One
A Hint of Steel
in the Moonlight
“Oh, come on Suze!” said the young
man at the wheel of the car. “I didn’t mean anything by it. She
was just coming by and I noticed it was her. That’s all it was.”
“Did you have to smile at her?” said
the girl sitting in the passenger’s seat next to him. “I mean,
did you have to look like you were enjoying it?”
“She means nothing to me…”
“Now but not then.”
“It was before you, Suze! A long time
before you—”
“Six months. It was six months before
you met me. That’s not a long time—”
“Six months but a whole year of hell
before that.
“You’re my only love, babe, now and
forever.”
He smiled at her and grabbed at her
hand. She gave it reluctantly but didn’t smile back.
“Turn it!” demanded a voice from the
back.
They were listening to the radio and a
song came on that Suze liked. She had turned it up.
“Turn it!” said the voice from the
back seat and then a body lunged over the seat and turned it himself.
Another station, another song.
This offended Suze.
“Just like that, Bret?” she said to
her boyfriend. “He just changes the station like that whenever he
wants to?”
“He’s touchy about his music.”
“But he could be touchy about it in
his own car or in his own room at his parent’s,” she said.
“Jeff couldn’t in his own car
because his dad took the keys away. He came home a little late the
other day and that set his dad off.”
“The sun wasn’t even up yet,” said
the boy in the back, Jeff, “and he got ticked off. It wouldn’t
have been so bad but I got all mixed up and didn’t watch the time.
You know how it is being out with friends. So when I got home, the
old man was up to go to work. That set him off.”
Bret smiled at his girlfriend but she
was unconvinced. About anything.
“And he’s got to come with us?”
she said. “Just like that?”
Jeff sat forward and put an arm around
Bret’s shoulders.
“We go back a long way!” he said
patting Bret on the back. “All the way back to kindergarten. You
don’t leave a brother in trouble when you got that kind of history
between you, you know?”
He smiled and then he whooped. It
sounded like a war whoop but there was no war.
Suze looked back at Jeff and then looked
at Bret. Her eyes had narrowed to slits.
Bret saw this by the glow of the lights
of the instrument panel and he grinned sheepishly. He understood that
she was upset now but reasoned that he could talk her out of it
later. So he just smiled.
Jeff began to drum the back of her car
seat and then hummed the tune of the song on the radio, such as there
was, in a way that resembled the music in no way whatsoever. He was
tone deaf and that added to the unpleasantness of it all.
They drove on, Jerry in the back
drumming and humming trying to sing when he could remember the words
but not doing any better at it full voice than he did when he was
humming.
Suze removed her hand from Bret's and
sat with her arms folded.
In a huff.
The DJ of the station interrupted.
This is something that’s just come
off the wire. Any of you in the area of Wintergreen, you should be
careful.
A prisoner has escaped from the
maximum security prison at Holbrooke. He's six feet four and two
hundred seventy pounds with light brown hair and brown eyes. He was
last seen around Wintergreen.
His name is Clayton Chancey and he’s
dangerous. He was convicted in 2007 for the murders of two elderly
people in a farm outside of Greensboro. He used an ax.
I repeat, this man is dangerous. The
FBI warns anyone who sees him to stay clear of him and call 911.
I pass this on to all you dreamers
and seekers to make sure that you are safe and sound and can make it
back to the ones who love you.
I love you. And so does Jason Big—in
his own way. Here’s his Ain’t
No More Love in Me for You that
I Can Give.
To purchases this book, go to: From the Dark, Book 2
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