Page 11 of Cassian
“I’m taking a lot of classes that have to do with that.I guess with everyone on computers anymore, there is a great deal of that going on.”He told her how he’d read a few articles on the subject and was worried about it.“There is a great deal to be worried about, too, from what I read.Identity theft is the worst.People aren’t being as secure as they should be when it comes to putting their information out there.”
She was waiting for Daniel to be brought to her in a special room.The officer who was in the room with her assured her that he wasn’t going to be leaving her alone with the other man.She was glad for that.She didn’t trust Daniel any further than she could spit, and that wasn’t all that far.As soon as he was brought into her room, he was chained not just to the floor but to the table as well.The officer told him to stretch out his arms so that she could see how much room she had before he could touch her.Her idea was not to put her hands on the table at all and scooted her chair back so she’d not be tempted.
“I have to go.Daniel is here, and he looks like someone has taken a stick to his face and hands.I hope he’s getting his comeuppance while in here so that maybe he’ll be a nicer man when he’s let out.”Cassian laughed, and she could feel his supposed humor about that statement.“Yeah, I don’t believe it either.Later.I love you.”
He told her that he loved her as well and would be there if she needed him.She hoped that she wouldn’t, but she didn’t know what to do if he were to touch her.She had it in her head to tempt him to see what the other officer would do to him, but decided against that.There was no point in poking the bear, as her grannie was so fond of saying.
“What do you want with me?I think I’ve made it perfectly clear that I want nothing to do with you.”He said that she needed to get him out of jail by not pressing charges again.“I’m not going to do that.Believe it or not, I like you being behind bars.I do sleep better at night.”
“I don’t care what you want.It’s been driving me crazy here because there is nothing for me to do.And now I just found out that I’ve lost my job because of you.”She asked him how it was her fault that he’d lost his job.“Because if you would have just stayed clocked in and working for me that day, then none of this would have happened.I bet your husband regrets marrying you; you’re so stubborn.”
“He actually gives me whatever I want when I ask for it.”He snorted like he didn’t believe her.“What did you want so that I can tell you no again and go home.I have classes starting soon, and I have to get onto reading some of the books that I have.”
“You can’t seriously still be thinking about going to college.You’re not smart enough to get into one, much less have the intellect to pass any of the courses.”She thanked him.“You’re welcome.”
“It wasn’t meant as a real thank you.I was being sarcastic with you.”He told her he never understood that.“Whatever.It doesn’t matter.What else did you want from me so that I can get on with my life?I heard that your trial is set for next month sometime and that you might well get a prison sentence for your violent acts against me.”
“You haven’t seen any violent acts against you, but you will once I get out of here.”She said she wasn’t worried about him, but in truth, she really was.Shivering slightly, she told him that she was done messing with him and was going to go home.She had better things to do than hang out with him.“You’ll stay until I get what I want from you.You’re going to stop pressing charges against me and get me out of here so that I can get my job back, and you’ll work for me again.If you would just allow me to knock you around, I would be able to get all my frustrations out on you, and the rest of the staff will be happy for it.Otherwise, when I work again, there is no telling what will happen to the others that work for me if you’re not there to cut them some slack.”
“Let me get this straight.You want me to let you beat me up all the time just so the other staff will be safe from harm.That’s not going to happen.First of all, I no longer work for you or the company, and secondly, you’re insane if you think that anyone would be all right with you beating up one of the people who worked for you.”He told her that she was missing the point that others would be safe.“I don’t care about the others if you think that I’m going to be all right with that.”She thought of something.“You should bring up your plan with the judge when he gets around to seeing you.I’m betting that he isn’t going to be pleased with it any more than I am.And I think it’s a done deal about you not going back to work there.You’ll have to find yourself someplace else to work out your plan.But don’t think that I’m going to follow you.I’ve got better things to do than to allow you to beat on me.”
“You’re still missing the point.You’ll be saving a lot of workers from harm if you would just allow me to knock you around a bit.Some days it’ll have to be worse than it was on the day of the great beating, but I’m sure we can work something out about that.Maybe I can only hit you on your body and not your face.That way you can still work and look good.”She stood up to leave and nearly sat again when he told her, really, he snarled at her to sit her ass back down.Going to the door, he was still screaming at her for not listening to him when she was out the door and into the hallway.The officer who was waiting at the door assured her that she was going to be just fine.
“He wants to be able to knock me around as if I’m his play toy or something.”He said that they’d heard what he said and that it had been recorded.“What sane person thinks that I’d be all right with him doing that to me and allow it to happen more than one day?No one that’s who.”
She made her way to the front desk of the station and told them not to call her again.She wasn’t going to come down here and put up with him saying those kinds of things to her again.They told her that they’d thought that he was going to tell her how sorry he was, that’s what he’d told them he was going to do.As she was leaving the stationhouse, she heard from Cassian.
“I can feel your anger all the way across town.What’s happened?”She told him everything, including how everyone would be safe if she were to agree with what he wanted.She was still so mad that she wanted to go back in there and give him a piece of her mind, but she was fearful that he’d not understand and think that because she came back, she was all right with what he wanted to do.It was insane to think that anyone would be all right with that.“I’ll have a talk with him about manners.”
“You’ll end up killing him, and while I will visit you, I don’t want to have to visit you in prison.He’s not going to listen, and I think he has a screw loose or something.There isn’t any way that he’s sane and thinking that I’d be all right with what he’s saying.”Cassian laughed, and she wanted to hit him, too, but he was too far away.“I’m not in the mood for you to find humor in my situation.He really thinks that I should be all right with this.”
