Archive of Our Own ^beta

She looked down at her feet, hands drenched in bleach and her body reeked of the years-old mold that had dominated the room like an incubated cancer. Everything that had looked like shit, now actually smelt like shit. Her guts turned and craved to dunk out the breakfast, lunch and dinner of yesterday. She stunk; her hands hurt; nails splitted; skin torn. She could feel the tingling of chemicals eating the soles of her bare feet alive on the cold wet floor. 

She watched the tiles on the wall and the grout lines lead her eyes and mind. 

How did she get here?

How did things turn out like this?

Well, it all started with a fight. Like all the dark and ominous movies with a cinematic entrance telling something bad was about to happen...well, worse than what was already going on.  

Dad threw a pair of tongs down the countertop of the kitchen and because it was inox, the sound thundered and tore the air. Dad stuttered when he got angry. Like a little kid with a shallow vocabulary to word out his thoughts and threw a tantrum over his own struggle, Dad trashed through different counters and tables of the kitchen, angrily spatting mixes of broken letters and saliva, angrily throwing his limbs up and down, right and left, angrily expressing his anger with the ponderousness of a man in his late sixties.  

She could only vaguely remember what was the first spark of their fire, something about money. It was always about money. Business not going well; too many expenses; the bank paid a visit; the mob paid a visit; the fucking raccoons paid a visit. 

It was never good when the people who paid visits weren’t customers. All it took was a pan of burnt sunnyside to add a cherry on top of the disaster souffle and pushed Dad over the edge. 

“You’re always good for nothing, Grace.”

“Always more bark than bite, Grace.”

“Shouldn’t have gone to college if you can’t run a fucking business, Grace.”

Mom named her Grace because it was how Grandma was named. Dad named her that way because he wanted his girl to be all good and sweet. A decent lady, as all dads hope their daughters would be. Little did he know that the little Grace that used to fly on his arms was now strong enough to throw a cast iron pan toward his head hard enough to hit the wall and crack it.

She got her own demons. Didn’t matter if her name was Grace or anything, this wasn’t Downtown Abbey and everybody had long known she was no lady. So she walked away from Dad’s shock and out to the rolling hurricane. It was that time of the year, weather went bad, business went down, yet, compared to the room with her old man in it, the hurricane still seemed much more pleasing. 

Against the pouring rain, she screamed. Her voice was feeble against the wind, thunder and lightning. She was nothing but a pebble against nature. There wasn’t even a single thing out of the clear land for her to channel her anger on because they made sure nothing would be able to fly around and hit the house in case the weather got hectic. She trashed in frustration, kicking puddles and jumping around the muddy ground.

She found Dad in herself, in moments like this, and she hated it. 

She stomped down a puddle that turned out to be a shallow hole and went down like a tree. And that was when she started punching the puddle like a maniac. She remembered thinking of nothing. Her head was blank. Her blood rushed. Her limbs went on their own. 

She saw them then. 

The monstrous truck was way too big to be seen and recognized as an automobile in the downpour. The standard selective yellows for terrible weather stared at her blankly, coming down from the road and getting down the lane, closer every second. 

She froze. Within seconds, the thing found itself in the front lot and stopped. She saw it clearly once it was parked in the front lane. It was a black Tremor with rugged cases strapped on top and a fully loaded back storage. Really big wheels; really good ground clearance. 

The fancy magnificent thing stopped all alone and stood out in the howling wind. It was nothing but an old vampire lord paying a sudden visit to a poor town that was her road motel. 

She got in as soon as she could. She drench her hair and stuffed the towel under the counter. She looked down at her jacket and her feet. She knew she looked like shit and anyone stepping in would notice right away how she did a 180 down the ground in the mud like an overexcited Labrador in the middle of a hurricane, but she had no time. She knew they were coming in. 

And they did. 

She thought of what kinds of unfortunate idiots would still be on the road in this kind of weather. The nearest town was thirty miles away, and the rain wouldn’t be stopping for roughly until the rest of the week. Based on the look, they had traveled for a while. 

Just as expected, there was more than one person. One man barely even fitted through the door after they shrugged off their coats at the front porch and made their way in. Three men and a dog, wet from head to toe. 

“Two rooms.”, said the giant man in a very deep voice as he approached her desk with a jarring speed. The floor rumbled after each soaked step of his heavy boots. He had this murderous look on his face that did a little tug on Grace’s bladder. His brows dragged down, eyes icy cold and a voice lower than a growl. 

It was a cold night, yet Grace was sure the temperature had dropped a little since they entered. He slammed down the counter two perfectly clean and dry one hundred bills, forcing her to hesitantly check him out. 

Behind him was the other man and a boy somewhere around the age of the delivery kid downtown who swung by every week for papers. Good looking chump. Bright eyes, thick brows. He got a typical mean face for teenage boys around the rebellious phase but his jaw was sculpted fine and he looked just about right in the jersey bomber jacket.

All of their clothes were dripping down the floor, the dog was even shaking itself dry by the door… If that was what she could call a dog. The furry mutt was bigger than a gray wolf, and Grace had seen wolves once in a blue moon around the edge of the forest. 

Somehow, they looked more irritated than miserable. The one with the bills though, he was really something. His eyes were fire and ice, Grace couldn’t even dare herself to look into them. His shadow spread all over her like an oak tree. He was beyond six feet of meat wall. Too tall. Too big. With one arm down the counter, he easily covered all of Grace’s front view. 

Scary, but the fact that he looked like he could gore someone’s heart alive, didn’t really change one odd reality that this was some strikingly fine man. His prominent jaw and strong brow bones were the first to meet her eyes. His thin lips and sharp, fiery eyes were probably what made his young skin tardier than it should, but everything about his strong features was quite appealing. He was handsome in the rough, manly kind of way that probably a lot of men would appreciate more than women. At least, that was how he was to Grace.

His look scared her. It scared her how his look and size made it seem so easy to do terrible things. 

She looked down and noticed the bare hand that slammed the bills down her desk. She saw the band that sat on his ring finger and found herself gulping audibly.  

Those were very big and colorful stones.

“We don’t allow pets.” 

He glared down at her, didn’t crack a word. The air froze with his silence. For seconds, she couldn’t think of anything but the way those icy blue eyes pinned down at her. 

She jumped out of her skin when he pocketed himself and pulled out something. For a moment, she had thought it was a gun. Shit like that happened in this country. 

Fortunately, it wasn’t a gun. Unfortunately, it was something way worse.

He slapped down the counter a stack of fifty. A whole damn stack. Clean, unwrinkled, perfectly dry, bank standard fifty bills. 

“You do now.” He declared. And that was it. 

He didn’t say anything else and turned on his heels. Only then did the other man behind his back revealed. He had a scarf all over half of his face and a coat clearly too big to be his. 

The Giant’s companion only stood up to his shoulders when they got close. The ringed hand grazed over his half-covered face in an unexpectedly delicate manner. The eyes that had been deemed to flay Grace’s skin off her face just seconds ago, now softened and glinted full of light before his figure disappeared out of the door and into the hurricane. 

The partner turned his head and all Grace could see was nothing but his eyes. It was the prettiest blue in her life. Small pupils; deep sapphire; thick lashes and healthy brows. Those were eyes that were deemed out of this realm of earth. 

His eyes gave a little squint for what she supposed was a smile, just about the time when The Giant returned with their luggage. Two duffles, two suitcases and a hiking backpack. 

They must be some really avid hikers.

“CIean’em. I want working bathrooms, working cables, and clean beds. For now, we’ll take two nights, if more, I’ll add in. I want breakfast at eight, sharp. No room service. Leave the towels and sheets at doors.”

She looked down at the rack laid on the table, fingers unconsciously swiping through them. Five thousand. Holy fucking shit. Five thousand for two fucking nights. These guys were nuts.

“This is too much for two nights.” She muttered. Her body shook, it wasn’t just because of the cold. 

All of them turned and stared at her. They looked at her clothes, her wet dripping hair, and her trembling hands. They knew she couldn’t refuse. 

