”
“I think I feel sorry for the snake. At least he’s next to you, and not me!”
“Here’s a thought. Come and help?”
Maggie’s turn to laugh.
“Ha, no way….”
Manually forcing the window back up, Maggie shifts, unsticking her body from the seat. Windows down would probably grant her an occasional breeze, but she needs total silence to be able to think. Sure, she really should go help look. It’ll be getting dark soon, and the last thing Maggie wants is to spend the night in this car. But, if she’s being honest with herself, she’s kind of afraid of the gangly nerd currently stranded on a large rock. Sometimes there are worse things in life than snakes or lost keys. Eve is cracking. Her solid, always-reliable, by-the-book, boring-but-loveable older sister is falling apart at the seams.
And Maggie blames herself.
She knows that she hasn’t made things easy on her sister the past few years. Her rebellious nature usually equates to breaking the rules, but maybe she’s pushed Eve too far? Maggie feels like a Titanic-size weight was put on her sister when she was left in Eve’s care. Eve’s love for her is a given, but Maggie knows what a huge roadblock she’s become to her sister’s future.
Could she really blame Eve for looking for an exit?
It’s a morbid thought, but neither of them really has much left to lose.
Digging into a trash bag at her feet bursting with unwashed laundry, Maggie buries her face in the musty fabric of a dirty flannel, wishing she could wipe away this day as easily as the perspiration on her forehead.
By the time Eve finds the keys on the other side of the boulder and makes it back to the car, forty-five minutes have passed, and two things have happened.
One, since Maggie insisted on sitting in the hot station wagon while her sister scoured alone, she is covered in sweat. And two, she is definitely in a better mood. The moisture coating her skin must have put out a bit of her emotional fire.
To Eve’s surprise, Maggie declines the keys, putting Eve behind the wheel. A test, maybe, to see if Eve has managed to pull herself together? The engine struggles as it carries them onto the solid pavement once more, as Eve feels a light tap on her freshly sunburnt forearm.
A water bottle.
She gladly accepts, drinking greedily. They haven’t seen another car in hours. Apparently, they are among the brave few to venture this far south into the Arizona landscape.
A comfortable silence descends as they drive…or as comfortable as it can be when nothing has really been resolved. Eve may be twenty-two, and Maggie sixteen, but they’re still siblings. Like most siblings, power struggles often ensue. Eve, older and more patient, only needs to wait.
As predicted, Maggie surrenders first. Kicking off her boots, she rests her bare feet on the glovebox. Grabbing her bra straps behind her tank top, she gives them a snap before turning her head toward her sister.
“Well, what gives?” Maggie demands.
Eve shifts uncomfortably. “Honestly, I…I don’t know,” she stutters, at a loss on how to explain her temporary insanity.
Remembering something, Maggie’s mouth turns up into a knowing smile.
“Well, you were moaning like a cow in labor.”
“I was not!”
“Oh yeah, you were! If you’re gonna have a ‘sexy’ dream, do you mind waiting until I’m not within earshot? I think I’m permanently scarred….”
“I wasn’t…” Eve begins in a whisper, her reddened cheeks flushing further.
“Uh-huh, sure. Whatever you were doing or not doing, no judgment. Been there, and definitely done that. Just try not to wake up and violently attack me? Especially not while I’m driving a moving vehicle….” Maggie stops there. Digging her cracked iPod out of her backpack, she unrolls her headphones and pops them in her ears, effectively ending the conversation before it has even started.
No surprise there.
Eve could count the number of “heart to heart” conversations they’ve had over the years on one hand. Still, she thought Maggie had let her off the hook pretty easily—minus the car-keys treasure hunt. And if she is being honest, Eve really doesn’t want to discuss the matter further. She’s already buried so much in her life, what
is one more memory?
Goosebumps cover Eve’s arms, despite the desert heat.
Eve knows.
In that moment, she knows that this will happen again. This nightmare is the first, but it most certainly won’t be the last. How is she going to distinguish what’s real? Asleep, it felt like she was awake, and awake, she wonders if this could possibly be a dream?
Her brooding is interrupted by a city sign manifesting in the distance, gradually growing in size as they approach. The small billboard is weathered and peeling as Eve struggles to make out the words through her thick lenses. Coming into focus, faint black letters on a simple blue background form to say:
Saintsville
Population: 140
“Correction, one hundred and forty-two. Aren’t we lucky?” Maggie mumbles over the heavy metal blasting her eardrums.
The old placard is right in front of them and then gone, left behind before they’ve had a chance to really study it. Not that there was much to see. Wood, paint, lettering. A reassuring landmark, letting them know that their journey is coming to an end.
“One hundred and forty-two? That can’t be right. They probably haven’t bothered updating it…” Eve soothes, trying to infuse some hope into their situation. Most days, Eve is like a balloon—and Maggie, a needle. It’s not surprising what happens when they collide.
“Welcome to hell,” Maggie states, popping Eve’s fragile optimism.
“Welcome home…” Eve whispers.
And she prays that, for once, she’s right.
Chapter 2
As they drive, the landscape starts to slowly morph. Juniper trees, if Eve had to guess, stretch as far as she can see, except for large gaps in the forest where farms have taken residence. The closer they get to Saintsville, the stronger Eve’s feeling of déjà vu. Which is strange, because the Abbott sisters have never been anywhere. Literally. Their parents were both professors with demanding positions at a prestigious university. Maggie and Eve spent more time with babysitters growing up than they did with their biological caregivers.
Still, just thinking about Adel and Orion, their mother and father, cuts deep.
Saintsville Page 1
