Page 44 of The Fence Between Us

Rabble’s answering murmur did little to calm her nerves. “He’s been neutralized.”

What the hell did that mean?

Voices reached them again. Skye recognized Gayle’s, and her blood ran cold. She didn’t know who the other voice belonged to, but if they spoke so casually with Gayle, she doubted their strength of character.

“Oh, she’ll be ready any minute now.” Gayle’s southern Missouri dialect sounded lilting, almost musical. “And Dylan should be back shortly. He’s chatting with someone at the door.”

Disgust barreled through Skye. She might vomit. Or punch something. Possibly both.

The seconds ticked by unbearably slow as Gayle and the mystery man spoke of inconsequential topics—the weather, the upcoming parade, the statistics for the local sports teams. Each passing moment settled like a stone on Skye’s laboring heart, and she considered the toll this entire experience had taken on her body. She could concern herself with that later though. She just needed out of this damn house.

“Shall we go see what’s keeping Dylan?” Gayle’s syrupy sweet tone held a sharp, irritated edge. Anyone else may not have noticed it, but Skye had heard that same tone time and time again.

Footsteps grew distant as Gayle led her guest toward the front door. Rabble refused to move for a minute, his body remaining poised for a threat while shielding Skye’s body with his own.At long last, he grasped her hand lightly in his and pulled her along, through the dining room and toward the massive kitchen near the back of the house. He paused before entering, his eyes roaming over the stainless-steel appliances.

“Do you know if anyone else is in the house, Skye?” Rabble muttered, refusing to take his eyes from their roving for even a moment.

Skye worried at her bottom lip. Several years had passed since she’d lived at her parent’s house, but… “The maids would have gone home already. Marsha, their cook, may still be here, but this late at night?”

Skye snuck up on tiptoe, cramming herself in front of Rabble to see through the small plastic bubble near the top of the swinging door. He grumbled, but otherwise remained silent. The appliances gleamed in the dim light over the stove microwave, illuminating the spotless surfaces and quiet kitchen.

“I think Marsha’s gone home,” Skye said.

“Let’s go.” Rabble pushed them through the door as silently as he could.

Freedom, called to her from just feet away, pulsing through Skye like a rhythmic call. She hurried after Rabble, her gaze focused solely on the dark night visible through the glass panes on the back door. Darting for it, Skye burst into the night air before Rabble could stop her. Skye took in a great gasp of air, gulping it down like a person lost in the desert and longing for water.

Her relief lasted all of thirty seconds before shrieking rent the air and she froze again, her muscles tensing with that freeze instinct that grated at her nerves. As he had inside, Rabble led her in their charge around the house, toward the awful noise that rose in pitch and vigor. Skye stumbled to a stop behind Rabble, her mouth popping open as her jaw dropped and she clutched Rabble’s arm.

Skye barely noticed the still warm stones against the bottoms of her tender feet, the heat collected during the sunny day dissipating slowly with the cooler night. She didn’t register Rabble, beyond knowing with certainty that he had not and would not leave her side for as long as she stood still and processed the scene before her.

Dylan lay curled on his side on the grassy lawn, moaning pitifully. Staring down at him, Skye’s utter distain for that cowardly worm rose again, her disgust choking her. Another man, one she didn’t recognize, sat in false calm on the front stoop, his fingers linked behind his head as if he were about to recline back and watch television. While his face appeared passive, sweat stains soaked through his button-down shirt. Nearby, her stepmother lay face down on the lawn, screeching like an angry hen. Her scrawny arms splayed out to the sides and she kept flapping her hands like she could take flight. The twins, practically growling, loomed like avenging angels over Gayle and Dylan. In the distance, the lone siren of the on-duty police officer sounded, growing closer with each second, the light of its siren breaking through the dark.

Through it all, Skye felt far away, like she viewed the entire surreal situation through a distant lens. And yet she was also painfully aware of every moment passing by, of the warm summer night breeze on her bare thighs, of the dirty violated feeling from having her choices stripped from her.

Obscenities filled the air, startling Skye, and she couldn’t help but seek out the source of such profanity, her head tilting as she listened past the rushing white noise that hindered her hearing. Those words came from the last place she expected, spewing like venom from the lips of Gayle, southern hospitality personified. The sudden need to chuckle surged through Skye until it bubbled up and out of her, and she tucked her hand in front of her mouth as if to stifle the sound.

The damage had already been done though.

Gayle turned her vitriol on Skye and Rabble. “You!” she hissed.

Skye shivered at the sound of pure hatred in her stepmother’s voice. She didn’t understand where the woman’s intense feelings came from. She and Gayle had never had a normal mother-daughter relationship, she assumed, but did she really deserve this level of loathing?

Whatever Gayle continued to shout faded into the sound of the approaching siren as the officer on duty pulled into the drive, the flashing blue and red strobe lights doing nothing to alleviate the headache pounding in Skye’s temples. Instead of a deputy, Sheriff Joe Armanan stepped out of his patrol cruiser, his black cowboy hat pulled low on his head. He took in the scene with wariness, his baby-blue eyes narrowing on the key players and their respective positions in the yard.

Before the sheriff could get a word out, Max Wellington’s Mercedes-Benz whipped into the drive, the suspension protesting his failure to slow down as he left the road and came onto the gravel of the driveway. His breaks squalled, the sound grating on Skye’s nerves and surprising her. Max had a special place in his life for his car. That he would abuse it so didn’t set right with her.

He exited his car in a hurry, leaving the door hanging open behind him.

“Maxwell!” Gayle’s shrill voice pierced the air.

Max pointed a meaty finger at his wife and snapped, “Don’t you say a fucking word.”

Skye pulled closer to Rabble, that fight or flight feeling returning to her limbs with her father’s arrival. She willed the humming in her ears to quiet so she could hear as he stormed toward the cruiser and jabbed his finger at the sheriff’s chest, getting in the older man’s face to the best of hisability. Considering Max stood about five inches shorter, the way he tried to intimidate the sheriff was both impressive and incredibly foolish.

“Armanan, I demand you arrest these men!” Max turned, sweeping an all-encompassing hand across the yard, catching Rabble & Bros. Security within his statement.

“What for?” Sheriff Armanan asked, his voice tired and a tad bewildered.

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