The Giant smirked. Grace’s heart fastened. 

“Serve us well then.” He said then joined his companions on the couch at the waiting lounge, shrugged off his wet jacket and pulled the partner’s head down on his shoulder, smiling for the first time. 

~0~

Grace thrashed through the storage and pulled boxes out of the shelves. 

Cleaning supplies. She needed fucking cleaning supplies. Bleach. Clorox. Anything. 

She opened the toilet lid, took a whip and hurled her guts out into the nearby sink. She quickly moved to another room, checked all the lights and then moved into the bathroom. It was much better than the other. 

She went down on her knees and started scrubbing. 

Twenty minutes later, she ran back to the diner, passing Dad without a blink and kicking open the kitchen door. Uncle Joe flopped off the chair where he had been sleeping on and slowly crawled up.

“Jesus, Grace!”

She stormed over toward him, had him by the collar of his flannel shirt and grunted. “I’ll give you 500 bucks to shut the hell up and do your job.”

“W⎼what?”

“We have customers. Big ones. Now I know how you like to run your mouth, but this ain’t the time nor the people to. So take their stuff to their rooms, don’t crack a word, and turn back. Can you do that?”

Uncle Joe blinked. She could see the little gears turning in his raising sized brain. After a minute, he finally nodded. 

It was shoulder season, generally, shoulder season was just a technical term the tourism industry named for boring, unproductive time of the year. Any place would be lucky to be half occupied. Around this region, they had a nice forest and some good lakes connecting to a wild river for camping, fishing, or whatever. Normally around this time, there were still people coming back and forth, busy folks with little time to travel, school trips, scientists,... but with the seasonal hurricane coming in, the motel was basically deserted. 

That was, until those three came storming in.

Five grand. Five grand for just two nights. These people must have just robbed a bank. 

Judgments aside, Grace really needed their five grand because there was no way on earth she could ever make that amount throughout this whole season. 

Money was tight. We all make hard choices in life. 

Jason Todd and Richard Grayson, at least that was what was written on their ID for room registration. Welp, they looked like a Jason and Richard. She handed them two family suites next to each other: the boy and the dog in one room; the couple stayed in the other. Grace had sorted it out that they were a family. Was she prejudicial? Fuck no, anybody showed up with a five grand could draw a pentagram on her floor if they fucking wanted it. 

A shame though, all good looking men turned to love each other these days.

She prayed that they found the places acceptable, prayed that the bleach had evaporated at least a little, and prayed that she had enough food storage to feed them and the mutt.

They were quiet though. Unlike most tourists who could never shut up, throughout the whole check in, none of them crack a word. They sank the air whenever they went with their silence and custom tension. 

They took the rooms easily, not a word of complaint. 

After breakfast at the family diner, which occurred sharply at eight as The Giant aka Jason had requested, they pulled out a map, a compass and some other weird looking devices that Grace failed to identify on the table.  

It was the first time she heard they speak.

“...We’re at thirty seven latitude… About fifteen miles?”

“Around that. The mud track starts from here and all the way till there. We’ll make a pit stop for the mud terrain at this spot.”

“That is, if it needs a change at all.”

“It will with this weather. But we’ll see.”

“Yeah, hopefully. But the rain has slowed us down, so… bottleneck?”

The man huffed gently. “With luck, maybe.”

None of the things they said cracked a sense to her skull. She looked out at their Tremor packed in the front lot. The car was a beast alone, but this beast was heavily upgraded. 

Military, perhaps? But what kind of military took a kid along their journey. And a dog. Grace had seen K-9 but not that bear look alike creature. 

Though she had never seen them before, they talked like they had been here before and knew their way around. 

They must have noticed how her ears were up because there was no way the Giant’s partner didn’t see how she quickly ducked her head down and pretended to clean a glass only to grab it upside down. 

“Miss?”

Fuck.

“Yes?” She swallowed and forced a smile. Play it cool. Play it nice. He was pretty. Shouldn’t be that hard.

“You live here, right?”

“Born and raised.”

He got out of his seat, put his hand out and smiled the prettiest, cleanest smile Grace had ever seen, all sparkling teeth, dimple cheeks and diamond eyes.  

“Richard Grayson, but please, call me Dick. Over there is my husband, Jason.”

“Grace Mccray.”

A firm hand this chad had. Pretty fingers, but bony knuckles, calloused skin. He must workout a lot.

“Any chance the rain will stop soon?”

It was usually the time for seasonal hurricanes, but nature struck particularly hard this year. 

“I’m afraid no. We’ll be lucky just to get over three hours dry. Weather around this time is unpredictable, but we’ve got it worse this year, I’m afraid.”

Dick and his partner looked at each other. At the end of the room, their boy and the dog were playing fetch with a small tennis ball. 

“That won’t buy enough time for us to even get off track.”

Grace looked down at the red circle drawn on their map. “Are you guys heading into the forest?”  

Please just say no. Please just say no. Please just say no. 

“Yes.”

Fucking damn it. She really didn’t want any policeman knocking on her motel just for another missing report. It really didn’t seem good for business and scared other potential travelers away. 

This household lived on travelers. She couldn’t afford another bad year. 

“Is there anything in there for you guys?”

Please don’t be crazy. Please don’t be crazy. Please don’t be crazy.

“What if I say no?” The Giant chuckled.

These crazy bastards. 

“The forest is a dangerous place. I wouldn’t advise going deep even on a peaceful day.”

“You heard her, Jason.” Dick said while nudging his partner in the ribs. He got that dark look on his face, the kind of look that wrote a big ass keep out sign on his brute, wide chest. Now that he stood right here, ten steps away from Grace looking down at his chimmy, smuggy looking partner, she really took in how big he fucking was. The man was build like a brick house, his biceps the size of Grace’s whole fucking head. 

The ground shook under the might of his weigh, his sight, his low deep voice.

“Wouldn’t be that deep, but yeah, not with this weather. The track will be hard to find.”

Grace squinted her eyes. She had spent her life going in and out of that wood, there was no track. Every day lumberjacks going in and coming out, no one had ever said anything about a track. 

“Trevor dropped a message.”

“Yeah? When was that?”

“When you were asleep.”

“Did he say we have to go back?”

“No, he called just to say I told you so .”

“Aw, so nice of him to care. Did he offer cavalry?”

“He did.”

“And you said no.”

“I said no.”

“It’s your high pride against the weatherman, huh?”

They’d regret it. The forest wasn’t one to joke with. People died, people disappeared. That was what happened in the storm season of forest valley. Locals here always joked, if anybody went missing here, don’t even bother looking for a body. Look for the bones and scraps, clothes and hair, because by the time you manage to find something, those are all what’s left. 

Jason scoffed. He crossed his massive arms and looked at their boy wrestling with their mutt at the other end of the room, chuckling, “What a trip, don’t you think, honey?” 

Honey , such a strange word coming out from a man looking like him. He even softened his voice when he placed a large hand over his partner’s in a well-practiced manner.

It was the first time Grace heard him say something that wasn’t a grunt.

“It was your idea to keep driving.”

“I was being cool in front of John. I didn’t think you’d agree.”

“Well, somebody had to back you up.”

It must be something that he had wanted to hear but didn’t expect to, because the Giant stared back at his partner with eyes colored of the sky reflection through ice stalactites of a December morning. Each time lightning tore the sky and hit the ground, light flashed through, lit up the sky for one split second and condensed on the glassy glaze of those irises. 

Grace suddenly realized, in that moment of a silent void followed up after the groundbreaking strike of light, that moment when time was halted and sounds were strapped in this space, she realized how attractive he was. 

He was handsome when those fierceful brows eased out and a smile bloomed on his thin lips. Big hands came over and covered his partner’s whole as if they had always meant to be entangled. A thumb softly caressing skin. 

Grace looked at that fine man and she knew. She knew he had no one else in his eyes, but him .

~0~

On the second day, a blackout came. 

