#a bad man is...

1. Lucky You

“Thank the nice man, Ed.”

Eddie ducks her head. “Thank you.”

“Thank you, sir,” Annie instructs through gritted teeth. “We’re not up north anymore.”

“Then where the hell are we?” Eddie whispers back, glancing down at Annie before resuming her most polite smile.

“Don’t speak to me like that in front of company,” Annie says, maintaining her own ‘nothing’s wrong here’ smile the entire time.

The cashier, a teenager  with crooked teeth and a thousand yard stare, doesn’t bat an eye. Weak fans buzz away all around the little convenience store, pushing his bangs into his eyes. He doesn’t move to right them.

“Thank you, sir,” Eddie says.

The kid nods back, not making eye contact. “Yerwelcome.” Is he on something?

Annie pulls Eddie away from the counter before she can ask any questions. Through the little aisles, retracing their steps. Eddie makes sure to avoid all of the cracks in the tiled floor. She only steps on the red squares. It’s a good rhythm, left and right. Not thinking, she forgets to watch out for the substandard doorframe and hits her head on the way out. “Fuck.”

Annie, who is just about five feet flat and has never once experienced a beam shaped welt on her forehead, rolls her eyes. “Just get in the fuckin’ car.”

Eddie’s been trying to figure out what’s making Annie so impatient this morning. They’ve been on the road for about three days by now and today’s seen the worst of her disgruntled attitude. She won’t tell Eddie what state they’re in or where they’re going; she won’t let her listen to the radio; she didn’t even get the door for her when they entered the store, which never happens.

Annie does open the passenger door for Eddie, but she doesn’t close it. She marches around the front of her shitty sedan and throws herself into the driver’s side hard enough to shake the frame of the car. Annie may be a small woman, but she’s all muscle, and she’s not one to pull her punches. “I got you something,” she says, digging around in the pocket of her leather jacket. It’s way hotter here than back in Philly, and Eddie’s not surprised when Annie strips down to her undershirt. She doesn’t mind the view, either.

Annie hands her an ice cream bar. It’s melting.

“I’m good. Thanks, though. You can have it.”

“C’mon, don’t be afraid of ice cream.” She sets it on the dashboard. If Eddie doesn’t grab it quick, it’s going to leave a sticky puddle in its wake. “You could stand to lose some weight anyways. This ain’t gonna hurt anything.”

Eddie crosses her arms. Now she really doesn’t want to eat it. (Well, she does, but she isn’t going to. To make a point.) “I didn’t see it at the checkout.”

“They wanted a dollar for it. I’m not made of money.”

When Eddie first met Annie, she could’ve sworn the stealing was not an apparent issue. If it was, she would have ended everything right then and there. Probably.

Annie mostly sticks to the small stuff, pomade or mints; but Eddie did start noticing things around their little apartment that weren’t there before. The nicer shampoo. A new coffee machine. Leather conditioner. Certainly out of the budget for two unemployed students.

And that’s the other thing—Annie can’t seem to get a job. She’s not the handiest dyke on the scene, but she sure knows how to get things done. Nothing gets in her way once a plan is formed, even if the rejections are endless. Most places don’t bother to call back. 

Annie’s motivated in a way Eddie’s never been. Annie clawed her way up from nothing. She buzzed her hair and fled. She worked for what she has. Except for the stealing. Once she gets away with it, she just can’t help but do it again.

“Do you want it or not, Ed?”

Eddie picks up the ice cream bar and begins to peel the wrapper. “Thanks for thinking of me.” Annie reaches across the console to put a hand on Eddie’s inner thigh as she backs out of the parking lot. So that was the right answer.

“We’re almost there, baby.” This is a lie, but Eddie doesn’t need to know that.

Annie gets them off the highway, taking them down a busy road. Safety in numbers, at least. It looks like it’s going towards the city. Which city, however, Eddie can’t be sure. She hasn’t traveled much outside of her familiar train routes and the places she could walk to around campus. She certainly was not prepared for another of Annie’s…adventures.

Bright lights and colors from businesses, people, apartments flash past. It’s a combination of historic, run-down, and shiny brand new that makes her feel like everyone is decorated for a holiday she’s never heard of.

Annie looks pretty close to cursing out the drivers around them. Horns are blaring and the traffic is slow, but she’s a tactical driver when she needs to be. They’re past the worst of the holdup before Eddie even realizes it. The land has more breathing room; yards get bigger and houses get farther apart, the school buildings look newer, and just like that the urban landscape is behind them. That’s not good.

Annie parks in front of a tiny church building. According to the bulletin sign, IT COULD HAPPEN AT ANY TIME. 

She fiddles with the key impatiently before getting out of the car and starting off down the sidewalk. “Let’s go, Ed.”

Eddie follows like she always does. The houses here are old, but in the pretty way. Classic paint jobs and decorated yards. It reminds her of some of the counties back home, places she dreamed of living in if she could ever escape the city. People bustle in and out of cafes and novelty book stores, a tucked away place with vintage gowns in the window, restaurants with outdoor seating; even a town history museum. Eddie smiles at a young woman and her beribboned daughter. She stares at the dresses when she gets close enough. Guys nod at her as they pass. Annie keeps walking.

The aggressive rumble of engines douses the happy crowd in a low panic. People walking on the cobblestone step behind parked cars to clear the road; the mother pulls her daughter to the side. Eddie relaxes when she sees the bikers speeding towards them. They aren’t here to stick around, and soon the moment will pass.

The bikers don’t pass Main Street. They leave their bikes anywhere they can find room. They take off their helmets. And then they begin to disperse.

Not all of them seem unkind, they just take up so much space. Some of them have more tattoos than bare skin. Eddie’s a little afraid to stare, but she can’t help it. She’s never seen a real tattoo before. “Why do their jackets say ‘Doubleheads’?” she whispers.

Annie gives her a look. “It’s their name.” Obviously, dumbass. Eddie will keep her mouth closed next time.

One of the guys pulls up right next to where they’re standing on the curb. Nervous, Eddie grabs for Annie’s hand. Annie shrugs her away forcefully. “You tryin’ to get us in trouble?”

She shakes her head. Of course not. Annie busies herself by keeping Eddie out of earshot while she talks to the young man with the greasy hair. Annie doesn’t have a bike to Eddie’s knowledge, but she sure dresses just like the guys that ride them. She could blend right in. She could hop right on and leave Eddie behind.

“Ann?”

Annie averts an evil eye in Eddie’s direction. “I’m busy, Ed.”

“Yeah, but—“ her words fall away. Annie and the man ignore her completely, continuing to speak in their hushed tones and abstract gestures.

Eventually the conversation ends and Eddie’s trying not to lose Annie in the crowd, trying desperately to keep the pace without tripping over the trolley tracks that line the crumbling streets. The biker guy leads them up the hill, quick and dark haired. He’s gone in a flash and then he reappears. Annie hasn’t checked behind her even once to make sure Eddie’s still there. 

They might as well be living a crime drama. The biker guy leads them to a narrow, dark alley in between two buildings. Eddie has to turn sideways just to walk through. He unlocks an unmarked door that looks more like an unsanded board than anything functional. It doesn’t even open all the way before it hits the building on the other side.

“Ask for Lisa,” he says, before holding his wrist up to Annie. As far as Eddie can tell, it looks like they’re comparing watches maybe? And then he walks off.

The door opens directly into a stairwell. Annie, in all her gracious chivalry, pushes Eddie inside first. The nearest landing has two doors and another flight; Annie directs her up the next set of stairs with a firm shove.

“Where are we going?”

Annie shifts her weight, hands on her hips. “Last door down the hall. Tell her you’re Lisa.”

“But the guy said—”

“No arguing. Do you want a bed tonight or not?”

Having lost, Eddie sighs and begins her descent. She stops halfway and turns around when she realizes Annie isn’t coming with her.

Annie’s arms are crossed firmly; she’s going to stand her ground. “Be polite,” is all she says. Eddie looks back one more time and Annie is gone.

Approaching the door, she relaxes her shoulders. Be polite. She can do that. She raps the door knocker three times.

The response is immediate. The lady who answers the door kinda looks like a girl Eddie went to high school with. This makes her laugh nervously. Then she remembers the script. “Hi, I’m—”

“Yeah, real funny, Kim. Where were you an hour ago?”

“I didn’t—”

“Look, here are the keys, I’ll be back on Monday, feed the cat twice a day.”

Eddie takes the keys, drops them, picks them back up, and salutes her goodbye. How did that happen? Who salutes people casually?

“You’re so cute when you’re stupid,” the lady says, grabbing Eddie’s shirt and kissing her full on the mouth. Ew ew ew. “Tell Jim I said hi.”

“Uh huh,” Eddie agrees, fighting the instinct to wipe her mouth.

Of course, Annie reappears as soon as the stranger chick is out of sight. Apparently while Eddie was holding the door open dumbstruck, the cat got out. Annie picks it up on her way in.

“She said to feed it twice a day until Monday.”

Annie sets the unfortunate creature down and laughs. “We’re out of here tomorrow. It’ll have to live.”

Oh, thank God. This isn’t the kind of place Eddie would want to stay in for a week. The bed reaches wall to wall, and when Annie shuts the door behind them there’s barely enough room to stand comfortably. There’s no windows, just a single lightbulb. It’s safe to assume the sheets haven’t been washed. She does not see a litterbox.

The cat keeps gently butting its head on Eddie’s shin and winding its tail around her calves. Cats tend to dissolve her worries embarrassingly fast; this one is no different. It’s so soft and fluffy, maybe the cleanest thing in this place. She has to pick it up.

Annie looks at her funny, but Eddie doesn’t care. She spends a long time standing in silence and just holding it close to her chest. It purrs, batting at her hair and climbing onto her shoulder. She can feel its muscles stretching beneath its fur, delicate bones and the slight prick of claws. It’s so warm, it breathes so steady.

“Didn’t know you were an animal lover,” Annie says, leaning against the wall and watching Eddie rocking the cat in her arms and talking to it like a small, furry child.

“I mean. Look at him.” Eddie brings him closer, and Annie starts scratching him between the ears with just the pads of her fingers. He rubs his cheek against the heel of her palm. It almost looks like he’s smiling. “Did you wanna hold him?”

“Sure.” Annie shrugs, but Eddie can see the Christmas morning excitement on her face when he climbs into the crook of her elbow and starts playing with the fabric of her shirt.

Eddie may have to consider getting a cat for their apartment. With Annie and a cat at arms length, she’ll be unstoppable. She can already picture it; this is something they can do together. Annie won’t get bored and let her hands wander while they’re watching TV if the cat is sitting on Eddie’s lap; she’ll have to wake up at a reasonable time in the morning because the cat needs to be fed before classes start; she’s can’t argue with Eddie if a cat is conveniently placed in her arms. Adoration overload. It’s the perfect plan.

“Should I be nervous or something?” Annie asks.

“Huh?”

She shifts the cat to the other shoulder. “Your eyes went all dark for a second.”

“Oh. Sorry. I think we should adopt a cat.”

Annie holds the cat up under its armpits, legs dangling. “Y’know, I had one growing up. Always bringin’ us dead birds and shit.”

Eddie grins. “That’s not a no.”

“It’s an ‘I’ll think about it’.”

Sometimes an ‘I’ll think about it’ is as good as it gets. It’s hopeful, even in the dim lighting of a stranger’s bed-closet. Eddie and Annie could stand to work on a few things when it comes to their relationship, and signs could come in any form. A cat just might be the next step forward.

“Let me take you out,” Annie says, sitting on the bed with the dirty sheets and cradling the cat in her lap.

“You know a place?”

Annie knows a lot of places. Even years later, she hasn’t forgotten them at all. They’re not exactly to Eddie’s taste; the kind of bars you don’t wanna take a girl to, what with all the drinking and betting and frankly, groping. Ed’s not really one for the races. 

