#sheriff hackett

Travis felt like a prisoner when he’d grown up. He couldn’t leave for college or get his own apartment or do anything that a “normal” adult would do. He had to stay home and take care of his parents, though they resisted every single thing he tried to do to help them. He had to look after his siblings (and eventually their children). He had to make sure that the house didn’t fall down around their ears, but he also was expected to go out and make enough money to support everyone. Chris was good enough to get his own job and start pitching in, but Bobby? It was hard for Bobby to do anything except tail their father around. It wasn’t his fault, though. Bobby had been born that way, born a little different from everyone else, and Travis would have given his life to protect him. 

Travis felt like a prisoner when he got the job as sheriff in North Kill and he spent all day patrolling the highways and tracking down the owners of abandoned, broken down cars. He supposed it was better than sitting behind a desk all day answering phones, but he hated pulling up behind cars in the middle of the night with his blue and red lights flashing, his dashcam rolling. He always had the fear that this stop would be his last. That the person sitting behind tinted windows would be holding a gun and shoot through the glass and kill him. He had the fear that the windows would roll down and he wouldn’t see someone from town, but his brothers or his parents or some other ghost haunting him. He was afraid of what he would do if he imagined his father’s face on the driver holding a gun. Would Travis shoot? Or would he let himself get shot? But every time the window rolled down, it was either a stranger or someone from town. A teenager who got lost on the way back home. An older couple coming back from a trip to the city. It was never his parents, and it was never his brothers. 

Travis felt like a prisoner when that night with Silas happened. He knew it wasn’t his fault, but it was, wasn’t it? He hadn’t been watching the kids. He hadn’t been keeping tabs on Chris. He should have raised Chris’s kids better. He should have told Chris to raise his kids better. He should have driven out that woman and her freakshow son. He should have found them a safer place to stay. He should have moved away a long time ago and forgotten his family. He should have taken his family to a better place so this wouldn’t have happened. He should have killed Silas the moment he saw him. He should have found a way to help the boy. He should have killed himself a long time ago. He should have been a better man. 

Travis felt like a prisoner the first time he met you. He was trapped between doing what he was expected to do and doing what he wanted to do. His family came first, and always would as long as they were alive. (And if he was being honest with himself, they would be controlling his life long after they died.) He wanted so badly to break free of his obligations and not be a sheriff or a Hackett or anything other than Travis. But he couldn’t. His life had been defined by his name and his title. He had transformed so drastically that he couldn’t be anything other than Sheriff Hackett, sole protector of a town and family that didn’t even want him. 

Travis felt like a prisoner when he got caught, by you, in the bookstore of another town, perusing the romance novel section. He tried to pretend he didn’t notice you, and then that he didn’t know you, and then that he was just passing through the romance section on his way to another section (but he’d suddenly forgotten every genre ever written and couldn’t even come up with which section he was headed for). You stared him down and made him feel ten feet tall and only an inch high. He’d never felt so small and so powerful in all of his life. He wished he could feel that way forever. 

Travis felt less like a prisoner when you showed up at the police station with donuts and coffee for everyone working, and an extra gift for him. It was a brown-wrapped package tied with twine and a little card taped to the front. You’d heard it was his birthday and you wanted to get “something nice” for the sheriff since, in your opinion, he had the hardest job out of the lot of them. He waited until he was alone in his cruiser to open the package. It was a romance novel that he’d never heard of before, published by Harlequin (which was no surprise – Travis had rented a small storage unit that contained boxes full of cheap Harlequin novels he’d found in thrift stores, garage sales, and in Free Little Libraries – he didn’t want to take the chance that his family found them). The plot was almost eerily appropriate. The story of a romance budding between a small-town chief of police and the woman who owned a bakery. 

Travis decided that if he was going to be a prisoner, he would rather be prisoner with you than anyone else. Somehow, his job felt easier knowing you were waiting for him in town. His familial obligations were less daunting when he had you to lean back on. And he felt freer than he had in a long time when he’d see you walking through the doors of the police station with a warm smile and a hot coffee. He got his fair share of teasing from the other officers, but he suddenly cared much less about what they thought of him and how much they knew about his life. Things felt so much easier with you by his side, and it almost scared him how safe he felt with you. It was a feeling he’d never had before. It was a feeling he was afraid of losing. 

