Chasing Shade Part 9

Her eyes went wide and her breath caught. His mind and he wondered if hers did the same went to his hands wrapped around her wrists. Her pinned under him. Him being decisive and firm as he moved into her, filled her f.u.c.ked her.

She made a move towards the truck but faltered. Her voice went watery then. Her eyes followed suit. 'I'm going to the liquor store, Archie. You don't want to take me there.'

His heart fell but he schooled his face. He could work this out. He could help her. He just had to not react in a way that would make it worse.

He forced himself to shrug. 'OK, sure. If that's where you want to go, I'll take you.'

'But I don't drink,' she said by way of explanation.

'Apparently you do,' he said, patting the seat.

'I don't,' she said, stepping closer to the truck. 'I shouldn't.'

He reached over and snagged the sleeve of her coat, tugging it gently. 'Whatever you need to do,' he said. 'I'm in.'

'But you shouldn't be. I'm just...a mess. Too much bulls.h.i.+t. You don't need that, Archie.'

He tugged again and was relieved when she finally climbed in. She shut the door against the cold November wind and it was only then that gooseb.u.mps raced up and down his arms. 'I'm a big boy, Betsey,' he sighed. 'Why don't you let me decide what I need or don't need?'

He piloted the truck slowly. Hoping maybe she would change her mind. If he drove slowly enough, she'd snap out of it.

She let her head fall back against the headrest and she shut her eyes. 'I'm going to get a bottle of wine,' she said with a sigh. She said it the way he'd heard himself or others talk about a rare grilled steak when he was super-hungry. At the end of a long day where all he wanted was some delicious sustenance and to rest.

She wanted her wine. She wanted to rest. She was tired.

Archie swallowed hard around the emotion in his throat. He put his hand on her leg and squeezed. 'If that's what you want, Bets,' he said.

'I can hear it, you know,' she said. She sighed and her whole body seemed to tremble with it.

'Hear what?'

'Your worry. Your sadness.' She opened her dark-brown eyes and glanced over at him, smiling. 'With just a touch of judgement for flavour.' She laughed softly and he felt ill from it.

'I'm not judging you,' he said. But wasn't he? Some part of him that thought she should be able to be strong indefinitely and not waver or crack. No matter what.

If you were her you'd have cracked long ago...

He shook his head at the thought. It was true. He'd never been as strong as Betsey seemed. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. 'It's not judgement...' he said, slowly. 'It's concern. I want you to feel better.' He squeezed her leg. 'I want you to feel peace, Betsey.'

He meant it.

'That's rare for me,' she said, matter-of-factly. 'Peace. It's a foreign concept.'

'I feel peace when I'm with you,' he said. 'I think that's something you should know.'

'Are you trying to guilt me into saving myself? Saving my soul? Get the addict to see how special she is so she won't fall off the wagon?' Her eyes were flinty and her voice matched.

'Nope. I just want you to know how I feel about you,' he said, pulling into a parking spot at the liquor store. They were here. It would turn out the way it turned out. 'How I'm starting to feel about us.'

She studied him. She chewed her lips and Archie found himself hoping that meant she was wavering. That she'd change her mind. 'You don't want to feel that way about me,' she said softly. Then she popped the truck door. It slammed, rocking him, and then she walked into the liquor store like she meant to do some damage.

Archie had to get her to tell him the rest of the story. She needed to purge it. Because the visit from the monster's daughter had set a whole s.h.i.+t storm into motion. He didn't want it to get worse, he didn't want it to linger.

When she came back out, she had a bottle of wine. A brown paper bag wrapped innocently around the dark green gla.s.s. He'd never had a feeling of dread when looking at alcohol. But he did now. And it hurt his heart. He took a deep breath before she got in and steeled himself. He had to just go with this, run with it. There could be no judgement or him imposing his will. It would turn out how it turned out.

'You sure about this?' she asked. Her fingers were swooping up and down the brown paper and it crinkled with every sweep.

'Yep. I'm sure. You need to go anywhere else?' He was careful to keep his voice soft and even.

She frowned. 'Nope. Home will do.'