Still, this is Annie’s second chance. “I’ll find somewhere.”

She settles on a little family joint. The owners are friends of Annie’s parents, but they probably wouldn’t recognize Annie now. To their credit, Annie barely recognizes their son when he greets them at the front. She knew him from middle school maybe, before they pulled him out and sent him to public. Bless their hearts, or whatever her mom always said. These people are dirt poor and it shows.

To be fair, Annie doesn’t have a real job yet, either, but at least she’s not stuck in a family-made hellhole. She’s going to turn things around when they get to the farm. This is a new chapter for her, and she’s gonna start by getting Eddie in a well enough mood. Shit’s gonna start to change. They should be celebrating.

After dinner, when the sun is down and the streets are bare, Annie does take her hand. Eddie glances down at her, unsure. Annie nods. No one’s gonna bother them at this hour. There’s a place Annie’s always wanted to take someone, and a foolish part of herself wants to see if it’s still there. She figures she owes it to teenage Annie, anyways.

A few blocks and a lone streetlight confirms it: everything is exactly as she left it. The creaking of the steps is louder than she remembers, and the railing has rusted, but that doesn’t stop her. She grips Eddie’s hand tight as they climb the dilapidated fire escape, the metal skeleton that’s still standing despite the cycle of tenants and businesses and anything else that ran past the other side of the brick wall over the years. Annie gives Eddie a leg up and they’re both on the roof.

“So…you’ve been here before?” Eddie asks, when the silence and the stars are too great between them.

Annie smiles; she’s been found out. “Yeah. Last time I was up here, I was schemin’ about how to kiss Donna Peterson under the stars.”

Eddie puts a hand on Annie’s knee. She’s heard a lot about Donna Peterson, as far as gradeschool crushes go. “You could, uh. Kiss me under the stars.”

“You might be onto something,” Annie murmurs, closing the distance. Eddie’s so nice when she behaves. They haven’t kissed this gentle since forever. Annie brought Eddie along for a reason; she’s a special one. Eddie deserves gentle, she deserves to have the door held and her dinner paid for and the stars above her, at her whim. Annie just loses sight of that sometimes. Everyone’s got a breaking point.

Annie’s hands migrate to Eddie’s hips. There’s too much fabric between them. Annie just wants to see Eddie laid out in her bed again. Ed’s been so tense since they left, there’s been no time to get comfortable around each other.

“Ain’t it cool how you can see the stars?”

Eddie rests her hand over Annie’s. “That’s cheesy.”

Annie kisses her again, inhaling through her nose and letting Eddie catch her breath. “You like it.”

“I do.”

“Y’know, light pollution’s a serious issue,” Annie says, smiling like the crescent moon.

“Oh, of course,” Eddie laughs, feeling like her heart is full. She drifts even closer, the zipper of her jacket dragging up against Annie’s tee shirt. It’s quiet up here in the good kind of way. She’s never been on a roof before. Life can be so beautiful, and if someone above decided Annie would be the one to show it to her, Eddie’s not complaining.

“Today was good, huh?”

Eddie nods. Annie loves her and everything else is just noise.

The walk back is the easiest thing Eddie’s done all day. The streetlights glow gently and Annie’s in no rush. Eddie almost trips over a pile of broken glass on the sidewalk. She looks up briefly and sees her own reflection in a darkened shop window, stupid doe eyes caught in the headlights of her own making.

The tag on her collar prickles the back of neck and she reaches up to adjust it. This can’t be happening. She is walking in a quaint town and she is holding hands with the only love she’s known so far and she…

And she’s bored. She doesn’t want this. It’s not right. She doesn’t see herself doing this in ten years. She can’t love someone blindly, can’t give gooey promises when they make her skin crawl. She needs love to be proven to her, over and over.

Her hand falls from Annie’s grasp and it’s happening again, the counting. She can’t step on the sidewalk cracks. Her thumb strikes her fingertips left and right, one two three four one two three one two one. Other side. Four three two one three two one two—

“You alright, Ed?”

Damn it. She lost count. Better start over. She pulls the waist band of her shorts lower. Hands in her pockets, but that’s too awkward. Annie grabs her hand again and squeezes. They’re leaving tomorrow. It’ll be fine.

It takes thirteen steps to get through the alleyway, which is not good. She’s off balance going up the stairs, which she doesn’t bother counting because thirteen is an unlucky number and nothing on either side is going to reverse it.

She doesn’t feel any better in the morning, not even when Annie digs through the owner lady’s cabinets and starts slicing fruit to bring with them. Then something occurs to Eddie. 

If Annie is at the foot of the bed preparing for their departure, then the sleeping warm thing Eddie is hugging is not Annie. She opens her eyes and actually looks. It’s that cat. She reaches to turn the lightbulb on and starts to lace her shoes. The cat follows her every move, demanding attention.

“Ready to go?” Annie says, sliding everything into a glass container that definitely was not hers to begin with.

The cat jumps into Eddie’s lap, spreading its limbs and rolling so she can’t get up. “We can’t just let it starve for a week.”

Annie grabs a bag of cat food from the pantry and starts measuring it into bowls. “You can leave out a week’s worth of food and cats know when to eat it.”

“No way.”

Annie nods, laughing. “Yes way. He’ll do just fine on his own.”

The cat doesn’t actually have a collar or anything. They don’t know if it’s a boy or girl, what its name is. Eddie looks at it and then she looks at Annie, standing in the doorway. “You’re sure we can’t just…?”

“Can’t what?”

Eddie holds the cat closer. “You know.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Annie says, using the wall to write something hurriedly on a piece of paper.

“That’s not a no.”

Annie starts folding the paper carefully, not sparing a sideways glance. Eddie’s starting to feel like the cat in this situation.

“Just take the damn thing,” Annie says. “Can’t promise it’ll want to stay, though.”

Victory. Eddie scoops up the cat and puts it on her shoulder like a baby. Annie closes the door behind them and pushes the folded paper halfway under the door.

“What’s that?”

“It’s her keys, I wrapped ‘em up. Not like she has anything worth taking,” Annie smirks.

It’s only the morning, but the streets are buzzing already. All of the motorcycles from yesterday are gone, and awkward gaps stretch between parked cars along the main road. Annie’s car is waiting for them in front of the little church, whose sign has changed—DON’T BE THE ONLY ONE.

Annie and Eddie and the cat climb into the front seat and leave the town in the dust. Eddie can breathe again. Change is happening. It might not be good for her, but time is moving no matter what.

“What should we name it?”

“I dunno, it’s your cat.”

“It’s our cat.”

Annie makes an exaggerated thinking face. “Sugarmaple. Eddie II. Mittens. Kitty—“

“It needs to be something good,” Eddie insists.

“You stole him. That’s like coming up with a name for your bastard child.”

Eddie scoffs affectionately. It’s nothing like that. Her and this cat were meant to be together. She’ll find the right name eventually.

From the looks of everything, they’re set for another long day of driving. Eddie forgets how many days it’s been, but they must be pretty far from Pennsylvania by now; she lost track of the route after they left I-70 and Annie hasn’t used a single map the entire time.

Annie doesn’t suggest stopping anywhere and Eddie doesn’t ask for it, but at some point in the afternoon she offers up the fruit that she found. Sliced apples, oranges, a few different types of berries. Annie claims she cut everything so that it would fit in the container, but Eddie knows how much she likes to prepare food. They eat the strawberries first, glimmering in the sunlight and dripping red on Eddie’s clothing. 

Unrefrigerated fruit is a weird thing to leave behind when you’re going on vacation, but maybe that lady from the apartment meant it as a thank you gift. Eddie hopes she won’t be too worried when she realizes the cat is gone as well.

Feeling embarrassed, she hugs the cat tighter and looks through her bag for something to do. Annie tends to get frustrated when she has to drive all day, so Eddie’s getting ready to stay quiet and suppress her questions. She hones in on the Sudoku book Annie packed for her which, compared to every other aspect of this unplanned nightmare trip, was a nice touch.

Eddie always writes in pen even though she ends up scratching over her mistakes. The puzzle she opens to shouldn’t be that hard, but her mind is curiously blank. The numbers blur a little.

They’ve reached the point of no civilization. Everything is grass, haybales, windmills, water towers. But no humans. She stares out the driver’s side window, watching the vast fields of cows and sheep and horses. The closest she’s seen to a real farm animal is maybe a big dog.

“You want somethin’?”

“I’m just looking around,” Eddie defends.

“Yeah, I thought so. Don’t worry, their house is comin’ up.”

“‘Their’?”

“Curiosity killed the cat, girl. Try to get some rest.”

Eddie tries her best. Her head still aches and she could really use a shower. She wonders vaguely about the time but decides not to think too hard, not if she doesn’t have to.

The sky has just begun to melt as Annie reaches for her gun. Eddie doesn’t notice at first; she’s busy staring at candy clouds, fluffy and backlit by the fading sky. She’s observing her own reflection in the car window turned glassy pink and orange with the sunset.

She’s feeling a little loopy and she’s not sure why. She slept as well as she could; the car is ventilated enough, kind of; she even ate one whole meal today. She wants to go to sleep again, for real, in a real bed, at home. She had built the little bed back at the flat into a sort of nest, and she prided herself on the fact that she and Annie could just fall into it at the end of the day. She misses it dearly.

Right now she’s chosen to delay her anxiety, mind reduced to ‘sky pretty’ and ‘wow, more cow fields’. The mesh fences have turned to barbed wire. She can worry about shit later. If it’s going to happen to her anyways, she might as well not even think about it. She might as well just sit and take it. That’s what Annie wants, and Eddie wants what Annie wants. Eddie is what Annie wants.

The gun barely fazes her. She waits so long to ask about it that Annie decides to jump in with an explanation unprompted. “It’s not too safe in these parts.”

Whatever you say, cowboy. Eddie nods listlessly. “Okay.”

“Don’t ever leave the car if I can’t see you.”

“Uh huh.”

“Ed. Are you listening to me.”

Sometimes Annie can be so impatient. She’s a child stamping her foot. Eddie’s too out of it to really argue, though. Her eyes are on the sky. This conversation isn’t about her. “Yeah! Obviously.”

The car brakes with a jolt as they pull up to a small house. It looks pretty new, the style maybe less than a decade old, and yet there’s something about it that says it’s seen some things. This land wants to reclaim its stolen footprint. It’s cupped by the edge of a dense wood, and the large metal gate looks like it’s barely holding onto its hinges. Another, smaller building sits in the distance, but it’s getting too dark to see.

Annie grabs her bag from the back, clips her keys to her belt, and gets out of the car. The gun is still in hand. Eddie unbuckles her seatbelt too, cat in her arms, but she’s hesitant to make a wrong move.

“C’mon. They’re waiting.”

The porch is rickety and Eddie’s pretty sure she’s gotten a splinter just from touching the railing by accident. It’ll all be fine, though. She’s not going to judge it just from the outside; there’s still hope. Things are looking pretty bad, but she’s learned that lesson before. Like Annie—she seemed so angry all the time when they first met, but it turns out she just wanted to take Eddie on a date. And look where they are now.

Annie tries the door. It doesn’t budge. “That fucker,” she mutters, pushing at it with her shoulder. No luck. She knocks loudly. Eddie tries to look inside. Warm light peeks through, but the curtains are drawn tight. A dog starts barking maniacally, and Eddie hears it scratching up the door, the walls. She holds the cat closer to her chest and it nuzzles into her shoulder, indifferent to the noise.

Annie switches to rapping on the windows, but she gives up pretty soon. “Wait here, baby,” she says, before slinking around the side of the house.

Annie’s a little pissed already. She called this morning to let them know her and Eddie were coming. Her friends aren’t good for much in life, but she knows they were taught how to be good hosts.

