The Revelations of Preston Black (Murder Ballads and Whiskey Book 3) (22 page)

I needed hope if I wanted to survive.

I stepped away from the door as it
swung open.

The woman said, “Into the corner.
Move.”

She spoke with an uneven cadence and an
accent I couldn’t place. It was subtle, but not southern. And it wasn’t
Spanish.

“Where’s Truly?”

“Elijah said that you spoke to her
with a devil’s tongue, and that she could not be permitted near you. He beat
her at breakfast in front of the entire congregation.” She spoke every word
forcefully, without hesitation or doubt. “All because of your coldness. Sit
down.”

I didn’t see this woman yesterday. I
would’ve noticed her. Her skin was fair, perhaps a shade or two darker than
mine. Her almond-shaped eyes were brown. Almost green. Almost yellow. Even
without makeup, with her hair pulled back into a loose ponytail, I found myself
unable to look away. Her lips formed a natural pout, even as she scowled orders
at me. She wore a simple grey dress, belted at the waist. Her shoes were plain
black flats. She didn’t wear any jewelry, and smelled a little like ginger or
clove, which made my mouth water and my stomach growl.

I wanted her to touch me, to push me
to the floor. I wanted her to make me sit down.

She swept into the room, pulling the
door shut behind her. I planted my feet, waiting to be slapped or shoved. But
she folded her arms, holding the apple she’d brought with her just out of
reach. A tease.

“Could I please use the bathroom?” I
lied. “I really have to go.”

“No, you don’t.” Her reply came
immediately. “Truly would’ve allowed it. But she isn’t a strong person, and you
knew that. Didn’t you?”

I folded my arms and leaned against
the wall in the corner. “So it’s game on?”

She smiled as if suddenly surprised.
“Yes, I suppose it is game on. If this is only a game to you, that is.”

“You know it isn’t.” Her comeback
threw me, and my thoughts reeled a bit. “You know that I’m being held against
my will. Where in the Bible—”

“Yes, maybe I do know. What of it? Your
station stays the same whether I know it or not. I come and go, not you. You
would trade me for your own salvation, given an opportunity—which I will not
provide. You were two short steps away from having Truly drive up to this room
and escort you out like a chauffeur. In a way it makes you no better than
Hicks. I expected better from a little bluebird like you.” She tapped her
blood-red nails against the apple’s firm green skin, drawing my eyes right to
it. My mouth watered.

“You must be hungry.” She held the
apple out, but made no movement toward me. She wanted me to come to her. She
wanted me to submit.

I crossed my arms and looked past her,
to the bright afternoon. I decided to let the sunlight nourish me instead.

She took a bite, smiling as she chewed.
I could smell the sugar in the white flesh.

When I didn’t say anything, she said,
“Turns out I’m not hungry either.”

She set the apple on the floor and
stepped on it. Juice sprayed out, the dry plywood soaked it right up. She
ground the shape right out of it with her heel. Scent filled the room and I
resented my stomach for not sticking to my plan of resistance.

“Game on, bluebird.”

I felt sick, like when adrenaline
starts to enter the body. Despite the warmth of the afternoon, I had goose
bumps all up and down my arms. Even my hair felt like it’d been standing on
end. Somehow I knew that I knew her.

Or knew the feeling.

Like when Princess Jasmine figures out
the Prince Ali is really Aladdin.

Bluebird
.

I made a fist and bared my teeth.
“Stay away from Preston!”

“You do not understand. I’ve waited
more than one hundred years for this moment to arrive. I most certainly will
not stay away from Preston.”

“You leave him alone.” I closed my
eyes. It burned me up inside to picture him running through scenarios only to
arrive at this conclusion because he believed it was the only remaining option.

“You have greater concerns, do you
not? Hicks wants to baptize you and fuck you. Boggs wants to stone you to
death. I am not so certain that you should worry about Preston. If it’s any
consolation he has not contacted me yet.”

“Why are you here then?”

“The world really is quite small.
Elijah Clay Hicks wanted to be a great and righteous prophet. Like his
namesake.”

“And you’re here to help him?”

“Perhaps, if a lie can help. But Hicks
is nothing to me. He can not do for me what Preston can.” She smiled. “It must
hurt very badly to be away from him for so long.”

Her expression suddenly softened, her
words slowed. “I do not need to see either of you suffer. It makes no difference
to me. Maybe you think I’m incapable of love? That I am a soulless husk? It’s
easy to see why. I can only imagine the things he must have told you about me.
Some are true, depending on what he said, exactly. But I loved him, you know. I
thought he would be the one to help me free myself.”

She turned to the little window and
squinted at the bright sunlight. “Saying that I need a resolution means
something different than what you think it means. You can’t begin to
understand. Or maybe you can, I don’t know. But I had an agreement. An ugly
agreement that caused me more suffering and heartache than you could possibly
imagine. No matter how bad it gets for you, you have the luxury of knowing it
will one day end. When I made this agreement I was young and I didn’t
understand forever could be a real thing. When you are a girl, forever could be
a week, if that is how long you have to wait until you can see a lover. As it
turns out, in my case, forever meant forever.”

I refused to feel for her. I listened,
but only as a means of keeping my head in the game.

“Preston will help me, whether he
wants to or not. He’ll help me terminate my agreement. Contract. Covenant.” She
rested her palm against her cheek, and closed her eyes. “I can only imagine
what my life would be like if he hadn’t met you. Do I believe that I could’ve
been happy with Preston? Of course I do. But it hurts too much to think of
things that will never be. Like wishing on stars, or pennies in fountains. Or
praying.”

She folded her arms across her chest
and stared at the floor. For the first time, I wondered who she really was.

