Incest/Taboo Connie and Clyde

"Mexico," I said. "If we can't find some way to stay in the country with a new identity, which I think would be way, way too hard to do, we'll have to get to Mexico. And I don't know what we'd do there."

Connie shifted in her seat, her head low.

"I'm sorry, Connie," I said. "It's all fucked up now."

"You're..." Connie tried saying something but her lip started to quiver and her mouth pressed shut. She was crying a little.

"Hey," I said. "I'm sorry. It's my fault. I shouldn't have called."

Connie looked at me helplessly. "No, no. It would have turned out the same, except now you're just mixed up in it," she said, her voice tight. "I didn't want that. I was the one who shot him, and now I've... I got you into this. I begged you for help and now you're in it. I've ruined it. I've ruined your life. God--you just got out of prison and I ruined it all--"

"James ruined it," I said. "Nothing I can do about the fact that he's a piece of work. If he didn't do this to you, then we wouldn't be in this situation. You didn't do shit."

"If I had just gone along with what he wanted," her voice broke and she started to sob, her hands over her face.

I gripped the steering wheel. "I think that would have been worse than what we're doing now," I said. "Connie, if I found out you had... gone through with that... if you had let James pimp you out, then I think I'd feel a hell of a lot worse. Then I definitely would have been the one to shoot him. And it'd all end this way anyway."

Maybe it was the wrong thing to say. Connie was bawling. She needed to do it, to let go of everything that was tormenting her, all the horror and the fear and the pain that was her life needed to be processed. I put my hand on her shoulder and rubbed her back gently as she wailed into her sleeves. After some time she sniffled, her body still, and she seemed a little calmer. The highway rolled on, the bright of the day mixing with blue sky and spotted clouds.

"I'll keep you safe, Connie," I said. I meant it. "Nothing wrong with that, right?"

"Right," she whispered. Connie looked at me, the gorgeous blue of her eyes even visible in the purple that her husband gave her.

And then I wished I had been the one to shoot him.

Connie was having a harder time than I expected.

I had heard that sometimes when a person is abused real bad, they store it all in their body. It doesn't go away. The tension, the fear, the hurt, it all just piles up, and there's no way to get rid of it all, no way to process, no way to let go. It just hurts them, scares them, fucks with their heads until they are broken to pieces even after they got away.

The more we drove, the more I was scared that that was the case for Connie. On top of the fear that they'd be after us, but there was no way to know. I also wondered how much more shit I hadn't seen. How much abuse went on that she had kept from me. How much she hadn't told me about.

"I'm fine," she'd gasp, shivering, the hood of her new hoodie held down tight by pale fingers. "I'm... I'm okay... I'll be okay..." All I could do was breathe and wait and console and feel the bitter, darkening rage that made me envision holding the revolver up to James' face and pulling the trigger until there was only smoke left.

We drove west, clinging to the bottom half of Missouri until we make it into Oklahoma. We drove slow. I was exhausted. My knuckles went white and my heartrate shot up and beat against my throat every time I saw a police car, but we were ignored, speed traps flicked by without incident. Nothing worth looking at for long when you've got an obviously poor kid and his hot piece in the passenger seat, going the speed limit, and looking like we'd all address them as 'Mister Officer.' We pulled into William's Grove, which was a little town in the flat dust of Oklahoma's pan. It was the kind of town that held a post office, a few chain fast food restaurants, and gas stations, just a little step-aside on the highway for truckers and whatever unfortunates got stranded out here, with equal parts dead grass and old gravel.

As a hypothetical, I could keep driving, as much as I could, by day, by night, and if I just kept at it and fought for it, there was a chance we could cross the border by heading straight south through Texas.

But I was tired as hell, just thinking about it, and Connie was borderline hysterical at intervals. With all her emotions running and the tears coming up fast and heavy and her hyperventilating, all unexpected, all uncontrollable, I figured it would do us good to just find a spot, any spot, to get a real sleep, just for the night. With that, we'd have the strength and sense to get to the border, and then to find a way to sneak across it, out of the arms of the American Law.

And if I were to do the other option, to just keep going, then we'd have to pull over sometime. And if we pulled over, that was any trooper or any cop's favorite little thing, to talk to a dumb kid and his hot piece after they got stranded and to make a pass at the redhead with great tits.

