Wren
“How could you fucking do this to me, Dad?”
“Wren, I’m sorry. I had no choice; they were going to kill me.”
“That’s fine. Just so you know, you have been dead to me for years.”
Those words ring in my ears as I stand in a wedding dress in front of the full-length mirror, looking at my reflection. Harsh, I know, but when I had asked my father that question a month ago, tears were streaming from my eyes.
He had just told me that I was getting married.
Funny, but I didn’t have a man in my life, other than him, nor did I want one. I was happy being single. Taking care of my elderly patients was my only mission in life. One that I would happily do until my retirement in thirty-five years.
But here I stand. In a little church, God knows where, as I was blindfolded the whole trip, awaiting my fate because my father decided to gamble his life savings away.
Borrowing money from a loan shark was his fault, not mine. But I was the one who was going to pay off his debt, with my life, by marrying the shark’s son. A union that neither of us wants.
I turn away from the mirror and eye the narrow, lone window. It beckons me, and I make my way over to it and glance out into the dark night. Cupping my hands around my eyes, I press my nose against the windowpane and see nothing but trees.
Good. There’s at least cover for me to escape into. I reach for the lock and shove the sash up. I’m excited to find that it glides smoothly without a sound, but stops after six inches. Raising my eyes to the frame, I glare at the nail coated in paint that was hammered into the wood. “Damnit!”
Breaking the window would only attract unwanted attention. Even if I wanted to chance it, looking at the width of the frame, there was no way I’d fit through it. If I were twenty pounds lighter, maybe.
The echo of footsteps on the other side of the door had me closing it just as it burst open. A burly man stood there, the gun at his waist did not go unnoticed by me.
“Come on, it’s time.”
I walk across the room, and he steps aside to let me pass. I step into the hall as the sound of the wedding march begins over the church’s sound system. Unsure of which way leads to my doom, I ask, “Where do I go?”
“Left.”
We make our way down the hall to the nave, and I feel a bubble of laughter start in my chest. It’s either laughing my ass off or crying at the absurdity of it all.
But I suppress it. As I pass each pew, I notice the wilted flowers from a long-ago wedding adorn each one of them.
This little church was once a place of happiness, but now it’s filled with my anxiety as it leaches out of my pores.
I raise my eyes to my ‘groom’. The look he casts my way says it all. I was wrong when I thought he was just as reluctant as I am. He looks like a lecher as his eyes devour me, and I know in my heart he will treat me like an unloved dog.
That is not going to happen.
My body simply refusing to take another step, I stop at the last pew and survey my surroundings.
The preacher is standing there, holding the Holy Book, a look of sadness on his face.
Behind my soon-to-be hubby stands what I can only assume is his best man, and behind him, another man with a bulge under his suit jacket.
That tells me he’s just another henchman like the one standing at my back.
“Where is everyone?” I ask. I need to know what I’m dealing with before I act.
“This is it,” comes the squeaky response from my groom’s lips.
Lips that look like earthworms. If I were unsure of following through with what I was about to do, his voice and those soil-dwelling, lookalike worms that rimmed his mouth sealed the deal.
I shudder at the thought of him pressing them onto me, anywhere. “I don’t even know your name.”
He grinned at me. “You’ll know soon enough,”—he reached out his hand to me— “Preacher, you may start.”
I don’t take his hand, but I do move to stand beside him. It’s the only way that I can get close enough to the candle that is standing on a dais beside the preacher. Its heavy holder is my weapon of choice. It's my only weapon, and one that I need to get closer to. I turn and look at my groom.
“Can I ask the preacher something, in private?”
He shakes his head. “Not in private, but you may go up to him and whisper it in his ear.”
He grins at me again, and I can just imagine what he’s thinking. Thinking I have a special request for our nuptials. I smile at him, I mean it’s a small token of thanks, the only one that I will offer to him, and then glance over my shoulder.
The man who escorted me here is standing to my right. Perfect. As demurely as I can, I gather my skirts in my hands and take a step up beside the preacher. He leans down as I lean forward. Our bodies conceal my left hand as I grab hold of the candle. Softly, I whisper into his ear. “Duck.”
The man drops like a sack of potatoes as I swing around.
With wax dripping down my arm, I take aim right at my intended and conk him on the head.
Blood starts to pour from the gash on his forehead at the same time as he backhands me across the face.
My head whips back from the force, but I stand my ground.
I turn back to look at him; instead of the guns I’m expecting to see in my face, he’s lying on the floor, spasming.
I’m forgotten as chaos ensues and his henchmen hurry to his side.
That’s my cue. “Chubby legs don’t fail me now,” I mutter to myself as I gather my skirts high.