Didi
“You can take a break if you want, sweetie,” Mrs. Holly says in her scratchy voice.
Mrs. Holly got an abnormal amount of potatoes again, sacks and sacks of ‘em.
She leaves the bags lying out back where anyone could grab them.
Which means whoever left the scarecrow would have easy access to these burlap sacks. It could be anyone in town.
I glance back at Mrs. Holly, who is leaning against the wall, smoking, and scrutinizing me. She looks prettier tonight with her hair flipped up, like she’s going somewhere.
“Thanks,” I mumble.
“I met your mother,” she says, blowing smoke out of her nose. “She came in to buy some booze. She asked about you. But don’t worry, I covered for you while you were on your little date with the Landry boy.”
Every detail of last night’s date with Tommy is still vivid in my mind.
Afterward, I thought it was him…the person who murdered Daniel.
I was completely vulnerable when he held that knife to my thigh, controlling my every move, utterly exposed.
And similar to how I was with Remy when he had me in his bed, I liked it.
I tuck my hair behind my ear. “Mama didn’t say anything about it.”
She stubs out her cigarette before walking to the counter. “I told her you were in town running an errand for me. She wasn’t thrilled you were gone, but she seemed to believe it.”
As she speaks, two men enter, their boots covered in mud—farmers from the looks of them with their overalls—and she waves at them.
They stroll by, keeping their eyes on me as they move toward the milk fridge. One of them gives me a toothless grin as he passes. The teeth he does have are black like tar.
Mrs. Holly doesn’t seem bothered by her unsightly customers and continues pestering me about Mama. “What’s her story? Widowed?”
“No, not widowed.”
She snickers. “Scorned then. She looks like a scorned woman.” Her eyes darken. “I don’t mind covering for you…but if you need me to do it again, it’s going to cost you.”
Ignoring the two men, I turn and face her. “I don’t have any money, Mrs. Holly.”
She gives me a sour look. “Your mama’s starting to get a reputation in town. I saw her the other day at bingo. I don’t want any trouble, girl. If she comes in drinking like that, it will scare off my other customers.”
“It won’t happen again.”
After the two men pass, casting a lingering, lascivious stare my way, they go to pay and leave. Unsettled, I inhale deeply as soon as the door closes behind them. Something about them felt wrong.
Mrs. Holly looks at me. “I need you to cover the till for the rest of the night. I’m heading out.”
My stomach sinks. She’s just leaving me alone, knowing those two men are around?
“Yeah, that’s fine.”
She watches me for a second. “Don’t go stealing anything from me.”
“I won’t, Mrs. Holly.”
“And don’t you dare go running off with Tommy.”
I stare past the door but see nothing but dust and darkness. The two men are gone. I’m probably paranoid. “I promise I won’t.”
My stomach flutters thinking of what Tommy and I did last night. How intense he was…and how badly I want him inside me.
It’s dark by the time Mrs. Holly leaves FreshMart. No one has entered the store since the two men in overalls. At least we close early on Sundays. Mrs. Holly only keeps the store open to serve the locals. Marty sometimes drops by to see how I’m doing, but I haven’t seen him today.
I sit at the till and eventually open a box of crackers and dip them into a honey jar. I can’t eat too much, because Mrs. Holly threatens to fire me daily, and I believe she’d do it. I suck on the cracker while looking down at my math textbook.
There’s a full moon tonight, and it’s clear, so I head back to get some fresh air. A gentle breeze kisses my face, and I instinctively raise my head when I notice a shadow moving in my peripheral vision. “Hello?”
Wind and silence.
“Hello?” I say again. I swear, I heard someone…saw shadows dancing in the trees and switchgrass.
I hitch a breath as a man in a burlap mask takes a step forward, wearing all black, and seems to steal the light from the moon itself. He places his fingers up to his mouth, telling me to be quiet.
Pure, primal fear washes over me, and I stand there confused.
This doesn’t seem like a joke. The air itself is heavy, suffocating, like this man is stealing my soul from the look he’s giving me, stealing the life out of me…until I see the boots. I know those boots.
Remy.
Two more men appear out of nowhere—the two from earlier, in overalls. The toothless one approaches, spitting out his chew. “Hey, pretty little lady. Why are you out here all by yourself?”