Grace was in the laundry room, watching the machine twirling bundles of white, sad towels around and around when suddenly lightning tore the sky with a roar and painted everything white. Then everything turned black. 

“Shit shit shit!” she shouted and continuously kicked the washing machine, knowing no amount of violence would be able to bring anything back to life. She should have grown accustomed to this. She was. But a lot of things had happened and a lot of things had happened at once, she was a bit overloaded.  

She came stumbling into the kitchen, trying to find some candles. Flashlight in her mouth, the clicks of her teeth against the plastic handle matched the downpour outside. Cold and frustrated, she refused to admit she was frightened. 

The biggest customers in a year and they had to come over at the most unpredictable time of the year. Her luck was already walking a thread. She needed the money, their money. She couldn’t let these people go because of a fucking blackout. 

“Fuck fuck fuck.” was a very multifarious word in description, expressive in many terms; different tones, different meanings. So as she chanted “fuck” like it was a holy bible against the demon slowly swamping her heart, she turned and found him, white as a ghost against the blinding light of her flash. 

“Fuck!” came out as a scream three tonnes higher than when she was 16 and weighed like a wheel of cheese. 

The flashlight fell off her hand and hit hard down the floor. It twirled around and roll, until the last of its light chose to land on that same pretty face. He didn’t blink once, not even in front of the blazing light until it finally died off, and they were swallowed by darkness again. 

“Power’s gone.”

“No shit!” might have come out louder than it should. She was shaken to the core, cold from fingers to toes. 

He got closer to her, feet made no sound against freshly mopped floor. He moved on his soles, twirling and skirting around things that were one with the shadow, things that Grace herself bumped into with a light in her own hand, in her own home. 

He picked up the flashlight and got close to her with ease, smiling all the way through. 

“Do you need help?” he said. His voice was buttery soft in winds of just a whisper. He looked down on her in a gentle manner that spoke within the eyes. Exotic sapphire. Felt like they shone even in the dark, against thick lashes and healthy brows, rose cold cheeks and gentle lines. 

She was lost at words for a moment, full face slap of… well, all of him. He was a lot to take in and he was too much to take in up close. She stared, maybe for a little too long. But who was there to judge as they were all alone in this cold dark room? 

“Grace?”

“Yes,” she snapped out, “help me look for candles, they should be around here somewhere.”

 “Where’s your father and uncle?”

She laughed, mostly to herself. “The hell do I know, probably piss drunk somewhere. To them, the sun rises and downs at the first and last bottle within arm reach. They won’t know a fuck if an earthquake comes by.” She looked back at him and found silence irritating, “Sure this ain’t something a guy like you understand.”

“I guess. Jason isn’t the type, he never gets drunk anyway. But I’ve seen enough from others… perhaps too much.”

“Is that why you’re here? Escaping all of your life problems to this godforsaken place with your good looking folks on your wax shine car, getting caught in the storm and refuging in our scrubby moldy adobe which, as you can see, can’t even stand a fucking day.”

“I didn’t realize that’s how people see us.”

“You’re nice, Dick, better than most people I’ve got so far. But you look like you haven’t seen a day of labor. Pass those combat boots, ripped jeans and gingham shirt, you’re still a city boy. It’s pristine in how you walk, how you talk.” She cued over his head, “Check the drawers over there.”

“Well, at least I tried to dress the part. You have a problem with city boys?”

“Oh no, I like city boys. They come with money, our bread and butter right there. I just don’t like it when they talk like they’re walking our shoes.”

 “The sun.”

“What?”

“People usually rely on substances as relief from negative feelings, either physically or mentally. The sun doesn’t rise and down by the count of empty bottles, time stops moving when the spike kicks in, and everything turns quiet. Does your family have a history of mental illness? Demons most men choose not to speak of? A trait of trauma, hard time dealing with anxiety, building stress from daily life? Is your uncle from your mother's or father's side? It could be a mental state of dealing with a loved one that has passed away.”

Felt like something punctured her guts when the last line landed. He had her scared, dazed and furious within five minutes of his presence and she was fucking numb her tongue shuttered to match up with his composure.

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. Who do you think you are, talking shit like a fucking shrink,” Dick didn’t say it but by the way his fancy brows moved up and down, plus that fucking smug ass grin on his pretty pink lips, Grace got it right away. “No shit.”

“Judgemental?”

“Just fucking surprised, that’s all.”

She was the one with the flashlight but Dick got no problem keeping up with her, even though he was keener on talking than staying steady on his feet. 

“Well, I can’t say you look the part.”

“What part do I don’t look of?”

“Old?” She scoffed and turned, just to see his pretty smile aiming back at her. “You sure look too pretty for the job, but I guess that’s not the first time you heard that.” 

“I wouldn’t lie.”

“You shouldn’t, not when your job is walking into people’s minds.”

“Only if they want me to.”

Grace looked back at him and scoffed. “Thought you said you wouldn’t lie.”

“It’s not a lie. The mind is like an open concert, you might catch enough of a glimpse and sounds if you pay attention, but you need tickets to walk in. Patients must give me consent and passage to help them, just as much as they help themselves.”

“Like you can’t climb over the fence.”

“I can, but that would be unethical.”

“Just so you can sleep better at night?”

“Yes.”

The rest of their search fell back to silence, only the sounds of random things on the metal counters. Grace was the only one with the light and she wasn’t planning on sharing, but Dick didn’t seem half bothered at all. If not, he seemed to be way too comfortable working in the dark. 

It was only after Grace had climbed down from her anger that she spoke again. 

“My mother passed away after my 20th birthday, lung cancer. She never touched a damn cig in her life, neither was my father since meeting her. But my grans, they both smoked like chimneys. She did her best for my uncle to move out soon, basically raised him, but 30 years in with grans… 30 fucking years. How fucking irony was that? It ate her out eventually. We did our best until the dime ran out for her chemo. We didn’t have much, and so did she. My dad and uncle are never the same again after she died.”

And he smiled again, smiled like he already knew she would eventually spill everything about her past, present and future like popping new year's champagne. Hell, look at that smug. He had walked this path before and was fucking good at it.

He struck Grace as a type who had never got a no in his life, who got heads turned and a passage on shit shows just because he was a syrup-coated apple on a stick and everybody was in line for a bite. He got things he wanted because people loved to be loved by him. His attention was expensive but they were all chickens in his yard, wouldn’t mind half a fuck if he came with a cleaver.

She was a chicken but to hell if she got nerves to back herself up to a corner. 

“Enough about me. Tell me, who do you work on, pretty boy? Who sits on the end of the table on your private armchair and open up their minds for ya?”

“Criminals, mostly.”

Grace tripped on her feet, stumbled over the steel countertop. It would have been her face on the floor if Dick didn’t get a firm grip on her arm, holding her still. 

She ripped herself off of him quickly, his touch felt electric even through clothes. She was never one for looks, but it felt strange being around him. 

“Be careful there.” 

Even when it was just a whisper, the softness in his modulated tone glided over Grace's skin like a thin layer of ice, raised her hair and chilled her bones. Her heart raced against the ribcages, thunderous sounds like the rain against the roofing.

He handed something over to her, eyes remained contact.  He didn’t blink as much as she wanted him to, and it was very distracting. She looked down and almost choke, he didn’t find any candles, but better, another flashlight. 

It was right then that the power went back on, the kitchen was lit bright and alive. His visual hit Grace at full force, seized her lungs in a fucking grasp. He was so beautiful that it was starting to piss her off. 

That was, if her eyes hadn’t seen the ring on his hand. She already knew they must be somewhat fortunate to afford a truck like that, plus flinging away five grand in a blink just for a sorry excuse of a motel like her place, but this? This was the kind of money that awakened the devils in men of rural lands like this. 

“Well that went well” he laughed, all white teeth, dimple cheek and squinting eyes. 

The kitchen door swung open, and Jason came in. 

“Heaters back on.” he announced with open arms and not even half a shrug. 