“But there can be no negotiation with
only one party.”

I waited for her to continue, but her
demeanor changed. She regained the anger in her voice. “Whether he likes it or
not, Preston has the means and the motivation to make it so. Or he soon will.”

She turned and left, locking the door
behind her.

“Leave him alone!” My face felt hot.
“Come back here!” My legs weakened, and I slipped to the floor. It hurt my
chest to breathe. My heart ran like water down a barn roof. My breath felt hot.
Regaining my composure, I stood and pressed my face into the little opening and
yelled, “Come back here!”

She took it all from me. In one
interaction, I’d lost everything I’d spent a day fighting for. She’d weakened
me. She’d distracted me and tempted me with something I thought they could
never take from me. The moment I realized she’d see Preston before I did, I
knew that I’d lost. She did what Hicks and a thousand followers couldn’t do.

I slid to the floor and buried my face
in my arms. When I let go of the courageous role I’d been playing everything
else went with it. With each sob I lost a little dignity. Every time I wiped
snot from my nose I pulled down one of the bricks I’d so carefully placed in my
wall.

The time for planning and rules passed
without me even realizing. My devotion to my inability to be wrong screwed me.
I could’ve run this morning, when I had Truly’s trust. I could’ve found a way
through the fence. Found a phone. Called for help. Flagged down a car. I spent
the afternoon thinking of everything that could’ve been different if I’d have
only been more proactive.

Stop it.

One by one my rules came back to me.
Just like they had yesterday morning. But they were no different than a prayer.
Just words to keep the real fear out of my head. Words to keep my mind from
drifting to worst-case scenarios. Words that couldn’t protect me from snakebite
any more than they could promise eternal salvation. Once I stopped with the
words, the fears rushed back at me.

Preston won’t ever find me.

I’ll die here without ever
saying goodbye to him.

More than anything I wanted to believe
in some greater good.

Without telling my mom how much
I loved her.

And Chloey.

And Ben, Henry, Alex, Jamie,
Pap and Gram.

No greater good existed. If nothing
else, I learned this before I died.

That when I die, there is no
“after.”

That once it’s over, it’s over.
Like flipping off a light.

I thought about the punishment they’d
threatened me with. In my mind, I saw myself defying them until the very end.

But I won’t feel a thing once
it’s over.

The pain will be temporary. But
it will end. And if there is an all-powerful force in the universe, and if it’s
fair, I won’t be alone. If it’s fair, I’ll see Preston again.

I stopped the thoughts from rushing in
after that one. I decided that would be the only one that mattered. That pain,
no matter how magnificent, lasted temporarily. They could hold my head under
water. They could heave stones at my body. But they couldn’t drown me or stone
me infinitely.

Footsteps came up the gravel path to
the door.

Time to choose.

I never even moved from the sticky
juice of the apple she’d brought. A little temptation to seal her deal. When
the door opened I fell back into the dirt. They picked me up off the ground and
pulled me toward the three crosses at the far end of the field, dragging me
roughly through the gravel and high grass. The revival tent and brush arbor
from last night had since been dismantled and packed away.

I fought to get my feet beneath me. “I
can walk,” I said, trying to twist from a grasp that felt much stronger than
Hicks’s had been.

A set of thick, callused, hands pushed
me forward. I stumbled, but did not fall. When I regained my composure I saw
two of the bikers from the Nashville show. I saw the scrawl of Corinthians and
Romans and Deuteronomy over their necks and forearms and bare heads.

“You…” was all that I could say. I
twisted and kicked, but they were too strong.

“Ashby! Stop what you’re doing.” From
the far end of the field Hicks appeared, trailed by a small part of his flock.
Mostly women and a few children and one or two men, all wearing white baptismal
gowns. Truly stood near the back. She didn’t walk out with the rest. Her face
looked bruised.

Hicks yelled, “Where’s Boggs? Why
isn’t he out here?” and the bikers stopped. Hicks ran through the grass,
tucking in his shirt as he went.

“Boggs says you lost focus. Says you
stopped playing the game when you started looking for a wife.” When the hands
released me they didn’t only let go. They shoved me, forcing me into the ground
hard enough to knock the wind from me.

I laid there with my face in the warm
grass and got my head together. The first stars appeared in the sky. And Venus.
A sight I wanted to share with Preston once again.

Rule number one…

As soon as I got my feet beneath me I
ran. And I never looked back.

I put my head down and broke for the
ticking gas well in the center of the field, hoping to make it past the large
pile of stone where the three tall crosses stood, to the trees beyond. The air
smelled faintly of natural gas. A chorus of shouts told me they’d reorganized
and redirected their efforts. I heard the heavy footfalls at my heel, telling
me this race would be a short one. And that I’d lose.

Expecting to be shoved again, I leaned
forward to roll with the momentum, but a jerk pulled me back like a dog at the
end of his leash. My feet flew from beneath me. My failure and near miss
escalated my emotions. I knew right then and there that my biggest mistake was
following the stupid, silly rules I’d invented as a way to prolong the ordeal.
Should’ve listened to my pap. He would’ve said to make hay while the sun
shined.

A. G. Ashby dragged me toward the
crosses as Hicks sprinted across the field. Hounds barked from the other side
of the cabins.

Hicks shouted, “Ashby, you have no
right. She belongs to me.”

Ashby shouted, “Boggs reckons you’re
more interested in sleeping with her than saving her.”

“Go get Boggs,” Hicks barked the order
to the twenty people closest to him. “This is my camp.”

“And because of us you don’t have to
get your hands dirty,” the other one said with a slight Jersey accident.

A hot wind blew from the river. It
brought a new scent with it. It made me uneasy.