Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“She’s not coming.” Deacon’s voice is firm and displeased when he opens the door to glare at both of us.
“Fuck this, Fox. She doesn’t need to go.
Hell, you don’t need to go! You need—” He stumbles suddenly, an undignified noise coming from him I would call a squawk, if it came from anyone other than Deacon.
With a boost from Fox, who doesn’t seem to mind her actions, Pearl lunges up into the truck past him, wiggling through the gap in the seats until she’s settled in the back with me.
“She doesn’t need to go either!” Deacon throws his hands up in the air, then levels a glare at me. “Out of the car.”
I fold my arms, feeling the need to prove that I can do this for myself, even if I don’t end up being helpful.
If I’m doing this, if I’m doing all of this, then I can’t just sit at home and be a victim.
“I want to help, Deacon,” I mumble. “It’s not like I haven’t already seen…
” I wave my hand, not sure what even I could see now that would make this worse.
Deacon turns his glare on Fox, who carefully doesn’t meet his eyes. “This is a bad idea,” he warns. “And you’re going to be the one cleaning it up.” With that, he hoists himself into the shiny black truck, immediately buckling in and checking to make sure I’ve done the same.
It’s about ten minutes into the drive before I realize I have no idea what we’re doing, where we’re going, or how I can even help. I shift a little, uncomfortably curious, and turn my eyes to watching the few farms that we pass while Pearl worms her way onto my lap.
“Where did Pearl come from?” I ask, when Fox and Deacon take a break in their bickering. “Do you know?”
“Uh…” Fox glances at me in the rearview mirror, and Deacon sighs before thumping his head against the glass. “There was a guy who used to live on the north side of town. Way, way out.”
“Meth head,” Deacon interjects. “Don’t sugarcoat it.
Had all these poor dogs running around, didn’t spay or neuter any of them.
” The disapproval is obvious in his voice.
“Barely fed ‘em, and they were all aggressive as hell. Most of them got rounded up and sent to animal control. Pearl’s mom disappeared. Had a litter a month or so later, we think.”
“So she has siblings?”
“Not any still alive that I’ve ever seen,” Fox admits. “But that doesn’t mean they weren’t found and taken home. That’s not uncommon around here. Lots of stray packs, too. Could be in with those.” But by the sound of his voice, he doesn’t make me think it’s a real possibility.
A pang of sympathy for my dog goes through me, and I scratch under her chin, watching her lift her head with her eyes half-closed. “So she just, what, became a town stray?”
“No one could catch her.” Deacon chuckles. “No one wanted to try after the first few times. And he wouldn’t let anyone shoot her.” Deacon nods at Fox, who grimaces. “Would you?”
“She’s harmless unless you mess with her,” Fox grumbles. “No reason to do that to her. Anyway, Ms. Hewitt’s been feedin’ her as long as she’s been hanging around. Not that she was ever real fond of her, but she feeds all the strays.”
That’s surprisingly kind of the cold-eyed woman who looks like she might have been around to wrangle dinosaurs and slap Judas.
“Poor Pearl,” I tell the dog, who rolls over to give me her belly.
“Poor baby. You deserve all the man organs you could ever want. And maybe a bath. Soon,” I add, when she breathes at me and the smell of her breath makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
God, maybe I should invest in a doggy toothbrush for her.
The truck slows, and even though I have no way of knowing where we are, I look out the window anyway, seeing a few old, abandoned trailers before we pull onto a gravel road.
“Where are we going?” I ask finally.
But neither of them answers.
That makes me look up, and when I see Deacon glaring Fox down with all the rage of a pissed-off porcupine, a sense of uneasiness goes through me. “Is…everything okay?”
“Yeah, Fox,” Deacon agrees unpleasantly. “Where are we going?”
The sheriff sighs and runs a hand through his auburn hair. His dark gaze finds mine in the rearview mirror, but before he can answer, I see the rusted old sign, and he pulls into the gravel lot that I do remember.
Miller’s Auto Shop.
Except, with the way the letters have rusted and fallen, it reads Millers uto Sho. It would be pathetic if the sight of this place and the building I escaped from feels like forever ago and yet also just yesterday, looms in front of me like a foreboding, haunted building.
“Oh,” I breathe. “I see.”
It makes sense, I tell myself as Fox parks and turns off the engine. If neither of them knows where the other three brothers are, this would be one of the best places to figure it out. But that doesn’t calm my racing heart, or quell the nausea that’s suddenly clawing its way up my throat.