“Welp, that’s my cue to go back.” Dick then scrunched his nose and duck low, just enough to whisper by her ears: “He gets cranky when I go away for too long.”

The flashlight felt heavy by her chest as she watched them reunite. Only minutes ago, that arm, that body that strongly held her weight when she unsightly tripped over herself, now suddenly seemed small against another man’s embrace. 

Jason patted Dick’s back and they both walked away with a big hand down the small of his waist. It was only when the sounds of their feet disappeared completely, did she moved to touch her right ear, right where Dick’s breath was still warm and tingling her skin. 

~0~

On the third day, a call came. She knew right away whose it was from, and let the line ring until it died off. The rain was still heavy, thunder shook the ground and lightning tore the sky. For once she felt grateful of this weather, of the time it bought and the short-life peace it offer.

Grace was dozing off behind the reception desk when something wet touched her fingers. A pair of big, amber eyes stared into her soul when she woke up. 

“Jesus fuck.” she shouted and immediately regretted it when the mutt went back on all four and started growling. She must have jumped it. 

“Easy, buddy.” 

The boy called at the other end of the hallway and the dog sat back down, ears turned and tail wagged. It was fucking huge, even when down on two legs, the head leveled by Grace’s chest, and she was on a fucking chair.  

“Ferocious beast you’ve got there.” She held her breath again when it tilted its head and looked at her. For one stupid second, she really thought it could understand her. 

The boy burst out laughing. “You heard her, buddy. A beast.” he then shrugged to her, “It’s his name.”

“Beast?”

“Yeah. My dads aren’t very good with naming. Apparently, one of them was inspired by Beauty and the Beast.”

Grace could vaguely guess which he the boy was talking about. 

Kid was a good looking chump. Tall head, big shoulders, plus that smug ass grin was a damn fine touch. He looked nothing like his fathers in features (understandable), but at the same time, strangely alike.  

That smug, the sharpness in those eyes, the gravity in those steps was of Jason, no doubt, but at the same time, that rich laugh, squinted eyes when he pet the mutt was definitely Dick’s. 

Nature versus nuture. Guess the latter got the better end of it. 

“Hey kid.”

“John.”

“Alright, John.” she playfully dragged, but then the boy glanced over with all the amusement out of the window, Grace almost pissed herself. He was too much like Jason. 

“What is it?”

 “Where are you folks from?”

“Gotham.”

“Gotham city?”

“Yeah.”

“And you drove all the way here?” 

“A little adventure ain’t hurt nobody.”

These nut heads… they could have flown here, half the trip, half the price. The roads and mountains of the Ozarks were never one to mess with, the weather was as unpredictable as a gamble, and the people twice as.

“You’re…adopted?”

“Does it look like any other way?” He whistles and the mutt came tapping toward him. 

“How long have you been with them?”

“You always ask this much, lady?”

“Don’t call me lady.”

“Are you not one? Should I call you sir?”

“Your dads taught you how to talk to the elders like that?”

“Dads taught me respect gotta be earned. You ain’t earning any nosing down our business like that.”

There was a certain style in a boy that was raised by two men, huh? Their education was oozing through that little mouth of their successor, sleeves-up type of folks they were. Not ones to joke with. 

See, when talking about two gay men living together raising a child, Grace expected polo shirts, tight khakis, waggy hands and hoity-toity prep school. Call her old-fashioned and all but the people here didn’t really live up to time. She didn’t expect two rugged men, an edgy jock teenager with a wolf-sized dog coming down on their lane in their fancy truck. She was curious, couldn’t help it. 

She was switching feet, debating on what to say next when her uncle walked in. God help her, he looked sober for once. Probably too little food to aid the booze down, they were cutting down their portions for the guests. Suddenly too many mouths to feed in the middle of a fucking storm.        

“The tractor is acting up again.”

“You try kicking it?” 

“You take me for a retard?”

She sure did more than he could imagine. 

She side-eyed when John put on his hood and left with his dog. “Look, next time don’t use that word.”

“What word?”

“Retard. There’s a fucking kid here.”

“Kid looks like he can fucking take it. Boys those years should be swearing like sailors, like I fucking did.”

“And ain’t you wind up brighter than Alaska in December. I don’t give a fuck what you did, Joe. But I ain't throwing our business out of the window because you can’t keep your fucking mouth. That kid didn’t like what he heard and sure as fuck his dads ain’t gonna like it either. Same people with money to pay our debts. You’ve seen those men? Real men. Don’t fucking test them.”

“Ain’t no faggot a real man to me.”

“Oh Joe, you really is a fucking retard. You think fucking a woman makes you better than them. Where’s your dick then when a call comes, huh? Can’t even get enough balls to pick up the damn phone.”

And there was it, that fucking cowardly look shadowed over his unkempt face. The words struck harder than the storm roaring outside of their doors. 

“Did they…”

“Yeah,” she admitted, eyes down the floor. “Just earlier, and last night.”

“T⎼they can’t… Not with the⎼”

“The storm? Yeah, but it ain’t gonna rain forever.”

She looked out the full glass window and watched the gloomy sky, thinking their future wasn’t any much brighter. 

~0~

The next day, the rain stopped. Grace opened her eyes to the sound of birds fleeting through dry sky. The ground was muddy, the clouds were heavy, but the storm had ended. 

She got up, brushed her teeth, checked on her dad and uncle, and headed to the barn in the back of their motel with the weight of the world on her shoulders. 

They used to have chickens in this place, but as time passed through, the motel and her family alone were a lot to deal with. Grace was never a great farmer anyway, she hardly made it through managing this place. 

At this time of the year, they always stocked up logs and and dry branches. Electricity is nice but can’t really test it in the storm season. Too much power running and everything goes boom. After that family left, she’d switch off half of the circuit breakers and keep the light down low. Heater wouldn’t be running so she rounded to the back and took an axe off the shackle on the wall. The tractor that Joe kept complaining about laid dead and ancient as a piece of permanent furniture, wrenches, screws and screwdrivers everywhere among the hay. She kicked his toolbox on the way to the door and twirl the wedge in her hand as she strode to the open field. 

There was a certain freedom in each weighed rise and fall of an axe to a fresh log. It was a fucking heavy-duty job to work on, you gotta energize yourself with some sort of anger to really drive it through. Grace ain’t got a problem with that. It was a good way to go, she grunted, shouted, screamed at each strike the iron blade nailed. Flying splinters and wood dust got everywhere, on her clothes, boots, hair and even her fucking eyes. Her work was messy and her blocks were never the prettiest, but she felt fucking good when doing it. 

This was probably why boys at school and men her age was never into her. Men around here, or just men in general, enjoyed the dominance they got against a softer, weaker, powerless woman in their hands, not a lump back, ugly walk and stiff arms like Grace. She was grumpy, demeaning and always half-ready to throw a fist. Couldn’t really run a road motel in this place with a lesser personality. 

She drifted off whenever she chopped. She drifted off so hard that she didn’t realize he was standing right there, six feet and a half of brawn, long legs and dark eyes. 

“Shit.” she blurted. “Sorry, is there something you need?”

“You do this often?” he threw his chin up and smirked, eyes down her bare, veiny, calloused hands.

Goddamn it, now that Grace really got a good look at him, he was really a fucking looker. Not the same kind of looking that his husband was, but rougher, grimmer. The type you usually saw from carpenters, lumberjacks and iron smiths with dirty hands and smooth fucking mouths.  

He was intimidating as hell though, not just from his physique alone but also in how he presented himself. 

“A girl gotta do what a girl gotta do.” she clicked her tongue and shrugged. If she played it right, maybe he wouldn’t know she was shit scared of him. 

“Are all the men in this house dead?”

“What, you think a woman can’t hold an axe?”

“A woman can do whatever the hell she wants, just never seen a man here move his ass.”

“They’re here, on and off. They’ll come out like flies at a click of a bottle.” she swung the axe again, but this time, she wasn’t angry anymore. She was distracted, being watched. Her strike down the log was crooked and the thing flew off the chopping block, half split. 

