by Bijou Hunter
“What happened between you and Dayton at the party?” I ask when we take a break after dumping half of my wardrobe.
“He was teasing me about not dating after Bonn. Basically, the ass was showing off for his ass friend.”
“I heard Bonn and Dayton got into a shoving match.”
“Yeah, it was kind of girly.”
We share a smile. “Camden thinks JJ is a bad influence on Dayton, but I think Dayton’s problems are separate from the new guy.”
“I don’t know any of them well enough to say. Hell, I don’t even know Bonn, so I can’t make observations on his cousins or half-brother.”
“I should have stuck around and comforted you.”
“Rather than having sex with your new husband?” Ruby asks, giving me smile. “Yeah, I can see how you’d struggle with that decision.”
For the next few silent minutes, Ruby and I drink juice at the kitchen table. I don’t know what she’s thinking, but I’m already tired of seeing how many clothes I’ve held onto from high school.
“Do you think you’ll ever get over Bonn?” I ask for maybe the millionth time since they broke up.
“If you lost Camden, would you get over him?”
“No.”
“There you go. People always act like moving on is so great, but I’d rather be alone than be with anyone else. Guys like Dayton think I’m bitter toward men when I’m only accepting my options. I can settle for someone who will never measure up, or I can not date. Dating is overrated, and I have a great life with my family.”
“I know you miss being a bartender,” I say, thinking of how she lost her old position when the Common Bend sheriff went rogue and decided to kill anyone who crossed him. Ruby was one of the targets, and ever since, she’s kept far away from Common Bend even with a new sheriff around. “Should I ask Camden for help finding you a new job?”
“Look, I like Camden, but I don’t plan to owe him anything. I’ll find my own job. For now, waitressing pays the bills.”
Her words make sense, but Camden’s power infects me. He got me the job I wanted. Now I see him fixing everyone’s problems. I know this idea is ridiculous, but I’ve never known anyone with both power and a willingness to help.
“What did Ollie say about your marriage?”
“He said he wishes me the best.”
“Can’t say much different, can he? He plays by the same rules as everyone else in Hickory Creek.”
“Dad sees himself as a 'law and order' man, but he’s part of the same system as the rest of us. Some people always have power and others never do. It’s not necessarily fair, but it is what it is.”
“Hey, now that you’re living in the same building as Bonn, you can play chauffeur with Chevelle, so I won’t have to see him even for a second.”
I open my mouth to mention how facing Bonn more often rather than less might help her get over him. Before I piss her off, our phones chime with a message from Missy Bumruck.
“RED ALERT! Man with bashed face headed to south end of park!!!!”
All of the exclamation marks send me into a panic. Missy is Lush Gardens’ self-designated guard dog. From her front trailer, she can see anyone entering from the main parking lot. If they so much as blink wrong, she warns everyone using a FB group. Never before has she used so many exclamation marks.
Ruby rushes to the window and studies the quiet day. “I don’t see anyone.”
“Should I call Camden?”
“For what?”
“He bashed a guy’s face in a while back.”
Ruby frowns at me, but her expression is unreadable. I don’t know what to do. Should I call Camden? Am I paranoid?
“Send him a quick text just in case,” she says, looking out the window again. “Maybe I should check on Keanu and Charlie.”
“No, don’t go out until we know what’s happening.”
I send a message to Camden about Missy’s message. He’ll likely think I can’t fart without informing him. He wouldn’t be wrong either. I tell him everything because nothing feels real unless he knows about it.
“Shit,” Ruby mutters under her breath. “I think it might be your guy. He’s heading this way.”
“What do we do?”
“I don’t know.”
After texting Camden again, I run to where Ruby looks out of the window. I recognize the man checking the addresses on each trailer.
“That’s the one Camden beat up at the bar. I think his name is Lincoln.”
“Then we need to stay quiet and hope he goes away.”
We peek from the curtain and watch him struggle to find a pattern to the trailer addresses. Years ago, we moved several trailers around in the park. We weren’t supposed to, but Sally wanted her girls to be closer to her. No one complained, so now addresses don’t line up.
