Chapter 4 - Delaney

4

Delaney

Eighteen Years Old

There’s a kink in my back. I groan, muscles spasming up my spine, as I sit up in bed. Eighteen years old and I’ve already ruined my body with manual labor.

Ruined.

The thought makes me snort ruefully. Del Jackson’s plenty ruined already, like I needed another reason for the list.

I lift my arms and gently twist from side-to-side, stretching out that sore spot that’s been bothering me. The culprit could be one of two things: those super-sized bags of fertilizer I was lugging the other day, or that night I spent trying to sleep on a park bench. That was fucking uncomfortable, to say the least.

The alarm on my phone trills and I reach over to silence it, wrenching my back in the process. I hiss in pain and collapse back onto my thin mattress. I can’t afford to take a day off work, not even for this.

Lilly comes home in two weeks. That’s fourteen days of cash I can still add to my hidden stash. I can only hope it will be enough to get us the hell out of here.

Suddenly, my bedroom door slams open. Fear clenches my heart. I hadn’t bothered to flip the deadbolt last night. He wasn’t going to be home, so why would I?

But it’s not him.

“Get the fuck out, Aaron,” I grunt. I yank my blankets up to my chest, knowing he’s already searching for the outline of my tits through my t-shirt.

Aaron Flores leans against the doorframe and smirks, his hands going to his thick utility belt. He always seems to be wearing his deputy uniform, like he thinks it gives him superpowers or something. I think it just makes him an even bigger asshole than he usually is.

“Mornin’, Del,” he drawls. “Heard your alarm and thought you might have slept through it. Wouldn’t want you to be late for work.”

“How kind of you. Now get the fuck out.”

Aaron takes a step into my room and looks around. He taps one of the wind chimes hanging by my closed window. I usually find the noise comforting, but right now it grates on my nerves.

Deputy Aaron Flores is undeniably good looking. Smooth warm-brown skin, thick biceps and a charming too-white smile. But his heart is black as coal. Probably the reason Dad took such a shine to him when he joined the Sheriff’s Department.

“Your old man thought you might need a ride to work,” he says. “I’d love to give it to you.”

He puts slimy emphasis on give it to you and I force myself not to shudder. My only comfort is that Aaron has always been a pest, but he’s never actually tried anything.

He’s never come in my room before either…

Taking a deep breath to steel myself against the twinge in my back, I swing off the mattress and stand. Aaron’s glassy eyes immediately drop to my bare legs.

“When did you turn eighteen again, Del?”

“When did you break up with Isabelle, Aaron?”

Those dark eyes lift, locking with mine, and his lips curl in contempt, a snarling rage bubbling under the surface. He steps closer — so close that I can smell eggs on his breath, eggs his girlfriend probably cooked for him before he drove here.

“One of these days, your old man is going to get tired of you, Del, and when he does…”

His tongue snakes out to wet his lips. My insides shudder, shrivel, and die.

“Get. The Fuck. Out.”

Thankfully, he does. At the door, he eyes my deadbolt and taps it knowingly with one finger.

“Cute,” he says, that ugly, superior smirk making another appearance.

As soon as he steps into the hall, I dart forward and slam the door shut. Sliding the deadbolt home, I allow myself a deep breath.

“Two weeks,” I mutter to myself. “Just two more weeks.”

***

“What do you mean there’s nothing you can do? This is your store!”

Rodney’s mouth is twisted in sympathy. I know it’s not his fault, he’s always been decent to me, but still…

“I’m so sorry, Del,” he says, shaking his head. I watch his long silver braid waggle back and forth like the tail on a dog. “I wish there was something I could do.”

“There is. Don’t fire me.”

I’ve been working at the gas station for over a year. It had been my last resort. Nobody in town wanted to hire me and even though polite excuses had been thrown my way — no high school diploma, no job experience, no positions available — I knew Dad had something to do with it.

You’d think being the daughter of the town Sheriff would have been a plus on my resume, but it turns out that when your own father is more than happy to tell everyone what a screw up you are, it kind of tanks your reputation in the job market.

Mrs. O’Neill, who had been browsing the short aisles but really eavesdropping on our conversation, approaches the counter. She eyes me with not an ounce of sympathy. The old bat has heard the rumors — Hell, she probably helped Dad out by spreading a few of her own.

Delaney Jackson is a troublemaker, a shoplifter, a slut. Just like her mother, God Rest Her Soul.

“Fifteen on pump two please, Rod,” she says as she fishes her coin purse from the oversized sack she calls a handbag. “And a paper.”