And if not—well, she has some idea as to how they can be prompted. Annie wasn’t lying when she said this area is dangerous; all sorts of shit live in these woods. But she also suspected she might have to use the gun for unconventional purposes. Everything just falls into place when it’s by her side.

Never let it be said that Neil Kowalski is a stupid man. He’s just…well, he’s pretty stupid. And he pastures his horses without a double fence.

She surveys her options. The horses, seeing her, have come right up to the gate. They really are such naive creatures. Neil’s been wanting one since he was a little girl. Any noise they make is sure to get his attention. Taking a steady look straight into the horses’ huge black eyes, Annie aims and shoots.

Eddie’s really been trying to suppress her nerves so far, just waiting in the dim porch light and hoping Annie knows what she’s doing. The sound of the shot, like ice cracking, really takes her off guard. It’s just fireworks, it’s only been a month since the 4th of July, people here are more patriotic. But the screams say otherwise. Inhuman screeching. Pigs, maybe? Do animals even make that noise?

More barking. A man’s voice. “I’ll fuckin’ shoot you dead!”

So, definitely not fireworks.

Then Annie. “And I’ll meet you in hell!”

Eddie’s shaking so bad now that she can’t stop. She keeps holding her breath, just by accident. Why is she reacting this way? Annie’s got everything figured out. It’ll be fine. Her body just won’t listen. Maybe she should go over there and see if Annie’s okay. But it’s so dark out. It’s not too safe in these parts.

“Well, aren’t you handsome.”

That voice isn’t far away at all. Sure and smooth, delivered with a smile. Eddie turns around slowly. Warm light spills onto the porch. It’s hot outside, night still cooling from the heat of the day, but Eddie’s skin breaks into goosebumps.

The woman in the doorway takes a step out. “You’re the girl Annie tells me about?”

Eddie swallows, nods. Annie was talking about her?

“Name’s Jane. Come in.”

Jane. Eddie can’t believe what she’s seeing. Jane can’t be too much taller than Annie, and just as well-built. A cow crawls down her bicep, fleeing from something. It has two heads. Jane’s hair is damp and it falls around her ears, overgrown in the back. Golden blond. Mouth slightly parted. Gunshots forgotten, Eddie’s heart rate kicks into high gear. Jane.

“Come inside, Eddie. We ain’t too scary.”

“You know my name?”

“I know a lot of things about you, Ed.” She steps out of the way to let Eddie through, and Eddie walks right in without a second thought. She’s a good listener; the walls are already going up. This whole day she’s been worrying about where she was gonna sleep and how long it would be until she got to go home, but those seem terribly unimportant right now. She hadn’t expected Annie’s friends to be hot.

The back door of the house is pushed open and Annie comes in, leading someone by the shirtsleeve. The panic sets in. The screaming from outside. She seems to be struggling, pulling this guy behind her and into the living room with her pistol in the other hand. But when she turns to face them, her grin’s wide as a hyena. “Jane!”

“Annie!”

Annie lets go of the man she was holding and crosses the living room to wrap Jane in a bear hug. Their resemblance is truly uncanny, from the way they walk to the cut of their jeans. Annie gets Jane in a headlock, rubbing at her hair until it sticks up in all different directions.

“You finally get rid of those ugly beasts?” Jane laughs, composing herself.

“Nah,” says the man, grinning and nodding at Annie. He keeps stumbling, trying to stand straight and catching himself just before he trips. “She was just puttin’ a few holes in my barn.”

“Only way to get his attention,” Annie agrees. She sets the gun on the coffee table. “Why’d y’all lock the door on us?”

Jane shrugs. “Wasn’t me.”

The man, still swaying, glances over his shoulder. It sets Eddie on edge—there’s no one else coming to join the party, right?—but he doesn’t see anything. “I mighta locked it. Sorry, Ann,” he slurs, resting his arm on her shoulder.

Annie bats him away gently. “He’s a happy drunk, ain’t he?”

“How about we join him?” Jane offers, headed for the kitchen.

“I like the sound of that.” Annie takes Eddie’s hand and walks her over to the couch. “You want anything, baby?”

Eddie shakes her head, watching the three of them with a morbid curiosity. Alcohol usually makes everything worse. She’d rather just curl up on this couch right now and sleep for a bit while Annie and her friends clap each other on the back and talk about their latest conquests.

At some point warm hands find her face and she’s being woken up again. Jane’s there, crouching by Eddie’s side like she’s a child and looking at her with those deep brown eyes. “It’s late, hon,” she says. “And we put together a real bed for y’all.”

“Okay,” Eddie says, but she has to clear her throat first and there’s drool on her cheek. Gross. The illusion is wavering. She can’t afford to be unattractive in front of someone like Jane. On the other hand, a real bed sounds heavenly.

Jane picks up Eddie’s glasses from where they fell to the floor and slides them over her ears for her; not at all unlike the way Annie does it, but perhaps with less aggression. The cat is close by, and he puts a friendly paw on Jane’s shoulder.

Eddie stands up with only a little bit of help from Jane and her strong arms. Annie’s waiting for her in the hallway that leads to the rest of the house. It’s dim, but Eddie notes four closed doors and one bathroom at the end of the hall. She zones out while Annie digs for the toothbrushes she brought from home. She touches her cheek in the mirror. Any evidence of Annie’s temper from earlier on their road trip has gone now. Nobody has to know.

The room they have has a door with a lock and a bed in the corner and a dresser beneath the window. Annie strips off her shirt and hands Eddie the bag she packed for her. There are…a lot of clothes in here. It’s pretty worrying, actually. How long are they staying? Eddie changes into something comfortable while she considers the best way to bring that up without Annie getting mad. Annie tells her that she should make sure to thank their hosts because they went to the trouble of converting their storage into a guest room just for us.

“What’s the guy’s name?” Eddie asks.

“That would be Neil. He’ll take to you soon enough, just needs time to adjust to new folks.”

Eddie’s not sure what to make of Neil. His hair’s all droopy and overgrown like one of those British guys in bands Eddie doesn’t listen to; he was clearly drunk even before her and Annie pulled up. It’s just weird, and she doesn’t trust him.

She lays back on the bed, and the cat crawls up there too, burrowing behind her pillow. Annie turns off the light before joining them.

Annie is strong and solid, and she holds Eddie every night as they fall asleep. Eddie looks forward to this every day. She leans close into Annie’s neck. Annie plucks her glasses off for her and reaches to put them away on a bookshelf near the bed. There’s one thing Eddie’s still worried about, though.

“Ann,” she whispers.

“Yeah?”

“You didn’t kill any animals, right?”

Annie laughs. “No, baby. I wasn’t aiming for his horses.”

“Okay. Good.”

Annie presses a kiss to her lips. Eddie grimaces for a second, expecting to taste wine or beer or whatever it was they were drinking, but she’s met with only mint. She doesn’t know how Annie does it. She hugs Annie closer to her, kisses her gently in search of that lasting sweet candy cane, like maybe it’s tucked in the hollow of her cheek.

Annie indulges her for a minute before calling it quits. “Goodnight, Ed.”

“‘Night. Love you.”

Annie breathes deep and closes her eyes, a girl in her arms and a mattress beneath them and a roof over their heads. She couldn’t ask for much more, even if the morning comes too soon.

For the first time in ever, it’s Annie waking Eddie up and not the other way around. She’s all damp with sweat and the room is dark and Annie is tapping her cheek repeatedly. Now she gets why Annie’s always so grumbly in the morning. They should really invest in an alarm clock.

“Wake up. C’mon now.”

Finally Eddie stops trying to pull the blanket over her ears and swings her legs over the side of the bed. “I’m up, leave me alone. What time is it?”

Annie helps her up, laughing. “Four o’clock in the AM.”

“Nope, I’m going back to sleep.”

“Ah”—Annie grabs her wrists. Eddie freezes—“no you ain’t. You gotta get used to waking up early. Vámonos, babe.”

Eddie’s dizzy again. At least this time she knows it’s because she stood up too fast, not because of some mystery drug. She takes a few steps towards the hallway and then decides she’d rather just sit on the floor. Now’s as good a time as any to look through her bag. Annie stands over her and nudges her with her foot but gives up pretty soon afterwards. That’s what she gets for waking Eddie up at such an unholy hour. Eddie scrubs her hand over her eyes and unzips the bag.

It’s all clothes, nothing interesting. Eddie was hoping for like, a manifesto, or blueprints or something. But no. She’s just stuck here.

By the time she makes it to the bathroom sink, she’s feeling pretty accomplished. She brushes her teeth, messes up her hair a little, tries to wash her face. The tiny mirror over the sink has a huge crack down the middle of it. The water tastes weird. “Ann?”

“What?”

“Why’s the water here taste weird?”

“Hell if I know. Farm magic.”

If there’s one thing Annie should know already, it’s that Eddie hates vacations. Why go somewhere new when everything you need is right within reach? Home is where the heart is. It’s comfortable for a reason. When Eddie told Annie she thought being from the South was cool, she meant ‘your accent is kinda hot’ and ‘I feel special when you pull my chair out for me’.

Eddie’s not built for a farm. The people here talk weird and they raise animals that couldn’t fit through the front door. They do shit Eddie can’t learn in school. She’s way out of her depth, and that’s never good.

When she enters the kitchen, this truth is immediately confirmed.

“Annie, you brought us a woman and she don’t even bother makin’ breakfast?” Neil is tilting back on the legs of his chair, putting a cigarette out on the kitchen table.

Annie doesn’t give him a sideways glance, heading straight for the door. “Give her a day or two, she’ll pick it up.” She pulls a leather bag off the coat hooks by the front and undoes all three locks (a detail Eddie hadn’t noticed last night, but is not surprised to learn. There’s also a shotgun hanging over the door which she finds to be…telling). Annie gives a little wave. “I’ll see y’all later.”

And then it’s just the three of them. Eddie, Neil, and Jane. All alone in this strange little house. No neighbors for miles around.

“Eddie?” Jane says. She’s been quiet this whole time, but now she sits up like there’s a magnet in her spine.

“Yeah?”

“We just wanna get to know you, Eddie. We’ve had some ideas.”

Neil shares a knowing look with her and sets his chair down on all four legs. “Hell yeah we do.”

All Eddie wants to do is go to sleep, but she wouldn’t want her back turned around these people. “Ideas?”

“Come sit on the couch, Eddie.”

“Yeah, talk to us,” Neil says.

Eddie decides to sit in the middle of the couch. That’s her first mistake. Jane sits right up next to her and Neil takes the other side. She’s an idiot piece of almost roadkill and they are two eager turkey vultures.

“Um. Where’s Annie going?”

Jane is trying hard to suppress her grin. “Just business,” she assures. Maybe Eddie’s making things up, but she thinks she sees Neil roll his eyes. She tries to smile back but gives up halfway through. These two clearly don’t have her best interests in mind.

“You sure we can’t get you a drink, Eddie?”

“Oh, no thanks.”

“Why?” Neil says, narrowing his eyes. “You a lightweight or somethin’?”

Eddie doesn’t actually know if she’s a lightweight because she’s not a light drinker—she’s either erasing her memory or she’s not drinking at all. That’s besides the point, though: she hadn’t factored alcohol into her ‘no thanks’ because it’s four in the goddamn morning. She shrugs. “I mostly just drink coffee.”

Jane shakes her head. “We don’t buy into that city folk shit. Caffeine's addictive, y’know.”

Eddie presses her lips together. No coffee? That’s great, that’s fine, she can do that. She resists the urge to lean back into the soft cushions and just close her eyes, just for a little bit.

“Hey,” Jane murmurs. “You can relax a little. We’re nice to pretty girls like you.”

Eddie’s nice to pretty girls who don’t wake her up before dawn, but maybe that’s just her. She lets her shoulders fall nervously, unsure of where Jane intends to go. With Neil at her back like this, she feels like she’s about to get eaten alive. Cold fingers find the pulse point on her neck.

