Page 8 of Small Town Beast 2: Saverin’s Duet (Sins of the South)

THREE

LORRIE

My love for you has turned to hate.

Absalom flicked the radio to the gospel station but the eternal words of Hank Williams lingered. Lorrie kept her eyes forward. Damn right, Hank. She hated Abi. He could go to hell and stay there. She never wanted to see him again. She never wanted him to touch her again.

“Here we are,” Absalom said, pulling up to a random spot in the pitch darkness.

They’d been driving for what felt like hours down two miles of bad road.

Lorrie’s whole body ached from rattling around the front seat.

And where was here ? Some cabin in the woods that looked like an FBI-most-wanted hideout.

There would probably be a rickety twin bed, an army of mice, and no running water.

Not the romantic night she had imagined when she drove up here all those hours ago with all her fool ideas of winning back her man.

“You alright?” Abi asked quietly.

Without replying Lorrie climbed out of the dilapidated Ford Ranger and slammed the door. It was childish but she didn’t know what else to do. Everything was so confusing. She felt dirty and disgusting.

Absalom took her bag from her. “This way,” he said. In the crook of his arm he carried a long Winchester, the kind for hunting deer.

The pitch-black forest hummed with insects and night-birds and stranger things that sounded more spirit than animal.

Lorrie’s slippered feet sank into thick layers of leaves.

Following Absalom up the small trail towards the cabin took them through a hall of dancing fireflies.

The moon was low. A strange cold air stole along the forest floor, enveloping the two night-travelers in its mist.

“You gonna stay mad?” Absalom asked.

Go to hell , she answered silently.

“We’ll talk more inside. I got to tell you something.”

“I don’t want to talk.”

The night Lorrie had kissed her neighbor Mike had been very different from this one.

A sweltering heat had settled over Rowanville, the kind that made everything swollen and sticky.

It was Absalom’s wedding day. But it wasn’t Lorrie Smith walking up the aisle to be his lawful wife.

No; Lorrie was in Rowanville, finding it all out over Facebook.

Heartbroken, Lorrie went out and bought tequila, vodka, and peach juice.

She fixed herself a Cowboy and drank it all down to the last drop.

Then she made herself another one and watched the sun go down from her porch.

Heartbreak rolled through her like thunder and lightning.

Towards the end of her second drink: enter Mike, the neighbor.

“Watch your step,” said Abi in the present day, helping her up the leaf-strewn stairs. He handed off her bags, propped the rifle up carefully and got out a ring of keys. Dozens of keys.

“What are those for?” Lorrie was provoked to ask. She knew Abi had three keys: one for his truck, one for his house, and one for hers. This jailer’s ring she had never seen before.

“Later,” he said, putting his shoulder to the door.

Lorrie inhaled, expecting to be slammed with the musty odor of mouse droppings and dust. But instead came the faint smell of linseed and turpentine which meant it had been cleaned recently. Curious, she followed Absalom inside.

Betrayal was nothing new for Lorrie. She’d grown up poor.

Her parents loved her but had demons, and her little brother drowned in New River when he was only nine.

For as long as she could remember she had to look after herself.

She clung to her faith because it was, at the end of the day, all she really had.

Then came Absalom. A redneck. Po’whitetrash , her Aunt Pearl would have scoffed.

Lorrie never wanted to love him. Honestly.

Despite what Abi thought she knew good and well how the race-mixing thing went up in Florin.

Why bother with those white boys who thought themselves Lord and Master of their little trashy hollers?

She saw them watching her. She sometimes heard their nasty talk.

But she knew they would drop her like a hot potato as soon as they took what they wanted. So she moved accordingly.

But Abi was different. He looked after her. He talked to her. He saw her, right down to her soul.

And what she loved most about him was that when he gave his word on something, he saw it through no matter what .

A promise for Absalom was like an oath written in blood.

For a girl raised by liars it was enough.

Their relationship wasn’t based on sex, but trust and understanding.

She loved him completely and without reservation, more than she had ever loved another living soul.

And so this betrayal didn’t just hurt. It cut her wide open.

“The light works,” Absalom said, flicking a switch on the wall. “There’s running water, too. And the bed’s comfy. It’ll be alright for a night or two.”

Or two.

“I need to get home tomorrow, Abi. I have work,” she reminded him sharply.

“Yeah, alright,” came the unpromising reply.