“I think you’re right in telling him to say that to the judge.He might not think it’s funny, but he will get a kick out of it being said.They might order tests to be done on him to see if he really is thinking that what he wantsis going to happen.Lesser things have gotten people declared insane.I don’t even understand how he thinks it’s going to be all right with me.I think I’ve shown him enough that I have no patience with him.”
“Maybe he needs a lesson in manners, as you said.I can think of a few of them that he’s not gotten yet.Just to think…I can’t believe that he actually thinks that anyone would be all rightwith what he’s saying.Then he tells me that he’ll only hit my body and not my face like he’s expecting me to run the register or something while being beaten to shit.”She wasn’t so much angry with the man, she was, but she was more shocked that he’d be thinking what he was thinking.People just didn’t want to get beaten all the time, no matter how much it saved their fellow workers.She’d bet that anyone who worked there with her would be upset as well about the treatment of her.At least she hoped they would be.“I need to let go of all this frustration.I was going to the library to get a book, but I’m fearful that I’ll be just too pissy with them to get anything but arrested.”
“Just tell them what you told me about Daniel, and I’m sure they’d understand.He’s a cracker short of some cheese.”She burst out laughing, causing the men around her to turn to look at her.One of them even winked at her as if they understood that she was talking to someone else.“I will go and talk to him.I promise not to kill him unless he forces my hand.And since I feel like I can handle him right now, I’ll do it on the way home from working.I’m almost finished here anyway.You’ll be happy to know that we have two buildings that are ready to be used for the computer company and another one for the shop that’s coming in that sells candles.I don’t know how well they’ll do at first, but they said they understood that the town is in flux right now and depending on other businesses to come to town.”
“Hopefully, they’ll be able to hang on until other businesses see that they’re making a go of it and come to open up a shop too.I guess they’re not hiring very many people either.”He told her that they were saying five, but he didn’t see that working out either.“I feel better now.Just not talking about him for a few minutes has taken away some of my anger or whatever it is that I was feeling.Are you really going to go and talk to him?”
“I am.I would feel better if I could make it clear to him that I’m not going to tolerate him treating you the way that he has, either.I’m thinking that he won’t understand that, but it’ll be worth it to me to see how he reacts to my own kind of threats.I really think that he’s off his rocker, babe, and that’s why he feels like he can say those things to you.Like you said, no sane person would think those things, much less say them out loud.”She said that she didn’t know, but was glad for someone else to take over with him.Then she told him how she’d told the stationhouse not to call her anymore, she wasn’t coming there to listen to him go on about shit anymore.“Good.If they call asking you to come again, I’ll instruct the household not to allow the calls to come into the house.The station can deal with him.”
Going to the library, she was happy to find that they had some new authors’ books on display so that people could check them out.She got herself two of them so that she could read one of them, but it turned out to be nothing that she wanted to read.She would also leave a review for them as she was in the habit of doing when she could.Good or bad, she knew that it helped other readers to understand what the book was about and whether or not they might enjoy it as well.She was on her way home when she saw that Cassian’s car was in front of the police station.She wished that she could be there to hear what he had to say, but knew that she was feeling better now and didn’t want to be angry again about him.
Chapter 5
Cassian was finding humor in what Daniel had said to Raven.It sounded to him as if the man was insane to think that things could go his way.But he was going to talk to him about his manners when he got to see him, and he was happy that the stationhouse wasn’t all that busy, so that they could bring him into the little room he’d been in before.As soon as he was seated and chained up, Cassian popped him in the nose, having his head snap back and blood pour from his nose.Neither the cop nor he said anything when Daniel started screaming about the pain he was in.
“Shut up.”His mouth closed so tightly that it was a wonder that he didn’t bite his lip or his tongue in the process.“Now this is the way things are going to go from now on.You’ll not talk to my wife again.Ever.She’s not going to be working for you, even if you were to ever find a place that would hire you.You’re not going to be beating people so that you can be in a better mood, too.That ship has sailed, and you’re not going to be on it.Do you understand what it is that I’m saying to you?”
“You hit me.”He asked if he wanted him to hit him again, and sadly, he declined.“You can’t just come in here and hit me.If I were unchained, I’d show you why you can’t do that again.”
“If they were to unchain you, you’d piss your pants if they were to allow us to have at it.I’d kill you before your first blow was sent.”He lunged at him, and Cassian didn’t move.“You’re not all that badass.In fact, I’d say you’re nothing but a school yard bully that thinks just because he can talk a big game that people should listen.”
“I’m just lucky that I’m chained up.”He didn’t bother telling him he was right, as he told him once again, he wasn’t to bother Raven.“I don’t know why you care if she’s getting beaten up or not.She’d have a job instead of going to college, which would be a total waste of time.She’s pretty and all, but she doesn’t have the smarts to make it through college, much less be an attorney like she said that she wants to be.”
“What makes you think that we’re poor?”He said that the entire town was poor, and he wondered if he’d taken a good look around.“I have, and I’m doing something about the projects that are going on with my money and that of the rest of my family.Have you ever heard of the Savages?”
“You mean that supposedly rich bunch of fuckers that think they own the town?Yeah, so what?You might be a Savage, but you’re in no way related to them.I’ve met them all, and you aren’t even a blip on their radar in the amount of money that they have.”He said that they were all related.“Sure you are.If so, then what are you doing being married to Raven?She’s not that good-looking, and she has nothing to her name but a job that she should have been fired from a long time ago.”
