This is a remake or remastered version of my original story "That Same Color Blue". I love a lot of that story, but I'll be the first to admit, there were plot holes and too many angst. Not enough romance or focus on the main Normero plot.
So, I'm redoing it so that main plot will improve. Now a LOT of the first part of the original story will stay the same. However a LOT will be removed and/or redone to make the story work better.
I'm going to put the disclaimer in now that I'm not afraid to write about touchy subjects. Domestic abuse, incest, child abuse, child molestation, murder, rape and death.
Reader you are warned, and continue at your own risk.
There will be romantic erotica along with all the violence and disturbing accounts of childhood trauma and abuse.
That Same Color Blue (Remake)
1.
~ It had rained non stop since the old Buick crossed the state line into Oregon. Norma Bates couldn't help but think it was a bad omen of their future here. Nothing ever good came from so much misery and darkness. Added to that the stress of driving with two small children and very little money.
Still, what was she supposed to do when her husband Sam woke all of them up in the middle of the night and told them they were leaving? He looked like he'd been in a fight, but Norma knew weeks before, that they would have to leave town soon anyway.
She'd prepared for it. Insulated herself and her two small sons to it. She had always braced herself for the worst because eventually the worst would always happen. Nothing good ever lasted. Nothing gold could stay.
She knew when their electricity had been cut off and the landlord posted a notice about the rent being late, that she had to prepare to leave their cramped apartment. That she had to pack the things she couldn't live without and be ready. Ever since she could remember, she'd lived a fragile existence. One that could easily blow away with the wind.
Norma's entire life had been spent in a sort of limbo. She told herself that her parents were just wild hippies who were intent to roam the country and have their children raised by nature. She told everyone else a different story. Her stories of childhood were oddly grounded and boring. A romantic upbringing in a place with deep roots. A life that couldn't fracture because of a slight breeze.
She'd packed up the old Buick and then put her two boys in the back. Sam had been chain smoking, not helping, and seemed ready to leave them behind. Norma almost wished he would, but she was too afraid of a life without him. Sometimes her husband was good about working. About paying bills on time and keeping a job. Norma always knew that soon enough, he would fall back into his old habits.
She hadn't bothered to ask where they were going. She doubted even Sam knew. All that was important right now was escaping creditors or people who Sam had pissed off.
They drove all day and night till they reached a state sign the said they were in Oregon. Norma worried that she and the boys didn't have warm clothes for this part of the country. They'd come from Arizona. The air was always dry and hot. She wasn't ready for the chill that seeped into her bones and the wetness that made her hair frizz.
Sam had finally stopped the Buick at a run down gas station. Norma had gently suggested getting a motel for the night. Her husband having finished a six pack of beer in the last two hours. All while driving with young children in the car.
Maybe he'd been tired himself, but for once he'd agreed with her. Norma having to hold in her complaints and worries when Sam was like this. When he was drinking and angry at the world, he was liable to take it out on her.
"I'll ask where there's some place cheap nearby." Sam grumbled before sliding out of the driver's seat and slamming the door shut with a little too much force.
Norma bit hard on her bottom lip and imagined stabbing him over and over agin with a large kitchen knife. She thought about how the blood would feel coming out of his bloated, useless body. How it would be hot and thick and run freely through the open wounds. She smiled slightly at the thought of how easily he would bleed. Sam was on blood thinners for his heart so he would bleed out quickly. He would die before an ambulance got to him.
The idea of her husband dying by her own hands, delighted Norma Bates. It delighted her in the same way hearing juicy gossip about someone she hated made her feel better about her own crappy life. A dark and tormented place in her mind where she was only really happy when she was miserable.
She didn't like this part of her. She knew that she didn't want to be this angry and bitter person, but it was her only defense. She'd learned the hard way about letting people keep taking from you. They would always keep taking till there was nothing left and Norma felt like she truly had nothing right now.
'What would I do without you, Sam?' she mused. Her teeth were grinding as she thought about how much better her life would be with him gone. 'Well, I would collect all that life insurance you think I don't know about. I would buy new clothes to. New clothes, from a nice, expensive shop. Not the trailer park fashion line from the local discount store.'
She liked the idea of being dressed well, even though it was never something she had been able to achieve. In all her life she had never owned nice clothes. She was barely a woman when she became a mother. She was a wife before she even finished high school. She was a mistress before her first baby was walking. Now she felt her life was over before the age of 25. Such a life should be against the law. Or at the very least a movie of the week on cable.
She felt her sprits sink at this epiphany. An awful moment of realization that her life would always be like this. Always doomed in the end.
"Coming this summer, Norma Bates: A Cautionary Tale". she said at her own reflection in the side mirror. She had been avoiding mirrors the whole trip. She, Sam and the two boys had been sleeping in the car to save money and the stress on her face was evident. She wasn't even in her mid twenties and she looked so beaten and worn down.
