Reunion at Walnut Cherryville (The Eternal Feud Book 1)

by Lauren Salem

  “How can the resistance be so confident that I’m going to agree to join them?”

  “We saved you from dying, Vincent. If the government saw that you were still alive, they’d shoot you on sight or torture you for information. If you wanted to change alliances you could, but then you’d end up with nothing at all, and the resistance would see you as a traitor. The government would keep you alive just long enough to get information out of you, and they’d kill you once you became useless. Is that a good enough answer?”

  “Yep, you got me pushed into a corner. Now I have to join the resistance.”

  “You don’t sound too excited about that…What’s wrong?”

  “I’m worried about Laura…What’s going to happen to her? Will you save her?”

  “Something tells me that Laura’s going to be fine. Kenneth isn’t looking to kill her if he’s marrying her, which is why we can’t save her.”

  “I disagree,” I rebutted. “Laura is in a good position to infiltrate the government; she could help you.”

  “I don’t think she wants to…”

  I snatched the keyboard with my good hand, yanked it out of the computer, and threw it on the floor before banging my head on the desk.

  “Please…don’t do that,” Veronica said.

  “What’s the point of all this? Why should I care?” I said irritably.

  “You want to do this because if you help us take down the government, Laura will be free, and you two can go wherever you want and not have to worry about being recaptured by Walnut Cherryville ever again,” Veronica said, remaining calm. “You care about her a lot…It’s a shame you put so much effort into someone who only cares about herself.”

  “She’s not like that…She cared about me.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t know, considering that I’m only seeing your relationship from an outside perspective.”

  “Did you or other people from the resistance help Collins escape?”

  “I would assume so,” Veronica sighed. “I didn’t know that was going to happen, since I took no part in planning or executing his second escape. I wish I knew if Johnny was OK. I’ve been praying for him every night, hoping for a miracle recovery. He was a good guy…When we lived in the forest he built me a book shelf…”

  As Veronica went on, telling me about her days in the woods, I realized that she missed Johnny just as much as I missed Laura. It all became clear to me now what I needed to do.

  Chapter 27: Laura

  After Emily’s first date with Todd, she couldn’t wait to tell me about it the next day at school. Instead of approaching the lunch table silently and sitting down like a ghost that disappears and reappears out of nowhere, Emily had a hop in her step and a squinty-eyed smile that reached from ear to ear. She enthusiastically plopped her lunch tray on my table, which distracted me from reading the new issue of Vogue. When I looked up, the girl was bouncing around more than a rubber ball.

  “Remember what I told you about not drawing too much negative attention to yourself?” I said.

  Emily stopped bouncing, pulled out a chair, and sat down. “I’m sorry; I’m just really excited because my date with Todd went really well last night. I think he really likes me. He’s soooooo cute! He picked me up at my house and took me to this cute Italian restaurant in Sun City West, and it was so romantic. Can’t wait to do it again!”

  “Did he ask you out on a second date?”

  “No, not yet, but I hope he will. Maybe he needs some time, but I’m sure he will because we had a really good time last night, and I gave him my number.”

  I didn’t want to tell Emily that Todd never planned on calling her or asking her out on a second date. I could barely convince him to go out on the first date, and even then, he took her to a restaurant that was forty minutes outside of Phoenix, so he wouldn’t be seen by anyone that went to this school. Why didn’t I think about this before? Emily wasn’t going to forget about him if she thought he liked her; she would want to keep dating him until she found out the truth. The only problem was…I didn’t want to hurt her feelings by telling her the truth. She’d be heartbroken and call me a bad friend. Emily was the first girlfriend I ever had, and I didn’t want to lose our friendship.

  Later that night, I was at Todd’s house in his bedroom doing the cowgirl as I finished reading Vogue.

  “You know you could be doing more to pleasure me instead of reading that stupid magazine,” Todd said as he snatched it away and threw it on the floor. “I don’t feel like I’m getting my money’s worth, and I won’t pay you the full amount if it’s not good.”

  “Well, tell me what you want me to do.”

