Page 32 of Christmas Home

“Aah, there’s the slut. Open your fucking eyes and look at me!”

I jerked and squirmed to get away, but Jimmy’s weight had me pinned to the bed. His hand pressed against my mouth, preventing me from yelling for help. “You motherfucker, did you really think you’d get away with stealing my fucking cash? I should beat the life out of you.”

I noticed a hand that wasn’t Jimmy’s slide over his shoulder and saw the biker from the other night. He wasn’t smiling creepily like last time. Instead, he looked worried, like he was afraid Jimmy might make good on that promise.

“Get off,” I mumbled into his hand, then bit it.

“Ouch, you fucker!” he yelled and hit me across the face.

“No, not fucking again,” I said and wrestled an arm free, then took a swing at him. Yeah, Jimmy would probably keep his promise. I didn’t know how he got in here, but damned if I’d let him kill me without leaving evidence that he was my murderer.

I managed to scratch him before Jimmy’s man helped hold me down, giving Jimmy another chance to get a punch in and causing me to writhe in pain.

“This isn’t cool, man. I can’t go back to fucking prison,” the guy said.

Jimmy paused but didn’t take his eyes off me. “You have fifteen minutes to get me my fucking money, all of it. If you don’t, I’m going to beat you so fucking hard you won’t recover. You understand me?”

I nodded. I’d known my reckoning was coming, I just hoped it wouldn’t be so soon. “Okay, okay,” I said between agonized breaths, the pain where he’d hit me still ricocheting through me. “I need to get to an ATM.”

“An ATM?” Jimmy asked with a suspicious grin on his face. “When did you get uppity enough to use a bank?”

“Do you want the money or not?” I asked, knowing my attitude was likely to land me another punch, which Jimmy looked as if he was about to deliver. But the guy still holding me shook his head and to my surprise, my ex actually listened to him.

“Okay, take him over to that fucking drugstore. They have an ATM outside. Once he’s got my fucking money, we’ll bring him back.”

The guy pulled me out of bed and barely allowed me to pull my pants on before he manhandled me into the pickup’s front seat. It was the same black truck I’d seen earlier. Jimmy crawled in next to me, pressing me between them.

I got out of the truck when they pulled up to the ATM and fumbled for my new bank card. I’d yet to do anything with the thing besides call using Mrs. Cole’s restaurant phone to activate it.

I had enough in my account to cover what I’d taken from Jimmy. It cleaned me out, but I silently thanked the universe I’d been saving every dime possible since working at the café. Jimmy and the other guy hung back, probably to avoid the ATM camera catching their image, not that it hid my split lip or that I was at the ATM with no shirt on in the wee hours of the morning.

“Hurry up!” Jimmy yelled, and at that moment, I decided to leave myself fifty dollars. It wasn’t much, but it gave me something if…when I had to run again.

I shoved the cash and the card into my pants pocket, and handed him the money when I got back to the truck. He counted it and laughed. “This ain’t enough.”

“Jimmy, it’s what I’ve got.”

“You go back over there and get me all of it.”

“It is all the money I have, fuck!” I said, hoping someone in the tiny town might hear us and come to my aid—no such luck. Crawford City was dead this time of the morning.

He looked at me, then over at the ATM, and back again. “You might be a piece of shit, but you ain’t never lied. Best you ain’t lying now, but I weren’t kiddin’ neither, this ain’t enough for what you put me through. I’ll be back next week to get the rest, and you best have this much or more waitin’ for me, you hear?”

“I won’t have that much, maybe half that. But that’s it, Jimmy, I ain’t got nowhere else to get money.”

He laughed. “Trailer trash,” he said. “Next week, you best get me every cent you can!”

I nodded and stared at them as they sped off, leaving me bloody and shirtless in the middle of downtown. I held my stomach where Jimmy had punched me. They hadn’t let me put shoes on either, so I had to wander back through town barely dressed. At least I didn’t have an audience to watch my humiliation.

By the time I got back to the motel room, my feet were bleeding from accidentally stepping on broken glass. I couldn’t even cry because there was no one to blame for this fucking predicament other than myself. I locked the door, not that it had done me much good. The son of a bitch that’d helped Jimmy must’ve somehow gotten ahold of a key.

Ignoring the pain in my feet, I pushed a dresser in front of the door. Damned if I’d let him come back and try again. Even if I knew I wouldn’t sleep, I needed at least a moment’s notice to get ready to fight.

I was tired of men beating the shit out of me, and if Jimmy came back, I swore to God himself I’d kill the son of a bitch. He’d been paid and needed to leave well enough alone, although I doubted he would. I didn’t have much choice but to pay him next week. I had no evidence he’d come into my room in the middle of the night, and he’d been smart enough to stay out of the way of the camera in the ATM, so it’d just be my word against his.

Once the sheriff heard I’d stolen from him to begin with, I’d be going to jail anyway. He had to know, though, I wouldn’t become his fucking patsy. If he kept pushing me, I’d take jail over this.

I thought about calling Lewellen. Yeah, she was a piece of shit too, but she’d come if I called. Not that I could call. My motel room had no phone, and I hadn’t paid for more minutes. I had been planning to do that the next time I got paid. Now, I wouldn’t have the cash.

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