Brittany
Hell shows its teeth on a Tuesday, the way it always does. Quiet first. Polite about it. Like it’s deciding whether I’m worth the effort.
It starts small enough that I tell myself I’m imagining it.
A look held a little too long at Slice of Paradise when I’m refilling the same cup of coffee for the third time. Whispers that die the second I turn my head. Lottie stopping mid-sentence in the back room of the pawn shop like she forgot what she was about to say, then pretending she didn’t.
I’m twenty. But I’ve been on my own for years. I know the difference between nerves and trouble.
This is trouble.
By Thursday, I can feel it in my bones.
The first time I see him, I’m locking up after dark and the air’s gone thick and damp like it’s holding its breath. He’s across the street, leaning against the brick wall of the feed store with a phone in his hand like he’s scrolling. Clean haircut. Pressed jeans. Button-down tucked in tight.
Pearly Gates.
You can always tell. They stand out in Hell, Kentucky like fresh blood on gravel. Too neat. Too careful. Like they’re pretending to be normal people instead of whatever the hell they really are.
He avoids my eyes when I glance up.
But I feel his eyes anyway, like a weight on my skin.
The second time is worse. He’s closer. Half a block back when I’m walking home from the diner, far enough not to grab and close enough to match my pace.
I speed up.
He does too.
I duck into the hardware store and don’t come out until my hands stop shaking. I stand between lawnmower blades and lightbulbs like I’m safer under fluorescent lights, like danger can’t follow me past the aisle with duct tape.
Friday afternoon I run into Elijah.
Of course I do.
He’s standing outside the gas station near the county line loading cases of bottled water into the back of a pickup with a Pearly Gates sticker on the bumper.
He looks exactly the way he always has, like trouble doesn’t stick to him.
Clean. Earnest. That kind of handsome that feels safe if you don’t think too hard about it.
“Elijah,” I say before I can stop myself.
He turns and smiles like he’s glad to see me. “Brittany. Hey.”
My stomach flips, stupid and traitorous. I’ve had a crush on him forever. He’s close to my age, twenty-one maybe twenty-two. Close enough to feel normal.
“Hey,” I manage, pushing my hair behind my ear like I’m still fifteen and trying to be cute.
“You look tired,” he says.
I laugh it off. “Work. School. Life.”
He nods like he understands, but his eyes search my face a second too long.
“You should be careful out here lately,” he says.
My pulse stutters. “Why?”
“Things are unsettled,” he says, and his voice stays light even though his eyes don’t. “People watching people.”
I go cold anyway.
“Another girl went missing last week.”
He says it almost casual, like he’s trying not to scare me, like he’s talking about weather.
“From our side,” he adds.
My stomach drops. “Ran off?”
“That’s what they’re saying,” he replies.
His eyes don’t look convinced. His gaze flicks past me to the road, checking it like he’s making sure nobody else is listening.
A chill crawls up my spine. “That supposed to make me feel better?”
His smile softens. “Just keep your head down, alright?”
I tell myself he’s warning me. I tell myself he’s being kind.
I don’t tell myself how the warning sounds practiced, like he’s repeating something he’s said before. Like maybe he’s said it to other girls too.
Friday night is when Hell stops whispering and starts leaving messages.
I come out of my shift exhausted, head pounding, hands smelling like fryer grease and old paper. My beat up red Kia is parked right where I left it.
And there’s something on the hood.
A glove.
Black leather. Heavy. Worn soft like it’s been used a lot. It’s placed dead center, fingers pointed toward the windshield, deliberate as hell.
Like someone took their time.
Like they wanted me to see it before I touched the door.
My stomach drops straight to my feet.
I don’t touch it. I don’t look around. I unlock the car with shaking hands and drive like I’m being chased, heart hammering hard enough to blur the edges of my vision.
I don’t go home.
I go back to the pawn shop.
The lights are still on when I pull in, but Lottie’s truck is gone. That hits wrong. She’s usually here late on Fridays, closing up paperwork, cussing at receipts, letting the world wear itself out before she goes home.
I check my phone.
No signal.
Of course.
I’m counting the seconds until she gets back when the lights cut out.
Every single one.
The shop plunges into darkness so sudden I gasp. The hum dies. The air feels thick and wrong, like the building swallowed sound.
My ears ring. I can hear my own pulse.
Something creaks in the dark.
Not the building settling.
Something shifting weight.
The front door is locked. I check it twice. The back door won’t budge. My hands shake hard enough I can hear my keys rattling.
I fumble for my phone, anyway. Dead screen. No bars. Nothing.
That’s when headlights sweep across the front windows, slow and steady.
A Harley engine. Big. Familiar. The kind that doesn’t sneak up on anything.
Oaks steps inside like the dark invited him. Like it knows him. Like it belongs to him.
He takes in the dead lights, the locked doors, my face pale, panicked and betraying every damn thing I feel.