I tiptoe to the kitchen and dig quietly through a drawer to find two knives. “Here,” I whisper, handing her one. “We’ll stab him to death and call it a day.”
“Sounds easy enough.”
“What if he has a gun?”
“Stab him faster.”
Smiling despite my fear, I can totally picture myself kicking this guy’s ass. We’ll stab him dead, and Camden will clean up the body. No fuss, no muss.
As usual, everything proves more difficult in reality than in my head.
The next few minutes are painfully slow. Ruby and I watch him checking each trailer. He stops at hers for a long time since her number is similar to mine. After he peers through the windows, he gets frustrated and begins searching again.
Calling the cops never occurs to me. The local deputies tend to shoot first and clean up the innocent victims afterward in the trailer parks and rundown apartment buildings. No doubt they're less trigger happy when answering a call at a Hallstead home.
I know Camden is a Hallstead, but the cops reporting to the park won’t know or care about my husband’s lineage. They’ll assume everyone is a meth head with an illegal automatic weapon. The last time they came out to the park, they killed Gladys Markey’s poodle when it bounced threateningly at them.
So the cops are out, and Camden hasn’t answered my texts. I even wonder if he’s okay. Did the butt nugget with the battered face hurt Camden before coming here? I have no time to send a third text before Lincoln stops at my trailer.
Ruby gestures for me to move back toward the second bedroom. She holds her knife at the ready. Mine trembles in my hand, but I have a good grip on it. If I need to, I can hurt someone.
I hear myself breathing. My beating heart is painfully loud. Every little noise feels like a scream meant to alert Lincoln to our presence.
His shadow lingers behind the curtained front door. He stands on my porch for what seems like forever. Just when I think he might turn and leave, the door flies open from a kick of his booted foot.
I don’t think. Running at him, I only want him to get the hell out of my trailer.
Lincoln points his gun at me until realizing I’m an idiot with no plan. Before I can hack into his flesh, he grabs for the knife. I understand on some level that he doesn’t want me dead yet. I don’t care what he has planned. I’m all rabid dog reactions with no thinking involved.
Twisting my wrist, Lincoln forces me to release the knife. I break free of his grip and grab for his weapon with both hands. Struggling with him, I press his finger down on the gun’s trigger. The first shot hits the ceiling. The next goes into the wall. By the time the gun clicks, we’re firing into the ground.
“Bitch!” he yells, slapping me.
When Lincoln shoves me onto the floor, my foot instinctually flies upward and nails him in the crotch. We both cry out. My tailbone slams into the hard floor while he cups his kicked balls. I assume the shot to the crotch will take him down, but Lincoln remains upright.
Ruby barrels into him like a pissed freight train. At five-seven, she is nearly as tall as Lincoln. They fall against the wall together, struggling over her knife.
I gr
ab my weapon and crawl to where they struggle. Focusing on his leg, I imagine stabbing him. After a moment of hesitation, I plunge the knife into his thigh.
“Fuck!” he hollers, throwing Ruby off of him and reaching for me.
I scramble back on the floor, leaving a trail of blood from the blade. He falls on top of me, pinning my body to the ground. I stab him once in the side before he knocks away the knife. The punch to my face shocks me. Why would anyone want to fight if this pain is the result?
Ruby stabs Lincoln in the back twice before he grabs hold of her and takes away the knife. He punches her next but can’t get a second hit in before I dig my nails into his nipples. Even with his shirt to dull some of the pressure, he howls in agony. Nipple pain apparently trumps a knife wound.
Ruby slaps and punches him while he straddles me. I keep digging into his nipples. Whenever he lets go of her so he can hit me, she claws his eyes. When he lets go of me so he can stop her, I sink my teeth into his forearm.
“Bitches!”
Lincoln shoves Ruby away from him, and she tumbles onto the floor. He punches me but mostly hits his arm I’m gnawing on. Finally breaking free, he stands and moves to kick me. Ruby races at him, and they fall to the ground.