  “I want you to pay attention, look at me, and fuck me like you want it.”

  I stopped completely and sighed. “We can’t do this anymore. I feel bad.”

  “Oh, great, now you want to talk about your feelings…”

  “Shut up, asshole, and listen for a minute! Emily really likes you. I think you should try to be a decent guy and give her a chance,” I said as I got off Todd and lay down next to him.

  “Laura, I told you before that I’m not interested in having a relationship with a girl who won’t put out. They’re too needy, and they’re all saving it for some reason.”

  “You can’t keep it in your pants for a few more dates? I’m sure after she gets to know you better, she’ll replace your need for me.”

  “Excuse me one moment,” Todd said as he got out of bed. “Now that I’ve lost my erection, I might as well go take a piss.” Todd wrapped a bathrobe around himself before he grabbed his cellphone and went to the bathroom.

  I covered myself with a quilt and waited five minutes until he came back.

  “My parents could be coming home from work within the next thirty minutes, so we need to hurry up,” he said when he came back into the room. He joined me beneath the covers and resumed missionary style.

  “Just tell me you’d think about it please,” I said. “It would mean a lot to me.”

  “Sure, I’ll think about it.”

  Five minutes later, to my surprise, Emily walked into the bedroom with a smile on her face that quickly turned into tears. “What are you doing with my boyfriend?” she yelled. “They were right about you! You are a slut! I should have never trusted you!” Emily leveled the dresser top, breaking a lamp in the process before she stormed down the stairs.

  “I’ve thought about it, and I prefer to leave things the way they are,” Todd said calmly.

  “Why are all men such dicks,” I said, pushing Todd off me. “Emily, wait!” I began to run to the door but stopped when I realized I was naked.

  “I’m not going to pay you today.”

  I grabbed Todd’s jeans, slipped them on, and rushed down the steps. “Emily, I’m sorry; let me explain,” I shouted as I ran outside, holding my breasts to cover them.

  “Hey, give me back my jeans, bitch, you stole my wallet!” Todd yelled as he ran after me in his bathrobe.

  I caught up to Emily just as she was about to get into her car, which was parallel-parked. She opened the door slightly, and I pushed it closed, hoping she’d be willing to hear me out. “Emily, please listen. I’m sorry…I never meant for this to happen,” I started to say quickly but stopped when I noticed Emily staring at my boobs. “My face is up here.” After I covered my breasts with my hands, she shook her head, rolled her eyes, and looked at me.

  “How could you do this to me, Laura? I thought we were friends. If you liked Todd, you could have just told me.”

  Todd caught up to me and slipped his hand in my pocket. As he took it out, I grabbed it, smashed his fingers together, and snatched the wallet from his hand. After taking all his cash, I threw the wallet on the street.

  “What were you guys involved in, some kind of bet?” Emily asked.

  “No, Emily, I have to be honest with you…I kind of run a business under the table,” I tried to explain.

  “More like on the bed,” Todd interrupted.

>   “And what business is that, exactly?”

  “I don’t like Todd; actually, I never liked Todd, but Todd pays for things that I need—”

  “She’s a prostitute,” Todd blurted out. “There, plain and simple. Now give me back my money!”

  “I’ve heard enough,” Emily said as she got into her car. Before she drove off, never to be heard from again, she rolled down the window. “I don’t ever want to hear from you again. If you do so much as even talk to me, then I will call the police and tell them you’re a hooker, and you will be arrested.”

  It was disappointing and sad to watch my only female friendship crash and burn this way. I missed Emily, and no other girl would be my friend like that ever again. To top it off, I lost Todd as a client, and he wouldn’t give me back my clothes until I returned his money. Since his $300 was worth more than my clothes, I decided to keep the money, which created more problems. I didn’t have a shirt, bra, shoes, or a ride back home, since Todd drove me to his house after school.

