Chapter 8 #2
I both appreciated and was intimidated by him all at once.
The fact that I was leaving this job and therefore would no longer get to see him as much really did something to my heart.
At least I got to still have him as a neighbor.
But the way the Hubers were going, I wouldn’t keep doing that, either.
I was one “wow you have such pretty hair, can I touch it?” away from buying a mobile home and depositing it in the middle of nowhere.
The only thing keeping me from doing that was the fact that I liked living in town.
But seeing Lanny, Patrick, and Kurt Huber in town when they didn’t have the invisible barrier that my brother and Hux had laid down meant they tried things they wouldn’t normally try.
I was scared that one day they might say Creed and Hux weren’t that scary and try to touch me.
It wasn’t like I could fight them off, either.
I was too damn weak.
Creed:
Is it a bull or a cow?
I took another video and sent it to him, this one a much closer view than the original one I’d sent minutes earlier.
Creed:
Holy fucking shit. That’s the biggest one I’ve seen.
He went into detail about the spread, asked about specifics that I couldn’t give, then said, “Go tell Hux.”
I was actually kind of excited about walking into his domain and actually trying to convince him to leave early, so I did just that. And this would be just the excuse that I needed.
I made sure the door was locked, then went through the back to the warehouse, then to the door that went into Hux’s butcher shop.
I knocked softly, hesitant as always to interrupt him.
He opened it almost before I could finish knocking.
He didn’t say hi, just stood there and waited for me to tell him why I was there.
“I was showing my brother a moose,” I said softly. “In the middle of the road. And he said to tell you about it. He said something about it being ‘679.’”
Hux’s brows rose, and he turned around, dropped his knife, his gloves, and his apron on the counter behind him before jerking his head for me to step aside.
I did, then followed him back through the warehouse, into The Mercantile, and to the front door.
Hux stood at the front door and stared out the windows for long moments.
“What’s the significance of 679?”
He was silent for so long that I thought he wasn’t going to answer.
But then he turned around, leaving the bull standing there, and started talking.
Seeing as he was speaking to me, I had no other option but to follow him.
“The bull out there, 679, is tagged,” he said quietly.
“I saw it was tagged, but I have no clue how you’d know it was 679.”
“Coloring, spread, and the tag on the ear,” he answered. “That is the moose that killed Birdee’s sister.”
I gasped as he came to a stop next to his sink, washed his hands, then got his apron on again.
“Holy shit.”
“Most wanted bull in the county,” he drawled.
“Infamous,” I supplied.
“Definitely infamous.”
Cody, Birdee’s stepsister, had been illegally poaching animals. She’d been out doing just that, likely targeting the moose in question, when she was trampled by said moose.
She’d died due to her injuries, and Cody’s stepfather and mother had gone crazy because of it.
Poor Birdee.
I shifted from foot to foot, my gaze going to the table as I looked at all the meat spread out on it.
“Do you need any help?”
Hux looked over at me from where he was at the table cutting up meat.
There were huge piles of meat ready to be inserted into bags, and I was, after all, bored out of my damn mind.
Having a brother was fun.
It meant that you couldn’t go home alone or do the things you really wanted to do during snowstorms. He’d all but begged me to allow Hux to drive me home today after he dropped me off at work.
And since I wasn’t stupid, and I knew that I was safer to have someone who knew how to navigate in blizzard conditions, I’d agreed.
“Why?” he asked.
I bit my lip. “In all honesty?”
He grunted. “I don’t like being lied to, so yeah, in all honesty.”
“I am ready to go,” I admitted. “I have a true crime documentary calling my name, and I want to go home. Also, I watched this video a little bit ago about diamond mining in Arkansas, and I want to do research on it. Plus, this store gives me hives, and I don’t want to be here any longer than necessary. ”
He grunted.
“Hence me asking if you need help. You look like you’re nowhere near being ready to go. And since you’re my ride…”
“Fold those bags over on themselves, stuff them as full as you can get them while still being able to lay flat. Then I’ll tell you what to do after that.
But wash your hands first and get some plastic gloves on.
There’s a hairnet over there, too. I think I have some smaller gloves underneath the counter for when Heidi offers to help. ”
I did just that, putting on the hairnet, washing my hands, then gloving up before going to help him pack bags full of meat.