“You’re just a delicate thing, huh?” Jane says, reaching up to angle Eddie’s face to the light. Her hands are anxious, excited, but her words feel like a hug. Eddie is a little delicate. She just needs to be treated gently.

And, woah. Looking into Jane’s eyes feels like falling in love again, brand new. Making eye contact is crystal clear when Eddie’s so used to avoiding it. Jane is more than attractive, she’s the kind of person Eddie needs to be seen by; she needs to impress her no matter the cost. Even if, at the end of the day, Eddie is Annie’s, and the sky will fall before anything gets between them. And, well—Jane probably doesn’t even like her like that. Eddie’s just getting excited. Crushes are normal and fun and this will not be a problem.

“Damn, don’t scare her off,” Neil says. Right. He’s still here.

Jane sits up again, putting some space between them. Their knees are still touching. Eddie blinks a few times. “That’s fine. I’m fine.”

“Good. So next we gotta talk about the cat.”

“What?” Eddie’s wide awake now. What did they do to her cat?

Neil and Jane look at each other and start laughing. “Someone’s got a friend,” Neil says, and they both laugh like it’s the funniest thing ever. Eddie’s heart beats faster, wanting to be in on the joke and yet also wishing she was far, far away from here, just her and Annie and their bed and the cat.

“We didn’t kill your cat,” Jane says.

Neil breaks into snickering again. “Not yet.”

Jane smirks. “It was brave of you for bringin’ it here. But he’s right, it’s not exactly a place for the little guys.”

“I’m not—” Eddie takes a breath and tries again. “I’m not getting rid of him.”

“We know that, Eddie. It’s just a warning. There’s things out there that your house tabby is no match for.”

Neil grins wider. “Including the dog.”

Jane cracks up at that, laughing like Eddie isn’t having her cat-shaped heart held out in front of her and poked with sticks. “Yeah, he’d eat a cat for sure.”

Eddie doesn’t understand how people whose whole life is animals can be so cruel. She wants to know what Annie sees in them. She’s wondering where her cat is right now.

“Speak of the devil,” Jane mutters, leaning forward to scratch the dog as he bounds happily into the living room and rolls onto his back. He’s an ugly thing, bony and sleek and tall—not the kind of dog you’d wanna pet on the sidewalk. Knowing what little she does about his owners, Eddie figures they probably pulled him right off the race tracks.

After giving the dog way too much love, Jane checks the clock on the wall. It’s one of those creepy old ones with the ticking so loud you can hear it all around the house. “We oughta start the milking. Neil will show you.”

Neil’s back to staring at Eddie with suspicion in his eye. She can’t tell if he’s trying to ward her away or take her all for himself. “No I won’t.”

Him and Jane start pulling on her boots and flannels at the doorway. Jane snorts. “Yes you will.”

“It’ll take too much time,” he says, crouching down to do his laces.

“She needs to learn,” Jane shrugs, hands on her hips.

“Why can’t you teach her?”

“I’m fastest. I’ll pick up the slack.”

Neil stands up fully, pulls his collar out in one sharp motion. “I’ll fuckin’ race you, then.”

“What?”

“Ready set go.”

Eddie can’t do much but stand awkwardly in the middle of the living room as Jane and Neil (and the dog) chase each other out the door. She really did just watch them have an argument over her head and then leave her behind. They’re idiots.

The cat, still clean and fluffy, still without a name, sits on her foot and licks its front paw. They must be the only sane ones left.

Annie comes back to the house sometime between daybreak and sunset. Eddie doesn’t care to watch the time; she spends most of the day inside, hiding from the heat and resting in the spare room. Eyes wide open, she pets the cat and looks at nothing. She makes herself scarce when Jane and Neil come back from ‘the milking’ hours later, sweaty and just as loud as before.

It’s Annie who drags Eddie from the dark of the bedroom. “They got somethin’ to show us,” she says, as if that’ll make Eddie more excited for what’s in store.

Jane and Neil are already outside, trekking through the dying grass behind the house. The barn looked intimidating in the dark last night, but the closer they get, the more Eddie can tell how badly it’s rotting. Red paint peeling, bullet holes in the wall, and the smell of mold is everywhere.

Neil turns back to speak with Annie, looking the happiest he’s been since he was drunk. “I want you to meet my animals,” he says gruffly, smile behind his eyes.

There’s three horses in the paddock outside, noses buried in the overgrown grass. Their ears perk up when they hear the sound of Annie’s group approaching. Jane puts a key in the padlock around the fence. She lets the chain swing as Annie opens the gate for everybody.

“Yo, Betsy!” Neil yells. A tea colored horse, black in the shade and swirling mahogany in the sunlight, lifts her head and comes running over to the gate, tail swishing at her hindquarters. “This one’s Betsy. That’s Gamble,” he says, pointing to the white one. The third horse saunters up to him. “And this is St. Martin.”

“St. Martin?” Eddie asks. She’s just trying to be polite, but she regrets it as soon as she opens her mouth. She doesn’t want to know any more about these people than she already does.

“St. Martin-in-the-Fields, because he thinks he don’t belong in a barn,” Jane cackles. “Fuckin’ bitch.” She slaps the animal on the shoulder and he gnashes his yellow teeth at the air. Something tells Eddie there’s no saints left in this place.

Neil scratches him behind his ears. “We just call you Marty though, don’t we? You’re our bitch.”

Catfight Cowgirl

Eddie wakes up early to collect the eggs. Her watch says 3:09, which is just fucking inhuman. Getting up at seven for school was bad enough.

Annie is already gone. Eddie creeps out of their room on socked feet. She kinda needs to use the bathroom, but she doesn’t wanna risk making too much noise. To her great relief, she does not run into Jane or Neil in the hallway.

The screened back door makes an awful screeching noise when she opens it, and it lets in an uncomfortably moist chill. Darting across the living room, she grabs her pullover from the hook by the entrance.

Eddie’s hesitant to shut the screen door again but she’ll probably get yelled at for not doing it. Right as she’s sliding it closed, that stupid dog launches himself at it, barking and scratching at the mesh. Eddie wrenches it open, lets him out, and slams it closed. She makes a mental note to ask Annie about some WD-40.

The dog is still barking at her and she crouches down, shushing it, bargaining with it, finding a stick on the ground and throwing it into the mist. The dog scampers away.

The horses in the field cast strange silhouettes. One of them is separate from the others, head up and looking out, some dark phantom creature standing on the hill and keeping watch. It’s cold out here.

The dog keeps at her heels as she approaches the chicken coop. Dogs like to eat chickens, right? She walks the perimeter of the roundpen until she finds a rope with a clip on the end. Calling the dog over, she attaches it to his collar and double knots him to the fence. He plants his feet, pulling at the rotted slats and threatening to slip the collar over his head. Eddie’ll just have to work quickly.

There is a hatch on the outside of the coop, and she opens it without thinking. Immediately she’s blinded by a flapping of wings and squawking. She shuts the door and latches it.

The hens are loud and she bets anything they can smell her fear. With those beady eyes and sharp beaks, she’s gotta be careful not to lose a finger. She waits till they quiet down before trying again.

Most of the birds only have one egg at their feet. She extricates each egg with care, forming a sort of straw nest with her free hand and setting them down in the center of the pile. There’s one hen who won’t move at all, and Eddie doesn’t mess with her. She wouldn’t want someone taking her unborn babies.

Eddie doesn’t have a basket, so she uses a bucket she found overturned by the circuit box. Eggs secured and hatch door locked, she heads back for the house. Only once she’s back inside does she remember the dog. She sets down her bucket and turns around to go free him from the fence.

He is sitting on the back steps, panting and freshly collarless. Maybe Jane and Neil won’t notice. She glances behind her, checking her surroundings; the living room is just as deserted as it was when she left it. That clock ticks away. She lets the dog back in.

Cooking eggs is something Eddie knows how to do. It’s a straightforward task. Maybe she can even go back to bed afterwards. Scrambled is probably fine, so she mixes the eggs with a fork and sets them on plates and gets out cloth napkins from a drawer, though they look like they haven’t been washed in a while.

A hand presses against the base of her spine and she flinches, dropping the spatula she was holding. It’s Jane.

“Hiya,” Jane grins. She reaches around for a plate, keeping Eddie uncomfortably close to the hot pan. “Finally decided to be useful?”

Eddie grinds her teeth together. Nods. Neil is not far behind, taking a plate without a word. Eddie’s skin itches. She didn’t do all of this just to be underappreciated.

She tries to refocus on her cooking, even if she’s tempted to just lay her palm flat on the nearest hot surface. She forgets to grease the pan and the temperature’s too high, but by the time she’s scraping off her half-burnt breakfast she’s feeling more stable.

Neil and Jane are already at the table, cackling and elbowing each other. Eddie sets her plate down and pulls out a chair just as Neil stands up and pushes his in. “She’s gonna help me catch the horses,” he informs Jane.

Of fucking course. “Can I eat first?” Eddie asks.

“What, you’ll let them starve while you get to eat? Them equines get hungry, too,” he says.

How dare she forget. Eddie can hear Jane’s laughter, but she ignores it. She is going to be the better man. “What about the cows?”

“Jane’ll be out trainin’ the new guys,” he chuckles, mostly to himself. “Bitch lost the fucking bet.”

Jane points her fork at him. “Only ‘cause you fight dirty.”

Smiling, Neil adjusts his glasses with his middle finger. Eddie, unamused by his and Jane’s displays of pettiness, gets her shoes on. She also grabs the bucket—it seems like a good idea to clean up after herself. Everything runs a whole lot smoother when she goes through life as if she’s never been there at all.

“Hurry up, pretty lady,” he drawls, pushing the screen door wide open. Eddie can’t decide if she likes him better or worse when he’s in a good mood.

She’s been a little afraid to go anywhere near the barn since they introduced her to the horses. Horses are large farm creatures with huge eyes and she always thinks they look more like humans who’ve been cursed into being animals. They’re pretty from afar, sure, but something could go wrong. What if she leaves the gate open? What if it bites her? Neil and Jane’s horses didn’t seem very friendly, kicking out and baring their teeth.

Neil doesn’t take her to the barn; instead, they walk right up to the metal gate. Neil unlocks it and swings it closed behind them, twisting the chain until it stays shut. “Normally I’d have you watch the gate, but this is an important lesson,” Neil says, unknotting three ropes from the bars of the fence.

The horses pause their grazing as he and Eddie approach. He whistles and the pretty one comes up real close. “You’re gonna take Betsy and Gamble.” 

Eddie looks to him, and she looks back to the horse. “Do I just…grab their head-things?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Neil laughs. “You always use a lead rope. You wanna keep some distance between you and the horse in case he decides to be a bitch.”

He hands her two ropes. One is blue, and the other is green. Does she need to remember these colors?

“Clip it to the ring underneath her chin,” he continues. “This is a halter. If you see a horse without one, tell me.”

Eddie nods like she’s understanding everything he’s saying. Like if she saw something concerning, she would actually want to go talk to him about it. She clips the lead to Betsy and grips the rope in her hands as if it might suddenly be pulled away from her. She tries not to put any pressure on the horse’s end, holding it away from her body and leaving as much slack as possible. As much distance as possible.

“Betsy’s basically a big dog,” Neil says. “And lookie, here’s Gamble. You can just tug at him, doesn’t hurt him much.” He makes Eddie attach the lead rope to Gamble as well, and suddenly she’s got two strange, enormous animals at the end of both her arms. Actually, Gamble looks pretty small compared to the other horses. Maybe he’s a baby or something. Eddie breathes in slow. They’re just like dogs. Hooved dogs. Grass eating and completely harmless dogs with creepy alien eyes on the sides of their heads.

A frantic shuffling noise startles her. The third horse, St. Martin or Marty or whatever, takes off headlong down the field. Neil walks after him, spinning the lead rope lazily. “Don’t piss me off today, Martin,” he calls.