And they'd ask for ID.

The sun was getting lower on the horizon.

I was seeing double by that point. Connie had gained some composure and her face was now drawn and grim, and her lips were pressed tight and paled out. She had cried so hard. So many times. Not just for shooting him. But for loving him, and having not been loved in return, and for it all to end with her emotions rising up so high that she pulled the trigger and shot the man she married.

She was also worried as hell, right along with me as we passed a cop that flicked on his lights and then turned to go the opposite direction as us, and away. That drew the last straw for me. They don't go asking about people at motels, not unless they know somebody is there, and maybe... maybe at a shit enough place the staff would be alright with a couple of drifters that aren't really doing good with life and need a place to stay unnoticed, just until four in the morning.

It was late, late afternoon when I pulled into William's Grove's only motel, an absolute dogshit rundown place that at least seemed to me to be the kind of spot that'd be willing to take cash and not to ask too many questions.

I hoped it, anyway.

"I don't know, CJ." Connie stared through her sunglasses at the office ahead, dim with electricity that couldn't quite break through the filmy, dingy windows. Her voice wasn't tremoring with horror or mourning at that moment. She spoke with a clarity that was born out of her intuition.

I didn't get where she was coming from, though. "What's wrong with it?"

The hotel had two stories, rickety and tan and looking like it had once been new fifty years ago. She eyeballed the parking lot. There weren't a lot of cars there. A few large diesels took up the far stretches of the asphalt. Looking at those, she made a suggestion. "We could just park here and sleep for the night. And maybe they wouldn't bother us."

"If a single cop comes by to check on a couple of homeless people, we're fucked," I said. "They like to do that, you know. Say hello to uninvited folks who park in the wrong lot. I'll get us a room."

"Be careful," she said. Her eyes were narrowed, looking painful behind the swell, itself hidden behind the dark rims.

"You got it."

"I'd come along, but..." She pointed at the black and blue behind her sunglasses. She cracked a faint smile. I wanted to laugh along, but couldn't. It was nice to see that she was at least facing it with a sense of humor, though I didn't know how much of that was tired resignation.

I got up and out the car door. The gun felt heavy and almost wrong in my waistband. I took it out and placed it on the driver's seat. It wasn't gonna be necessary here. Connie looked at it for an instant and then looked away from it, like it was hurting her.

The sun was still hot even as it sat at the edge of the sky. I went inside. The door opened with a squeak and the air conditioning, smelling a bit like fried dust, was welcome after the constant beatdown of Oklahoma's sun. It gets different when you cross between state lines, for some reason. Like the weather is different for each state, whole new climates. And here, the air conditioning felt good and dry.

A hulk of a guy behind the counter looked up from his phone. His chair was low, so that he was nestled behind the counter and could simply stand any time a guest arrived. He stood up slow, groaning and angry that somebody came to disturb him. A television played CNN above and to the side from a little television that was precariously mounted, drilled into the wall. The guy looked at the news cycle that talked about some international trade agreement that went sour and was about to fuck over Georgia. The country, not the state.

Then he looked at me.

"ID," he said first, looking at me from eyelids that looked as heavy as pancakes.

"Damn, really?" I asked. "I don't have mine."

"Required by law," he droned, and looked down at his phone.

"Look, man," I said, shaking my head. "I don't have any options, here. I don't have my ID. I don't have a place to stay. Alright? I'm living out of my vehicle and everything is fucked in my life--" I started on, droning with his same tone. It had to be his tone.

It was a little trick I had learned in prison to get your way--you just tell a story, mirroring everything that your target does. And you just tell it. A long, uncomfortable yarn. A sad one. You just keep going, as long as you fucking can, and you bludgeon them to death with how sad and long and exhausting it is. You break their heart. You break their mind. You break their will with how pathetic your situation is. And you don't stop until they fucking beg you to stop, because if you stop they'll just pity you and won't do a thing. So you just keep going, and eventually, they start to feel like you're telling the truth that at least you're in some dire, dire need for help, and the easiest thing that will make everyone happy will be for them to bend the rules, just the tiniest bit. It was all we needed. So I made up the worst goddamn situation I could.