I step back to assess the situation. Remy, concealed in the shadows behind the mask, watches as the two men in overalls remain oblivious to him.
I jut my chin. “Mrs. Holly will be here any minute, so you need to go.”
The toothless one laughs and looks at his friend. “Oh, we know you’re lying. Mrs. Holly ain’t here, is she, Billy?”
Billy cranks his head. “That’s right, Clyde. I think she’s don’ gon’ here alone.”
Clyde and Billy…poor as dirt.
I stumble against the building, and Billy is on me immediately, pinning me in place. “Where do you think you’re going? We’re just gonna play a little.”
His breath smells like cow patties, and all I see is skin and suspenders.
I look past Billy, finding Remy is gone, evaporating into the shadows from which he came. Perhaps I am seeing things, and Remy wasn’t here at all. Perhaps I was just praying he was…
I peer inside, just ten feet, and I could be at the rotary phone near the front. I could call the police or Tommy, but I dismiss the idea. They’d get to me before I’d be able to turn the dial to call anyone. And I have a gut-wrenching notion that, even if I did call someone, they wouldn’t come.
Clyde comes at me, the two of them trapping me against the wall. My hands curl into fists as his hands slide up my shirt and tug at my breast, just as a shadow presses in on us.
A knife flashes, and Billy’s eyes grow wide.
“Get your low-life, cousin-fucking hands off her,” Remy growls, the knife pressing onto Billy’s neck. “One move and I’ll slice off your overgrown ear, you inbred, honky-tonk, piece of shit.” Billy lets go of me and stumbles backward, and Remy yanks his hair while keeping the blade on him.
“Now, now,” Clyde, the gap tooth, says. “We didn’t mean the girl no harm. We were just here protecting her. Townsfolk are saying Shadowface is back, and we don’t want no pretty girl scared of Shadowface, now do we?”
“What the hell do you know about the townsfolk? You live in the grass, you piece of shit.”
I stand with my back to the wall and my heart in my throat. Remy pushes Billy away from me, who then falls and scuttles up to his feet like a jumpy spider.
Billy spits out a piece of tobacco near Remy’s shiny boot. “We hear about things in the grass, too, boy. We got eyes and ears all over these parts.”
Remy pushes him again. “If I see you again, I’ll cut off your dick,” he barks at them. The two of them exchange a quick glance and then run off into the night, cursing and howling like wolves.
Remy watches me and pulls off the mask, and I’ve never been so happy to see him.
His dark eyes are unyielding as he presses in on me, and I wrap my arms around him, squeezing him as hard as I can, shaking beneath him as Billy and Clyde howl into the night from the darkness beyond.
Remy’s hands find the small of my back, and he rests his hands on my hips.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
I gaze up at him… “Why are you here?”
“Protecting you. If I weren’t here, they might have taken you home and eaten you.”
Jesus. I give the sign of the cross.
“Who are they?”
Remy pulls his hands through his hair, his eyes taut with anger.
“They are low-life hillbillies who like to come into town and scare people. Those two are cousins and brothers. Their parents are cousins, their sisters are cousins…everyone in their hamlet are either siblings or cousins. Their heads ain’t right, Diana.
They would have seriously messed with you if I hadn’t been here. ”
“Why are you here though, Remy? Right now.” I take in his tight black jeans, his toned waist, and his lips hiding beneath his dark beard and equally dark expression.
Looking at him does things to me, and I remember the way my body reacted to his mere touch. The same way my body is reacting now.
His eyes grow dark. “I’m watching over you, Diana,” he says, pulling his hand down my face and running his thumb along my lips. “I haven’t been able to get you out of my head since the other night. You’re driving me crazy, Didi; I can’t stop watching you.”
The feeling is more than mutual, but I don’t tell him that.
My hand finds his cheek, my thumb rubbing his dark facial hair. “You’re the one who left the scarecrow, aren’t you?” I ask him. The eyes I sense at night are Remy’s. They’ve always been Remy’s.
He clenches his jaw. “I needed people to stay away from you. I knew it wouldn’t scare you that much, and people here are superstitious. It seemed to work. It was the only way I could protect you when I couldn’t be there.”