The horse prances to the side, tail in the air, whinnying back at him from all the way at the top of the hill. Eddie’s no expert, but he looks like he’s enjoying this game.

Neil reaches into his pockets and digs out a sliver of carrot. Immediately Gamble rushes over to him and Eddie drops the rope in her hand. Neil, scowling at her, holds the carrot away from the little gray pony’s eager teeth. “Keep a better hold on him.”

“I was trying to. He pulls hard,” she mutters weakly.

“Uh, I dunno what to tell you, get fucking used to it?” Neil scoffs. He turns back to Marty, who’s dared to come closer to him. “Marty, get your ass down here!”

Marty kicks up his hind legs, tossing his head and loping down the hill. When he’s finally at a standstill, Neil gets his carrot out again and walks towards the indignant animal. Marty begins walking to meet him, too. Neil holds the lead out to attach it to his halter—Marty snatches the carrot and runs away.

“No you fuckin’ don’t,” Neil says, sprinting after him. He chases Marty around the fence, whipping the ground at his feet with the end of the lead rope. Eddie observes the scene in awe. It’s mesmerizing, the way Neil waves his arms like a madman and Marty reacts so expressively to every motion. She’s never seen someone act like that before, so unafraid to step in the path of a wild animal. In a way though, both Neil and his horse look a bit frightened of each other. Gamble and Betsy have begun to graze again.

Once Neil manages to corner Marty, he grabs at his halter and doesn’t let go. Marty throws his head up violently, thrashing and backstepping. Neil gets his arm behind Marty’s ears (Eddie didn’t know it was possible to headlock a horse until now), finally securing the lead rope and immediately putting space between him and Marty. Neil reaches into his pocket and holds out another carrot. Marty relaxes visibly, accepting the offering and walking comfortably by Neil’s side like nothing happened. Horse people are weird.

“Got a handle on those two?” Neil asks, swinging the lead rope back and forth again like he wasn’t just using it to threaten the newly docile animal on the other end.

“Um. Yeah,” Eddie says. She’s still processing what she just witnessed. She tries to step forward and finds Gamble to be an immovable force. He ignores her completely, chewing away at the dead-ish grass.

“Oh,” Neil adds, making an odd clicking sound with his tongue. “Don’t let Gamble pull you around like that. I don’t like to reinforce bad behavior with ‘em.” Right, that makes sense, because feeding carrots to an escape artist doesn’t count as reinforcement. “C’mon now. Kiss at him, he’ll listen if you use your voice.”

“Kiss at him?”

“Like this.” Neil repeats the sound he was making, a series of clicks with an almost aggressive undertone. It makes Gamble’s ears perk up, and he leaves the grass alone.

Neil leads the way back to the barn. Marty throws a fit about going into his stall, so Eddie has to wait outside with the other horses until Neil comes to get them.

When Eddie’s walking the horses, she feels sort of dumb and out of place. But when Neil has them, he’s powerful. Everything here submits to him—Eddie’s just taking up space on his turf.

The inside of the big red barn is small and damp and dim. It’s hotter out here than it is outside. Open stalls hold bales of hay stacked higher than Eddie’s head. Bugs scuttle over dirt and dead leaves on the floor.

At the other end of the walkway, Neil drags a hose. She feels like a voyeur watching him work around her. He moves with a purpose, having some kind of a plan in his head that only he is aware of.

The wheelbarrow runs up and down the aisle. He rolls his sleeves up and lifts hay bales from the top of the pile. Eddie sees everything: the hay in his hair; his shirt creeping up; the overhead light glancing off his belt buckle. He doesn’t see her at all.

She’s tired of being useless. “Is there a job I can do?” 

Neil shrugs, beginning to feed the hose through a slat in the stall dividers. Eddie stands there for at least another minute or two just fidgeting. Getting ignored is making her crazy. She thought she wanted to be left alone, but not like this.

“Can I leave then?”

He looks at her like she’s stupid. “No.”

“Then what can I—?”

“Here, catch.”

Eddie does not catch. It hits her on the side of the head and clatters to the floor at her feet. A broom. She reaches for her aching temple while Neil shakes with laughter. These people are sick.

“Barn always needs sweeping,” he says seriously, gesturing to the floor.

Eddie sighs heavily, happy enough to be given a task. She was a little worried she would fall asleep on her feet. Sweeping is not as easy as it seems. She can go over the same area ten times and still not get all of the dust away. Moving the bigger stuff like leaves and pebbles is an improvement, but no matter how hard she tries, the floor never looks clean.

Straw is the most difficult. It sticks to the bristles of the broom, and every pass scatters it more. She’s made it five feet down the walkway and she already wants to quit. Eddie’s good at a lot of things: she can do all the dishes by hand; she can change the sheets on her own bed; she’s got above average test scores, and she always does her homework even when she’s skipping. She never even considered that there would be a right or wrong way to sweep.

Neil doesn’t comment, but she can tell he’s judging her incompetence. She doesn’t notice that he’s stopped working until she reaches a stall up near the front, where he’s just standing. She is trapped in her own skin. He’s been watching her this whole time.

He nods to the empty stall, and she enters it. It’s the first time she’s seen him look a little directionless. His gaze darts to the side, then back to her. He steps closer, caging her in. It’s comforting, him being a barrier to the rest of the world. She doesn’t know the stable very well. She’s just here to do what she’s told. Neil looks right at her with those clear blue eyes, sharper than Jane’s but never quite focused. “Can you keep quiet?”

“Yeah.” Eddie keeps quiet about a lot of things. She’s never told anyone about the hitting, or the drugging, or the flickering shadow in the corners of her vision. Neil’s asking about volume, yes, but he means more than that. What they’re about to do is wrong. He doesn’t want anyone to know.

He kisses her like he’s hungry, mouth open and searching for something he’s not supposed to have.

Every summer, around this time, Eddie house sits. Her parents’ friends hand over the keys and instructions to feed the fish—though she knows them by heart—and the house is hers for a week. The pay is meager, and she always ends up doing a lot of house chores out of guilt for eating their food or having to sleep in their bed because there’s no guest room. But there’s a reason she keeps coming back: the Kirks have, like, the nicest bathroom she’s ever been in.

Though there’s no explicit rule against it, Eddie knows she’s not supposed to go in there. It’s not attached to the bedroom, and the door is always closed. But since she first discovered it, she can’t help herself. It’s as big as her room back at home; the tile, mauve and green, still sparkles from when they got it renovated a few years ago. They have a whole separate tub just for the shower, which is Eddie’s favorite part. The water runs hotter there than it does at her own house, and she’s prone to spending half an hour just lounging in the steam until condensation drips from the walls. The showerhead is detachable, too, and she can hold it right up to the roots of her hair when she’s washing out Mrs. Kirk’s fancy product. It probably doesn’t have any real benefit, but it feels like it does.

Sometimes the feeling is the best part. It’s the thrill of getting away with luxury on borrowed time, living like she’s a better person than she really is. Ignoring the pullout couch or how Mr. Kirk ‘forgot’ his wedding band at home, because at the end of the day, Eddie’s just the house sitter, sinking deeper into a warm bathtub of salts and lavender.

What would her neighbors think if they saw her now, letting a strange man take her for all she’s worth? He keeps her hands pinned to her chest, mouth insistent on her own. She wants him to slow down. She doesn’t want him to stop. He’s not close enough. He’s pressing down on her.

When he moves to her neck, she can finally breathe again. He’s sucking at her skin like he wants her, like she’s more than just a chore that needs to be taken care of. He doesn’t really care about what she wants at all, overwhelmed with his desire to feel good. The desire that she caused. She makes him feel good. Fuck.

“You promise you won’t tell?” he asks, a whisper.

She feels like she’s in summer camp again. I’ll kiss you for a dollar. There’s lots of places to hide. Promise you won’t tell. Neil may be insecure, but Eddie doesn’t mind it. He was never very charming to begin with. “Yeah,” she repeats.

Neil hasn’t really done this before, but he knows what the guys used to say. It can’t be held against you if she doesn’t say no. And Eddie—well, Eddie’s said yes twice.

He looks at her for a while, biting the inside of his cheek. His frown cuts into his face like glass, never dissipating. It takes Eddie a second to realize that he’s waiting for something. “Take your shirt off,” he says, gesturing.

As tempting as it is to give in to his demands, Eddie shakes her head. She’s not stripping in a barn; that’s how you get a splinter where splinters shouldn’t be.

“Take it off,” he says, “or I tell Annie what a fucking whore you are.”

Shit. She hadn’t considered Annie a part of this. Annie wouldn’t understand. She wouldn’t even want to listen. Eddie takes her shirt off.

“Damn,” Neil says, grabbing her hips and pressing closer to her like he can’t bear the space between them. His thumbs dig in and it starts to feel more clinical than passionate.

He starts unzipping her jeans. “Just stay still, okay?” he mutters, trailing off. He’s blushing.

A bizarre thrill bullies its way through the heat of Eddie’s chest. She’s not supposed to be enjoying this—he clearly doesn’t care about anyone’s pleasure except his own—but then he pushes her underwear down and his mouth falls open, breathing harder. “Goddamn,” he whispers.

Eddie wants this to be over with as much as she wants him: more than anything. She’s riding a high that'll crash as soon as she lets it, so she might as well have fun while it lasts. That’s what this life is for, isn’t it? She’d do anything for a good time.

Neil’s body is foreign and yet so enticing. Eddie needs to know how he moves, how he inhales, where his mind is at. She’s sweating with the one-eighty of her attraction to him, teeth chattering. She bites her lip as he—

Something in the stable is moving. It’s a repetitive banging, a fighting cry amidst a wooden cage. It wants out. Neil’s brow pinches and his hands fall from Eddie’s waist in a jagged motion. He shakes his head and steps away downturned; he won’t look her in the eye.

Peeking out from behind the stall door, she sees Neil dragging Marty through the back doors, pausing every few steps to swat at him with a rope. She sighs, leaning against the solid pillar of wood behind her back. Everything is spinning when she blinks her eyes.

Neil comes back with half-baked excuses on his lips. That bitch horse needs to be exercised. He’s gotta feed the animals. He’ll show her another day. For a moment he reaches out as if to touch her, but he freezes midway and puts his hand in his pocket instead. Her skin is clammy enough with his lingering death grip.

“If you see Jane, uh, don’t speak to her,” he adds shakily. He watches Eddie go. The ceiling is low, and she ducks to avoid a wooden beam before disappearing from his field of view completely.

Neil and Annie are smoking in the living room. They didn’t even offer Eddie one; she just gets to watch. It’s hazy in here, the room clouding before her eyes. She leans into Annie’s arms and lets the smoke surround her.

Eddie’s line of sight keeps drifting towards Neil. She can’t stop herself, not with the thought of his mouth and hands taking up so much space in her recent memory. He sits all hunched in on himself, like he’s uncomfortable in his own home. The way he picks at his lips is almost endearing. Yesterday she didn’t think much of him, but that’s changed now.

“Do anything fun this morning?” Annie asks, bringing the cigarette to her lips. She only makes small talk when she’s vying for information.

“Taught her how to sweep,” he says.

Annie laughs good naturedly. She’s setting the pawn up to take his queen. “I promise she’ll be good for something around here. Ed’s got lots of talents.”

Neil nods. “She sure does—”

Footsteps. The porch stairs creaking fast and then slowly, very slowly, the door  opens. “Neil,” Jane says. “Can I speak to you outside?”

Not unlike the dog slipping his collar, Neil jumps to his feet and goes with her. Annie sits back like nothing’s wrong, but Eddie knows how much she hates being excluded. Group projects with her are a nightmare.

Outside, the yelling starts. It fits right in with the sounds of the chickens, the dog barking outside. I don’t know. 