I told him I was the son of a couple dead addicts (possibly true) and my girl and I were all kinds of fucked up (technically true if you considered my aunt 'my girl'), we were ex-meth addicts, ex-alcoholics, all of our family's now dead, all of our so-called friends fucked us over and got us evicted, we're working on a fucking pig farm under the table because we're desperate and I can't get a 'real job', my boss stiffed my wages and stole my ID and tried to fuck my girl and we're just trying desperately to make it to my boy Ziggy's in Dallas, we have dreams out there since all of ours are broken to shit out here, I tore my joint in my shoulder when somebody closed a gate on me and now I could barely work anything and we ate garbage last night so we wouldn't go hungry. Etcetera.

I think being half-delirious from exhaustion probably helped with my sounding like I was really fucked over. Bad. I kept talking. My pride didn't matter. It was our lives at this point, and I was perfectly alright with making this guy, and my own ego, hurt so bad that he had to give us a room. The guy behind the desk looked more and more frustrated that he couldn't politely tell me to go anywhere else, because he was the only guy there, and I was the only potential customer, and this was the only place we could stay, and we really wanted to stay at his respectable establishment on a personal level, and I was so, so fucked over by the world and man, please, I just need to stay here tonight.

"Stop--stop--" He rubbed his eyes with one hand and held up the other, finally, right as I was about to tell him about how my girl was getting scared that we'd have to sleep under an overpass again. "Jesus. Alright. I get it. I can... I can probably just rent a room myself, and you guys can use it. You said you had cash--do you have it on you now?" He eyeballed me, bleary-eyed and looking like I had just forced him to watch a soap opera, front to back. The news had long moved on by this time and was now talking about the latest celebrity who had beef on social media.

"Yeah. I got cash."

"This could get me fucked over," he said, eyes narrow. "If they find I did this, my boss is gonna fire me. So the price is twice the room. Or, I could meet your girl." He gave me a weird smile. "Is she outside? What's she look like?"

"I've got cash, man," I said, relieved but still trying to haggle. The fact that he brought up Connie was dangerous. I could tell now that this was the kind of guy who liked to take advantage when others were vulnerable. And while I had definitely done everything I could for us to appear as vulnerable as possible, I wasn't about to endanger Connie. But if I didn't push him, he was going to try some shit. I could feel it. "I can't pay twice the room, man. And I'm not letting you see my girl."

"What's she look like?"

I took a second. The guy looked like he felt he had me. And her.

I was gonna have to fuck with his head even harder. Least I could do was make him feel like he had fucked us over, too. I gave him another ramping start of my woes, and talked about how fucking hard it was to find a good place to stay. And no, we had already tried my girl sweet talking people so we could get food or shelter, and it ended so bad, she has PTSD now, and oh, fucking god, we didn't have hardly enough money, if I paid double for the room then there's no way we'd make it to Ziggy's in Dallas--unless maybe we didn't eat, and that would mean we wouldn't be able to sleep so we could make it--

"I need--I just need an extra twenty. God. I'll get your fucking room, Jesus." The guy behind the desk looked defeated. And guilty. Which was perfect. "I just need something to make it worth it, so an extra twenty, alright?" He said, clearly feeling like a piece of shit for demanding that on top.

It was a deal, though. I handed over some money, intentionally looking like each bill was the only thing that held me together. He clicked for a bit on his computer behind the desk with his debit card and then handed me a couple key cards. He had a thousand-yard stare by this point. I handed him the bills. He went over every one with a pen, held it up to the lamp, scratched as various parts, before putting them away in his pocket. "Pleasure doing business," he said, insincere, and collapsing into his little lazy nest before I left with the cards and heard the jingle of rusty bells from the door closing.

Connie looked up from the passenger seat in the parking lot.

I waved the cards. She looked around, at the entrances of the parking lot, at the hotel office, at me, at the few cars that were parked here. Then she got out slow, and stiff. It was obvious that by this time, everything James had done had gone from raw bruising to the kind of aching pain that one had to be careful with. My heart just about broke as she limped along. I went over to her and took the bag of new underwear and socks that we bought at a store when we got water, and then had her lean on my arm.

Luckily, the room we got was on the ground floor. I kept an eye on the office, wondering if the guy could see us. Between the dirtiness of the windows and the fact that that guy was practically reclining on his chair behind the desk, it seemed to me that he wouldn't have known if Jesus came back.