Lorrie’s eyes adjusted to the dim lighting. The cabin was furnished with a twin-sized bed with an iron frame, a kitchenette and a tiny table for eating and sitting. The only decor was a brass rabbit in the center of the table. Fancy.

It was clearly a hunter’s shack meant for short stays, or somewhere to have an affair in perfect privacy.

They were alone.

Really alone, this time. Absalom rubbed his jaw and stared at the floor, seemingly working up something to say. Lorrie had nothing to say. The only thing she wanted to tell Absalom Green Tree was what road to take to hell.

In the new light the blood on Absalom’s clothes showed up in vivid patterns. There was so much it even changed the color of his boots. And it stank like hot metal. Lorrie’s stomach turned. “I’m tired. I’m going to bed. You can sleep on the floor.”

“Suit yourself,” Absalom said with irritating calm. “I ain’t sleeping here though, darlin’. I need to head back out.”

Of course; he was probably going home to his wife.

Lorrie set down her bag on the table. If she was going to stay the night she should text Francine, the salon owner.

And her clients. That was money gone, and Francine would be pissed.

But what choice did she have? Anyway, she could only blame herself for coming up here like an idiot thinking she could turn around a sinking boat.

Abi took her blood-soaked Bible from inside her jacket and set it down on the table. “You forgot this, honey.”

“I don’t want somebody’s blood on my Bible.”

Was he really serious right now?

“Lorraine, I never did anything to you that wasn't for your own good.”

“Is that supposed to be an apology?” Her stomach made another revolution. “You killed somebody in front of me.”

“He deserved worse than what he got.”

“That didn’t give you the right—”

“Yeah, how would that be for your first time, getting raped by some Back Hills mutant while I watch?” Absalom flushed red to his ash-blond roots, his temper reaching its limit. “Damned no matter what I do, eh?”

“You married someone else and got her pregnant!” Lorrie screamed, throwing the nearest object she could find at his head.

The window shattered. The brass rabbit. She’d thrown a hunk of brass at Absalom’s head. Oh God, she could have killed him.

But he barely reacted to his near-braining. He just said coldly, “You were damned lucky you didn’t get caught out with that lie, by the way. They would have shot me and took turns on you all night.”

Too furious to speak, Lorrie sat down on the bed and turned her head.

From the corner of her eye she saw him strip out of his bloodstained clothes. First went the Carhartt jacket she had mended for him many times. Then the longsleeve Henley shirt. Replacements came from a box under the bed he politely asked her to retrieve. She did so in stony silence.

Don’t look at him.

Can’t help it.

Every inch of Absalom’s body was toned and hard from a rigid diet and physical discipline.

Lorrie’s head barely came up to his shoulders.

But despite his size, he hadn’t always been the toughest cat around.

Dozens of scars laced across his back, some criss-crossing each other, a map of painful memories.

Each one marked a battle he had not necessarily won, but survived.

The worst was the shiny crescent on his neck where someone had tried to cut his throat.

Lorrie didn’t know the whole story of Abi’s life, and she probably never would, understanding it was something he preferred to just forget.

He never slept more than a few hours a night, hated blankets, pillows, and scented candles.

Scented candles made him physically sick.

And then there was his temper. She’d seen it before, tonight being the worst demonstration of what Absalom was truly capable of.

But although he had a dark side, for Lorrie he saved all his tenderness, and what remained after life had dealt him those blows was deep and true.

“I wish you had stayed down in Rowanville,” Absalom spoke suddenly, with anger still in his voice. “I didn’t want you up here if anything happened tomorrow. There’s no way I can protect you.”

“What’s happening tomorrow, Absalom?” Something with the clans. Something about the weed Harvest. He’s leading some kind of rebellion. I wish he would just stay out of that mess.

To her question Absalom gave only silence.

“So that’s what happens when you don’t tell me stuff,” she countered. “ I jump to my own conclusions and figure it out for myself.”

“You’re nosy as a jay, Lorraine, that’s what you are.”

“Tuh!”

He shrugged into a clean gray T-shirt. “You don’t know how that felt watching those motherfuckers stand over you.”

“I know how it felt, what the hell do you mean?”

“I’ve had guns pulled on me before, but that was different, Lorrie. Jesus, if they had hurt you…” His jaw knotted. “Pass me those boots under the bed.”

She passed them.