Annie’s not a talker, not really. She’ll stay so quiet, trying to ignore what’s upsetting her. Eddie won’t even know about the anger until it hits a fever pitch and crashes down on her.

Why not?

Eddie came home late one night to find Annie baking. It was the strangest thing, Annie with her sleeves rolled up, lifting trays of golden cupcakes out of the oven. Annie, with her men’s haircut and permanent scowl, piping pink icing at the kitchen counter. Perfect circles.

“How was your day?” she’d asked, too busy placing sugar pearls with tweezers to look up.

It was good, actually. It was a good day up until then. Eddie finished her stupid U.S. lit project, the one that should’ve been easy but her partners wouldn’t pick up when she called. She hates group projects. She doesn’t know why she decided to be an English major, but her new prof seems promising. They had pizza in the dining hall today, did you get some? And she doesn’t even have that much homework tonight because she moved her schedule around for tomorrow. When Eddie’s stream of consciousness petered out, silence settled like cellophane, preserving the scene before them. 

Eddie remembers what happened clear as day: Annie dropped the glass mixing bowl and it shattered. It was not an accident. There was no way. She turned around sharply, walked halfway to the oven, and something broke. Then she dropped the bowl.

She would not let Eddie help clean up. In fact, when she finally did look away from the mess, she ordered Eddie out of the kitchen. Or, she tried to.

“Get out,” were the words she’d used. And then she’d gasped, softly, as if she couldn’t believe herself for saying them. “Sorry. I’ll clean it up.”

Eddie didn’t listen. She stood her ground in the doorway and wouldn’t be dismissed. At some point Annie relinquished her position in the standoff, choosing instead to leave the kitchen and shoulder check Eddie on the way out. It didn’t hurt too much at the time. The next morning she found, between the crook of her shoulder and her ribs, a faint bruise. It was the last time Annie apologized for her anger, and the first of many bruises to come.

I’ll show you.

The broken glass was gone before Eddie left for school. In the fridge were rows of cupcakes put away neatly. The trays took up half the space in there but nobody mentioned it.

Eddie stopped buying milk because it wouldn’t fit. The cupcakes remained uneaten. By the third week, a dark sludge had begun to form on the underside of the containers. Both of them avoided the kitchen. Annie took her coffee black. 

I don’t believe it.

Annie’s no savior, but she sure wishes she was.

I’m not lying to you.

Jane storms in looking like she’s gonna hit something. Annie’s already up, prepping for damage control.

“Let’s go!” Jane snaps. Annie takes Eddie by the hand and starts out after Jane. Neil makes some protests, but he joins them anyway.

Eddie hates to admit it, but she’s out of breath before they reach the gate. The pastures are right up along the main road, but they stretch further than Eddie can see on the horizon. The gate is easily more than a football field away, and Jane doesn’t show any signs of stopping when they reach it. She rattles the chains, fighting with the key. Neil moves to help her but she pushes him off.

Eddie looks all around, trying to find the problem, but she doesn’t see anything amiss. It must be bad if she and Annie had to come and see it, too. They climb a rolling hill, dragging up thinning grass into the worst of the unyielding sun.

As soon as it comes into view, Eddie regrets ever having to see it at all. Even Neil, trekking up to it, looks stunned. Annie’s the only one that refuses to waver. She walks right up to it.

“Don’t—” Jane sniffles, trying to square her shoulders. “Don’t touch her.”

Eddie wouldn’t want to touch it with a pole. She gags at the smell alone, but the sight is unbearable. It’s not like some crime scene out of a movie. There’s no obvious blood in sight, or tracks leading away from it. Even in the copious mud, where every step leaves a print clear enough to photograph, there are no tracks around the body. Or, the carcass.

It was a cow once. Eddie’s pretty sure of that. The hooves are all cracked and damaged, but the legs are mostly untouched. Its legs look so short and small compared to its barrel of a rib cage. The skin of its stomach lies in flaps over its spine and flank, revealing a yawning cavity removed of guts or anything. Flies buzz around it, feeding on the quick decaying soft tissue. It's so dark in there, the pit of its insides—something that Eddie knows was never supposed to be exposed to the light.

Its neck has a series of puncture wounds, three to be exact, perfectly round and made by who knows what. Eddie looks out at the cows in the field around them. They’re heavy and fat and immovable, even from a distance. They graze as if nothing has happened. This cow doesn’t seem like much more than its own skeleton. A dark shadow mars the earth beneath it.

“Is that blood?” Eddie’s not sure who asked that question. Maybe it was her.

Neil shakes his head, but Jane answers for him. “There ain’t no blood. Dunno how. It’s fire.” She bites the inside of her cheek and shifts her posture. Her arms cross and uncross and fold over her chest. “They burned her up,” she whispers.

Its skull is mostly there, drying in the sun, except for a distinct circle over its forehead area. The area is an inflamed yellow-pink, completely hairless; it’s been skinned. And the worst part of all: its lower jaw is gone. All of the skin is still there, melted and useless. Its lips hang on the ground. Eddie will not be able to scrape that image from her mind for a long time. It lives in the recesses. She won’t be able to walk in a dark room without feeling it beneath her feet, blubbery and dead and helpless. She takes a step to the side and feels it, actually feels the cow’s squishy corpse under her sneaker, right there, coming back for her. She shrieks.

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” Annie hisses, pulling Eddie back by her sweater. And because everything has been out to get her lately, the resulting discovery is more horrifying than Eddie’s conscience could have begun to make up. Lying in the grass, severed from its body, is the cow’s long white tongue.

Eddie squirms. It’s all over her. Her arms move involuntarily, and she’s saying something like get it off me get it off go away and she’s actually fucking whimpering because she needs to get so far away from all of this right this second.

“Control your girl,” Neil mutters, clearly amused by his own suggestion. Annie pushes Eddie away and tells her to shut up and turn around if she can’t fucking handle it. Jane is not laughing. She rubs at her eyes, the bridge of her nose, her mouth. Wiping away something that isn’t there.

“How’re you gonna move it?” Annie asks.

Jane scrubs the fabric of her tank top over her face. “I want a burial.”

“Fuck no,” Neil says. “I’m not tearing up my land for your little pet.”

Jane makes a sour face, gaze locked on Neil. “She wasn’t supposed to go like this. It’s not natural.”

He steps closer to the corpse. “She wasn’t producing. I was gonna shoot her anyways.”

“No. You weren’t,” she insists, jaw set.

“We talked about this.”

Eddie’s still wondering how Jane figured out which cow is which. They all look the same, and the body before them is far beyond recognition. The cows do wear tags, but this one’s ears are gone.

Every time she looks at it she finds a new detail to make her heave. Whoever did this is out there right now, probably going about his day without a second thought. Eddie is dirty, and it’s hot out, and her throat is threatening to tear itself apart.

“I’m going to find who did it,” Jane says. That’s a promise Eddie is not going to get in the way of. It’s a little freaky the way Jane speaks, voice soft and hoarse. She’s smiling, showing just the tips of her canines. Something rolls down her cheek and maybe it’s just sweat, but it could very well be tears.

Under instructions not to touch the dead cow, Annie’s starting to look pretty bored. “I gotta dip,” she sighs. “Meeting’s today.”

No. That’s not right. She can’t leave. Doesn’t she know how messed up Jane and Neil are? She doesn’t want to be alone with them again.

Annie squeezes Eddie’s forearm and starts walking back towards the gate. Eddie should probably call after her, stop her, but she doesn’t want to sound desperate. Jane is still smiling down at the corpse, blinking rapidly. Eddie catches Neil looking at her and he turns away like nothing happened.

“Are you fuckin’ crying?” he laughs, knocking Jane on the shoulder.

She rounds on him. “Say that again.”

Neil knows better than to fight with Jane when she’s like this. She’s a fucking bulldog, half a foot shorter than him and twice as strong. When he closes his eyes he sees the curve of his chest in the mirror this morning, the frustration building as he chased after Marty, the uncomfortable twist of Eddie’s mouth, eyes shut. He’ll never be a real man, he can’t please a woman, his own horse can make a fool out of him in a matter of minutes. Life’s fucked. “Fight me, tough guy.”

Eddie takes a seat on the muddy ground, facing away from the scuffle. Up here on the hill, a gentle breeze works through her hair, cutting the heat for just a few seconds. The sun sends an awful glare over her glasses, so she closes her eyes. Never mind the bickering. There’s a cow a few yards away, and she silently goads it to come closer.

Eddie’s friend used to live on a farm out in rural PA. The two of them were convinced they could talk to animals with their minds. Eddie was a forest fairy. She didn’t have to be afraid.

She looks back over her shoulder just in time to see Neil spitting in the grass. It makes her stand up instantly.

“What are you lookin’ at?” Jane says, scowling.

The walk back to the house is quiet, deflated. Annie’s gone again already. Neil walks ahead while Jane lags behind. Eddie is thoroughly caught in the middle. Her nice sneakers are scuffed and dirty, but she can’t take her eyes off them.

Finally she begins to recognize the area. Trees are few and far between but all of the endless grass looks the same to her. She stares at the little house until it grows fuzzy and pixelated in her crossing vision, obscured by sun spots. They’re so close.

Of course, then Neil stops dead before anyone can get in the front door. “Hang on,” he says, stepping off the driveway. “The horses need to get out today.”

“Do it yourself,” Jane scoffs.

“No,” he grabs her elbow, “I said—”

“Get the fuck off me!”

“I said the horses need exercising.” His tone is low, suggestive. Jane stands indifferent. “Just c’mon.”

Neil is waiting for her in the round pen. His prized possession is ready for combat, groomed and shiny beneath the sweltering sun. The leather of Marty’s saddle gleams, oiled. His mane, for once, has been pulled and combed.

Jane’s skull is throbbing so hard it might fracture at any minute, but she can’t deny her curiosity: to what does Neil owe the pleasure? Or, to whom? Eddie hangs back awkwardly by the gate—she always looks a little awkward—and Jane admires her unquestioningly. This is gonna be good.

“Hold him,” Neil says, handing the reins to Eddie.

Marty immediately wheels around to snap at him, jostling his ridiculous shank bit in the process. That stupid horse always manages to piss himself off. Cows wouldn’t do this shit.

Neil says something to Eddie that Jane can’t hear, and then he puts his arm out. Eddie hesitates once or twice before putting her foot on his open palm. He lifts her up until she’s all the way settled on top of Marty. She grabs the horn of the saddle and holds onto it for dear life while Neil works on cinching a flank strap. Shit, Jane forgot they still had one of those, but she’s not surprised. Then it hits her: Neil is trying to cheer her up. That pansy bastard; she knew he had a heart somewhere in there.

As soon as the second girth is on, Neil is out of the way. He hops up on the fence next to Jane. “Cheers,” he says, as Marty begins to buck.

Jane hadn’t seen a real buck until Neil bid on that damn horse from the back of a truck in Vidor. Marty can sure shake a leg, panting and whipping his hind legs in the air. She doesn’t believe in a lot of that ethical bullshit the hippies are saying about horses, but it’s true that old habits die hard. Marty hates being ridden.

Jane can’t blame him; Eddie flops around like a sack of potatoes. Does she know that the more she squeezes her legs, the faster he’s gonna go? Marty throws his head down and runs circles, preparing to initiate his death drag. Naturally, Eddie falls forward and hangs onto his neck, even though it throws the rest of her body off balance. An angry horse plus a green rider makes for the perfect storm—and it’s really fucking funny to watch.

Every time Marty comes near the fence, Eddie looks up at the two of them with this hopeless, pleading expression smeared onto her twisted face. She’s so pretty when she’s scared. “Sit up,” Jane yells, just so she can watch Eddie try and correct herself before almost falling clean off as Marty pivots and leaps sideways.

Jane leans into Neil’s shoulder, trying to quit laughing and just enjoy the show.

“Get off me, fag,” he says, swatting at her, before looking to Eddie again. “Stay still up there, girlie, be gentle with him!”

