Unfinished Hero 04 Deacon (8 page)

He wasn’t alone in getting a new vehicle.
Three years ago, I’d bought a dark green Range Rover. My baby. I
freaking loved it. Much better than my car. Especially when I had
to hit Costco and load up on laundry soap in bulk.

Also in the last four years, a bunch more had
happened.

I’d had all the cabins re-insulated, for one.
And I’d had swamp coolers installed. I’d upgraded the furnaces. I’d
attached flower boxes to all the windows of the cabins that faced
the lot, and in a few weeks, I’d be filling them with bright
flowers and lush greenery. I’d had permanent fairy lights wound
around a number of aspen by the parking lot and dotted through the
woods to add more light to the night and do it in a way that was
attractive, quirky, and welcoming. They were on timers. Turning on
late dusk, turning off at eleven-thirty to let the five dim
overheads do the work of lighting the space.

This meant now, they were off.

Further, as the snow melted away, the
wildflowers would be coming. Randomly and regularly I tossed seeds
and planted bulbs wherever it struck my fancy. Amongst the trees,
around the cabins, around my house, but concentrating up and down
the river banks. Some of them didn’t take so I did it repeatedly
(and would be doing it again soon with the seeds, the bulbs I’d
plant in autumn) and every year I got more blooms coming up, color
bursting through the summer months, making the entirety of my
property even more beautiful.

I’d also had the master bath at my house
renovated, something, thankfully, I did not do myself. I’d gotten
rid of all the flowery wallpaper and painted or papered the walls
like
I
liked them. I’d refinished all the floors (something
I did do, backbreaking but worth it).

I’d further managed to get rid of some of the
chintzy or velvety or flowery furniture and replace it with pieces
that suited me. Quirky pieces. Comfortable pieces. Things I liked
to see when I walked into my house that was becoming, month by
month, inch by inch, all about me.

I’d also hired Milagros to help with the
cabins. She cleaned them and changed the sheets when a customer
left. On occasion, she also hung at my house with her husband
Manuel in order to be available to patrons whenever I needed a
change of scenery.

Having her helped amazingly.

It meant I could go boarding, which I did. It
meant I could take jaunts around the county and the ones adjoining
on more than rare occasions. And not just to drop brochures and
staple pamphlets on bulletin boards, but to discover, go shopping,
go hiking, have the kind of mini-adventures that made life
interesting.

Having Milagros also meant I could go to the
local festivals. It meant I could go into town, have a drink, make
some friends who were definitely now friends and not friendly
acquaintances. I could go off and listen to live music at the bar
in town or in Gnaw Bone, which wasn’t too far away.

I could have a life.

I could really live the dream.

And a life I had.

I just wasn’t living the dream.

I knew it.

Something was missing.

I just didn’t know what it was.

I’d even dated (and gotten laid). Alas, none
of these men worked out and it wasn’t like I always had a guy. But
at least I had some companionship that was more than shooting the
breeze with Milagros, going to her house for dinner when she asked
me, or hanging out with my girls in town.

As far as I knew, and I knew not very far
because I knew him not at all, nothing had changed for John Priest,
except he had an updated SUV.

I wondered, vaguely—which was the only way I
allowed myself to wonder before I shut it down—where he was after
one in the morning.

Then I focused on the cabins, the one with
the boys being lit up like a beacon, but worse, the cabins on
either side of it and three more besides had lights on. Lights I
knew that had been turned on because they were probably right now
phoning my cell to tell me to do something about this crap.

I felt my blood pressure rise as I tightened
my grip on the bat and stomped up the steps to cabin six. Horizon
cabin. The cabin painted in the muted blues and grays and purples
of a Rocky Mountain horizon with prints of horizon vistas on the
walls.

The Navigator was out front, as was another
SUV.

I walked right to the door and knocked.
Loudly.

The music went off quickly. A lot more
quickly than the door opened.

In fact, the door didn’t open at all.

I hammered on it, shouting, “Open up!”

“Who is it?” a boy-man’s voice shouted
back.