Gone were the three meals a day routine; now Travis only came down once a day with food and water.

In the jail he’d allowed them a shower once a week, maybe twice if she was on her monthly; he’d not allowed her a proper shower once, instead handing her a jug of water, a rag, and a towel advising she “do the best with what she had.” She’d been picking dried blood out from under her nails for days.

He had given her a tragic looking dress that undoubtedly belonged to his mother, and a moth-eaten quilt to shield her from the cool damp of the basement. Other than that she’d been alone with her thoughts and roller coaster emotions. They were not good company.

On the seventh day Travis finally came down, arms full of supplies, and began prepping the cage next to her own. From the looks of things he planned for her or someone else to stay awhile: a sleeping bag, camping cot, lantern, several bundles of cloth, a large pair of slippers, and several other items she heard jostling in a large Rubbermaid container.

She raced to the electrified bars maintaining enough space to be careful not to touch them. “Travis. Travis! Travis, what’s happening? What’s going on?” He ignored her, humming as he worked on putting the cot together. “Travis, I don’t understand. Why are you keeping me here? Where are all the others? Where’s Max? TRAVIS!”

He refused to acknowledge her, and it enraged her. The audacity it took for him to hold her prisoner not once, but twice now was astounding. Who did he think he was? She’d figured that out a long time ago; a pitiful small town cop with a mama complex and a tragic backstory. Boohoo. She would make him talk, dammit. He would talk to her if it killed her.

Laura growled, and she swore she heard him chuckle. “You worthless piece of,” she began, letting a string of profanities fly from her mouth in rapid procession. She paused for his reaction, and was shocked when he started to chuckle which quickly grew to loud, raucous laughter. He turned, still laughing, and she couldn’t help but take a step back. He looked...wrong.

“You done?” He asked. The grin on his face made her shiver. “Get this straight, little girl: you are not in charge here. I am.” He thrust a finger at his chest, and the his grin looked downright maniacal. “And if I were you I would be a lot nicer to the one person who controls whether you live or die.”

Laura felt ill. “Where’s Max?” She whispered.

Travis shrugged. “Probably at the bottom of lake by now if the rocks did their job.” He smirked. “Your little boy toy and all those other kid counselors? Dead. Every last one.”

She swallowed hard before asking, “And your family?”

His eyes hardened. “Guess,” he hissed.

Laura eyes flickered back and forth as she tried to work out an impossible equation. “But then...then why keep me alive?”

“I don’t need a reason.” He looked at her with the same disdain he had once before when he told her she didn’t have anything to bargain with; he’d been right then, and he she knew he was right now.

Laura took a staggering step back. “But….” She couldn’t continue; tears were blurring her vision, and as much as she hated the idea of crying in front of him she couldn’t stop them. Was it possible to lose all your hope in an instant?

Travis approached the bars, cocking his head to the side, and smirked. “Maybe I will kill you. Maybe I won’t.” He shrugged. “Maybe I’ll use you as live bait for the next full moon. Maybe I’ll keep you down here for shits and giggles. Maybe I’ll wait until your parents inevitably come looking for you, and then kill them in front of you.” He paused. “Or maybe you in front of them. Which do you think would be more devastating?”

She took a ragged breath. “Travis, you’re not well. This isn’t you. It isn’t -,” he cut her off with such ferocity she winced as if he’d hit her.

“YOU DON’T KNOW ME! NONE OF YOU DID!” He glowered down at her, and she knew whatever humanity he’d been holding onto, whatever strength he’d had to hold onto that metaphorical rope was gone. He’d fallen in; he was at the bottom of the well like his family before him, and it was just the two of them now.

“Travis, please,” she whimpered, and she hated herself for it. “Please, just let me go home. I just want to go home.”