Page 54 of Small Town Beast 2: Saverin's Duet

The gun roared. Red and white light as bright as the sun exploded. The sound was like a physical blow. A fierce heat rippled outward from the blast, followed by the acrid stink of metal. A smoking piece of the truckbed slammed into the ground ten feet away. The carcass that remained burned with a poisonous yellow flame. Greasy smoke belched out of the tires. That smelled even worse.

It could have been us.

Before their ears stopped ringing Absalom stood up, walking towards the wreck as if in a daze. Carefully holding the Winchester, Lorrie hurried after him.

“Stand back,” he warned, stopping her with an arm outstretched. “The engine…”

That could have been us. We would have burned alive.

Lorrie remembered when a trailer in her Mama’s holler had burned down. Those screams weren’t something a person ever forgot.

“I almost got you killed,” Absalom said. He stared at the truck with a feral expression.

“Not you,” said Lorrie. “Them.”

The firelight flickered in his eyes for a minute before her man turned and said, “Let’s go.”

“Your truck’s blocked off the road.”

“There’s another way through Mulberry; a shortcut. I want to get something at my trailer before I go back to Roman’s.” He looked down at her and shook his head, already getting back to business. “You’ll have to stay at my place. Guess I’m borrowing your car.”

“No,” said Lorrie.

“Excuse me?”

“No, you arenotborrowing my car, Absalom. I’ll drive you there.”

“Lorrie—”

“Donotargue with me.”

His lips twitched as he eyed the Winchester in her too-small hands. “Yes, Ma’am,” he said.

When they got to the car he took the gun from her, set it aside and pulled her into his arms again. He kissed her softly and deliberately. She felt the heat of his body merge with hers; a rush of adrenaline began coursing through her veins as she imagined what might have happened if—

“Don’t think on it,” he said, his hands shaping her waist, her butt, squeezing up and down her arms as if making sure she was still alive and whole. “When we get to my place— we’ll talk, alright?”

Talk about what?

She wasn’t sure what Abi meant; they had done plenty talking at Aunt Pearl’s. But she nodded. “Okay.”

“Never again,” he said. And she wasn’t sure what that meant, either, but their souls had indeed come to a silent understanding.

Absalom’s trailerlay a good ways down the mountain in Green Tree territory, so named for the apple orchards the family had maintained for over a century. There was a party going on in the trailer park over the ridge.

“I smell cracklins,” Lorrie said, sniffing the air.

“That ain’t nothing. You should see the feast we threw together up on Roman’s hill tonight.”

“The feast I wasn’t invited to?”

Absalom’s ears turned pink. “I warn you that Hiram and the rest will be there and I might have to get into a fight. Leave before midnight, that’s my only condition.”

Surprise nearly ran her off the road. “I can come with you for real?” She chose to ignore the last part of his statement.

“We nearly died today, might as well live it up tonight.” He stared at the road. “You’d have gone to heaven.”

“It’s not too late to change.”

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