“Jason, right?” When he didn’t answer, she took it as a confirmation. “I’ve met your husband. He’s nice, one hell of a looker. He uh, must get you into a heck of trouble.”

That seemed to please him. Apparently, the only thing that ever seemed to ring this big man’s interest was his partner. He looked around and laughed, “Don’t let those blue eyes fool you. He’s a cunning motherfucker.”

No shit. “Said he’s a shrink.”

Jason nodded, “He likes to talk. Like to make people talk better.”

Well fuck hell if she wanted to talk more about it. She already got the first ticket on the whole psychoanalyzing train, and she didn’t fucking like it. Jason watched her struggle with the logs in silence. 

“Tell me, why folks like you chose a place like this? You seem to have a nice life, so why not LA, Hamptons, but a shit town like this?”

“I like trees. You have trees. Trees are better than people, especially from where I came.”

“So I’ve heard about Gotham.”

He laughed then. It was a good laugh, low and rumbling and oh so rich. His voice was warm and sturdy, yet, so exotically attractive, like the soft crunch of freshly baked bread out of the oven. 

God, she needed to get laid. The first two men she met since the storm started and it had to be the most attractive people she had ever seen in her life.

“So you’ve got this place up and running by yourself.”

“On and off, didn’t I tell ya?”

“Those hands seem like they’re used to doing this kind of thing all alone.”

Grace rubbed her red, patchy palms down her jeans and sniffed. She should wear gloves but she never did, made her grip on the handle slippery. 

“Alright, give me that.”

“What?” she exclaimed, holding her breath when he came over and took the axe out of her hand. He was so fucking big that his shadow completely swallowed hers. 

“Your blocks look like shit.”

She couldn’t argue with that. 

He put a new log on the block, picked up the wedge and scoffed, like it was a fucking toy. She crossed her arms, waiting for the show. 

Jason wasn’t the first man try to flex. City boys thought chopping wood was as easy as lifting weights in the gym, like doing bench presses or carrying gallons could help them wave an axe and get shit done. 

She was halfway through engining a smuggish laugh when that axe thundered down the log and the forest howled. The log and the chopping block split into two, iron blade deep in the muddy ground. 

“Shit,” he muttered, “Well, at least the handle is still good.” 

The axe twirled in his one hand like a fucking fountain pen. He grinned at Grace with those sharp white teeth and deep dark eyes. 

“Who are you?”

He laughed, this time low and short, “Just a city boy, lady.” Grace regretted every life decision she had made so far. “You’ve got another block for this?”

“Yeah…yeah.”

“I wouldn’t mind doing the rest. It’s good to move around a little.”

She liked the way he handled the axe. He was as big as an ox and twice as strong. Grace got a pile of unchopped wood, a motel to run and a person willing to give a hand. It didn’t take her a second to come to an agreement. 

She went back to the main house, smiling along the way, thinking…well, maybe those city folks weren’t too bad. Weird people, ticked all her nerves, but good people. She wouldn’t go as far as saying they were harmless, but at least she wasn’t worried about them robbing her or trying to bury a body in her yard or something. 

She looked out the front yard, right at the lane where their Tremor parked. Mud tires and chain on the cabin, they would do just fine after checking out and leaving this place. It was just then that she saw two black trucks take a turn at the roundabout ahead and drive down her lawn. 

~0~

It was a safe town in general, back in the early 20s. People were simple. They met on the way to wood, back at the time when the wood was a lawless, limitless common shared ground, you walked in, you watched out for animals, and you went home with woods and hopefully a good hunt. The people at the lake were generous, and the lumberjacks were like everybody’s uncles. 

That was until the Mexican cartel came over, got a good grip of some local casinos and ran their lines on the roads between the woods and mountains. Sure it was still okay as long as you mind your own business and stayed out off road at midnight, saying you didn’t see what you saw or didn’t hear what you hear when the cops pulled over. But ever since, people drove these tracks with double firearms, one riffle and a pistol in their compartment. The riffle was for hunting, and the pistol was for…well, precaution.   

There was two things the Mexicans offered to this town and the local people when they moved to this town: jobs and protection. The mountains and lakes were okay, but the real attraction was the casino. Thousands of jobs, millions of dollars… sure that part was a good buttering on the bread to forget about the protection part. 

Yeah, protection. No robbery, no mugging, no prostitution walking in and out of places they shouldn’t be. If not a penny is paid, you bet your ass the next day some Mexican guys would pull over your gas station and rob you clear; you woke up to broken glass, flat tires and dead animals; you’ve got a ticker to stick up, flexing your gun, saying a word or two about the racket, throwing punches, and the next day your wife and kids get a call from a station saying your car had slopped down the ridge and hit a tree, an unfortunate accident on a road you’ve driven every day since knowing what a wheel looks like.   

The drill was set, and people followed. Nobody had been talking shit since they just wanted peace. Peace was all this place ever was and now it just came with an extra cost. 

Grace watched the men climbing down from their trucks and pulled open her door, stepping in while looking around nonchalantly in their slow, steady pace. And she knew, she just knew, peace was now beyond what she could pay for.

“What can I help you?”

They all looked white and somewhat around their 30s, dirty blue jeans, beat-old boots and layers of worn jackets. Local folks that lived on the Mexican’s money. Turning their own people against them. 

“Looking for Grace Mccray, ma’am.” asked one of them with a black, worn-out Missouri Tigers cap.

“And what’s your business?”

“She owes us quite a deal, about time we get what’s ours back.”

There were seven of them, strange men she hadn’t seen before. These were men they sent out when they knew people weren’t going to make it for the due date.

“You are Grace Mccray, aren’t you?” He seemed to be the leader, the voice of them all. Things started and ended with this man’s words.

“What do you want?”

“What you owe us.”

She sucked in, hand grazed over the shotgun strapped under the counter. “You’re ahead of schedule.”

“No, we are already behind schedule. You still haven’t paid us last time, now our boss has been very, very generous with your business here. It’s been a tough year for all of us, we get that. But trust gotta be mutual, so is respect. We’ve respected you enough to give you some extra time, now it’s your turn to show some respect and honor your part of the deal.”

As Missouri Tiger said (Grace would just call him that now), she noticed how the men behind hooked their fingers on the belt loops, just gazing over their guns.  Grace sucked in, hands went cold under the counter. 

“It’s been tough for us, you know that.”

He clicked his tongue, “Sure, lady. We understand.”

“Then why did you raise the price?”

“Because we gotta eat too. We understand your predicament, but it ain’t make it our fucking business.”

“Look⎼” 

The words got back down her throat when the man placed his gun down the counter. The silver, deadly thing laid there staring at her, drilling holes without a trigger pulled. Air seized in her lungs, her grip slipped off the shotgun like oiled chain. 

He didn’t have to say anything, not one of them had to. Grace pulled out the till and started taking everything out, every bill, every coin, even the elastic bands that randomly got in there. The clean stack that Jason gave her when his family first arrived, now stared back at her. 

She must get these people out of her house. 

“Here. That’s all I have.”

The man flipped through the bills, clicked his tongue and looked around. 

There were seven of them, only one of her. She might got a shotgun, but they all have a pistol up their asses. Her train of thought kept rolling, until her head got slammed down the counter and the man got up face back up the air by her hair.

She was stunned, only a sound came out when she hit the counter surface, but when he pressed his scrubby chin by her ear and pulled her strands hard, her heart was beating so hard felt like it might break the ribcage. 

“You think this is a joke? This is only half the sum of what was promised. Twelve grands! All of it, now!”

“I don’t fucking have it!” 

She thought she was tough. Hell, everybody thought she was tough, boys called her names when she was in high school, she chopped wood and swung a shotgun on her back going up the mountains. Never really got the right curves or a pretty smile, she swore and got meat on the shoulders. She thought she was a fucking rock that could crush some balls up against her. 

That was until the mob came over with their paper money and silver guns. They robbed the house clean, protection racket every year, didn’t mind the storm, the fucking pandemic, they came rolling over their lane asking for hard earned money. That was more than enough to make a paper man crumble. She ain’t no fucking man, she was fucking shredded.

