Page 18 of Small Town Beast

“I told you it would be,” Bee said angrily. “I told you that you should try another way to get the money. Look, Tanya, look! I drove to the ATM in Goldsville and got some cash out from Durk’s account. Here! And don’t tell me anything butyes, because I won’t hear it! I never should have helped you do this tonight, I knew it from the very beginning, but I went along, Lord Jesus help me.”

She handed Tanya an envelope of cash.

“No, Bee,” said Tanya, horrified. She pushed the envelope back. “Didn’t I tell you I don’t want your money?”

“I can’t have my best friend selling herself to the devil when I can help!”

“Bee, come on!”

“I mean it, Tanya. Don’t push me, ‘cause I’ve made up my mind!”

Tanya didn’t know what to think. On the one hand she was grateful to her friend; beyond grateful. On the other, she worried what would happen to Bee if her husband found out.

Tanya held the envelope tightly, her conscience at war. In the end she put the envelope quietly in the side compartment. She’d text Bee that it was there once she was home.

There are so many good people in the world.She just couldn’t let Bee, who didn’t have a stroke of meanness in her body, take the fall for her mistake. After all, it was her fault she’d lost Amari.

Tanya looked out the window as the night blurred past. Somewhere out there her baby was asleep– if he was still alive.

She swallowed down the panic and the fear. The disappointment. The urge to scream. She hoped tonight hadn’t been for nothing.

I have to get to him…No matter what it takes.

Four

Chapter Four

Saverin woke up the next morning on the green couch. The first thing to meet his eyes was the Kimber on the table. The gun held some significance that he couldn’t put his finger on. He rubbed blurry eyes.I’m alive…but why was that surprising?

He touched the bubbly flesh on the side of his face and the scars on his torso. They were smooth and healed. In his dreams he was always unburned, whole.

“Fang,” he called, and in the answering silence he remembered. He shut his eyes and sighed heavily.

Still alive. This is real.Images of the night came and went.Fang is dead. I’m not…who was she? What happened to my head?He opened his eyes. Swinging his feet down, he nearly smashed a ziploc bag full of water on the floor.

What was I icing?

His first suspicion proved right. His knuckles were a rainbow and flexing them open hurt like a bitch. He could recall fighting somebody as they tried stuffing him into his truck.

His collar was stiff with blood, and a cautionary probe told him he was missing the top part of his ear— on his good side.

Ah, fuck.

He picked up the bag and tossed it on the table. That was when he got a good look at the blood-spotted piece of paper the Kimber had been resting on.The drawing in ballpoint pen had been the last frantic act of his whiskey-addled mind. He did remember making the drawing, and he remembered especially the inspiration for it.

From the scrap of paper a beautiful woman stared back at him with eyes he had apparently been determined not to forget.

Tanya.

Distantly in the house he heard something slam shut.

Saverin sat up and leveled the Kimber at the door.

“It’s just me,” came a hoarse voice he knew only too well. "Don’t shoot.”

Roman McCall stepped into the room, followed by the older cousin Saverin had met outside the Turnkey. It seemed like they’d come from outdoors.

“So you’re awake,” Roman said, staring down at him. His cheeks and nose were red; it must be a chilly morning. “We just went hunting. Caught you some meat.”

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