Finding Serenity

by Eden Butler

  “Why do you care?” Vaughn turns on the engine and shifts gears, pulling out in front of two slow-moving cars that barely manage to avoid hitting each other. “And FYI, jackass, you don’t own me. You don’t get a say so in who I talk to or flirt with or have a drink with.”

  He slams on his brakes at a yellow light, cars behind them cursing at Vaughn and laying on their horns. “The hell I don’t.”

  “Yeah, and what gives you the right?”

  “Since I was inside you last night!” Another horn, this time because the light is green and Vaughn slams his hands on the steering wheel. He pulls his glaring gaze from Mollie and peels out, speeding down the road as his grip only grows tighter.

  “You have lost your fucking mind.” She won’t let him bite back a response, she won’t let Vaughn do anything but scowl and drive like an idiot through traffic. “News flash, dude, you don’t own me. No one does.”

  “I know I don’t. I’m not saying—”

  “Shut. Up.” Mollie can’t look at him. She doesn’t want to see the way his body is tensed with frustration, anger, she is not sure if she’ll be able to refrain from slapping him. “I never asked for any of this shit. None of it.” When she slams her fist against the dash, Vaughn releases a low, angry growl, which she ignores. “I didn’t ask you to invade my life and try to take over. No one controls me, Vaughn. Not one fucking body!”

  “I know that!”

  They are panting now, the lick of heat, of fury filling between them as the small stretch of downtown Cavanagh disappears and buildings lower, become spread apart the further from town they get. He is taking her back to the hotel on the tourist strip and Mollie finds herself counting the mile markers to avoid the awkward tension in the car.

  “You hate cops,” he says, his voice lower, his temper mildly eased. “Why are you flirting with one if you hate them so much?”

  “You’re serious? Jesus.” Jealousy? That’s what this was about? Logically, Mollie knew it wasn’t, she knew that the frustration, the desire, was all coalescing, that the detective is just the push that made Vaughn’s anger brim over. She tries to take a breath, to bite back some of her own frustration, but she can’t slow her heart rate, can’t figure out what to do with her hands as the silence eats up the minutes and the country lots around them. “Look who’s the kid now.” Stunned, and keeping some of her anger still simmering, Mollie shakes her head. “Never took you for the jealous type.”

  When Vaughn reaches a four way stop with no vehicles around them and a small farm just across the culvert, he speaks, words coming out softer, breath easier, calmer. “I never have been before.”

  Mollie wishes he’d held on to his anger a bit longer. She can’t take the tension in the stare they exchange or how Vaughn’s skin has grown pale. The moment lengthens until the only sound that can be heard comes from the small calf mooing at the farm and the weight of their breath fogging against the glass despite the low rush of the AC. When he looks away from her, foot steady on the brake and his forehead resting on the steering wheel, a small fraction of Mollie’s bitterness disappears. Then Vaughn rears back and punches his radio, fragments of plastic, dials and buttons fall next to her feet.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, wiping the small leak of blood from his knuckles onto his jeans.

  Ahead, the small calf stops grazing, glances at them once before she returns to the green snack at her feet. Vaughn stares out of the driver side window, uninjured knuckles on his mouth and finally, Mollie releases the rest of her smoldering anger. “Hey.”

  He grabs her hand, on his shoulder, moves it close to his chest before he looks at her. And like lightening, he pulls her toward him, mouths touching, his fingers in her hair, on the back of her neck. She wants this moment to last. Really, she wants him to pull over and kiss her for hours, for days, but there is still a threat slinking in the shadows, still eyes watching.

  Vaughn rests his head against hers, inhaling, she thinks, to catch a last few seconds before they are forced back to that hotel, but just then, tires squealing breaks through the steam and stillness of the cab, wrenching apart the moment. And before they can look behind them to see the cause of the squealing tires, they are slammed from behind.

  Mollie’s head bangs against the airbag as it deploys and the car fishtails as they are pushed into the ditch by the side of the road. Head swimming, she catches glimpses of detail: the sight of a large fence post lying on the ground next to the Jeep; the smell of rubber, melted and burned against the pavement and then, they are slammed again.