“You think this is funny? You think you can fuck with us? With them?”

“I swear, that’s all I have. That’s all I fucking have⎼” she got slammed down the counter again before words ended. This time was same the shock, twice the pain. Her face burned. Stars popped out in the corner of her eyes. Something wet ran down her nose, probably blood.

Missouri Tiger pressed his gun down her forehead and hissed. “You’re gonna pay us now. I don’t care how you get it, so either you have a goose that shit gold in your barn or Imma fucking gut you right here, on this fucking floor and rip out your liver as payment.”

It was just right at the end of that line that the bell above her door chimed and the door swung open. Dick got in and was immediately welcomed with a gun barrel pressing at his forehead. 

Shitshitshitshit. Grace thought as he looked at how the other goons quickly surrounded Dick and locked the door behind him. 

“Came to check out.” exclaimed Dick with a straight face as he looked at the people gunning him with dancing dark brows. 

Missouri Tiger looked down on Grace. He jerked her up by the hair and cocked his gun at Dick. His grip pulled on her scalp, her neck, her fucking back. “Who the fuck is this?”

“A customer. He’s got nothing to do with this.”

“A customer? In the middle of this fucking weather? Well, business ain’t seem so fucking bad after all.” He looked up and down at Dick, smirked to himself and scoffed down her ears tardy, sour breath of a man who smoke too much and couldn’t keep up with good hygiene. “Say, it would be pretty damn bad for business if somebody lose an arm here. Look at him, wouldn’t want a scratch on that pretty face, don’t you think?”

Dick was a smart man. He got his hands up and behind his head all complied. Made this easier for Grace to just fucking surrender and gave these people what they came for. 

“Let him go, I’ll pay.”

“With what?”

Her eyes were on Dick again, Dick who came here with his family and didn’t fucking deserve to be caught up in this shit show.

“I’ll sell this property.”

“Grace…”

“I can’t fucking hold it anyway.” she cut Dick off and laughed, “You folks’ been eyeing it for years, right? Ain’t this a perfect time to make an offer?”

Did it break her heart to say it? Fuck yes, this was the land she was born and raised. Three generations of Mccray and it ended with hers. But did she regret saying it? Hell no. She knew what needed to be done. Blood couldn’t be shed, not blood of the people she knew she couldn’t pay for. 

“Well what do you know, ain’t that cut us a shit ton of time. Should have brought the pretty boy around sooner, the thing you do for a cock. Especially if a cock is this good looking.” He finally let go of Grace. 

She slumped down the floor, a puddle of messy hair, noddle legs. Missouri Tiger strode toward Dick’s place, gun in hand. She tried to mouth him to run, but Dick only smiled back at her, smiled with those soft gentle eyes and berry lips in a manner that said it would be okay. 

Missouri Tiger’s hand slapped down Dick’s ass harder than testing new leather seat on a freshly coated boat. Dick rolled his eyes, played it nice. 

“Nice ring you’ve got there. Ain’t this my first fucking time seeing a man wear a rock as big as my balls. Who did you fuck to get a ring like that on your hand, pretty boy? Mr. fucking Beast?” 

They all laughed. 

“Hey, leave him alone!”

“Chill, I ain’t doing nothing yet. Aren’t I, boys?”

Safeties were pulled and they were all aiming at Dick. Grace held her tears back inside the sockets and prayed. 

“Now why don’t you let me have a look at that, fairy boy, huh? Just a look?”

I’m sorry was all she could muster up the courage to mouth when Dick stood there with a gun pressed at his temple. Absurdly, he seemed way too calm to even smile back at her and eased his hand in a way that only she could see. His own sensual, sightly way of saying that everything was okay. 

And while everything wasn’t, he kept up the act until the end. 

“You shouldn’t have asked for my ring.”

Missouri Tiger chuckled, scratched his chin, “Why the fuck not?”

“Because now I’m pissed.”

They laughed at Dick with their wavy guns, waggy tongues and thrusting hips like the figurative assaulting image they were trying to deliver could drag a man like Dick down the mud with them. But what Grace thought never mattered, right? What she thought never value a penny when it came to the cartel, and so they kept on laughing and laughing… until Dick kneed Missouri Tiger in the crotch hard enough the man bit on his own tongue and went down the floor like a sawed tree. 

Everything went shit wild after that. Dick took the one in front of him by the head and⎼holy shit, leaped into the air, knocking three guys in the range in a go. He disarmed them faster then they could get armed, guns down on the floor, bodies hitting each other. 

Dick moved like a fucking feline, like gravity didn’t mean shit to him. Jumping, kicking, twirling, hitting, bouncing. He skirted around like weighing a feather. Graceful, coordinated, so fucking sturdy in how each strike was calculated to land and how each time he hit someone, they never got up. 

Somebody managed to fire a gun. Dick moved aside, slid on the floor like butter on a hot skillet and did a full split-leg swipe, sending the guy down with a heavy thump. The man went down, off his trigger and shot an inmate on the go. 

Seven men, seven guns, and Dick got back up on his feet without a single scratch and a silly smile at Grace like the sun just rose above her head. 

“Fuck me.” was all she managed to mutter. 

“Well, that was easier than expected.”

“You’re full of shit, city boy.”

“You’re welcomed.”

They both laughed. It was just then that Grace saw Missouri Tiger got back up and launched on his feet. 

“Watch out!” she screamed, but Dick seemed to move even before her voice got to him, like he got eyes down his nape. He moved out and let the man slide on the floor, but he was sliding straight toward Grace. 

She should move. He was feral, he had a fucking gun, he wanted her fucking life. She should fucking move. But her legs refused to cooperate and she just laid there, just fucking laid there on the fucking floor staring at the gun pointing at her. 

When the bang came, she shut her eyes and her whole life came scrolling through the closed lids. Past, present, and the future that she couldn’t have. It was only until she opened her eyes that she realized she was still fucking alive. 

Dick with his arm stretched out, got a death grip on her collar. He moved with god speed and pulled her out of the gun line. The bullet that was meant for her head, gazed Dick’s arm and landed squarely on the reception booth. 

There wasn’t time to think, there wasn’t time to even process, Dick immediately threw a back kick at Missouri Tiger’s hand and sent the gun flying to the other side of the room. He went down with a scream, and quickly spring back up with a knife. 

“Shit, you’re bleeding!” Grace shouted when she saw blood sipping through the tear on Dick’s jacket. Suddenly, her body was on the move. She scrambled on her limps trying to deal with the dripping wound of the man who just saved her life.

“I’m gonna fuck you up, you fucking cunt.”

“You shouldn’t have fired!” It had been one hell of a roller coaster for Grace, every counting minutes and seconds, but this was the first time she really saw the anger in Dick’s eyes. “Now I can’t save you.” 

He still got the brain to talk shit. 

Missouri shouted and charged over. Dick was up on his feet, ready to bounce when suddenly… he stopped. 

He just stopped. 

He stopped and put his hand over Grace in a protective, assuring manner and smiled as his eyes cast over Missouri Tiger’s head and to the behind. 

That was when Grace saw him, a mountain of a man standing at the door with an axe in his hand and burning green eyes. 

~0~

“Who the fuck are you?” 

At some point throughout this whole event, if Grace was any ounce of that typical country girl her dad always dreaded her to be, she would have jizz her pants. 

Jason stood there, six feet five of ripping muscle, massive biceps, broad shoulders and mountain legs. The chopping must have sweated him so good that he lost his jacket down around the hug on his hips, only a grey tank that seemed to struggle to keep all of his body concealed. Grace’s axe heavy in his hand, the same thing she always had to flex to got it on both hands, now held easily in one palm like it didn’t weigh an ounce. 

He looked down on Missouri Tiger with half the interest a boot gave to an ant, because why more? Felt like he could fucking slap the guy right through the glass if he wanted to. 