Crawling around again, I see the open door and wish we could run. Escaping isn’t an option for only me, so I scurry to my old TV. Picking it up, I toss the heavy relic at Lincoln as he tries to stand after kicking Ruby off him.
“Fuck!” he yells as the TV makes contact with his head and shoulder.
I run to Ruby and help her stand. She’s bleeding, and I probably am too. I only know we need to either kill him or run because so far our fighting efforts haven’t done much more than piss off the bastard.
Ruby grabs the kitchen chair and swings it at Lincoln. As he stumbles, I reach for my coffee table and throw it at him. Lincoln wipes blood from his forehead and glances between us. He likely realizes the battle is going nowhere fast because he reaches into his pocket to retrieve ammunition.
“Don’t let him get the gun!” I yell.
The weapon ended up under the TV stand during the struggle. He runs for it, trips over one of my panicking cats, and goes head first into the wall.
I grab one of the knives on the ground and race to where he struggles to his feet. The blade gets him in the back of the neck. I imagine it plunging inside and killing him, but the angle is awkward, and the knife does no more than give him a minor flesh wound. Lincoln turns to me, ready to swing a punch. I lower my aim and go for his crotch. His jeans blunt much of the strike, but he instinctually backs away to protect his balls.
Ruby appears next to me with a frying pan. “Fucker!” she yells, hitting him once and then again.
The pan meeting his head makes an awful thwacking sound, but he seems more bothered by my stabbing his crotch. I wish the knife were sharper, so I could do more damage.
We hit and stab at him until his only move is to throw himself forward and knock us both down. I still have my knife and stab him in the face when he leans down to grab me. Ruby hits him in the knee with the frying pain. He lets out a yelp so earsplitting the cats scramble from their hiding places and run to new ones.
Realizing my teeth did more damage to his arm than the knife seems capable of, I bite his arm. He growls something at me while knocking Ruby’s pan out of her grip. He has us both by the hair and bangs our heads together. Even stunned, I manage to sink my teeth deeper into his arm.
“Motherfucker!” he hollers in pain, but I don’t get the credit.
Still in his grip, Ruby manages to undo his pants, slide her hand inside, and find something worth squeezing. I’ve seen her destroy a lemon with her iron grip and don’t envy his balls.
Lincoln reaches for the knife, and I imagine him plunging it into Ruby like I couldn’t do with him. Letting go of his arm, I squirm free enough to kick him backward and away from the blade.
Ruby and I remain hunched on the ground while Lincoln struggles to regain his footing. No one is ready to give up. I want Lincoln dead. I just don’t know how to make it happen.
Standing, I pull Ruby up, and we face our opponent. He readies for another round. I know he’s thinking about the gun and whether he can grab it before we reach him. We never learn the answer.
A clunking sound startles me, but not nearly as much as it does Lincoln, who collapses on the ground. Behind him stands Betty holding a shovel. Sally appears next to her with an ax.
“We need better weapons,” Ruby mumbles.
Lincoln surprises us all by going from limp to springing to his feet. Giving up on the fight, he barrels through Sally and Betty and disappears out the door.
“We can’t let him get away. He could come back,” I say, running after Lincoln like an idiot.
The four of us follow the wounded man’s blood trail. Before we find him, I hear a gunshot ahead, and my courage disappears. Did he kill someone because of me? Why couldn’t I have stabbed him better? Why don’t I have sharper knives? How come I never considered asking Camden to teach me to fight?
When we catch up to Lincoln, he’s kneeling in front of a sun hat wearing Charlie and her shotgun. Sally hurries over and hits him with the flat side of the ax. He flops forward, and I think he might finally stay down.
“That’s how we do it in Lush Gardens,” Charlie says, still pointing her gun at the limp man.
Billy appears from the trailer with Keanu in his arms. He doesn’t approach, knowing the women can handle the situation. Billy is an ace at fixing cars. He leaves fixing people to his wife.
“Who in the fuck is he?” Sally asks me.
I try to settle my raging heart. “One of JJ’s friends.”
“Who in the fuck is JJ?”
“One of Howler’s kids.”