She stared at her own reflection for a while. Her dish water blond hair was coming lose and she hadn't bothered with make up for days. The mirror telling her that she was dirty and trashy and would always be that way.
She didn't want to be trashy anymore. She looked over her face and caught her own sad blue eyes looking back at her. Norma had her mother's eyes and she was always told that they were her best feature. Never her smile, because she never smiled. Never her body because of her shapeless cheap clothes, never her dirty blond hair that she refused to style. Her eyes were always what set her apart. The thing that made her sort of beautiful at times. But the blue was always sad. Like a storm was coming on a high and lonely sea.
"Baby!" Sam shouted and Norma was forced out of her little world of storms and seas and sad eye color to see Sam rushing to the old Buick. Her leaned down and grinned at her.
"We're just outside of White Pine Bay." he said. His voice sounding like he had personally lead a wagon train through the mountains instead of getting lost twice to avoid toll roads on the main high way.
"Oh." Norma breathed. "Good." she glanced in the back seat at her sleeping boys.
Norman, good, sweet, perfect Norman, was asleep in his car seat. The two year old covered with the blanket she had made for him. His brown hair, soft as bird feathers, calling for Norma to smooth down. Her heart swelled at the sight of her boy. He was her own precious jewel. A beautiful creature that had grown inside of her and became the best thing she had ever done, and the only good thing Sam had ever given her. At just two years old he was way ahead of the other kids. Norma was sure of that.
A sickly cough rumbled from beside Norma and she snapped her attention to her oldest child Dylan. The five year old glared at her with eyes that made her sick to her stomach. Dylan was his real father in miniature and that wasn't a good thing. She recoiled away from her first born out of instinct. A self preservation she had learned when she was too young to know about these horrible things. She avoided touching her oldest and couldn't help but glare at him.
The child, knowing he was unloved, glared right back at her. His father's eyes accusing her. Hating her and wanting love from her she just couldn't give.
"Dylan, we're almost there." Norma said. Her voice cracked slightly.
It had started to rain again and the cab of the old Buick echoed each heavy rain drop and cast the sound out louder. Norma hated this car. The old rusted piece of junk that Sam called his 'baby' was their only means of transportation. Sam's real baby, Norman, went without decent shoes and wore clothes too small. But there was always money for beer and parts for the Buick and trips to the strip club once a week.
'When you're dead I'm getting myself a nice car.' Norma thought. She glared at her husband while he finished pumping some gas and climbed back inside.
"We'll be at the Seafairer Motel in no time." Sam said proudly. Norma could smell the drink on his breath and winced.
"Is that where we're going?" she asked nervously. She didn't want to worry Dylan with their problems. Her oldest child always seemed like he knew too much. Dylan never talked when he was younger and Norma worried he might be retarded, given his paternity. But he scored above average on tests and eventually spoke whole sentences with ease. Always demanding things when he talked. Always wanting something he couldn't have and Norma couldn't give him.
"The guy in there said to talk to the motel owner. Some asshole named Keith Summers." Sam said. Her husband was a little too happy and she noticed his eyes were unfocused. "Said that the owner is looking to hire someone to run the place."
"Maybe I should drive." Norma offered.
"Shut up!" Sam snapped. His mood changing so fast Norma felt her face burn hot from the reprimand. She looked away from her husband and back to her own sad reflection. Her eyes the color of a violent tempest on the rise.
~ Deputy Alex Romero liked the night shift. It was nothing more exciting than catching speeders coming into White Pine Bay. He was ruthless in never letting anyone off with just a warning. Especially on nights when it was raining. A night like this, the streets were wet and black. The rain always made driving hard with all the curves and blind spots. It was only a matter of time before some asshole hit the slickest part of the road, spun out and killed everyone in the car. All because they had too much to drink or couldn't slow the hell down.
'Where do these people have to be in such a damn hurry?' he wondered to himself. 'The Wal-Mart outside of town is open 24 hours now.'
He almost smiled at his own joke, but Alex had given up smiling a long time ago. He had given up prayer to. He blinked hard at the idea of turning his back on praying. It felt like he had been slapped to remind himself he no longer believed in God.
His mother was the only person he knew who truly believed. She had taught him from an early age how to pray and how to let that special light into you heart and mind. A light that would let him know he was loved in some unknowable way.
When he was young, she would have him write down all his prayers in her little notebook at the kitchen table. She would have him recount all the bad things he wanted taken away. How his classmate Bobby Paris had pushed him on the playground, and how fat Keith Summers and beaten him up and spat in his face. His mother saying gently that they would grow up to be broken men, but her son would be whole.
Still, faith alone hadn't saved his mother. Nothing could.