Dick was quiet by her side, holding to her shirt a little too tight to be just protective. She saw how he trembled a little, and was caught wordless in the way he looked back at his husband. 

“You okay, honey?” was the first thing Jason said right at knifepoint. He threw his eyes over to Dick and solemnly to him.

“Just a scratch, Jay.”

A scratch he said. Grace tore her shirt to wrap his arm, trying to stop the bleeding. The earth swayed to her at the sight of blood, but Dick didn’t give it as much of a flinch, he nodded a thank you and went on to check her nose, head and eyes for a concussion. 

“ You need medical attention,” she said when batting his hands away.

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do. He needs medical attention!” she turned and shouted to Jason.

“Grace, please. Don’t .” When she didn’t listen, Dick jerked her over and whispered, “I don’t know what he would do.”

“What do you mean?”

On the other end of the room, the other goons had started to wake up from their concussion. They shook their heads, stumbled back on their feet and all turned to face Jason. 

“Fucking faggot, Imma fucking kill. Imma fucking kill you and your little fag boyfriend. Do you know who I am? Do you fucking know who I am?! The cartel won’t let this go, they’re gonna fuck up you so ba⎼”

Jason swung his arm and with one hit, the guy went down the floor nose first, teeth flying. Even from across the room, Grace could hear the sound of something cracking. 

There was always a solemnity in this man’s silence. Everybody held their breath, it was so quiet that Grace could vividly imagine the sound of Missouri Tiger’s blood dripping down her tiles. He turned his sight over just enough to look straight at Dick, an inferno was awaiting. 

“Honey, look away.”

Sound were those words and like a true gentleman, he waited until Dick turned on his heels and back up to all. Only then, and only then , Jason launched over them like a wild grizzly bear, all those pounds of meat and muscle ready to draw blood. There was too much to see in just too few minutes. Speed in the way his feet dance steadily on the floor like gliding on ice, inching from body to body; or strength, which was what he all was, pounding, slamming, knocking people’s teeth out with bare hands and knees. There was something primitive, if not all of it, in the way he fought. Nothing like how the grace of how Dick swung before. 

Jason was organized like a trained machine, but the way he put bare skin in the job, like how he grabbed on people, pulled their hair, thumbed their eyes, and kneed their crotches. All of what not so little he had shown before Dick pulled Grace’s head away and turned her back to the fight as well.

Needless to say, you gotta be pumped up with the thought of killing someone to go this far in a fistfight, right? But Jason looked like the type of guy who didn’t even need to think about killing to be able to kill, and right now? Right now as the sound of men screaming, bone-cracking, furniture breaking and the heavy waves of Grace’s axe licking the air filled this sealed room they shared; right now as she looked down at Dick’s bleeding arm that was holding her tight and the blank expression on his beautiful face against the violence display on their backs. She bit her tongue and waited for everything to end.

The door chimed again and to her surprise, somebody managed to crawl out of the rampage and hit the lawn. They came here with pride, little men with their big guns. Suddenly you feel like you can go up against the world. Now one of them was with tail between legs. 

Just then, John walked by. 

The world halted and even the screaming stopped. The guy slowed on his feet and everybody held their breath watching the boy take his headphones off, squinting eye from the distance. His dog by his leg, huffing with tongue out. 

Grace turned and saw him. Jason covered in blood that wasn’t his, eyes square on his boy through the glass. His head gave a little bob of a nod and right then, from across the lawn, she heard John shout something not. One word, one command. Not English. And the mutt came flying. 

It launched on the guy, a mountain of a beast knocked him off his feet, down on the mud. Even from afar, even through the glass, Grace could catch every growl, howl, and scream. Sort of things you couldn’t forget until you died.

While the beast mounted the man until the puddles colored crimson and his legs weren’t kicking, John reached behind his back and pulled out a black pistol from his waistband. He checked the magazine, snapped it back, pulled it, flicked it, and flexed both hands holding the weapon with grace and concentration that men twice his age couldn’t fucking have. 

Jason shook his head and the boy nodded back, moving to the back of the house with the dog sandwiched between his legs, knees folded and gun up like a trained trooper. 

The room sunk too deep into silence it struggled to kick back to life. The old clock ticked on the floor, slow seconds against the sounds of thunder from afar. The storm was coming back. 

When footsteps thumped down the floor, Grace’s teeth clattered together, until his presence was right behind her back, shadow pooled over her body, the wall. She didn’t even realize since when had her body recoiled and turned back to hide from the sight of everything. Breathless, she broke into cold sweat when he reached out past her face for the tissue box on the counter. 

“Call the ambulance.” His voice was low, lower when he got closer. Jason wiped his hands clean and glared down on her. She knew she better picked up the phone or it would be her on the floor next to those goons. 

“Jay?” 

Clean hands wrapped around Dick’s face, his eyes, pulled him close into big chest when Dick was about to turn back. Same hands that started and ended a bloodbath, now held a man so tenderly. 

“Don’t look.” hushed Jason.

“Did you⎼”

“No, but they will if that ambulance is not on the way.”

He glared back at Grace, and all the memory of them at the open field chopping woods just vanished. 

“I’m going to walk you out, okay?”

“Okay.”

“You’ll get John while I make some calls, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Do you still want to head to the cabin?”

“I do.”

“Okay.”

Jason kissed Dick’s head and they walked out, backward. Jason’s big hand covered Dick’s entire face and Dick’s hands held onto Jason’s secured arm as they steadily, step by step, walked out of the door. 

It was only when the sounds of their footsteps faded away did Grace really turn and looked at what was left inside the room. She let the sight sink into her memory, laughed, vibrated in her skin, and fell down to the floor hurling her guts out. 

~0~

Ten minutes later, the ambulance came, three vehicles lined up in her lane to carry seven men away on stretchers. Grace didn’t know exactly what Jason did in those few minutes, but most of them look pretty fucked up. Police pulled over fast enough after the medics went away. She reported an assault, felon folks pulling over her house and started quarreling, things hit the fan and the rest ended up on 911 express. 

She knew how things work around here. The authority knew how things work around here, they knew her family owed dirty money and meddled with the cartel. Nobody wanted to meddle with the cartel. If she cooked up a good excuse and got wounds on her face, no fingerprint on any of the weapons, they’d let her slide like tires on ice.

She found Dad and Joe huddled up in the barn like chickens. She was fucking pissed that they left her out there to fend their asses all alone, but at the same time, fucking glad they were safe and sound. 

Half an hour after the cops left, the family got out of their rooms with luggage on their backs. Jason had changed into new clothes and Dick’s arm was neatly rebandaged with a clean, white cloth. The mutt circled close around his knees like liquid, pushing its big head against his stomach, whining all the way. She couldn’t see it differently now, not after what was sighted at the lawn.

They pulled their map and compass out again, talking about which road to take, where to camp, where to sight. Still high on what just happened, Grace didn’t find the brain to ask them if they would just pack up and leave like the storm they were.  

It was only until Jason squeezed through the doorway with three people's luggage on his shoulder, John buckled the mutt’s harness vest and they both started loading the Tremor, ready to hit the road, did she start to panic. She grabbed on Dick’s safe arm and gave him plead through the fucking eyes. 

“You’re leaving?” if she sounded hopeless, scared, then that was because she was. 

“Yeah, we’re already behind schedule.”

“But…” But what? She couldn’t keep them. Couldn’t stop them. Couldn’t fucking get the heart to look at Jason straight in the eyes when he waited at the Tremor, looking back with a straight face. 

“Don’t worry.” He read her mind, “I told him about what you said.”

“What I said.”

“About selling the property to save me. He appreciated it.”

She said it to save both of them. She wasn’t the one who went head first against seven men and risked taking a bullet for a stranger. Why must he look like this, and act like this? Was God really that prejudiced to give him all of that and her all of… this?

She never got the answer because in the end, she wasn’t everything she or everybody ever thought she was. She wasn’t some tough rock to fend herself when the time needed, wasn’t some sweet country girl Dad always wanted, and sure as hell wasn’t a gold heart Dick said she was. She left them leave and did nothing but stare at the hot tracks of their Tremor imprinted on the mud of her childhood sanctuary. 