  Unlike many parents, my dad wouldn’t let me have a car for my birthday because it was too expensive. Usually my mom dropped me off at school in the morning, spent all day at the spa, and often forgot she had to pick me up by three o’clock. When I asked her why she forgot to pick me up every other day, she responded, “I picked you up yesterday; doesn’t that count? Why do you move around so much?” This was why I ended up hitching rides with boys three times a week to get home because girls wouldn’t bother, and my father was too busy with the restaurant. I always thought that one day I’d find the right guy who had enough money to buy me a car and give me driving lessons, but that never happened.

  On this day, I was stuck walking home barefoot with Vogue spread across my breasts. After stealing his money, I was surprised by the fact that Todd was decent enough to throw Vogue out the window so I could cover myself. On the way home, I got every dirty look imaginable from old ladies who were out walking their dogs. It took me thirty minutes to enter the neighborhood, and by the time I got there, my feet were bleeding, and Vogue was soaked with sweat…poor Vogue. A couple houses away from mine, I passed a Goth boy with black eyeliner, who chuckled at me as he checked the mailbox. I stopped in my tracks, turned around, and walked up to him.

  “Nice day, isn’t it?” I asked.

  He shook his head up and down, smiling.

  “You wouldn’t believe the kind of day I had today, and it’s unfortunate because the weather is beautiful…Listen, I’m going home, and I can’t let my mom see me walk in the house like this, so—”

  Before I could finish my sentence, the boy took off his tight black shirt and handed it to me.

  “Thank you so much. I swear I’ll give it back to you,” I said as I turned around and dropped the magazine. I put the shirt on, which fit snugly around my breasts.

  He picked up Vogue and handed it to me. “I’ll be waiting right here for my shirt to return.”

  “I just need to get home and change, and then I can drop it back off to you before I head to the restaurant.”

  I never ended up returning his shirt because when I got home, I had to shower and clean the painful cuts on my feet. As I rushed around, trying to get ready for my shift at the restaurant, Mom kept following and hassling me for getting blood on the carpet. In addition, Dad called the house every twenty minutes, inquiring about the whereabouts of the dishwasher because she was late. By the time I cleaned the carpet and Mom dropped me off at the restaurant, I realized that I forgot to return the shirt, which ended up living in my dirty laundry hamper for years. I should have given it back to him…Now I missed Vincent; he had been a good friend to me, even though I barely noticed his existence back then.

  * * *

  Several hours after Kenneth and I got engaged, we went on our second date to celebrate me becoming the future Mrs. Quinton. Kenneth and I held hands as we walked to the greenhouse at midnight, a time where the village of Walnut Cherryville was barren of life. The greenhouse was a beautiful glass palace lit by only the stars of the night.

  When we entered, we followed the stone tiles down to the dance floor, which was a circular empty space in the middle of the palace, surrounded by plants. The aroma of the rosemary and lavender plants that grew around the perimeter of the dance floor filled the air. Kenneth pulled out a single rose from his suit jacket and handed it to me.

  “Does Mrs. Quinton know how to dance?” he asked.

  I laughed as I smelled the rose. “Well, apparently not as well as you do. Where did you learn to dance the way you did on Chair Trials?”

  Kenneth gazed into my eyes as he placed his hand on my hip and held my hand gently at shoulder’s height. “My mom told me that I came out of the womb dancing, so she enrolled me in ballroom dance classes when I was four years old,” he said as he began to sway me gracefully. “Before my father died, I used to take a lot of different types of dance classes after school, but that only lasted until I was thirteen.”

  I was surprised to see that Kenneth had a gentle, hidden talent of dance masked behind his malevolent exterior. “Why did you stop?”

  He dipped me down to the floor, lifted me up to my feet, and twirled me around. “I never stopped dancing, but my lessons stopped because my mother made me move out here. She said it would be safer for me because the person that murdered my father would never be able to find me here. While I lived in Walnut Cherryville, I continued to practice on my own, but I feel a little rusty.”

  “No, I think you’re doing great,” I said. “That’s too bad…Maybe things would have turned out differently for you if she let you stay. Where did you used to live before Walnut Cherryville?”