I keep my eyes down, refusing to look at him. Afraid if I do, he might capture my heart entirely, and I can’t let that happen. Tommy already has a piece of it.
He knows I’m with Tommy…he just doesn’t care.
He presses both arms on either side of me before he grabs my chin, forcing the matter, his lips are now a kissable distance, and my legs nearly give out.
“You need to get out of this town, little lamb,” he says, his voice ragged against my ear.
“Why?” I whisper as a flame rises inside me. His mere presence makes me queasy. There’s an urgency about him that didn’t exist before, a heaviness sparked by something unseen.
“There are things happening in this town that I can’t explain, Didi. Things I can’t protect you from the way I want to.”
A beat of silence passes as I keep my eyes locked on his. The pain inside them mirrors my own. “What are you saying?”
He threads his hands with mine. “Everything’s about to change. Promise me you’ll leave Kinsmen after you graduate, and not a day later. If you stay here, guys like Billy and Clyde will be the least of your worries. This town is evil, Didi, and it will eventually kill you.”
He speaks of the town like it’s a living, breathing thing—as if it’s Shadowface itself.
A wind kicks dust up, rustling the trees around us, and a cold silence washes over us as I flick my eyes up to him. “Do you want to kill me, Remy?” The words escape my lips before I can control them.
Why would I ask him that as if it’s a prize to win?
His eyes dance with desire. “I don’t want to kill you, but I want to rip your fucking heart out.
” He kisses me before I can even process his words, or my body’s response, which is to melt into him instead of fleeing.
My body explodes the same way it did last time he kissed me. Except this time, I’m prepared for him.
I tilt my head as his lips graze down my neck…his facial hair tickling me. He kisses me desperately, nipping at my neck with his tongue. The sensation is doing strange things to me. Heat rushes to my stomach, and my heart is on fire.
“Remy,” I whisper. He pulls his lips off me and watches me. “Are you Shadowface?”
He pauses before he says, “Not yet.”
Not yet? What does he mean by that?
He runs his hands down my side, drawing his attention downward. His body is stealing all my breath, as if he’s made of death. He hooks his thumbs through the belt loops on my pants, and I suck in a breath when I realize what he is doing.
“Take them off,” he demands.
As if my fingers are possessed, I undo the button of my pants and let my trousers fall a couple inches. He slips them down slowly, and I’m thin enough that they slip off without effort. My bones freeze, chilling me to my very core, and he moves his attention to the belt still digging in my flesh.
“Take this off, too,” he whispers, gently nudging me.
My heart can barely take it. “I can’t. You have to do it for me, Remy. If I do it, I will burn in hell.”
“You’re going to burn in hell anyway, little lamb. Let me help you get there.”
My thighs clench in response, but I make no move to stop him.
He swallows as he pulls the leather down slowly. I hiss as the sharp belt causes blood to pool over my scars, and he pauses, rubbing his thumb over my belly.
“Keep going,” I whisper.
I grab the back of his neck, his facial hair tickling me as he slides the belt down, pulling it over my bone and flesh until eventually, the pressure gives and the belt drops to the ground with a clank.
No key needed at all.
Tears slide down my cheeks as I stand naked and exposed in front of Remy and blood trickles down my inner thigh.
He squats down and wipes the blood from my leg, pressing his hand over my wound softly until the bleeding stops.
My body vibrates as soon as his hand makes contact, and I let out a moan.
I’m not sure what’s causing the wetness anymore, but his fingers are dangerously close to places no one’s ever touched before.
He abruptly pulls off and places something in my hand while his other remains firm on my hip, his fingers caressing me.
“Promise me something?” he says as he presses his forehead to mine. “The next time anyone touches you like Billy and Clyde did, you take this knife, stick it in their flesh, and twist. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
“Yeah,” I breathe, glancing at the knife in my shaking hand, the sharp end pointed at him. I examine it for a moment, admiring how close he was to slicing Billy’s neck with it and how vulnerable he just made himself to me. “I understand.”
His lips brush against mine again. “Get dressed and go home, and whatever you do, don’t let her see you. If she sees you, it’s over.”
I twist my brows together. “Who?”
“Talia’s coming home soon, little lamb. Trust me, it’s better if she doesn’t know you exist.” He vanishes into the night, leaving me naked, breathless, and very confused.