He turned to look at her and Archie found she couldn't look directly at him. Her face was a study in shame and worry. He touched her cheek and she flinched. 'I'll take you home, but I'm not leaving you alone, Betsey.'

Her dark eyes found him. A long strand of hair hung in her face, making her look even younger than her twenty-five years. 'I've been alone for a long time,' she said.

'Well, that may be, but you're not now. And on that I won't waver,' he said.

Then he turned the truck around and took her home.

She was kinetic, Archie realised. It was as if she'd brought a live hand grenade into her home. Or a poisonous snake. She sat the bottle on the small kitchen table and took her coat off. She looked at him and then the bottle again. Archie watched her.

'Betsey, you don't have to '

'If you're going to pep talk me, you can leave,' she whispered.

Archie shut up. It was all tenuous right now. He wanted her to know he was here, but he couldn't impose his will. This was going to run its course.

'Want some?' she asked, getting small antique gla.s.ses from a high cabinet.

'No, thanks,' he said. Archie had never wanted a drink less in his life.

She shrugged. 'You know, I figured after all this time, almost four years sober of all things, one bottle of wine should put me on my a.s.s.' She laughed. It was a bitter, brittle sound.

Archie said nothing.

'Had to buy a screwcap,' she said, softly. 'Know why?'

He shook his head, watched her. His bones ached, he felt so tense.

'I don't own a corkscrew!' She smiled at him. It didn't touch her eyes. It made her look exhausted.

She unscrewed the wine and poured a gla.s.s. She wrinkled her nose. 'I'd forgotten how it tastes like vinegar.' Then, though Archie's stomach clenched painfully and he wanted to shout at her, she tipped her head back and downed half the gla.s.s.

She dropped on to the sofa next to him, put her booted feet up on the arm of the rocker and said, 'So Denton Jackson Miller...he f.u.c.ked up my life.'

He did the only thing he could do. He put his hand on her thigh, squeezed gently and listened.

'After I got away,' she started tentatively. She took another sip, grimaced.

'Go on. Tell me,' he said, petting her leg in what he hoped was a soothing gesture. 'I want to know.'

She studied him, her eyes s.h.i.+ny. But Archie had a feeling she'd rather eat nails than cry right now. Betsey nodded once, her finger circling the rim of the gla.s.s over and over again.

'I did the talkshow junket. Everyone wanted to talk to me. Everyone wanted to interview me. And everyone was willing to pay me and my mom...f.u.c.k. My mom thought that was great.' Her voice broke then.

'Your dad?'

'Gone. Gone from when I was little. It was just me and her.'

So the money would be welcome, Archie thought.

'So...' She drew the word out, finished her wine, stood to get more. 'That all happened at seventeen. It was awful. "How did you do it? What were you thinking?" And worse, to the other three girls rescued from his horrorland of a house. "Why didn't you get away? Betsey Green managed to get away. What was different about her?"'

Archie sighed. The media circus must have been phenomenal and awful for her.

Betsey dropped back onto the sofa next to him. Every move she made belied bone-weary tiredness.

'But they paid!' she said, slapping her thigh. 'So my mom would drag me anywhere they asked. Even when I started to ask her not to.'

He said nothing but took her hand in his and held it.

She sipped her wine, grimaced again. She wasn't looking too good. 'I started drinking at seventeen,' she said, softly. 'Drugs at eighteen. Anything to escape the nightmares and the worry. Once something like that happens to you...' She ran a hand through her bangs. Shut her eyes. 'For me, anyway, you start to see danger everywhere. Malicious intent. Horrors. You become suspicious of people and you kind of...' Betsey shrugged. 'Retract.'

He squeezed her hand again but said nothing. He had no words that would help her, but listening might.

'At nineteen...' Here a sob came and she buried it under a healthy swig of wine. 'At nineteen my boyfriend Eddie ODed right next to me. In a drug house. We were there doing heroin. Heroin is the prettiest kind of high. Ugly at first, if you get sick which most people do but then it blots everything out. Turns the world to a Monet painting. Nothing is harsh or hard. Everything is coloured and blotted.'