  “That doesn’t matter anymore…It’s all in the past. Anyway, I want to know more about you and what you like. I was intrigued when you asked to change the Walnut Cherryville uniforms as part of our deal. That was probably the most interesting deal I’ve ever made.”

  “Likewise, I got more than I bargained for. As your wife, I’m hoping to make some changes to Walnut Cherryville that will help make it feel homier, so I hope you don’t mind.”

  Kenneth stopped dancing and held me close, only inches away from his lips. “What kinds of changes, Mrs. Quinton?”

  “Well, husband,” I said, running my fingers through his hair. “First, I’m going to make the uniforms more fashionable, and then,” I slid my hand sensually down his face, “like the nature of your deals,” I unbuttoned the collar button on his shirt, “you’ll have to wait and see.” As I walked away, I lightly tugged on his belt buckle and the end came out of the loop. I stepped into the garden, but he didn’t follow. “I can tell you’re the kind of man that likes,” the sundress slipped off my body, “surprises.” As Kenneth stepped toward me, I stepped back, keeping eye contact with him until he grabbed my hair by its roots and kissed me aggressively.

  “You’re right,” Kenneth said as he unhooked my bra. “I like surprises.” He shed his suit jacket to the floor. “Especially ones like this.” He pushed me up against the cold window and continued to kiss me.

  I ripped open his button-down shirt from the bottom ends, and buttons flew everywhere.

  “That was a new, never-worn-before, collared shirt that I put on just so I’d look nice on this date for you,” Kenneth explained as I undid his pants. “Are you telling me that you don’t like it?”

  I pushed him down forcefully into the garden. “You don’t need clothes to impress me.”

  After a long night of revenge sex, I woke up the next morning in Kenneth’s queen-sized bed feeling like a different kind of woman. Instead of sleeping with acquaintances for money or expensive things, I slept with my fiancé to give him HIV as a little “I love you” gift before the wedding.

  Kenneth snuggled me beneath the white silk sheets that were smeared with dirt and leaves from last night’s shenanigans. Now that Kenneth and I were engaged, I got to live in the Quintons’ private quarters. Located on the fortieth floor of the glass building, it was the only leve
l where the ceiling and floor were made out of nontransparent black glass. Kenneth showed me last night that the walls in his room were constructed of interchangeable glass that could be transparent to bring light into the room or turn to black to have privacy. Before we fell asleep, he changed all the walls black, except the wall facing the village. He liked to look at the stars as he fell asleep and would only wake up to natural light that shone through the window. The luxuries that Kenneth had in just his room were more than what everyone in the lower levels had, combined. He even had his own bathroom with a private shower, Victorian-style bathtub, and a giant walk-in closet full of designer clothes. The furniture was a set that included two dressers, two night tables, and a bed, all hand-carved out of cherrywood with extravagant detailing.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Quinton,” Kenneth said as he woke up. “You still look beautiful, even if you’re all covered in dirt and have bedhead.”

  “Good morning, husband,” I said, giving Kenneth a peck on the lips. “Last night was special, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, it was,” Kenneth replied as he rubbed my lower stomach. He sat up, opened his night table drawer, and took out a bottle of prescription pills called Lithobid.

  “What’s that you’re taking?”

  He washed the pill down with a sip of water from the bottle on his night table. “That’s for my,” he coughed, “allergies.”

  Lithobid was not a common allergy medicine that I had heard of, and I doubted it was allergy medicine at all. Whatever the medicine was really for, I got the feeling that he didn’t want to tell me about it.

  Kenneth got out of bed, went into the bathroom, and started the shower. I followed him and stood in the doorway playing with my hair. “So how did the Chair Trials Olympics end yesterday?”

  “Quick,” Kenneth replied as he stepped into the shower.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Mom didn’t let me finish the execution; instead, she killed the contestants herself. I hate how Mom can be such a buzzkill sometimes. I had the situation under control. The contestants were competing against each other, and then they were supposed to die, but no! Mom had to have it her way and just shoot them with a handgun before they finished the games!”