Eddie doesn’t know how to be gentle. If she loosens her grip on his mane, surely she’ll fall off. She tries not to tug on it harder, but she’ll probably get hurt a lot worse than this horse will if she’s the one who hits the ground.

There are few times in Eddie’s life where she truly believes she is on top of the world. The feeling is sorely missed. In her mind she is still seventeen and cutting her own hair. First day of high school, smiling at the pretty girl in her algebra class with the short hair. She is alone in her room again, writing, pen sparkling in her hands, she cannot stop. Knitting her green scarf for the big game. Her sister is holding her up by the waist, giggling. Eddie reaches for the top of the Christmas tree. She is swooping, suddenly steady, out of her dad’s arms. The bike is keeping itself up. She is pedaling far away from here.

She loses her grip and wakes up.

“What time is it?”

There are two houses, actually.

“Holy shit, uh…”

“Yeah, I didn’t think so.”

What? “Hm?”

“No,” I don’t think so. Should she, uh, the clock. Yeah.

Oh.

“Eddie.”

“Yeah? Where’s Marty?”

The blond one is looking at her. “Follow my finger. That’s a good girl.”

“I’m not an animal. You shouldn’t talk to me like that.”

Jane stands up quickly. She says something under breath, but Eddie can’t hear it until a few minutes later. By then it’s just a shadow, smoke gone in the air. Jane’s green boots are so shiny like the saddle. Where’s Marty?

Jane is talking again. “Kneel. Over here. Now.”

“I’m already on the ground.”

“I fucking mean it.”

Eddie tries to do what she’s told, but then Jane pushes her down. “Shh, don’t move. Stay down.”

“But you told me to kneel.”

Jane nods all serious. Her face is buzzing. “He’s coming.”

Someone comes through the gate. He was with her this morning. They know each other. Right, he lives here.

The sun hurts, but Eddie does make it back inside. She’s in bed and then everything is dark but they are still talking.

“Sounds like gibberish, right?”

“'Pretty sure she said your name.”

“Worth it.”

When Eddie is awake again she knows she is awake, because it’s not subtle. The light is so loud. It’s dark outside. She gets up and almost falls over, heart pounding. Her vision shorts in and out, yellow gray fireworks draping over her corneas. Fuck.

She wanders into a room she hasn’t been in before, caught by her own reflection. She watches her eyes in the mirror for a while. They look so pale and grey in this lighting. There’s a dark bruise around her temple from where she hit her head; skinned knees raw and still dirty; a nasty laceration runs the length of her neck and down her shoulder, just brushing her collarbones. It’s shallow, sure, but puckered and red. She hadn’t noticed the pain until now. She doesn’t even know what cut her.

She blinks and Jane is sitting behind her, on the bed. Eddie whirls around—or, she tries to. Everything hurts, but at least she’s not dreaming anymore.

“Let’s get you sat down,” Jane says, and soon Eddie is not by the mirror anymore. Jane keeps trying to guide her towards a seat, but Eddie pushes her off. Finally Jane slinks away towards that other guy. Oh—Neil. That’s what his name is.

Eddie turns, hearing a lock sliding into place. Something small and furry brushes against her legs. When she tries to look down she feels so dizzy. Her temple aches. She doesn’t wanna sit down.

“Damn, what fight did you get into today?” Annie laughs when she walks in the door. She’s staring at Eddie like they’re the only two people in the living room.

“I…” She fell. That’s not even a lie.

Neil beats her to it. “She fell,” he says. Annie nods sympathetically, still eyeing Eddie like a piece of damaged meat. It’s strangely infuriating. She wants to be desired, but not like this.

“Wait.” Eddie can’t stop herself. She can’t let Annie be fooled by them when they’re clearly so conniving. “That wasn’t what actually happened.”

“Oh?”

Eddie glances at Jane and Neil on the couch. They’re unbothered, smiling back at her. 

“Go ahead,” Neil goads sweetly. “Tell Annie how you really got all those bruises.”

Her stomach sours. They’re not supposed to be acting like this. They’re supposed to be mad. They should be jumping up, grabbing her, telling her to shut the fuck up. They should at least be having some sort of a reaction. Anything at all. “I just. I did fall, just it was outside.” Eddie forces a tight smile. “That’s why I’m so banged up.”

Annie relaxes, striding towards her and stretching up to ruffle her hair. “Aw, of course you are, baby. Life on the farm’s no easy task.”

At some point Eddie returns to the ground, tired mind working at images of a horse’s errant hooves, saw dust branding her cheek, eyes closing. That cat is in her lap again, purring, humming. Buzzing.

His throat is all tight. Damn it. Crying is for sissies. He doesn’t cry over shit. Especially not girls. Eddie doesn’t count. She’s nothing to him. Annie’s rough with her all the time. She’s used to it. Her opinion doesn’t matter.

His tears are hot and fast. He grabs at the nearest stall door, fiddling with the lock. Back and forth, and the latch won’t unjam. Marty’s ears go up at the noise, bobbing his head over the door and mouthing at Neil’s hair. Neil gets the door open and swings it wide, his usual precautions forgotten. He grabs Marty by the cheekpiece of his halter and half drags him out into the aisle. Neil’s not stupid, he still fastens the cross-ties, but his vision’s crossing with every second. He swipes at his eyes. What if someone sees him like this?

It’s too much. He wasn’t supposed to have enjoyed watching her fall. It was funny until it wasn’t. Over and over, he sees her cling to Marty, clawing desperately at his neck, like she was drowning, like she was falling from the greatest height. Like she was worried he was going to kill her.

“You wouldn’t do that,” Neil mutters, pressing his cheek to Marty’s neck. “You’re not a killer, you’re my special boy.” Fuck. He’s getting Marty’s fur all damp. Marty peers back at him curiously with those big black pupils, exposing the whites of his eyes. “I raised you. I’ll always love you,” Neil sobs, clutching at his special boy’s pretty black mane.

He reaches for the grooming kit on the floor. He curries endless circles into Marty’s short fur, from his ears to his hindquarters. He runs soft bristles down Marty’s legs. There’s barely any dirt left from when he groomed him earlier, but still Neil works the dust away diligently. He’s going to make Marty’s coat shine. His boy deserves that.

He leans over to pick Marty’s feet even though he knows he’ll get nipped at. When he does inevitably get bitten, in a matter of seconds, it just makes him cry harder. Marty’s just an animal, he doesn’t mean it. Neil still loves him.

He doesn’t get around to all four hooves. He is a bad, bad man. He sinks to the floor as Marty paws anxiously at the ground, striking him in the abdomen. It takes Neil's breath away. He lies back on the dirty stable floor under his beautiful, special boy, just watching Marty’s wide stomach expand and contract with his breathing. Neil counts all the little veins there as if they were stars. The overhead lighting is near blinding. He knows what he has to do.

The flask is somewhere in a box in the tackroom, waiting for a time just like this. He’s got them all over the property, in cabinets, drawers, the fridge. It’s some awful fucking concoction, probably something Jane mixed with the runoff from her own liquor collection. She likes wine more, anyways. She only likes to drink for fun.

Neil downs all of the foul liquid, hating himself for it. He’s dizzy already. He doesn’t think that’s from the alcohol. He can’t go back inside the house now, but he needs more. He makes it all the way to the end of the barn before remembering Marty. St. Martin, his good boy. His easily irritated, bit-shy, cow kicker of an animal. The one he’s had since he was a terrified little foal in a vast auction pen. They pulled him from his mother. That was when Neil knew he needed that horse more than any other bidder.

“Lemme put you back,” Neil says, reaching for the cross-ties. They’re heavier than he remembered. Marty won’t wanna go off the property, so this might be Neil’s last chance to really say goodbye. He unfastens Marty’s halter as he lets him back into his stall, hanging it on the hook by the door. Marty runs straight for the hay net in the corner, not looking back once. “I love you so much,” Neil whispers, putting all of his weight on the stall door. “Yeah, they’ll take good care of you even though I’m gone. Or maybe they'll just shoot you,” he laughs. “Put an end to everything. Sounds nice.” Then, not unlike a spooked horse, he bolts.

It’s darker outside than he expected. He has no idea what time it is. He fumbles his way across the grass and towards the garden. He can just make out the sheen of the greenhouse windows, reflected in the moonlight. It’s locked, because apparently he cares about security. Since when? It’s not like any of this shit really matters.

He can’t get his key ring off his belt. It’s like it’s fighting him, caught on his pants or something. What the fuck. Just—he manages to unsnag it, feeling around for the shape of the key he knows so well. He gets the greenhouse unlocked, swinging the door wide open. No use checking on his plants right now. He figures after he’s gone, nobody else will get to enjoy his sad attempt at home growing. Jane hates the smell of weed, she says, and Annie probably doesn’t even know it exists. His garden is going to die. His hard work will waste away, just like him.

It’s there, beneath one of his plant pots. Bourbon or something. He doesn’t read the label, just takes it with him. Back to the barn.

He doesn’t love Betsy the way he loves Marty, but she might as well be his oldest friend. She used to be his dad’s. Neil grew up with her. He got taken away, and when he came back, she was still there. He nearly runs to grab her shit from the tack room. Time is too slow. He does the bridle first, working backwards. She doesn’t need the cross-ties. She just stands patient in her stall. Her saddle doesn't look right, he can tell that much. He moves it all around, shifts it up and down her back. Her girth is too wide, unfamiliar, but he ignores it. He cinches her up and climbs on right there. He leans flat forward against her neck to avoid hitting his head on the ceiling, but once they’re out he sits up tall. Kind of.

He kicks Betsy hard. He’s sorry he can’t be gentle with her, but she can take it. She’s used to it. Her opinion doesn’t matter. Sensing trouble, she picks up her head and takes off down the yard at a meandering trot, tripping a few times. Neil doesn’t know what he’ll do if she breaks an ankle, but he kicks her again anyways. Over and over. She’s a lot better with vocal cues, but he’s not sure he even has a voice anymore.

The average horse weighs more than a thousand pounds. Not even grass can muffle the sound of Betsy’s frenetic movement. Annie hears them before she sees them. Eddie is settled between her legs on the couch, head resting on her shoulder. Jane watches them closely from the other side of the room.

“Hold on, baby,” Annie says, untangling herself from Eddie and getting up. She’s walking towards the window before she can stop herself. “Jane,” Annie says, swatting her on the arm when she’s slow to react. “Jane!”

“What, you see a coyote or somethin’?” Jane doesn’t really want to care, but her curiosity gets the better of her. She creeps over to the window as well.

It’s dark out, but their silhouettes are clear in the moonlight. Neil, hunched over in the saddle of a very confused horse, stumbling left and right around the yard with no obvious goal. “What the hell’s he doing out there?”

“I dunno,” Jane shrugs. “Maybe he’s in a mood.”

Annie presses her fingers to the glass. “He’s beating the hell out of her. He doesn't ride like that.”

“You think he’s drunk?”

“I think we better go and stop him before he gets any further,” Annie decides. Her and Jane rush to get their boots on. Annie grabs her jacket from the coat rack.

“Wait,” Jane says, jabbing a thumb towards Eddie. “Do we leave her here?”

“She’ll be fine, she’s a good one. Right?”

Eddie sits up, realizing the gravity of what they’re suggesting. They’re leaving her alone. This is her chance. “I won’t run, I’m not stupid,” Eddie laughs, feeling shrill and uncomfortable. Annie and Jane dash out of the house.

“Neil!” Annie calls, hands on her hips. He doesn’t notice her, or maybe he’s choosing to ignore them. He looks real close to falling right out of the saddle.

“It’s only Betsy,” Jane says. “I’ll go get her. You block the gate.”