I can’t look up once I’ve ripped my eyes away from the sign. I can’t do anything other than stare down at Pearl and focus on my breathing.
I can’t do this.
Fuck, I never thought I’d see this place again. So to just show up here, like this, to try to figure where they went? I know it makes sense, but I wish Fox had thought to warn me.
From the front seat, over the ringing in my ears, I can hear Deacon bickering with Fox, but I can’t quite tell what they’re saying, even though they’re only a few feet in front of me.
“I’m fine.” The words come out breathy and unsure, so I try again, clearing my throat to say, “I’m fine.”
I’m not fine, but fuck if I’m not going to pretend otherwise.
“You are not fine,” Deacon snaps. “It’s fine, you can stay in the truck, Sadie-Rae. You—”
But I refuse to let them tell me what to do. I refuse to be a victim anymore. I want the Hill brothers dead for what they did to my friends.
Even Tyler, though I definitely don’t feel as bad for him as I do for Scotty and Ariana. Without another word, and without letting Deacon finish, I shove open the truck door and get out with Pearl leaping to the ground after me.
The change in her is immediate. She looks around, nose up and working, then growls low in her throat.
“Yeah,” I murmur. “I figured you’d remember this place too.
” My hand goes out to rest on her head, and that quiets her a little, causing my dog to nuzzle into my palm and press against my thigh. “Good girl.”
“Hey, Sadie.” Fox gets out and closes the door behind him, and in a few quick steps he’s closed the distance between us to reach out to me.
He pulls me to his chest, blocking my view of the auto shop and wrapping his arms gingerly around me.
I don’t return the embrace; I just inhale against his chest, where his cologne is strong in the fabric of his t-shirt.
Fuck, he smells so good.
“Maybe this was a bad idea. Why don’t you get back in the truck, huh? It’s okay. Let us look around for a bit; let’s—”
“No.” I pull away from him, not wanting the easy out. “No. I can do this.” I will do this. Can or can’t isn’t part of the equation. “I’m fine. Hell, maybe I’ll find a piece of Sally the chainsaw to hang on a chain around my neck.”
Deacon snorts from where he’s leaning against the front of the truck, sunglasses on as he watches us. “Maybe I’ll just get you a new chainsaw,” he suggests instead. “Why did you call it Sally, anyway?”
“Why not?” I shrug and pull away from Fox, wishing I had a hair elastic to pull my hair up with. It’s hot enough in the Texas summer to be irritating, and I make a mental note to find some rubber bands when we go back to the house.
I don’t wait, even though I’m not sure what to look for.
The ledger was the only real piece of evidence I found, but I hadn’t exactly been looking hard the last time I was here.
Fox makes a concerned noise and reaches out to me, but I stubbornly evade his hand, keeping Pearl close to my side, before pushing open the broken glass door of the auto shop.
The memories are immediate and painful. From outside, I can hear Deacon and Fox talking, discussing license plates and the idea of running them through the system.
Their words are careful and terse, and I can feel their eyes on me, like they’re scared I’m going to fall apart just from coming inside.
In all honesty, I might.
“No, nope. You can do this, Sadie-Rae,” I whisper.
I made it out of this place before, and I refuse to let it break me this time.
While I tell myself that I’ll just look around up here, where it’s safer, I find myself drawn to the basement door, as the voices of the guys fade with the distance between us.
The door is closed, and I’m so careful as I reach forward to wrap my fingers around the old, dented knob. It doesn’t turn easily under my hands, but when it does, the door opens and swings back hard on shitty, half-broken hinges.
Pearl growls, and I put my hand back on her head, feeling her tremble as I look down into the darkness of the staircase.
“Yeah,” I whisper. “I know. But we can do this.”
Victims don’t get better. I heard that somewhere, once, and as long as I see myself as a victim of this awful place, I doubt there’s any way I can figure out how to move on and live my life again. Whatever that looks like now.
But God, it’s so hard to walk down the first step. The second is easier, the third easier still, but when I get to the bottom, I stop dead, my legs as stiff as marble.
The smell hits me hard enough that I gag. My hand comes up to clap over my mouth, and I reel backward, eyes watering at the smell of rot and sour meat. I will not throw up, I tell myself over and over, my stomach disagreeing with that statement.
Feeling along the wall with shaking fingers, I manage to find the switch I know exists there, and I flip it on, causing the entire basement to light up all at once.