The front page of the paper is the same story that’s been floating around town for a week or so: Town hero, Sheriff Jackson, busts biker-run drug operation.

In reality, two just-turned-eighteen-year-old prospects from the local biker gang, the Wastelanders, were driving a car with expired registration. They were pulled over and the deputies found a couple bricks of cocaine in the car. Now they’re both facing some huge prison sentence for trafficking. Technically, I guess they were trafficking the drugs, but it seems like overkill, going after two kids just trying to get by.

“Horrible, what’s happening in our town, isn’t it?” tuts Mrs. O’Neill. “Those bikers, they’re just scum. Sheriff Jackson should take out every single one of them.”

Rodney humphs in mild agreement, though I know he doesn’t mind the Wastelanders so much. They’re what keeps his business running — choosing to use his little gas station instead of the newer, more impressive one a few miles away.

Mrs. O’Neill takes her change and heads out, leaving the store empty. Rodney sighs and pops open the cash register again. He starts counting out bills into an envelope.

“You’re a hard worker, always have been, Del. But times are tough and we can’t afford to keep you on.”

“What if I do all the night shifts? That way, you never have to do them. You can be at home, with the kids, and with Stella. Wouldn’t that be great?”

The lines around Rodney’s mouth deepen. “I ain’t putting an eighteen year old girl on the night shift and you know it. It’s not safe.”

“Did my father have anything to do with this?”

“Sheriff Jackson? No, Del. It’s just about money.”

My shoulders sag. “Money. It’s always about money.”

Rodney slides the envelope across the front counter. “Your pay for the last two weeks. I’ve put a little extra in there. That’s all I can do.”

He offers me a small smile. I hesitate, then sigh and take the envelope, sliding it into my backpack. With nothing else to say, I give him a nod and turn to go. It only takes a few steps and I’m at the front door of the tiny little gas station store. This shitty place had been my only livelihood. My only way out.

“Maybe think about using some of that money to get out of town,” says Rodney. “Start fresh.”

I turn around and he’s watching me with this look on his face… Like he maybe knows more than he should. It twists my gut and I have to swallow hard before I answer.

“Good idea,” I reply, pasting on a fake smile. “I’ll think about it.”

I push outside, the buzzer above the door making my head rattle. It’s hot out and my skin warms with the summer sun as I make my way around the corner to where my bike is chained up.

Getting away. Escaping. It’s all I think about.

But I can’t. Not yet. Not until I know Lilly will be safe.

***

It doesn’t take me long to ride home. Dad’s at work, so his car is gone, and he sold Mama’s before we even put her in the ground. Aaron’s squad car is also absent — thank God. What was he doing at the house, anyway? Dad must have let him in, or given him a key, but the why of it all is what makes me uneasy.

After pulling my bike around the side of the house, I return to the front and fumble for my keys in the side pocket of my backpack. My eyes drift to the front yard across the street and a few houses down.

The old lady’s house.

That’s still the way I think of it, even though I know it’s not hers anymore. There’s a dark oil stain in the driveway from where he parks, but that — and the way my bedroom windows rattle when he tears up the street on his bike — are the only signs he even still lives there.

I eye the garden beds in the front yard. The yellow blossoms are drooping a bit in the midday heat and I wonder if I should slip over there to water them, rather than wait until night like I usually do. It’s Saturday, so he’ll be at the Wastelander clubhouse tonight — I can take my time, with no fear of getting caught.

Satisfied with my decision, I go inside and hurry to my bedroom. The envelope of cash from Rodney is already in my hand, ready to be tucked away with the rest of it. How much is there now? Four thousand? Five? I don’t know exactly how much I’ll need, but I figure the more the better.

Then, something crunches under my sneakered feet, just inside my bedroom door.

I look down.

My heart drops.

Glass. Broken shards of colorful glass.

I start to shake, my whole body trembling in fear, as I inch forward, over the shattered pieces of my wind chimes. My room is completely, utterly, destroyed.

Clothes spill out of the broken dresser drawers, my mattress is half off the bed frame — stuffing popping out of the deep slash through it.

And then my eyes land on a flash of torn pink cardboard.

“No, no, no, no…”

I drop my backpack and dash forward, skidding on my knees as I claw for the box in the back of my closet. The old cardboard box of sanitary pads falls apart in my hands. All that’s left are the empty pink wrappers — the ones I used to wrap up my wads of cash. Dad’s a snoop and would happily search my room, but I knew he’d never look in there.

Aaron, on the other hand…

My money is gone. Everything I’ve saved, the only hope I had for me and Lilly getting away… It’s all gone.