I opened the door. Connie went in first, steadying herself on the frame, on the air conditioner as she stepped in. Even though we had been sitting, and even though she had gotten patches of sleep on the ride, she was obviously still exhausted.

I was too. I rubbed my eyes and looked at the two queen beds in the room and felt the bliss and relief of knowing that we'd at least get a good night's sleep. And then we'd be gone. I collapsed onto my bed and closed my eyes. Sleep felt so close, and so beautiful.

I forced myself to sit up and drew the gun, and placed it on the table towards the front. I went to the window and looked out. No movement from the office. The guy seemed like he wasn't about to rat us out. He was complicit, now, in a way. I closed the blinds and rested my head on the wall. Connie went to the far bed and tried to sit down, a whine escaping from her. "God... I need to shower," she murmured, looking down. The sunglasses drooped down her nose, revealing her black eye. Her hands were slow to take them off.

"CJ?" She asked. Connie's tone had a note of embarrassment in it.

"Yeah."

"I need some help."

I looked up. Connie had her hands underneath the bottom of her hoodie. The Missouri one. She tried to lift it up but winced, hard.

"I'm... I'm in a lot of pain. And I can't really move." She gave me an apologetic look. "I hate to ask this... but could you... could you help me undress?"

It took me only a half second to shake out of the blur of recognizing what she had asked. And then another full second to realize what it meant.

"You don't have to," she said, "if it's awkward." She tried to pull up on the hoodie and I could see the flex of her dainty mouth as the pain got to her.

"No, no it's fine," I said, coming close. "I won't look."

"You might have to," she said, shaking her head. "I can't really reach anything." Then she looked up at me and gave a small laugh.

"I've got you, Connie."

Every movement Connie made that was outside of moving her arms a little caused her a lot of pain. I wondered if she had any broken bones, but it seemed obvious that she would have been aware of them. No, these seemed more like sprains, and bruises. And a lot of them. The hoodie went up. Her bare arms slipped from inside the sleeves.

She was down to her tank top and bra and jeans. I hissed. There were bruises up and down her shoulders, her chest. There was a particularly ugly red blotch on her arm where something really hard had struck her. I thought about all the broken furniture in that room when I found them.

I was worried about what else I'd see on her. I tried not to look at the pert swell of her breasts. Or at the purpling spots where James had punched and kicked her, scattered across her body like a pattern.

I went for the tank top. Connie's eyes were closed. I lifted the bottom, had her lift her arms again, and as it came up, revealing the creamy white of her tummy, the old bra that cradled her perfect chest, the curve of her torso, her belly button that lay shallow over her waistband, and my heart skipped beats. I kept my eyes to the side but couldn't help but see her in my peripherals.

I had seen Aunt Connie in a bikini once or twice. But that was when I was younger, and when we all went to the river. That was a memory that was long gone and hazy, except for her.

She looked like a goddess then, deliciously curvy and pale and freckled in the sun and in the dappling shade of the trees. She looked no less like a goddess now, or like an angel. But she was an injured angel. I almost expected wings, broken, to reveal themselves as the tank top left her shoulders.

"My jeans," Connie winced. "We can get those... and then... I can go to the bathroom and you can get my bra from the door so you don't see..."

I tried to give an affirmative. It sounded like a pent-up huff. Not that it wasn't.

Connie stuck out her legs. She gingerly unbuttoned the top button of her jeans, and as the zipper was undone, her hands went to the lapels and tried to open them, but even that movement seemed too much. I stepped back and took her pants at the bottom of the legs. And pulled. Connie groaned as she adjusted on the bed so that her pants could slip down.

My Aunt Connie's panties appeared first. White, with stripes, tiny ones. A pink, decorative bow punctuated her panties just below her navel. It was the kind that was sewn on, just a button of a flower, smaller than her navel. Her thighs appeared next, soft and looking like I could sleep on them, curved and alluring. One knee rose, and I saw the way her thighs held their gorgeous shape, one buttock peeking out of her panties. I saw the swell of her mound. Just a peek of it.

I looked away. Aunt Connie didn't notice that I had seen, and there was no way I was gonna tell her, or give her that impression.