I didn’t share who I was because he knew who
I was.

Instead, I threatened, “Open up immediately
or I’m calling the police!”

Several moments passed before the door
opened. But not far. I still caught a glimpse of the space beyond
filled with food wrappers, beer cans (in fact, on the coffee table
there was a beer can pyramid and it wasn’t a small one—how was it
that the youth of America never got out of doing stupid crap like
that?) and the couch was covered in bodies. Two to be precise.

A boy on top.

A girl on the bottom.

And another girl who was not on the couch but
on her feet. She disappeared out of sight within moments of the
door being opened.

At what I took in, more precisely, at the way
the girl was laying there, a feeling of dread shifted through me as
the tall, rather muscular, very fit boy who I guessed was the
parents’ actual son filled the narrow space he’d opened the
door.

“What do you need?” he asked.

“Open the door and let me in,” I
demanded.

He didn’t open the door.

He said, “Sorry about the music. We won’t
turn it on again.”

I held his eyes and informed him, “I need to
speak to your parents.”

He shifted out of the space, not totally but
so I couldn’t see his face. Then he shifted back and said, “They’re
asleep.”

Did he seriously think I was that stupid?

“I need to speak to them right now.”

“Maybe you can talk to them in the morning,”
he suggested.

Ugh.

What a punk.

I put my hand with the flashlight on the door
and pushed.

The kid pushed back.

“Are your parents here?” I asked.

“I told you.” He was losing patience and
showing it. Definitely a punk. “They’re sleeping.”

“Son, let’s not play this game,” I said.
“Your parents aren’t in there.”

“They are,” he stated obstinately.

I shook my head, done with him.

“Open this door,” I said low and quiet.
“Immediately.”

His eyes shifted to the side then back to me
and he lifted his chin.

“Not sure you can come in here unless you’re
invited.”

“I’m not a vampire, kid. I don’t have to be
invited. But even if I were the undead, I own this property. Now,
open the freaking door.
Now
.”

He pushed harder against me pushing harder on
the door and ordered, “Come back tomorrow.”

“Open or I’ll—”

I didn’t finish my statement. The kid’s eyes
darted up, widened instantly with fear, and then the door opened so
fast, the kid stumbled back and I fell through.

I lost hold on my bat and flashlight seeing
as I was about to go down on my knees and I needed to throw my
hands out to cushion my fall.

But I didn’t go down. This was because an arm
hooked around my middle and hauled me up to steady on my feet.

The arm stayed there, ironclad, locked around
my belly, forcing my back to fit tight to a hard frame and my heart
skipped a beat when I heard Priest growl, “Fuck me.”

It took me a second to recover from the
surprise of him suddenly being there.

Then everything I was seeing, and
smelling,
crashed in to me.

The three boys were there, two others
besides, all big and bulky. There were beer cans everywhere, also
Jack Daniels and Absolut, several bottles of both, some tipped to
their sides leaking onto my pretty braided rugs and across my
fabulous floors, not to mention cans of beer the same way.

The air smelled of vomit, beer, booze,
cigarettes, and pot. In fact, there was a cloud of smoke hanging in
the room and there were makeshift ashtrays, these being torn apart
beer cans. They didn’t work very well. I knew this because there
were burns in my coffee table.

There was also a girl in jeans, a sweater,
and boots on her ass in the corner, one of the boys ineffectually
attempting to hide her with his body. She was on her ass in the
corner, knees up, curled into herself, face shoved into her legs,
sobbing.

And there was another girl that another boy
scrambled off of when Priest and I forced our way in (well, Priest
did, I tumbled in).

She was the one on the couch, clearly
unconscious, her clothing askew, the sweater that was pushed up was
pushed high and I could see her bra.

Pressure built in my head and was about to
blow but it didn’t because I would find in that instant I had a
much bigger problem on my hands.

That problem being Priest.

“You hurt her?”

His voice came low, deep, quiet, and
deadly.

“My parents bought us the booze,” the kid
replied, not answering his question, his chin up, his body held
alert, his eyes scared.

