Page 14

CHAPTER 14

REDLEY

“Hey, hey, wake up,” a male voice says, and I’m so painfully tired, I don’t open my eyes right away despite not having a clue who’s speaking to me. Maybe I should be afraid, but I’m past worrying about anyone other than the Wolf, and that’s not him.

When I do finally force myself to confront my surroundings, I’m lying face down, pressed into something hard. My mouth is wide open as I drool, and I lift my tongue off the plastic coating beneath me, more than a little confused about who's talking to me and why I am so damn uncomfortable. My hand rests on top of the floor rather than the thin mattress, concrete and painted green.

“You finally up?” the voice asks. “I’m bored as hell in here.”

I roll over to figure out what is going on, finding tubelights sitting above me, never having dimmed and giving me no hint at a time of day. Oh shit. It’s then I remember the previous three days and how I slept in a jail cell last night. Though sleep is a generous description of my night on this piss-scented mattress.

The Murphy boy is officially in the ground. His funeral is what actually pushed me over the edge and onto the doorstep of local law enforcement. I asked, or demanded, help from a lot of them. Most turned me away, but these ones decided to keep me. Everyone, including Mr. and Mrs. Murphy, is trying to “heal from the tragedy” and move on while I’m in the drunk tank.

Instead of moving on with my life and pretending everything is fine like the rest of Grimm Groves, I’m trying to stop the Wolf. I went harassing police officers and getting myself tossed out of every station in a hundred-mile radius. I’m not sure if I’m looking for justice anymore or a way to escape his note and that ring.

My whole body aches as I push up into a sitting position, groaning at my stinging tailbone. I’ve got a literal bruise staining my ass. Though, in all fairness, a different set of officers is responsible for that.

“Where’s breakfast?” the drunk who got the single bunk last night asks. They pulled this spare out of storage. I guess they’re not used to having to hold more than one person at a time. I couldn’t care less about breakfast; all I want is to get the hell out of here before I have to use the toilet in front of him.

“You’re quiet today,” he accuses me, but I hardly spoke to him last night.

“Don’t have anything to say,” I shoot back, and he laughs, but it’s not funny to me.

“Ain’t no breakfast, Jim. You’ll be leaving after you talk to the judge,” the asshole who tossed me in here says, and I turn to find a short and hefty man who didn’t take kindly to being called a disgrace. He looks at me next. “Time to go.”

“Aw, come on, there’s my entertainment,” the man behind me says.

I stand up pretty quick, ignoring him and reminding myself not to lose my temper, but a nasty crick has formed in my neck. Coming from a family of moonshiners, I have a natural distrust for law enforcement, but that is quickly morphing into something nastier.

Once I’m on my feet, the officer looks me over, glaring at me. I don’t know what he’s thinking, but he doesn’t leave me long to imagine before he says, “Quit looking for trouble, young lady, or you might just find it.”

“Thanks,” I say, having learned my lesson enough to shut up just this once, but trouble is obsessed with me, and I’ve never had to look for it.

“I’m serious,” he repeats. “You’re a pretty enough girl. There ain’t no reason for you to be poking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”

“I learned my lesson.” I don’t tell him the lesson was I should lie to people like him more.

He nods. “Step back.”

I do, and he unlocks the door caging me and allows me to leave under my own power. We walk down the hallway with him standing behind me. I don’t dare look back and show him just how nervous I am to have him in this position. A group of officers stand around a desk and talk to each other. My cheeks turn pink as I pass, not because they’re discussing me now but because I know they will be once I’m gone.

“You have a nice day, Miss Little ,” one of them taunts, putting an emphasis on my last name I don’t quite understand.

I want to turn around and ask, maybe fight a little , but I don’t want to give them any more reason to think I should stay. The door opens beneath my hands. The fresh spring air clears away the last of the reeking cell. It was only one damn night, but I’d rather not repeat it, and I feel broken to my core as I cross the parking lot.

I cry a couple of tears as I climb into Penny and smell the traces of Pop’s pipe tobacco that are starting to fade after all these years. The loneliness I usually feel doubles and triples over itself until I might explode. I could head home, and dammit, I want to, but there’s one last station on my list, and what more could they really do to me that hasn’t been done? I shiver as I consider a few options, but it’s the last on my list, just one more set of assholes, and I’ll have done what I set out to, even if none of them help me.

“You could just leave!” I shout at myself as I slap the wheel. “Why the hell won’t you just leave?”

One of the officers steps outside, and I quickly realize he’s watching to see if I leave. I dry my tears on the back of my sleeve and start the truck, thinking about all the ways I’ve been disrespected recently. I pull to the edge of the lot, thinking about everything until I’m spitting mad, exhausted, and damn ready to just go home, but at least I don’t have any more tears to cry. One more conversation, and I can be done with all of this.

Or you could just leave , a little voice suggests from somewhere deep in the back of my head, softer than my shouts and more reasonable sounding. My gaze follows the highway north for a moment in the opposite direction of home or the last station. I haven’t been this far from the mountain since I moved back. I’m nearly shaking with the tension of being rejected so many times, especially so close to that old freedom.

I could leave.

I salivate, dreaming of the life I always wanted, that freedom, but it only lasts a few seconds before the truth sinks in. The Wolf is my cage, and I’ll never be free so long as he is.

I take out my map and give a longing look at the interstate I won’t follow, and with that, I have the strength to fight. Just one more time.