The legs of her pants pulled away and off her. I took off her socks and then helped her to sit up straight again. "God..." she whispered, eyes closed. "I didn't know it'd hurt this much."

"He really beat you this time," I said. My stomach twisted. "I think he wanted to kill you."

"He did." Connie said, outright. She didn't look at me. "He's been... He was... I don't know if he's alive. God, isn't that something... James had been getting worse. For a while. The beatings were getting harder for a couple months and then... that day he said that if I didn't fuck Hillman he was going to choke me to death, to break my neck." Her voice started to break.

"And then I wouldn't have to 'learn a lesson' anymore," she finally choked after a longer silence. Aunt Connie tried to regain her composure, and got it after she shut her eyes tight and breathed hard, shuddering and in pain. She tried to stand, even as she tried to calm down, but her legs buckled. I caught her under her elbow and gently lifted her.

"Are you going to be okay?" I asked. "While you shower, I mean."

Connie nodded. "I just... I can get in. And I'll be able to take care of it all... maybe some hot water will loosen me up..."

We made our way to the bathroom. There were more bruises, but...

Aunt Connie looked incredible. Even beaten and broken and tired and scared.

Every step, to me, was like watching the shimmer of glass with the sun going through. Her legs were artful, and long, and her ass was beautifully curved and firm and full, behind the striped panties, her cheeks shifted, and promised that they would be heaven.

By this point, with the exhaustion, and the temptation, I was having a hard time not looking. We got to the door of the bathroom. Connie went in, and partially closed the door behind her. I turned to leave. "CJ?" she asked. Her face turned slightly toward me. Her gorgeous red hair rippled over her shoulder. The black eye sparkled with her blue.

"Yeah?"

"I need you to get my bra."

I swallowed. "Alright."

"You can do it without seeing anything, right?" She asked, her gaze looking to the side, most of her hidden by the door.

"Yeah."

In the greatest, and most extreme act of self-control, I reached through the door, and my fingers touched the clip of her bra. And the soft skin of her back. There were freckles back there too, and a couple dotted moles that were like jewels on her. I pulled the clip. Pushed one side.

And then let go.

Connie let the bra fall immediately, not catching it. Her arms moved slow to cover her breasts, even though I couldn't see them.

Instead, all I saw was her bare back. There were bruises, yes. But there was also my beautiful Aunt Connie. Her back was elegant and straight. And her butt was a gorgeous upside-down heart underneath, hidden only because of her panties.

I found myself breathing hard, and then stifled it, looking away. It had been so, so goddamn long...

"Thank you, CJ," Connie said softly.

She turned. I saw the gentle under-swell of her breast, just beneath her hand. Her other hand pushed the door closed.

I stepped back, and only started to breathe again when I heard the shower turn on.

She'd be taking off her panties now.

Then I could hear Connie's little footsteps. The gasp as she got under the water, the change in the droplets as they pattered the inside of the tub with her, naked, standing under it.

I shook my head and went to my bed. I collapsed onto it, trying not to dream of my Aunt.

It was the first real bed since before I got out of prison. Up until this point, I had been roughing it either outside, or at the tweaker's house where I only felt safe enough to keep the blankets that I collected and slept on the floor.

I felt like I was falling into the covers. Real cushioning, a real mattress, cradling me like I was held by my mom. My eyes were getting heavy. Extremely heavy. My heartbeat was slowing, releasing, the first relief after what felt like a hellish eternity of anxiety. Connie was safe, for now. And I was safe. The guy in the office wouldn't say shit. The cops didn't know what car we drove. And Mexico was only one long drive away.

I laughed to myself. God. A couple of fugitives, sleeping on real beds with real showers. After Connie was done, I'd get my shower, and then we'd sleep until morning, sprint across the border, and then...

And then...

I was at a loss. What the hell could we do in Mexico?

Even though I was exhausted, I needed to think. Connie was my responsibility, now. I wanted at least a game plan for when we got there. And a plan for crossing the border.

The shower kept going. She'd be lathered up, rinsed down, by now. It had been ten, fifteen long minutes where I didn't realize I was phasing in and out of consciousness, but that at least meant that Connie got a good, luxurious soak in. I felt a little jealous and almost laughed to myself that I was excited to take my own shower. Maybe the plans could wait. My body was so tired, anyway.