“Did you…
hurt her
?” Priest repeated
and I twisted my neck to look up at him.

Oh yes.

I had a much bigger problem on my hands.

“They know we’re here. They’re cool with all
this,” the boy answered.

Suddenly, I was not held against Priest.

Suddenly, I was standing on my own two feet,
Priest was across the room, the kid pinned to the wall by Priest
holding himself two inches away, his chin dipped, his face nose to
nose, the kid not moving, I guessed, due to the sheer force of
Priest’s terrifying presence.

He slashed an arm behind him indicating the
girl still on her ass and sobbing.

“Did you…
fucking
…hurt her?” he
growled.

“The pot was laced with something,” the kid
answered quickly, eyes enormous, body wired, fear wafting off him
in waves. “We didn’t know. She smoked it and went weird so none of
us had any. No one touched her. She’s been crying for, like, an
hour or something.”

“The girl on the couch,” Priest bit out.

“She…she…” the boy started and trailed off,
likely so he could concentrate on not messing himself, which was
what his face was sharing he was doing, or close to it.

At this, I decided to let Priest do his
thing, however scary that might be, but I had to prioritize. So I
rushed to the girl on the couch, pulled her sweater down, and
grabbed the throw I left for customers to cuddle up with in front
of their TVs or out on their porches and threw it over her.

She moaned and shifted and then went
slack.

She was fully clothed, even had her shoes on,
which I took as a good sign.

“You leave this cabin, I break your legs
before I break your neck.”

That came from Priest and my eyes shot to him
to see he was still nose to nose with the kid so he wasn’t talking
to him. Therefore I looked to the door to see the kid who’d been on
top of the girl on the couch was trying to make his escape.

At Priest’s words, the kid stopped and stood
completely still, his Adam’s apple bobbing, his gaze glued to
Priest’s back.

And this was indication badasses had eyes in
the back of their heads and high school punks weren’t completely
stupid because I couldn’t be sure, but I had an inkling Priest’s
threat wasn’t entirely empty.

“Do you want cops?”

This also came from Priest and no one
answered, primarily because the boys obviously didn’t want cops and
I didn’t know why he was giving them the choice.

His head turned and he pinned me with a
scowl.

“Cassidy,” he prompted on an infuriated
rumble.

I opened my mouth but didn’t get a word out
before a girl’s broken voice cried, “We’ll get in trouble! We’ll
get in trouble! You can’t phone the cops! I’ll lose my scholarship
and Peyton’s parents will
totally freak
!”

I was looking at her so when she stopped, I
called gently, “Did they hurt you, honey?”

She shook her head vehemently. “No. No. We
were just partying.”

“Did they hurt Peyton?” I asked, waving my
hand to indicate the girl on the couch.

She shook her head. “No. I was…was…before you
got here, I was getting him off her. He didn’t get very far.”

“You sure?” I asked.

She nodded her head, bobbing it up and down
quickly.

I moved to her and crouched close, her eyes
following me the whole way.

I kept hold of them as I said quietly, “You
do her no favors, not telling me the truth right now.”

She shook her head again. “I was gonna get us
out of here. I was. I promise.
Swear
. I wouldn’t let that
happen. The…the…the stuff I smoked was wearing off. And Peyton has
a boyfriend back at home. Something happened, he’d lose it and
break up with her and she’d never get over it.”

“Promise me,” I whispered.

“He was…he was…he’s a jerk,” she whispered
back, her eyes darting beyond me to where the boy who was on Peyton
was standing. “But he didn’t get very far.”

“You weren’t helping her when we came
in.”

“’Cause you weren’t letting him close the
door on you and I knew they were caught. You’d get in. You’d help
her and then the door flew open and I got out of the way.”

I searched the features of a young, high,
drunk, terrified girl I did not know to try to ascertain if the
worst that could happen happened in my cabin.

She stared up at me, holding my gaze, hers
wet and scared, but unwavering.

“I wanna get outta here,” she whispered.

“You got a car?” I asked.