  “Mollie, you okay?” Vaughn’s hand on her arm and although she fights to bring things into focus, what she can make out is jumbled, blurry, and she feels unattached to her body. She is barely able to see Vaughn reaching under his seat and then she hears running feet, screams and the unmistakable crack of a gun being fired.

  “Come on, you fucking assholes! I’m right here!” Three more shots and the car jostles.

  And when Mollie next blinks, she sees through the windshield, Vaughn walking back to the Jeep and then the pool of blood darkening his shirt. His face is so pale, and the pain, the haze swimming around her head pushes her eyelids down and the world goes pitch black.

  From the porch, you can see the clouds. The sky is painted purple with small strokes of yellow and orange rising above, setting a vivid highlight to mountain peak. It is where the Winchesters spent their summers, when the sun blazed too hot, when illness and violence became too much and a reprieve was essential. To him, this is heaven. Vaughn sips his beer, chair reclined as he watches those clouds, as he waits for Mollie to wake.

  She is twenty feet away, but feels miles from him. This cabin is safe, secured by the guards Viv sent in to watch the property, two along the front gate and more than he can count around the other cabins that circle the woods. Still, he doesn’t feel as safe as he’d like, but then he doubts nothing will make his back relax, take away the stiff grip he holds in his fists. Mollie’s friends cluster around the other side of the cabin, whispering among themselves, offering theories, solutions that Vaughn finds ridiculous and their presence does nothing to lessen his anxiety. Nothing will until Mollie wakes.

  He hears the squeak of her bedsprings and Vaughn turns around, looks through the large window next to her bed. He leaves the porch, slips into her room and sees that she is restless, fighting something he can’t see in her dreams. He can relate. She looks so tired, so battered and it takes everything in him not to sidle in next to her, hold her against his chest and tell her it was all a nightmare.

  “Dad?” she mumbles and he knows she is still sleeping. There is small cut underneath that bandage on her forehead and her right eye is shaded with a bruise. When Mollie rolls on her side and her face brushes against the pillow, Vaughn is there, sitting on the bed, moving her unresisting body onto her back.

  “Shh. It’s okay, sugar. You’re safe.” He wishes that were true. He wishes to God he could protect her the way she deserves. At least, he thinks, these are only contusions. At least they will heal. Vaughn winces when he shifts closer, pulling the covers over Mollie’s shoulder. His own injury was superficial, barely worth the ER visit, but Viv insisted and like a good little brother, he let her have her way. He’d barely managed to convince his sister that they would both be fine at the cabin. Still, that didn’t stop her from having a doctor come around periodically to check their injuries.

  It took more convincing getting her to agree that Mollie’s friends join them at the cabins. Viv trusts no one, but these kids are Mollie’s family. She’d die for them. He trusts Mollie, more than he should, an instinct that he couldn’t really understand and he knew they’d never let him take her once word got around town that she’d been in a wreck. Especially not after what they’d all been through two years before with Autumn.

  So, he explained, they’d been attacked. Mollie was in danger and it would be safer for everyone if they all took a trip up to the mountains. Besides, they could all really use a break.<
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  “Daddy…” Mollie says again and Vaughn wonders what she’s dreaming about. What kind of dreams does the kid of a biker have? “No, Daddy, the magnolia.” She snores once and Vaughn smiles, loving how calm she looks, how content. “I like the white ones.”

  “We’ll get you the white ones, Mollie. I promise.” And then Vaughn kisses her, soft, barely touching the lips he loves so much, before she falls back under.

  Three blinks. On the fourth, Mollie’s eyes focus. She is on a bed; a large one with thick pillows and pale yellow sheets. She can move her limbs, wiggle her bare legs against the cool linen, but when she rolls over, a thundering pain whizzes against her head.

  “Shit. Balls. Crap.” She reaches for her eye, which only opens a sliver, but stops when she hears Layla’s voice behind her.

  “I wouldn’t do that.”

  “Layla?”

  “I’m over here, sweetie.”

