#sldy

Acacia tested the knob, trying not to hold any expectations. The girl almost sighed in relief when the church doors opened without protest. She adjusted the heavy backpack that has all her necessary belongings, and adjusted her hold on her violin case. She didn’t mean to trespass. Not really. She just needed a place to stay. The motel wanted to check her ID, and after her fake one got confiscated...Well, no ID means no ID. Plus, isn't a church supposed to accept others? Stray lambs? Lost sheep?

She sighed, checking her watch in the dim moonlight. 1:23 A.M. She should get some sleep. Maybe lay low here for a couple of days.

She throws the backpack onto a church pew, and herself after it; thoroughly exhausted after days of travel. The hardwood of the bench wasn’t exactly a featherbed, but it’s better than sleeping on the streets.

“You have five seconds to drop that grin off yer face before I drop you.”

Of course she’d hit the wrong guy, and of course he would take a tumble out of the damned window. And now of course she was staring at some bloodied mess of a man who seemed all mended, or at least on the way to mended. She was shocked, of course, but more, she was curious. How did one go from suffering with a case of glass in the neck to sucking back all the Red Cross’ supply in the hospital then to seeming to be okay? Tulip did not know, but after seeing Lacey turned into a cow shit-covered corpse, the bloodied man before her didn’t seem like such an oddity. Not in this town, anyway.