A week after what happened, she lived on her tiptoes waiting for the cartel to barge through all doors firing guns at her and her family. A little ove two weeks and nothing unusual came and the storm eased off for sunshine to arise through the mountains, she became delusional and drove around the casino a couple of times. Not got the guts to turn in but she lived with the fact that she wasn’t anything more than chicken now, ain’t no shame in that. 

A month passed and just when she started to cut the ropes tighten around her lungs, two SUVs came down from the lane and parked squarely down the lot. Four men in black suits and leather gloves, a middle-aged woman with a gold pixie cut, and a Mexican came walking out. Grace’s hands fixed on the shotgun still strapped under the counter. There was only one bullet in the role and she made sure to save it for herself. 

They hit the front house quick enough. People in ironed suits and leather shoes. They walked off shiny waxed cars with clean bumpers and not a slur in their accents. Proper folks, big city dogs. She knew the Mexican tops were money but she didn’t know they were this big in the game, big enough for two Escalate and a suit army. 

They walked slowed and they talked small, nothing like those racket collectors had hit her house in the past. 

“Ms. Mccray.” 

She flinched. One hand off the riffle but one hand tighter on the grip. “Yes.”

“You were into business with the Sorona Cartel until the late, weren’t you?”

Straight to the point. Class and grace right at the first tango when she expected a waltz. 

“And what do you want from that information?”

“You offered to sell the property to the cartel, correct?”

“Where did you…”

“Answer the question, please.”

She held her breath, looked at the woman and then all of them. She got a stern look on her face that told nobody better be fucking with her, and Grace ain’t planning to. 

“That’s right, ma’am.”

“Good. I’ll make this quick. My name is Wendy Caballero, I’m a district attorney and I’m here in representation of my employer to discuss the handling of this property.”

“Wh…what?”

“Your land, Ms. Mccray. We’re here to discuss about your land.”

Her grip turned wet. Suddenly, her breathing was too loud for her own ears. Grace looked at the men waiting in the back and knew, really knew how serious they all were. 

“Did the cartel send you?”

“I’m not here for the cartel, Ms. Mccray. I’m here to tell you we’re offering two hundred thousand and twenty-five for the nine hundred acres in your ownership. Location-wise, the price for reconstruction, gas drills and land assessments will be added separately and make no cut to the total sum of value on your end.”

“Wait… hold up.” Breath. Fucking breath Grace. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“We’re turning this place into a service station. And you’re running it.”

Grace looked back and forth between the people in the room, laughed, swallowed her laugh and hyperventilated. 

“You’re joking… I’m running it? But… I’m selling it.”

“You seem to be confused by the definition of these terms and I don’t have time for a one-on-one economy lecture. So take this simple, the money is for your land without annual gross of management expenditure. We own it, you run it, and if you can’t run it right, we kick you out and replace you with any redneck of your kin with competency wise enough to push buttons on a calculator.”

The was no fight nor flight left in Grace. She swallowed looked up to this moment and choked. She wasn’t even within her personal space but her glance was weighing her down until Grace’s knees buckled. 

“A service station, you said.”

A smile, small, firm, but it was a smile. “There’ll be six tanks, a convenience store and we keep the motel you’re running with a pool in addition.” 

That was… a lot of renovation.

“With no additional cost?”

“No, real estate and construction are two different covenants so you won’t mingle with that.”

“And I get to live… here?”

“I suppose you can’t run it 24/7 if you don’t live here.”

Both hands off the shotgun, her feet backward until she hit the wall. Big people in suits and they didn’t need to lift a hand to have her all limber like wet clay.

It was too good of a deal to be true. She shouldn’t trust these people, not with a Mexican in the room. 

“Who was your employer again?”

The attorney fixed her standing, looked at Grace with calculation and huffed it off like assessing a child with a dump question. “If you wish to remain in business with the Sorona Cartel, Mr. Gomez can help you. He’s here to witness the transaction of our deal and make sure you cut all ties on the previous arrangement, including your debt and racket sum.”

Grace needed to think this through. This was… big. Bigger than even the cartel and she couldn’t just jump from a wolf house to a lion den. 

A file of paper was pushed on her counter. A lot of letters, a lot of numbers. “These are all the terms and requirements, legal statements and tax information. Sign here, here and down here, full name on that one and if you want some grounding, we can set up a meeting at the office of government service on Monday.”

“No, I don’t… I don’t need…” Grace bit her lips, eyes squeezed shut. “Will there be any… uncover expense in the future?”

“You mean protection racket?” The attorney snorted. “We don’t do that kind of thing.”

“That kind of thing you said, put me and my family in misery every year for the past decade. It almost killed me last time. So I need your word that it won’t be on this contract nor my future ever again.”

She didn’t need another incident like last time. Didn’t need another breakdown scrubbing blood off her tiles, walls and ceiling. Didn’t need another man like Dick to jump in the fireline for her and bled. She wanted kids like John hit this place and left with fond memories of dirty sinks, shitty food and not the hoodlums with iron and force. 

What she thought must be written clear on her face, the attorney looked at her and sighed, didn’t pressed on but instead called over her shoulder, “Trevor?”

A black man came up, roughly over six feet with wide shoulders of long coat and a three-piece suit. He reeked of the intellect and education of those handy guys who did the legwork for the real money. 

He looked around, accessing, judging. Making sure Grace know he was judging. 

“Do you know⎼” Grace flinched when he stepped around with the solid soles of his leather shoes against cold tiles, “That money from drug is the only liquid investment capital in the last three years? It takes up 10% of the whole economy, backing banks, giving loans, keeping firms, houses, jobs and foods of millions of people on the table. I’m sure Mr. Gomez here understands the matter more than anyone, considering two third of the profit of Sorona Cartel is from heroin.” The Mexican looked away and if Grace wasn’t imagining it, he seemed as uncomfortable being in this room as Grace was at the moment. “My boss doesn’t really fancy that sort of thing but it’s proven lucrative enough to take a dive. He’s more open to stuffs that keep people coming back rather than killing at first lick. He’s addicted, not in the use of them but in selling them. But enough about drugs, do you want to know the other slices of the cake aside from that 10%?”

He lowered down by her ear, enough of a distance to raise the hair at the back of Grace’s neck and switched her head on autopilot. 

“Weapons, Ms. Mccray.” He smirked, whispered, “Guns, missiles, explosives, silver rounds, the cute little old-school 20 gauge you’ve been jerking under the counter since the moment we stepped in.”

If Grace’s heart wasn’t loud before, it sure as hell was now. She breathed through her mouth watching the man circling around the room she had spent every day for the last month forgetting what had happened. 

“Those slices I just mentioned are just slices but they’re big enough to matter. We represent multi-billion industries, Ms. Mcrray. There are money to spend. So yes, you won’t have to worry about protection racket because not a dime of your life can ever cover the scale of what we’re doing here.”

He got it. He knew he got it because men like him always got what they wanted. He twirled the contract back to her and took a pen out of his pocket, taped his finger gently down the blank space. 

“Sign here.”  

And she did, like a dog with a bone in her mouth. 

He put the pen away and smiled with enough genuinity to make Grace’s stomach turn. 

“Good business, we’ll arrange people to help you with the move and a place to stay until the construction is completed. Oh, and one last thing…” People walked out, along with the Mexican and the attorney, and they started the cars ahead, waiting. There was only two people left in the room, but there was one too many. 

Grace’s heart raced when the man looked down and around himself, patted his hips and gave her a gesture to wait. Then he flipped the back of his coat aside and there laid an axe dangling by his back this whole time. Blade clean, freshly stoned, and not a mark on that finely embroidered handle. She knew a quality axe when she saw one.

Grace was too stunned to talk, jump, or run. She watched him lay the heavy thing down on the counter and tapped the wood with his knuckles. 

“The Red Hoods send their regards.”