  Forcing her lids to open wider, Mollie spots her best friend sitting in a leather chair next to a fire. There are slate stones stacked the entire length of the fireplace, reaching the pine log ceiling. Her eyes focus, and with a few more blinks the blur diminishes. Mollie can make out Layla’s hair set high in a ponytail and the blue cover of the book she reads. “Hey.” She reaches out a hand, calling the blonde forward and some of the tension in her shoulders releases when she feels Layla’s soft, thin fingers.

  “Hey yourself.” Layla stands on the mattress and walks to the other side, making Mollie loll backward as she sits down next to her. “You scared me, bitch.”

  “How’d I do that?” Mollie rolls onto her back to see her friend better.

  “Wreck, hello.” Layla helps Mollie sit up, holding her until she can wiggle against the headboard. “You don’t remember?”

  “No,” Mollie says, spotting the glass of water on the bedside table and pointing at it. “Thanks.” Layla nods and Mollie’s throat is instantly refreshed when she downs the whole glass.

  “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  She closes her eyes and memory and dreams mesh together like a silent film, all black and white, muted and vague. “The cute cop.”

  “Can’t say I’m familiar.” Layla lowers to rest on her elbow. “Vaughn said he took you to talk to a detective and when y’all left, you got rammed at a four way.”

  “That… that sounds eerily familiar.” Mollie can see clearer now, to the large room she’s laying in, clearly a log cabin, and the light streaming in from the attached bathroom. “Where are we?”

  “Vaughn’s cabin. Or, his family’s cabins, I’m not too sure. His sister wanted you incognito until they can transfer your dad to a safehouse.” Mollie’s chest fills with hope, with possibility at her father finally being free, at the end of this entire madness. Layla lifts the blinds from the window next to her side of the bed. “Way up in the mountains. Those are clouds, friend.”

  Mollie inclines, leans on her elbow. “Damn. I don’t think I’ve ever been this high before.”

  “Liar. I remember junior year.” Mollie throws a pillow at her best friend, but she only catches it, doesn’t throw it back like she’d usually do. When Mollie looks at her face, Layla’s eyes are red and glistening. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Layla’s voice isn’t clipped or frustrated and concern quickly filters into Mollie’s mind. Layla never speaks like this, never shows anyone her real worries.

  “What?”

  The blonde gives her arm a gentle shove. “Vaughn and his sister told us everything. About your Dad, what he’s doing, why Vaughn showed up at the Dash, why you’ve been off with him.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, ‘oh.’ Molls, you texted me almost every day and didn’t tell me once what was going on. I’m your best friend.”

  Mollie moves over, making room for Layla and then points to the space she’s made next to her. The blonde joins her, resting shoulder to shoulder with Mollie against the headboard. “That’s why I didn’t tell you.”

  “Huh?”

  “Layla, you know how fucked up my childhood was. You know where I come from. None of that ever touched me here, except my raging bitch of a mother.”

  “And sister.”

  “And sister, true.” Without really thinking about it, she takes Layla’s hand and they both stare up at the ceiling, looking at the high sheen on the logs and the orangey hue that reflects the soft light from the bathroom. “But now, all this stuff? It already touched you. That fire, that was meant to hurt me. You got in the way, same as Autumn.” Mollie turns and Layla copies her. “You have all been my family and not a substitute, but the real deal. If something bad happened to any of you because of me…”

  Layla waves her hand, placing her fingers over Mollie’s mouth to silence her. “Guess what, genius, family is family through the great and the not so gravy. And in case you forgot, this little family of ours hasn’t always had only good times.” She sits up, takes her hand off of Mollie’s mouth. “Hey, you remember that time Autumn almost died?”

  “Not funny.”

  “Not meant to be. I’m making a point.” Layla again lays on her side picking up the ends of Mollie’s hair and running her fingernails to the knots she finds there. “You can’t handle the shit on your own. Not when you’ve got us. That’s what families do, Molls… they shovel the shit right with you.”

  Mollie exhales, pulling her matted hair out of Layla’s fingers. “I love you, bitch.”

  “I know. I’m so freaking lovable.”

