Dark Rite

Chapter 9

It was dark when they cruised back into Wallen's Gap. The events of the day had taken on a surreal quality, like they had happened to someone else. Grant steered the Camaro up the hill towards Cassie's place: a little house on a dirt road near the church.

Cassie sucked in a sharp breath as they pulled close.

“What?” Grant asked.

She nodded towards her house, where the headlights shone on two men sitting on the porch drinking cans of beer. One was Carl. The other was a rangy, stubbled man with mean eyes plainly visible even from a distance.

“Your dad?”

Cassie nodded, lips pressed into a flat line.

The men were deep in conversation and looked up as the car approached. “I could just drive on by,” Grant said. “Why don't you come and stay with me tonight? No funny business,” he added quickly. “Just for some peace and quiet, you know?”

“It's too late,” she said, her voice dull, her expression flat. “They've seen us.”

Grant cursed under his breath, pulled the car up to the curb. The men on the porch stood, beers held lazily at hip height, eyes narrowed. Grant cut the engine and made to open his door and Cassie put a hand on his thigh. Her touch thrilled him, but her intent made him cold.

“Don't,” she said, voice barely above a whisper.

“I just wanted to see you to the door. You know, make sure you're okay.”

“It'll only make them mad if you come with me. Look at them, they're already worked up just because we're together.”

He glanced at the men, who scowled down at him. Carl shifted back and forth, as if summoning the courage to confront Grant.

“If they hurt you…”Grant began.

“It'll be just like any other day.”

Grant hated the casual indifference to physical violence that was clearly a part of Cassie's make-up, but he supposed there had to be some kind of self-preservation system at work. “I can take you away, you know. Are you really that tied to this place?”

Cassie stared into his eyes for a moment, but could not hold the intensity there. “It's not that easy.”

“Why not? Once I'm done here, and I nearly am, I think I’ll put the cabin in the hands of a real estate agent and get the fuck out of Wallen's Gap and never look back. You could come with me.”

A sharp rapping made them both jump. Cassie's dad leered in through the passenger window, Carl’s wiry frame silhouetted behind him.

“Oh my God.” Cassie's voice was quieter than ever as she wound down the window.

“Gonna sit out here in this piece of shit car all night?” her father asked.

Grant knew his car was certainly not a piece of shit, but wasn't about to rise to that bait.

“Grant, this is my father, Graham Brunswick. Daddy, this is Grant Shipman.”

“I know who he is and I don't appreciate him gallivanting around with my daughter.”

“Sorry, Mister Brunswick,” Grant said. “We were just talking.”

The look Brunswick directed his way said mind your own business, but he spared a reply. “Talking is it? That all?”

What did that even mean? “I had to go up to Kingsville today and Cassie needed a ride.”

“So you thought you'd just give her a ride, didya?”

“Yes, sir. Just trying to be neighborly.”

“And just what the hell do you know about neighborly, city boy?”

The tension in the air thickened and Brunswick's face hardened. Grant desperately wanted to leap from the car and whip both these idiots' asses, and felt pretty sure he could do it too, but that would only be more trouble for Cassie. “I don't mean to cause any trouble,” he said through gritted teeth.

“Well you done stirred up a whole mess of it. You drive off with my daughter without so much as a by your leave and you say you don't mean no trouble?”

“I don't need your permission if I want to go out,” Cassie said.

Her face whipped aside as her father smacked her cheek. He had moved quicker than a striking rattlesnake. “None of your lip, girl!”

“Hey! Don't you dare hit her!” Grant shifted in his seat, opened his door.

Carl, unnoticed, had circled around behind the car and kicked Grant's door closed, banging it hard into his shoulder. It was all Grant could do to resist rubbing his shoulder, but he wasn't about to give Carl the satisfaction.

“You just get on out of here, now, and you don't so much as talk to my little girl again,” Brunswick said. “Or I'll do more than hit you, boy. I got a deer rifle with your name on it and a right friendly association with the law in this town. Now get your ass on.”

Cassie looked at Grant with tears in her eyes. A bead of blood glistened on her lower lip. “You have to go,” she said. “It was stupid to let you drive me up here. Should have dropped me down the road or something.”

“I can't leave you here.”

Cassie eyes were pleading. “You have to go!” she said loudly.

Her father pulled open her door even as Carl continued to lean heavily against Grant's, trapping him.

As Cassie maneuvered herself to release the seatbelt she leaned close. “I'll sneak out and come tonight,” she whispered quickly and got out of the car without another word or even catching his eye.

Grant was uncertain he had heard her correctly until she looked back as her father dragged her up towards the house and she mouthed Tonight! at him again. He felt a flush of relief, but it was overwhelmed by his concern, his terror, about what Brunswick and Carl might do to her in the meantime.

Carl rapped on his window. With a grimace, he wound it down about two inches.

“Don't even think about sniffing around Cassie no more,” Carl slurred through the gap, his breath pungent with beer and cigarette smoke. “You get your ass on like you're told, you hear?”

Grant felt powerless. He hated the thought of leaving Cassie, but if he stayed he would only make it worse for both of them. Then again, one punch wouldn't make things that much worse, would it?

“Problem here?” a rough voice called out.

Grant looked out the back window and deflated at the sight of the Stallard boys standing on the running boards of their pickup right behind him. He hadn't even heard them pull up.

“No problem,” Carl called out, with a leering grin. “Mister Shipman here was just about hightail it on out of here. Ain't that right, Shipman?”

Grinding his teeth, refusing to answer with even a nod, he started the car and pulled away. He had a tiny moment of satisfaction when Carl had to leap back to avoid having his toes run over. Grant wasn't surprised when the Stallard boys tailed him all the way back home, though they kept their distance. The last thing he saw as he turned up the dirt drive towards his cabin was their headlights, stationary in the road behind. He wondered if they were going to take up residence in his driveway all night again and what that might mean for Cassie if she did try to come to him later. He yelled a curse at the heavens and drove up to the cabin, lost and directionless. What now?