I turned on the news absently. CNN immediately opened.

And my mugshot looked at me from the screen.

My exhaustion disappeared in a bolt of adrenaline. My face, the mugshot from when I first went into prison, along with a digitally altered version that had my tattoos, face ones and all, and made me look a hell of a lot more angry and dangerous than I figured I was. A talking head spoke with a look of measured shock, his report coming at me already halfway done. "--attempted to mur*er her husband, before running off with the subject of her affair. Clyde James Halloran, her nephew--"

And there was a reward. One Hundred Thousand Dollars For Tip That Leads To Arrest.

"Jesus fucking Christ," I whispered. Then a hell of a lot louder. "Christ. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST."

I remembered suddenly that CNN was playing on the television in the front office. The worker there, the piece of shit, no way he wasn't going to rat on us after this. If he'd take us in for twenty bucks, he'd mur*er us himself for a hundred grand.

I got up. The bed left my hands. While I felt a horrible sadness at leaving the chance at sleep, I knew that if I ignored this, the cops would show up in force, and we'd get fucking murdered in our holding cells once we were dragged off.

I pounded on the bathroom door. "Connie!" I shouted, panicking. "Hurry up--we're on the fucking news, and we need to fucking go, now!"

I heard Connie's own panic in there. The shower shut off and I heard her scrambling, despite her pain.

And then I wondered how fast the office worker would make the call. I sprinted to the table, stuffed the gun in my pants, and then ran to the office. There was a chance, a tiny one, that he'd hold off on calling, that maybe since he had broken the law that he was 'complicit,' but who the fuck was I kidding? He didn't look like the type to think first. He looked like the type who would fuck you over on purpose and then take advantage of you when helping you up.

I burst through the door.

"What the fuck--" The guy groaned getting up. I was lucky. He didn't see on the news yet, even though the talking head was still there, outlining a story that didn't happen. They said that James and Connie were a loving and loyal couple for a long time. Ancient photos from James' social media were up, grainy and blurred and with one unhinged smile next to Connie's worried, 'trying to make it work' grin. They said that I was a drug dealer, a fiend, and violent, and had attacked James after getting released from prison and holding a horrible affair in front of his nose. James was of course, a perfect and well-meaning victim who, even though he was in stable condition, was 'fighting for his life'. A still of the hospital that was half an hour from their place appeared briefly.

So James was alive. And we were now famous. Every television-adoring boomer would know our faces, and no doubt every cop would, too.

But why the hell we were on national news? This was the kind of thing that never made it up here, but as I remembered Hillman giving a false testimony to lock me away, and Connie sobbing as she told me they were all in on it, and wondered how many sick fucks on the network had handed themselves over to bad people for cash.

But that train of thought was due to exhaustion. I was supposed to be making sure this guy wasn't going to rat on us. The gun felt heavy in my waistband. I started to realize that if things went south... that I'd have to use it.

And they went south immediately. In my exhaustion, I didn't notice him. I didn't have a chance to draw.

The dark barrel of a shotgun pointed at my face. It had to have been under the counter. I don't know what kind of whack shit he had to deal with where he felt he needed a gun right under the desk, but then I realized that maybe the place we were in was seedier than originally guessed.

"A hundred thousand?" He cackled. "God damn. Totally worth dealing with you. Where's your girl?" He kept laughing to him self in disbelief.

"We've got money," I said, trying to head him off with the chance to get more. "You want it? It's three thousand. Just take it and let us go. Or you can take it and wait a day to call."

"Fucking peanuts, jack," he shook his head. His teeth were yellow. "How's this. We can make a little deal, you and I. Who's your bitch again? Your fucking... Aunt? Jesus. Ha. How's this. I never fucked somebody's aunt in front of 'em before. She's fucking fine. I saw her picture. And I never fucked anyone on the news. That's a twofer. Throw in your money too, and let me give her what you can't, and I promise I won't tell the cops you guys came through. Yet." He grinned wide. The gun was still pointed at me. I thought I could see straight down it.

It was over. We were checked and mated. No way he wasn't going to call after taking everything he could get from us. If I drew, he'd blow off my face and Connie would have nothing. And there was no telling what they'd all do to her.