  The girls share a laugh and Mollie stretches. Eager to see if her legs still work, she pulls back the covers and swings her feet onto the hardwood floor. It’s then that she notices the vase on the bedside table containing four magnolia flowers. Glancing over at Layla, she raises her eyebrows but her best friend only shrugs, as if she has no clue where they came from. Mollie finds it weird, finding her favorite flowers here. As far as she can remember, she has never told anyone why she loves them, that her father took her to the place where his family was buried only once when she was ten. It was a large farm, lost to bankers a generation before, but the cemetery still stood and all around the broken, brittle headstones were magnolia trees perfuming the air so that when Mollie sat down next to her Daddy, neither one of them felt sad.

  “See, not such a bad way to spend eternity, huh Mimi?” He pointed to the largest headstone at the center of cemetery. “That’s Granny Tippit and she always had the prettiest gardens. She planted these trees a long time ago.” Mollie had been fascinated by the thick branches and the beautiful green leaves that shown like wax in the sunlight. “Family keeps family,” he told her, “and Granny Tippit knew enough to keep things pretty for everyone here.”

  The flowers in the vase were wide, white, with petals that stretched out like stars and a yellow center that filled the massive room with the distinctive scent that reminded Mollie of Jackson and her Daddy and the beauty Granny Tippit created all those years ago.

  “So, I guess I better tell Vaughn you’re awake.” Layla walks toward the door and Mollie smiles at her, as if to say ‘how do you mean?’ “He wouldn’t leave and so I told him he stank.”

  “Layla…”

  “Molls, two days we’ve been here and you’ve been in and out of it, but that dude hadn’t showered once because he thought you might wake up when he was gone.” Her best friend smiles, the glint in her eyes wicked and calculating. “He is so very into you.”

  She dismisses the remark, not ready to explain the clusterfuck of whatever one would call her relationship with Vaughn. His face comes to her and then she remembers something from the crash—his bloody shirt, how pale he’d grown, but the images are fractured by the collection of hazy recollection when she tried to sort through what had actually happened and what her mind invented. “Wait! He got shot! I saw the blood!”

  “He’s fine. Just a graze, but you know he did that whole ‘Me Marine, Is Fine, No Stitches’ crap at the hospital.” Layla leans against the bed post, pulling her hair through
her fingers. “Declan threatened to hold him down if he didn’t get patched up.”

  “Declan? He was there?”

  Layla steps back in front of her. “Duh. Deco, Autumn, Sayo, me, we were all there, sweetie. And we’re all here now.” The blonde leans down, tips Mollie’s chin before to leaves a quick kiss on her cheek. “Family, remember?”

  “So tell me what I missed. Sayo mentioned something about you and a bucket of paint?”

  Layla cringes. “In my defense, the dousing flour incident was a low blow.” She leans in, whispers in Mollie’s ear. “It took me two days to get all the flour out of my ass crack.”

  “Nice visual, thanks.” Mollie waves off Vaughn’s offer of more ribs. She was stuffed already and couldn’t take anymore protein.

  Her friends were adjusting to seclusion, despite Sayo’s constant complaints of needing to be at the library. It was summer semester and very few students milled around her library, but Sayo wanted to be there even with the threat shadowing Mollie and her friends. Mollie smiles when Declan moves his half-full glass of sweet tea, giving Layla a disappointed frown. “I’d say the lowest blow was glitter in Donovan’s bleeding vents.”

  “Hey you, no picking sides.” The salad dressing on Layla’s fork flies across the table when she points it at Declan. “He’s your best friend, so you are biased and therefore get no opinions on the matter.”

  “That’s shite and you know it. I’m the sorry sod who had to hear him yammering on for a week about all that mess in every crevice of his car.” Declan waits a beat, as though he’s recalling Donovan’s loud complaints in his head. “You know he’s had to sell it, right?”

  Mollie notices the quick wince on Layla’s face, but it shifts quickly and her best friend recovers with a flippant shrug. “Two words, Fraser: Kidnapped Puppy.”

  “That puppy hasn’t been a puppy for three years.” Declan’s had a few beers, Mollie can tell. His bright green eyes are red rimmed and Autumn replaced his beer with tea at least two drinks back. “And you’re deflecting. Paint? Go on, tell her then.”