Page 59 of The Devil's Ice

“Where’d you learn to shoot? And baby, I know that gun is legal and registered, but why’d you buy it?”

“Ah. Yes. I figured we’d have to talk about this at some point.”

“No shit. You were carrying that thing in your purse, and you pulled it and used it like a fucking pro.”

“Well,” she said lightly. “I’m certainly not a pro…. though Scars assures me that if I took up contract killing, I’d make better money than waitressing.”

“What?”

“Nothing, babe, sorry. Just a stupid joke.”

“OK, so…” He inspected the marshmallows, slid one off the fork and onto a paper plate. “The gun?”

“Well, I grew up in Iowa, in a small farming town called Weldon. Nothing much there except wheat, and shooting ranges, and churches.So manydamn churches.”

“Oh, boy.” Ice grinned at her. “Guns and Bibles, huh?”

“You know it. My parents were pro-gun like you wouldn’t believe, so I learned to shoot cans off the fence in our backyard before I even had breasts. They werealsosuper religious, like beyond any kind of logic or reason. I guess it won’t surprise you to hear that I rebelled against all of that when I was in high school – and I rebelledhard. Discovered boys and sex and wine in plastic cups, found out that I really liked those things, found out that my body wasn’t anything to be ashamed of, and being a woman wasn’t the equivalent of being a walking, talking original sin. My body wasmine, my soul wasmine, and I got to decide what to do with both. That was the beginning of the end of any contact with my family.”

“The beginning?”

“Yeah. I mean, they threw me out for being a Jezebel and a harlot and a whore, and I moved in with an older guy that I was kind of seeing – but then my younger sister Angela got thrown out too.”

“She discovered that she really liked boys, too?”

“No.” Vixen gave Ice a twisted smile. “She discovered that she really liked girls.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Right?” Vixen sighed, took a nibble of her marshmallow. “If what I was doing was akin to being a fallen woman, what my sister was doing was a full-on, ‘go straight to Hell and do not pass go’ kind of sin. I couldmaybehave been forgiven, if I’d repented and crawled and begged to be brought back into the fold, married a nice farmer and had a bunch of corn-fed, healthy little babies. But Angela waswaybeyond saving, according to my parents anyway, so she definitely had to go and stay gone.”

“So you and the older guy took her in?”

“No. My family told Angela that if stayed in town, they’d kill her, or close to it, at least.”

“But,” Ice said, startled. “Surely they wouldn’t do it, really?”

“Theydiddo it,” she said heavily. “She was walking to a job interview and she got jumped by a truckload of my redneck, yahoo cousins. They beat her to within an inch of her life, Ice, and she was too scared to say anything to the cops. So as soon as she recovered, she and I got on a bus and came to Denver.”

“Why here?”

“No single reason, or at least none that I can remember. We were at the bus station and we were looking to get a lot of distance between Iowa and wherever we ended up, plus we wanted a city. We figured that a bigger place would be more accepting of her, so Denver just seemed to tick the boxes.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Well, I’m thirty-two years old,” she mused. “So that’s – wow. I’ve been in Denver for thirteen years now. Hard to believe.”

“And you’ve been waitressing that whole time?”

“Yep. Mostly bars, though I had a short-lived career at a hotel chain working in the restaurant there. I hated it… I prefer working nights, and I like the whole bar vibe and environment, and I’m not a uniform and name-tag kind of girl. So when I landed the job at Satan’s a few years ago, it was a good fit.”

“And Angela?” Ice inspected the second round of marshmallows, decided to have one himself. “Where’s she?”

“Oh.” Vixen’s face lit up. “About five years ago, she met an amazing woman named Rachel, and they moved to Seattle and got married. They board and train dogs, and they’re deliriously happy with it all.”

“You guys still close?” Ice poured her a bit more wine, gestured at her neck. “Does she know about what happened to you?”

“Yes and yes.” Vixen stretched her legs towards the fire, loving the crackling sounds, the dancing orange flames. “She wanted to fly out right away, but I don’t want her around this mess.”

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