The bells of the door made a gentle clang.

The gun lifted from my face and toward the door.

Aunt Connie, wearing her sunglasses, hair wet and down, her tanktop tight on her and spotting with the moisture from her hair, poked her head in, and immediately her eyes went wide.

"Good afternoon, sugar tits," the desk guy spat. "Come inside before I off lover boy. We're talking business so you don't get spitroasted by the FBI, because god damn, you crossed state lines, didn't you?"

Connie's eyes glanced at me once, and then directed back to him. While she obeyed him immediately, there was something different in Connie's gaze.

"Fucking your nephew, huh?" The desk guy taunted. "And you shot your goddamn husband for this punk. Must be a wild fucking slut to go that far, huh?" The gun swapped between her and me, now.

There was a chance that if I drew, he might not be able to turn fast enough to hit us. But the simple fact was that the math didn't check. I wouldn't be fast enough myself to grab the gun, to hold the handle right, to aim, to pull the trigger, and to do it all at a speed that didn't result in him shooting at either one of us. Because at this range, it'd be over immediately.

"I don't want to sent you off to jail, really," he kept going, his tone sour. "But I need some incentive. Pretty boy here said he'll give me money, but I think in addition, you're gonna spend the night with me, sugar-tits." He stared at her rack. Connie didn't have a bra on. She didn't have time. I noticed that her nipples underneath were visible through the thin shirt and that they were a gorgeous, soft pink. The other guy seemed to agree. "Gawd. I'm gonna love fucking 'em, squeezed together on my dick--you're gonna like it too. And how it tastes. Babyface here is gonna love watching."

My heartbeat was thundering in my head as I looked for a way out. He was awfully invested in his little fantasy. I could draw. We had a fucking chance. Now or never. Now--

"It's a deal," Connie said, surprising me. Her tone was sultry. She leaned her head to the side, looking him up and down. "How big are you, handsome?" Blended with the shock of her tone, I noticed then that she had her jeans on, and I wondered how bad it hurt for her to pull them on herself. How desperate and fast she'd need to feel to wrestle them on and to immediately come over to help me. And what she had planned. I'd never heard Connie this way. It wasn't her.

This Connie was different. And dangerous.

The guy snickered and laughed and gave me a look before greedily staring at her breasts again. "Baby, I'm gonna break your goddamn back."

"How about a show first?" Aunt Connie's hands went smoothly up to the top of her tank.

She stepped one step to her right, which was away from me. I caught the faintest glance from her.

She really was up to something.

Her fingers took the straps and pulled them sideways and down. Down the curve of her tits. Down and below. Her breasts were full and lovely and made a gentle bounce as she pulled the fabric below her nipples, all in one go. I blinked. I wished I could enjoy them but the adrenaline was thudding fast and my hands were shaking as I looked for a way to get this fucker off our backs. The guy behind the desk licked his lips. I started to realize Connie was stalling for time.

"You like it, honey?" She asked. "Yeah. I'm happy to fuck you tonight. I do good with my mouth, too. You know that? I can make the next night--or three--worth the hundred thousand."

"I believe it," the guy grunted. The greed in his face was still there. He glanced at me and the gun swung my way. And then his face went back to Connie. The gun lingered in my direction. "Come back here, bitch. Suck me off and that'll seal the deal, huh?"

Connie nodded, and smiled, and kept pulling the tank top down. Her breasts were now hung and beautiful and bare in front of her. She stepped farther to the right, where she could go around the counter. The guy nodded and smiled and went over to the half-door that separated the counter area from the lobby, and let Connie in. He started to notice her bruises and whistled. "God damn. That from you two fucking? Feel like you're gonna make my night--you like it when a man gets rough with you, huh? I do."

Thank god he was stupid.

In his half-triumph, the process of opening the door meant that the shotgun wasn't pointed at me, and he was only holding it with one hand. It was the half-second of full distraction I needed. The shotgun was pointed up and toward a far corner. One of his hands was on the side gate. The other was clumsily cradling the handle of the gun and trying to balance the butt on the inside of his elbow. It'd take him a full two seconds to try and aim.

I pulled out the revolver and held it out with both hands, trained on his torso. My finger wrapped around the trigger. "Freeze, fuck-face."