Betsy doesn’t spook easy, but catching a horse is a tactical thing. Jane doesn’t have a stick or a whip to hold out, so she just waves her left arm in the direction of the gate, trying to encourage Betsy the opposite way. When Neil and Betsy get close, he pulls sharply up and away. He’s trying to dodge her efforts. “Damn it Neil, get off the fucking horse!”

“No,” he says, steering Betsy towards the gate and kicking her sharply in the gut. She listens this time, finally picking up a hand gallop and heading straight towards Annie.

To her credit, Annie tries real hard to stop them. Any injury she sustains is probably better than letting Neil and Betsy run off down the road. They’re going to get themselves killed. She waves her arms in the air, she yells. She goes to close the gate as a last resort. It falls off of its hinges. “What the fuck?”

“Yeah, we never fixed it,” Jane says, watching Neil race past the entrance to the farm and disappear down the long road.

Annie takes a massive breath in, shoulders heaving. “You ever watched the rodeo, Jane?”

“Course I have.”

“In bronc riding, you seen them rush the guy after the timer’s up?”

Jane nods.

“C’mon then,” Annie says, already headed towards the stable. “Let’s play cowboy.”

Just by examining the barn floor, there’s no way to tell that Neil spent hours holed up in here this evening. Everything is put neatly in its place, Marty and Gamble shuffle unbothered in their stalls. The only clue is Betsy’s wide open stall door and, as Jane discovers upon entering the tack room, the fact that his flask is gone. She grabs Gamble’s saddle and everything and heads to his stall.

Annie comes in soon afterwards. “This ain’t Marty’s right tack.”

“Oh,” Jane frowns. “He must’ve took Marty’s saddle for Betsy. Just use it anyways, I don’t have a spare.”

These two really are shit at owning horses. They were raised better than this. Annie grabs Betsy’s stuff and puts it on Marty. He kicks out at her when she tries to tighten the girth. She slaps him on the stomach and keeps going. “Stop that. Jane, help me with the bit.”

While Jane holds Marty’s neck to the wall, cornering him, Annie gets two fingers in his mouth and forces the bit past his teeth. He drops it. She pushes it in again. Jane nudges him closer to the wall. In one quick motion, Annie presses the bit to his tongue a final time and pulls the bridle over his ears. Took him long enough. Every second that Neil’s out there is a second wasted on their part.

Jane gives Annie a leg up before throwing herself at Gamble, hoping for the best. She manages to get on top of him, and they’re off.

Annie really doesn’t wanna have to kick Marty, but he’s distracted. Although he’s usually prone to taking off when he’s angry, he won’t move past a lazy canter. If she kicks him, he’ll get mad and ignore her other cues, but if he keeps on like this Neil will be dead in a ditch by the time they find him. Even Gamble’s gotten the message. He runs as fast as his little pony legs can carry him, leading the way for probably the first time in his life.

“Come. On,” Annie says, squeezing his sides and kissing at him. She grazes his shoulder with the end of her reins. He puts his head down and kicks up his heels, throwing a fit, but he won’t go any faster.

“Check it out,” Jane says, slowing down and entering what most would consider Marty’s danger zone—his hindquarters. Jane reaches a hand out, narrowly avoiding his errant cow kicks, and hits him hard right behind his saddle. Marty takes off, and Gamble scrambles to follow.

It’s been so long since Annie’s had a proper gallop. She stands up in the saddle, wind in her hair. Once a horse like Marty gets running, his brain melts out of his ears. All he can focus on is going fast and going strong.

Annie’s thoughts race faster than her body. She is trapped on a horse who will never move as fast as she needs him to, a creature with his eyes on the ground and his heart in the clouds. The fields are vacant; it’s too dark to change pace without fumbling.

Marty sees Neil before anyone else does. With a panicked whinny he sidesteps and almost sends Annie over his shoulder. Neil bursts from a clearing between the trees, still hanging onto Betsy by the neck.

Coming up behind Annie, Gamble balks, the whites of his eyes rolling. Neil kicks Betsy forwards with all his strength, veering off the road. Head swinging, Betsy’s stride breaks. Neil circles her around again. She refuses. They go again. The poor horse blanches, confused.

“He’s trying to jump the fuckin’ fence,” Jane says, locking eyes with Annie.

The cow fence, in all its barbed wire glory, is absolutely not jumpable. Annie ties her reins and slides off of Marty. Neil’s coordination is degrading; it just makes him easier to catch. Annie lunges for Betsy’s bridle at about the same time that Jane comes around and knocks Neil clean off Betsy.

Annie dusts her hands on her jeans and holds the reins of the cooling horses. Jane tumbles from Gamble and takes Neil with her, tackling him by the waist.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Annie demands, hand on her hip. Jane’s got him pinned, but he won’t stop muttering, squirming.

“…somethin’ stupid. Shouldn’t have done that. Can’t fuckin’ control myself…”

Jane lifts his useless body onto Gamble, making sure to hold his reins for him, and begins leading Betsy back towards the house.

i. Prologue

When Eddie wakes up, she cannot move her neck. Not at first. It's like she’s floating, and then the life rushes back into her and she feels sick. Her muscles are sore and stiff and her whole body is wet with sweat. It’s hot in this car.

The light is too bright. A wide open highway stretches forward like an eager cat beneath the wheels of Annie’s battered sedan. Eddie tries to speak, can’t, clears her throat. Annie watches her struggle.

“Where are we going?”

“We’re just takin’ a trip.”

The memories don’t come back easy. There was music, she can’t remember what. She sort of remembers getting ready to go out. She didn’t want to eat anything. She just wanted to go to sleep. She was dreaming about something, flashing lights and a beat she could feel in her bones. It had no rhythm, though. It was uneven and scary. People were there, and then they weren’t, and then they were too close to her and she was trapped and the walls were moving. “You drugged me.”

Annie keeps her eyes to the road, blinders up. It’s easier to keep the façade if she doesn’t have to look at Eddie’s limp figure in her passenger seat. “Don’t worry about it.”

Eddie gapes, trying to readjust herself where she sits, as if better posture might give her some leverage in the conversation. “That shit has side effects! I could get like, addicted or something.” This is a useless observation. In fact, it might only spur Annie on―she’s always liked the idea of Eddie being completely dependent on her.

“You can deal with a headache. We’ll be there soon enough.”

Eddie wants to keep arguing, wants to tell her that this time has to be the last time. She can’t gauge where Annie’s head is at. She shouldn’t mess around right now. It’s easy to just tuck her legs up and lean over the console. Swallow the bile in her throat and try to go back to sleep.

She doesn’t really find sleep, though. Her breathing is rigid, like her lungs won’t expand enough. Her body hurts more with every jolt on the road. The backs of her eyelids are no escape from the sunlight. She tries to cover her eyes with her hands, but even her own touch is too warm, and she quickly readjusts herself.

By the time Eddie opens her eyes again, the sun is higher in the sky and there are way more cars on the road. She feels even worse. Her mouth is dry and her clothes are damp. The car is getting hotter. Annie’s hair is losing its careful part, flattening in dark whorls around her forehead. She smells of sweat and peppermint, comforting and familiar.

“It’s too hot in here, Ann. Can I please open a window?” Eddie tries not to whine. She’s just so, so tired. Her head hurts bad.

“No.”

Eddie really doesn’t want to know why not. Everything is too hot, stifling, so many layers. It’s making her sweat. It’s making her itchy. She takes her shirt off. She’s surprised to see that she’s not wearing a bra―she doesn’t remember taking it off.

When Annie notices, she almost swerves. “Put your shirt back on, Christ!”

“I bet you didn't have a problem taking it off last night!”

Annie flinches. “I didn’t rape you!” Then, quieter: “I just wanted you to be comfortable.”

“Yes, and I’ll be more comfortable with less clothes in this goddamn car.” Eddie tucks her head down fast, but then remembers that Annie can’t really hit her while they’re still on the road.

Annie glances back and forth, eyes settling on nothing. She’s probably reminding herself the same thing. “People can see you.”

Eddie is curled almost horizontally in her seat, certainly below window level. People probably can’t see her. It still makes Annie nervous, though. As far as the cops are concerned, she’s a scowling, man-imitating dyke who drugged and kidnapped her lady friend and is headed in the opposite direction of anywhere she can be recognized. They might be right this time. She can’t afford to get caught.

“Just―your stuff is in the back. Put somethin’ on.”

“Let me open a window.”

“I said no.”

Eddie considers the next course of action. The best way to diffuse the situation would be to shut up and put on a clean shirt. Annie has clearly made up her mind about the rules today and any needling is going to make the consequences worse. Still, Eddie is hungover from who knows what and probably won’t enjoy whatever Annie has in store; she may as well push her around and see what happens. She thinks a tiny part of herself likes all the attention she gets when Annie really is mad. She doesn’t know anyone else who would set aside their own plans just to spend time with her. “Why not?”

“Do I need to pull over?” Annie asks. It’s less threatening and more like she’s some teacher trying to get Eddie to cool down in the hallway.

Eddie shakes her head. She can be a star student.

Annie’s hands flex on the steering wheel. “I’m just sayin’. Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.”

Eddie laughs. “Ooh, that was kinda edgy. I’m scared.”

Annie says nothing at first. Then she says nothing at all. Damn. Eddie definitely fucked up. She should readjust again, stop being so vulnerable, but Annie has a point. She’d rather not be caught shirtless by unsuspecting passerby.

Annie takes an exit soon afterwards, veering towards a narrow, heavily forested road. They pass under the sign before Eddie gets a chance to look at it. The asphalt soon turns to gravel and the gravel to dirt. Annie slides beneath a lone tree in a clearing.

She unlocks the doors, making a show of walking all the way around the car, opening a door to the back seat, and throwing a shirt up at Eddie. Eddie scrambles to put it on. Always a gentleman, Annie gets the passenger door, pulling Eddie out by the elbow and sending her stumbling.

“Get down,” Annie says, pointing at the ground. Eddie drops to her knees so fast she feels dizzy. Annie stands close in front of her, grabs her jaw and tilts it upwards. A thumb digs into her cheek, and Eddie’s glasses fall crooked down her nose. Annie rights them, gently, and then slaps her.

Eddie’s vision is blurry. The tingly burning on the left side of her face tells her that Annie’s feeling a twin sensation on her palm, fingertips red where they connected with wire frames. Eddie stares at the ground, mouth open. An old shame rises within her but she pushes it away.

“I’m not gonna keep correcting you.”

Eddie laughs, eyes watering. “You think I care?”

Annie hits her again, other side. It hurts so good. Eddie deserves this. Her glasses are on the ground. She’s a stupid fucking perverted homosexual waste of a human being. She’ll never be more than this. “Stop fucking with me,” Annie snarls.

“Can’t help it.”

Annie steps forward, kicking Eddie’s legs apart, until her knees brush Eddie’s chest. The subtext is all there. You aren’t worth my time. You’re such a problem. You never know how to shut up and play along. “Why are you like this?”

The answer’s right there. There’s no hiding it now. “Because of you.”

Annie crouches low, meeting her wide eyes. This time she rubs both thumbs over Eddie’s reddened jaw, back and forth, until she relaxes like an injured deer in Annie’s care. Her teeth flash shock-white as she pulls Eddie’s face inches from her own. 

“I hope you know just how much I love you. There are so many things I could do to you, because you’re easy. But I don’t. Tell me―if I left you here right now, would you crawl out to the highway to ask for help? Or would you just wait for me to come back?”

Eddie isn’t sure what the right answer is here. It feels like a trap. It feels like maybe she would wait for Annie to come back.

“I don’t want you thinkin’ you can say whatever you want. You do what I say because you love me back. There’s no one else in this wretched world to look out for us, baby. I’m just trying to keep you safe.”

Eddie flinches as the first warm tears slip oily down her sensitive skin. Her lip quivers violently and she bites it, hard. Annie stands up, pushing her into the dirt. Her voice is cold when she says “I’ll be waitin’ in the car until you’re ready.”