Alex had always been closer to his mother than his father. His father, the former Sheriff of White Pine Bay, had always been called The Old Bear and not because he was cuddly. Where The Old Bear walked, lesser beings trembled and hid. The former Sheriff Romero had a reputation and he let that reputation do most of the work. The old man's voice was soft and polite like, just like Alex's, but the words that came out were like venom. Sheriff Romero could make even the hardest of men turn on each other in a matter of hours. With a confidant little smirk and telling the suspect what he feared most was happening. The meanest criminals sang songs to The Old Bear.
Things changed over five years ago. Alex had come to the farm house to take his mother to church. The night before, she had taken a combination of someone else's sleeping pills and her own anxiety medication.
Theresa Romero's son found her dead in bed. Her lips blue, her skin gray. She was beautiful in that moment of death. She looked just like she was sleeping. She hadn't vomited in a final attempt to live. She had just gone to sleep and never woke up. Her pale blue lips were curled into a delicate smile as she let go of life.
Alex shut his eyes at the memory of that summer day. He hated thinking about it. Hated the sunlight casting cheerful rays through the window of his mother's bedroom. Hated that the ambulance was so slow to get there. Hated the looks people in town gave him and how they always thought it was okay to ask personal questions about her death. He especially hated how his father didn't even know about his wife till hours later. The Old Bear probably spending time with one of his girlfriends when it happened.
Rather than show emotion, Alex let his face remain indifferent. He sipped his coffee and read his notes from class. He was in the final home stretch of exams to get his degree. Something he'd earned through online courses, extension classes and sacrificing any kind of social life.
He'd put off college to join the Marines right out of High School. He'd done two tours and received a bronze star for bravery during the Gulf War. After an honorable discharge, he surprised none of his fellow Marines when he became a cop. He'd always had the temperament for it. He'd aced every test, every physical. Hell, even the FBI wanted Alex Romero to come and work for them.
What was surprising was that Alex went back to his home town. Where the people were horrible, but the fishing was good. Not everyone was horrible in White Pine Bay of course. Just the vast majority of the people Alex knew. He had a dream of burning them all to the ground. Scorching the earth of all the bad things till nothing but good things grew. A silly dream. Alex knew there was no such thing as good and bad; there was only winners and losers. The winners decided who the good guys were. The winners were always the ones with money and White Pine Bay had more than its share of wealthy citizens with shady dealings.
That was the cold hard facts of life in the town Alex grew up in.
When the Old Bear Romero was arrested three years ago for drug trafficking, corruption, murder and a laundry list of other charges, the town had turned itself inside out, trying desperately to save itself from disaster.
Alex survived the carnage of the FBI and DEA investigation that gutted the town's drug trade. The federal agents had nothing on the young deputy. Even if he was the Sheriff's kid, it was painfully obvious Deputy Alex Romero wasn't the kind of man bad guys trusted.
During the raids and arrests, Alex had gotten used to old friends talking to him for no reason after so many years of indifference. Their voices louder than normal and asking leading questions about things that no one ever spoke of out loud. It always meant they were wearing a wire and trying to trap him into confessing something. Alex saw them coming a mile away and got to where it was a game after a while.
'Oh so-and-so was doing that all this time? Wow, I had no idea.' he would say with wide eyed innocence. Always giving the old friend a knowing smirk that said he was glad they were going away for a long time.
Such tactics saved his career and kept him free of any federal charges, but it didn't earn him any friends. Which was fine with him. He had all the friends he needed.
From the back of the SUV, Graceland had grown bored and leaned her head over to inspect her master's reading. She was the only K-9 the department had and the only partner Alex had wanted. She had been trained to be a bomb sniffing dog for the airports, but failed her training. Alex adopted her right away because as a German Shepard, she would easily make a good police dog for the Sheriff's department.
What Graceland lacked in bomb sniffing skills, she made up for in her company and ability to bark loudly at anyone her human might dislike. It was a trait Alex appreciated. Especially when he was arresting someone. Once the dog started barking and seemed ready to maul someone, it was always easier to get a suspect to comply.
"Here, girl." Alex said and gave Graceland the last bite of his sandwich. The dog, greedy for people food, quickly took it and retreated to the back seat again.
Alex saw dimmed headlights cresting the turn from his cozy speed trap. He closed his book and judged the rate the headlights were coming in was too fast. Especially on these rain slicked roads.
He felt annoyance at the recklessness of the driver. It was pouring outside and his headlights were too dim to properly light the street ahead. Plus there were patches of road that the rain loved to flood. All of which could cause the car to hydroplane into a ditch. Alex turned on the engine, waited till he could hear the sound of the older car, and allowed it to fly past him.
The older model was going over 80 in a 55 zone and the deputy was quick to follow it. The lights from the police SUV flashing and sirens blaring behind a battered old Buick with an Arizona license plate.