Then his eyes settle on me.
“I told you to watch your back,” he says.
Not loud. Not angry.
Certain.
My knees nearly fold.
“I didn’t call you,” I whisper.
He crosses the room, boots heavy on the concrete, stopping two feet away. Still doesn’t touch me.
He doesn’t have to.
“I know,” he says quietly. “That’s the problem.”
Outside, something shifts. A shadow passes the window and my whole body reacts like prey.
Oaks plants himself between me and the front like he’s done it before, like guarding is muscle memory.
Hell finally stops pretending.
It wants me scared.
It wants me cornered.
It wants to see who comes for me first.
“I’m taking you home,” Oaks says.
Not a question.
A decision.
His Harley growls low and steady as I climb on behind him. The engine hums straight through the soles of my boots and into my bones.
“Hold on,” he says.
I already am.
My hands slide around his waist before my brain catches up, palms pressing into solid muscle and warm leather. His jacket smells like smoke and night air with something darker underneath it.
Danger.
Desire.
Either one works.
When he pulls out, the forward motion steals my breath and I tighten my grip without thinking. My chest presses to his back. My cheek brushes the hard line of his shoulder blade.
Everything feels amplified.
The way his thighs flex around the bike. The subtle shift of his hips as he takes the curves. The way his body reacts before the road even tells him to.
I’ve ridden in trucks my whole life, bounced around in cabs and trailers, ridden horses until my legs went numb.
This is different.
This is intimate.
Too intimate for a man who swears he doesn’t cheat with his heart.
The wind whips my hair loose and I press closer without meaning to, fingers curling into the front of his cut.
He doesn’t tell me to move them.
He doesn’t tell me not to.
When we turn down my road, the lights thin out fast. Daddy’s place sits back from the highway, porch light burned out because he keeps meaning to fix it and never does.
His rig won’t be back until Sunday. Maybe later.
Oaks kills the engine and the sudden quiet feels loud.
I slide off slow. My legs are shaky. My palms tingle.
“Thanks,” I say.
Weak word.
“You shouldn’t be by yourself right now,” he replies.
I try for humor. “It ain’t like I murdered someone.”
He turns his head just enough that I see the corner of his mouth move.
“I danced with you.” I blink. “That ain’t a crime.”
“In this world,” he says calm, “depends who’s watching.”
The night smells like cut grass and hot asphalt and leftover fear.
“I wasn’t sure you remembered,” he says.
He studies me through the dark.
“It was nothing,” I lie, and my voice comes out too quick.
He says it like he’s trying to convince himself. “It was nothing.”
It lands harder than it should.
“She thinks I’m attached,” he continues. “And when Bethany thinks she’s losing something, she doesn’t get sad. She gets even.”
“I heard you’re not exactly faithful,” I say, and I hate myself for sounding like I’m fishing.
He doesn’t flinch. “I haven’t been.”
My chest tightens anyway.
“But I don’t cheat with my heart,” he adds.
My breath catches.
“That’s what she’s mad about,” he says, quieter.
“That we didn’t?” I ask.
“Yeah.” His voice drops lower. “That I didn’t fuck you. She knows I could’ve.”
I cross my arms. “You would’ve?”
“Not that night,” he says. “Not with you drunk as a skunk. But under different circumstances? Yeah.”
I swallow hard. “I don’t understand. You did the right thing.”
“I protected you,” he replies. “Didn’t have to. Bethany thinks I should’ve sent you home and let the night handle you.”
The porch light across the road flickers like it’s listening.
“Do you love your wife?” I ask.
Silence stretches.
He doesn’t answer.
He doesn’t have to.
I take a step back. “You want to come in?”
He looks at the house, the dark windows, the empty drive. “That ain’t a good idea.”
“I’ll lock the door.”
“That won’t stop her,” he says. “And it won’t stop me from coming through it if I have to.”
I nod like that makes sense because right now it does.
“Get inside,” he says. “Lock it. Call Lottie if anything feels off.”
“And you?” I ask.
“I’ll be around,” he says.
He rides off, taillight bleeding red into the dark.
Inside, the house feels too quiet. Too empty.
I shower fast, scrub the smell of smoke off my skin, and miss it the second it’s gone. When I step back into the kitchen, I notice the back gate.
Unlatched.
I know I latched it.
I stand there staring until my chest tightens, then I go inside and lock every damn thing twice.
In bed I stare at the ceiling.
I don’t know him. Not really.
I know his hands are careful. I know his silence is loud. I know he doesn’t answer when I ask if he loves his wife.
That should be enough to keep me safe.
We don’t have anything. No dates. No promises. No right to feel like this.
And still, as sleep drags me under, one thought won’t let go.
I think I’m falling in love with a biker who belongs to someone else.
And Hell, Kentucky never lets a girl love the wrong man in peace.