“Brotherhood troubles in our park,” Betty says, holding her shovel at the ready in case someone needs hitting. “Sounds about right.”
Hugging Ruby, I ask if she’s okay.
“You should see the other guy,” she mumbles with a bloody mouth.
Inappropriate laughter bubbles up inside me. I’m not happy or amused. I’m mostly relieved and unable to process how I went from whining about moving to cannibalizing a stranger.
My mind is too numb to think of Camden. Or what he might have felt to know a man he beat down came after me to get his revenge. When his heart is involved, Camden isn’t rational. He can’t think long-term. He lives in the present, and I suspect that losing me would destroy him. So I don’t think about Camden or let myself text him, knowing I’ll fall apart as soon as I hear his voice.
Until then, I laugh like a crazy person while figuring out what to do with the unconscious jerk in Lush Gardens.
Thirty Eight - Camden
Fucking traffic needs to fucking die. Old people, kids, cops, everyone in my way should fucking disappear so I can reach Lush Gardens faster. My mind shows me Daisy in various states of suffering. She needs me to protect her, but I’m not there. I’m speeding around slow-ass drivers with nowhere to go.
Daisy’s texts paint enough of a picture to make me worry. When my response goes unanswered, I panic. Nothing matters except seeing her again. I'll kill anyone to save her. I'll give my life to let her live another day. I'm lost until I know she's safe.
I don’t stop when I reach the park’s lot but keep driving down the main pathway past one trailer after another. My mind is so set on Daisy’s death that I nearly don’t recognize her standing alive next to Ruby.
The Harley stops too suddenly, and I nearly take a header over the front. Recovering from my panicked stupidity, I climb off and run to Daisy. Even bruised and bloodied, she casually smiles at me. I sweep her into my arms and mutter something about killing whoever hurt her.
“Show me how to use a gun,” she says when I let her go enough to examine her face. “Knowing that would have saved us a lot of trouble today.”
Next to us, Ruby nurses a split lip. Nearby, Sally and Betty hold their makeshift weapons. F
inally, I notice Charlie with her shotgun pointed at the unconscious guy on the ground.
Lincoln looks death until I kneel down enough to see the fucker’s chest rise and fall. He’s out cold, and even a finger shoved into his facial wound doesn’t wake him.
“What in the hell happened?” I ask.
“He showed up and broke my door,” Daisy says, sounding pissed about the damage to her place. She’s clearly in shock. A woman who loses her shit over stubbing her toe should be wailing from the injuries to her face. “Ruby and I fought him. He wasn’t expecting that or else he would have shot us before we got the upper hand.”
Daisy frowns and says again, “Upper hand.”
“How did he get out here?” I ask, wrapping his wrists behind his back and tying them with plastic restraints I carry around for situations like this one.
“Betty and Mom showed up, and he realized he was screwed. Ran out here where Charlie scared him. Not bad for a bunch of chicks, eh?”
Daisy’s tone startles me. Her adrenaline is washing away, leaving her frightened. Ruby hugs her.
“What do we do with him?” Sally asks me.
“I’ll call someone.”
“You do that,” she says, walking over to her girls who she hugs. Turning back to me, she sighs. “I was napping when the shit went down. I think I might just go back to that since you have things handled.”
As Daisy and Ruby whisper to each other, I text Mojo to tell him to send enforcers to clean up what JJ brought to town. My new cousin might have no idea what Lincoln was capable of, and I’m the reason this fucker came looking for revenge. Nonetheless, I’m not beyond putting the blame on a guy I don’t trust.
Daisy leaves her sister’s arms and wraps herself against me.
“Once reinforcements show up, I’ll take you and Ruby to the hospital and get you checked out.”
“I'm all right.”
“No, you’re not,” I growl.
Daisy isn’t startled by my tone. She only looks up at me as if I'm behaving like a baby.
“I think I’m ready to move now.”
Smiling at how she soothes me even in her terrified state, I know I’ve got the right woman at my side. Not that I ever had any doubt, but others did. After today, they’ll back the fuck off about Daisy being too soft to handle my life.