'Oh, Betsey.'

'I ran off. Did some drugs alone. Never really mourned him. There was no time. Highs to catch, you know. And then, at twenty, it happened to me. An OD. But, lucky for me, a junkie who'd just come in and was still sober and alert saved me. A true miracle, really. That's when I sat up and looked around. But, sadly, I was in a bad situation.'

Another swig. Another grimace.

'I was in the hole for some drugs with the dealer. He was looking at me as prime meat to sell on the street. My uncle he was my mom's older brother and utterly disgusted by her behaviour after the abduction found me and gave me this.' She waved her hand around the trailer. 'Gave me a new lease on life. Told me there was a friend of his up this way who owned a diner. Needed a waitress. And maybe, just maybe, I needed to get my a.s.s gone from the city and get my head on straight.'

She set the gla.s.s of wine on the end table. 'Before I ended up like Eddie.'

Archie touched her face. She turned to him, pale but for blotches of colour on her cheeks.

'I've been chasing shade ever since.'

Archie raised an eyebrow and she laughed at his obvious confusion. 'What I mean is, just trying to stay out of the bad stuff. Trying to stay cool and live a good life and...Oh, G.o.d,' she said and bolted for the bathroom.

He thought of going in to help her or hold her hair, but something told him right now, in that moment of pain and shame, it wouldn't be welcome. Betsey needed to be alone with herself for the time being. She needed to think about what she wanted.

He had to cross his legs and sit on his hands. Just over forty-eight hours and he was feeling very protective of Betsey. And attached. It was probably a bad idea, but f.u.c.k it. He felt it anyway.

He heard the water come on and then the sounds of face-was.h.i.+ng and teeth-brus.h.i.+ng. She came out of the bathroom looking pale. Her hair damp from was.h.i.+ng her face. She pulled it back in a rubber band at the nape of her neck. 'Hi,' she said. Her skin was pale, her eyes s.h.i.+ny.

'Hi,' he said, hurting for her. He wanted to make it better but had no idea how.

'Sorry,' she said.

'Don't be.'

'Well, I am. I am sorry you got all my ' she waved her hands around ' ick on you.'

He chuckled. 'No ick that I've seen.'

'My drama.'

'I wouldn't call this drama, Betsey. I'd call it pain.'

Her eyes darted to him, grateful and tired. 'I've been sober for four years. I had a rocky start but once I got it, I got it. Now I ruined it.'

'I don't think so. I think you had a falter. You stumbled. But it doesn't erase the last four years and life is too short to focus on your f.u.c.k-ups. Focus on your successes.'

She nodded, went to the counter and grabbed the bottle. Archie had a fleeting stab of worry that she'd down the rest, but she didn't. She went to the sink and dumped it out, letting the water run way longer than necessary. She took the bottle to the door and then disappeared outside. He heard the recycling bin clang and then she was back, roses in her cheeks from the cold.

'You're here with me,' she said.

'I am.'

She c.o.c.ked her head, wiped her hand nervously up and down her thigh. 'Why didn't you stop me?'

He patted the sofa. When she came to sit, Archie caught her wrist and tugged her to him. She allowed him to pull her down on his lap. When he put his arms around her, she was resistant for a moment. He sensed it was from embarra.s.sment more than anything else. After a few seconds, she relaxed into him.

'I want to be here for you, Betsey. Already, I want that. But I can't control you and I don't want to.'

She nodded and then really let herself relax against him. Archie clicked the remote for the TV, found a cooking show and just sat and held her. Eventually she said, 'You really don't think I should be sad? I just wrecked four years.'

'Nope. You were human for an hour. A thoroughly flaw-filled person who was hurting. Would you hold that against someone else? Judge them?'

She thought about it and then shook her head. 'No. I'd be saying pretty much what you are.'

'Then why would you turn that critical gaze on yourself?'

She said nothing, just picked up his hand and held it. Together they watched two men in an oversized kitchen cook turkeys. Eventually, he heard her start to breathe more heavily. She was falling asleep on his lap, in his arms. Archie tried to recall being more content.

He couldn't.

Chapter 13.