It wasn’t hard work, but it was quite satisfying for some reason.
Though a lot of that satisfaction came from watching Hux wield a blade.
He was a damn master.
I found myself watching his forearms and hands move with such admiration that I didn’t realize he was talking to me at first.
“…you can start putting all of this in the grinder behind you.”
I looked behind me at the massive grinder.
“Whoa,” I said. “Do you think that if I accidentally put my arm in there, it’d grind it off?”
“Without a doubt,” he answered. “But there’s a guard there to prevent that.”
My stomach evened out at the knowledge. “Okay, good. It’d be just my luck that I’d get it stuck in there.”
“Your luck?” he asked.
“It’s trash,” I found myself saying. “I literally have the worst luck in the world. When I was five, I tripped, fell, and broke my forehead.”
He grunted. “Normal for a kid.”
“When I was eleven, I got punched in the face because my brother was trying to beat up the bully that was kicking my ass every day after I couldn’t produce him any lunch money.
” I found a bowl on the counter behind me and started filling it up with the parts that he said that we would need to grind.
“My bully missed my brother, nearly fell on his face when my brother stepped out of the way, and caught himself on my face. Broke my nose and my eye socket.”
Hux made a noise in his throat, but didn’t interrupt.
“Things like that happened throughout my life, but a couple of years ago.” I leveled Hux with a look. “This never leaves the room.”
Hux’s brows rose. “Okay.”
I’d never told anyone this.
Not a single soul.
I couldn’t believe that I was telling Hux it now.
But for some reason, I was in a sharing mood.
And honestly, I wanted someone to know.
Just in case.
“I was in the bathroom,” I said quietly, keeping my eyes on the way Hux’s muscles moved in his forearms. “At my job. And I survived a serial killer attack.”
Hux’s muscles stopped moving.
I looked up to find his gaze solely on mine. “I’m sorry, what?”
“It was a great thing that Creed’s wife, Birdee, came to find me when she did. I was being stalked by a serial killer for almost a year. If it wasn’t for the new name and the new life? I might not have been alive for him to ever talk to again.”
Hux gently laid the knife down.
“Tell me everything,” he ordered quietly.
I walked behind the table and stared at the meat grinder. “How do you work this?”
He came up behind me, not touching, but definitely not giving me very much space as he reached over and flipped the button on.
It was a lot quieter than I expected it to be.
“Use this paddle here to shove it all down the tube,” he said. “Start talking.”
He dumped the meat onto the tray that was above the long tube that eventually led to the meat-grinding part and then shoved it down the tube with the paddle.
Once I understood, he stepped back, let me do my thing, and waited.
Patiently.
I gathered my thoughts before I started .
“Like I said, I was in the hospital bathroom. Desperately trying to control the asthma attack that was trying to kill me. I was sitting on the toilet fully clothed, head on my knees, feet resting on the toilet lid. It looked like no one was in there, you know?”
He grunted.
I continued to shove more meat down the long tube with my paddle.
As it ground away, meat resembling hamburger pushed out the other end into a large bucket already there waiting.
“I don’t know how long I was in there when the man came in,” I continued, feeling my stomach tighten at the words that were tumbling free of my mouth. Again, something I hadn’t ever told a single soul. “I was first aware someone was in there when I heard the crying.”
I ran out of meat, and Hux came back with more between his large hands, dumping it all into the top tray.
I stuffed more down the tube.
“My breathing had finally returned to somewhat normal, and I picked my head up off my knees and listened hard. That’s when I realized that it wasn’t crying, but like…groans.”
“Groans,” he said. “Someone was having sex?”
“Not having sex, no,” I admitted. “At least not with an alive person.”
Long, long moments passed before he said, “I really need you to explain.”
I ran out of meat again, and he turned the grinder off before pulling the tub away that’d been gathering the meat and brought it back to the table.
He dumped it on the table then pointed at the bags. “Fold them over and stuff them a pound full. The scale is right there built into the table.”
I did and kept talking.
“I got up and looked through the crack in the door.” I swallowed. “And saw a man on the floor having sex with a naked woman.”
Hux got to work cutting meat off the bone again.
I stuffed the bags exactly a pound full and set them to the side with the other bags.