Ch.9

3 years later

Charlotte fell back against the bed, chest heaving with labored breath. To her left, Mac laid in much the same state, but the cigarette he was lighting probably didn't help. She could feel his cum running down the inside of her legs. Absently, her hand came up to lie across the ugly, pale scar running horizontal on her stomach. A year ago she'd made a mistake. It had be her fault because she was the woman and that meant that it was always her fault. Mac had fixed it though.

Like he always did.

Apart from the mixture making her thighs sticky, no other fluid leaked out of her body. That was good. Walter didn't like when she came to work bleeding. He may not have cared about much, but health code in the bar was a priority…most of the time.

When her breathing evened out, Charlotte sat up. Sliding out of the bed at the same time that she grabbed Mac's discarded shirt, she retreated to the bathroom for a shower. She had to kick piles of clothes out of the way, making a mental note to clean up and do a little laundry when she got off work as she started to wash. Mac was moving too, he'd showered before he'd woken her up. She could hear him getting dressed and then the bedroom door closed. He'd feed Beast the leftovers from dinner the night before, before he went to work, as was the routine they'd fallen into. After her shower, Charlotte inspected her body for new wounds while she brushed her teeth. Her shoulders and lower back bore the worst of the marks, as well as her thighs. Bruises littered her arms and hips, showing just how rough Mac had gotten with her in the last few years. She wasn't precious anymore. Wasn't some prize that he worshiped and tended to. She was just Charlotte, who made him dinner and warmed his bed at night, after one his day girls took care of him at work. At least he kept her clean. So far he hadn't brought anything into their house that was permanent or disgusting. Charlotte snarled at the girl in the mirror, now nineteen, she looked worn and ragged. Her hair wasn't as springy, her eyes weren't as bright. But her body was still perfect. Minus the scars and bruises, she was still tight and lean, supple only in the right places. She liked that, she liked that she could still look in the mirror and find something she could hold on to. Her hands smoothed down her soft stomach, coming back up to cup her breasts, tweaking the nipples gently. She was still beautiful in this aspect.

It was the only thing keeping Mac in her bed.

With another grimace at the refection of her face, Charlotte shoved a hand through her wet locks and turned away. She dressed quickly, shorts and a tank with one of Mac's shirts over it. Her hair was pulled into a high ponytail, keeping the wet ends off her back. She skipped breakfast and headed straight out to her truck. It was a piece of shit Ford that Walter had gotten her two years prior, when she and Mac had started working different hours and Mac could no longer be bothered driving her to town. It was smaller than Mac's big yellow rust bucket, but it got her where she needed to go. There was a note from Mac on the steering wheel when she climbed in.

We're out of food. Go get some. Short, to the point and anything but sweet. There were a few hundreds folded into the cassette player, sticking out so she would see them; money to get groceries. She'd stop at the general store after work. It looked like she was going to be doing a lot after work. How fun.

She steered the truck out of the driveway and onto the dirt road. There were three houses close to Mac's. Lowell and his new wife were the furthest away and the newest. Pratt's empty house stood looking worse for wear since the old fat man had died and finally some woman and her husband with their two kids had built a little summer place for them to come to as a family. The wife was fucking Walter when she was around; Charlotte had walked in on them at the Luna Mesa. Walter didn't know that though. Neither did the woman's idiot husband. The man was completely oblivious and content with his perfect little life to even notice what his wife was doing. The two kids were younger, the oldest maybe sixteen. A boy who liked to get in trouble down at the Luna Mesa, hustling games of pool against Rick. He was a stupid kid. But the girl was different. She was about fourteen, the same age as Charlotte when she'd first come to Cainsville. This girl wasn't really smart, but she was skittish, she avoided the Luna Mesa, instead she went hiking in the canyons. Not exactly smart, but she never went into the caves. She had good instincts too. Charlotte admired her, if she'd been half as observant as this girl was, she probably would have been able to escape. Charlotte hoped this girl escaped. She wasn't sure from what, yet, but she hoped the girl got away before she got caged in.

It didn't matter either way, the family wasn't there yet. They'd be coming in about another month. Probably when school let out for summer break, so the teens didn't miss anything. Charlotte shook all thoughts of the family away, they were crazy anyway. Who'd want to come to this dingy little town for summer vacation? She focused on getting to the Luna Mesa instead. It didn't take her long to pull into the drive, parking around the back. She grabbed a book out of the passenger seat before heading in to start her day. Since the new highway exit had been put in, the Luna Mesa had been getting a lot of Route 66 travelers stopping in for a "quaint family restaurant" with "authentic Mexican food". Charlotte snorted at that thought. She couldn't recall ever having seen Walter cook. She did most of that these days, since the last chef they'd had vanished mysteriously toward the end of last summer. He'd tried to feel up the girl from the family, the onetime she'd come to the bar with her brother. Walter hadn't appreciated the rude treatment in his establishment, so Rick had fixed the problem. Wasn't her big brother just the sweetest?

Walter was standing at the bar, cleaning glasses and placing them in their proper places. He did that when he was thinking about something and, sure enough, when Charlotte looked into his eyes, she could tell he was far away.

"Daddy?" she called gently, hoping to pull him out of his own mind slowly. He blinked; his hand stopped drying the glass in his hand. A small smile turned up the edge of his lips.

"Lottie," he greeted, his Spanish accent slurring her name a little. She pulled the glass out of his hand, setting it on the counter.

"What's wrong?" Walter shook his head.

"Just an old man reminiscing." Charlotte's smile widened, wrinkling her nose.

"A dirty old man reminiscing?"

Walter gave a soft chuckle, patting her cheek and turning away. She knew what he'd been thinking about, or who, really. The new woman, from the family, looked strangely like the woman in the Polaroid Walter kept so close to his heart. It wasn't really that they looked alike so much, this woman was darker in her features than the Picture-Woman, but their smiles were nearly identical. Charlotte didn't know much about the woman in the picture, Walter never talked about her, but she'd seen the picture, seen the happiness in her father's face in the image. She'd figured out years ago that whenever he got that far off look on his face, he was returning to that moment, forever frozen in time. It was sad really, that he loved her so much. Back when she was still young and naïve, Charlotte had hoped that Mac would love her like that. Now she knew that that kind of love was almost as painful as the kind of love she suffered now. She wanted her own pain to stop. She couldn't imagine what Walter hopped for his anguish.