He realized immediately that he had fucked up. His free hand went upward. His other held perfectly still. Connie, no longer acting alluring, grabbed the end of the barrel and extracted the gun from his grasp, and then stepped back, pointing it at him, the gun looking comically dangerous next to her bare, gorgeous body, a contradiction. An angel, bare breasted, holding a gun.

"Make any funny moves, and I'll fucking kill you," she said, now harsh, shaking through her teeth, her tone now savage. I believed her. It was the same look she gave when she pulled the trigger on her husband. "Get on the fucking floor. I SAID ON THE FUCKING FLOOR, COCKSUCKER." It was unlike the Connie I knew, but it was clear. She had already settled into the role of a fugitive. And now that she was away from James, she wasn't going to let this kind of shit happen to her anymore.

The guy whimpered and put his hands on his head before kneeling and then settling his face on the ground. Connie swept her hand over her chest and covered her breasts. I went to the door and locked it, threw the closed sign up, and turned a little fake clock dial on the sign to say that our friend would be back in two hours. I turned off the lobby lights, and then ran into the back, looking for things to tie him up with. Not much except for sheets, but that worked just fucking fine.

Connie made him crawl into the back room. I tied him up on a metal structural pole, cinched everything down nice and hard and used what felt like a dozen sheets on him. I took a hand towel and stuffed it in his mouth, and then used a roll of duct tape to seal him up. I ransacked the place, looking for recording equipment, and didn't find it. It was the kind of place that worked hard to have nothing for the cops. In our case, it was a boon.

"We gotta go," Connie said, finally, looking out the window. "Nobody's rolled up yet, but every minute's going to count."

I nodded. "Got it. Get our shit in our car. I'll be out in a second. I need to make sure this guy doesn't know what we drive."

Connie gave him what looked like a pitying look and nodded before leaving fast. I half expected her to ask me to spare his life, but she immediately deferred. It made sense. I was the one with the felony. I was the one with face tats. I was the one who appeared to be the menace. And the man had wanted to assault her.

She disappeared out the front door.

"Alright," I said, shifting my grip on my gun and returning to his bound, pathetic form. The guy made a muffled, fearful groan. I leaned down to him, grabbed the edge of the tape, and ripped it off. His face wrinkled as it tore whiskers from him. "We're gonna play a game, jack," I said, echoing him. "It's called pop quiz." I took the edge of the towel in his mouth and drew it out. He gagged as it left and he sputtered.

"Heeellp--" He started to say, before I drew back and smashed him as hard as I could in the face with the butt of the gun.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP," I raged. "Pop quiz. Your answer's gonna tell me whether you live or not. What car do we drive, huh? Did you see?" The fury in me had come up fast, faster than I expected. After this fucking creep thought he was going to ravage my aunt and then have us thrown away anyway, I wound up and then smashed him again. Already, two thick swells appeared on his face.

"What car. Do. We. Drive?"

"I don't know--" he moaned.

I hit him again, as hard as I could against the side of his mouth, and heard teeth crack.

"WHAT FUCKING CAR."

"I don't know!" His words were slurred and mixing up together.

I kept beating him.

I beat him because of what he threatened us with. I beat him because he was the same as James, as Hillman.

I beat him because Connie was my fucking family. The only family I had left. The only one who cared about me, the only one in the world who held me up when I was lost and struggling to survive. She let me in after I got out. She fed me when I was hungry. She was like my mother. She was all I had.

So I beat him. And beat him. And threatened him and tried to tear the truth from him. I smashed his hands, pounded his face, trying to work out a brand, a make and model, a color out of his pleading mouth. I felt no pity. I felt no shame.

Through it all he was clear about it. He didn't see. He didn't ever look out. He stayed low and was blind to what we drove, all he knew was our faces and he wasn't gonna call the cops, he never helped the fucking cops and minded his own business as a way of life and he was so sorry, or so he said.

But my rage was already made manifest through the works of my hands. It made me sick after I had embraced it. And used it.

It was the same thing in me, the same evil rage in me that lead to me going to prison. The same rage that led men to hurt others for the sake of revenge long cold. It was the rage that created gangs, destroyed them, cut up families. But now, that rage was going to make sure that my family was safe, that Connie and I were still invisible before the law. This time, it was gonna keep us out.​