First Family (Sean King & Michelle Maxwell 4)

Daryl pushed past him. “Let’s just get this done,” he said, wiping the blood off his face with one of his filthy hands. “Sooner the better. Then I’m outta here.”

Quarry unlocked the door and stepped into the room. The light from the lantern on the table was turned down low so he couldn’t see her. But he felt her presence.

“I didn’t want to give her up,” Diane Wohl said as she emerged from the shadows.

Quarry came into the wash of light.

“You’re bleeding,” she said.

“Ain’t nothing,” said Quarry as he sat down at the table and ran a hand through his thick, sweaty hair. He was still wheezing a bit from his struggle with his son.

Damn smokes.

Diane sat down across from him. “I didn’t want to give her up.”

Quarry drew a long breath and sat back, studying her from under a tangled mass of eyebrows.

“Okay.”

“You scare the hell out of me. Everything about you terrifies me.”

“You scare me too,” he said.

Diane looked stunned. “How could I possibly scare you?”

“There’s lots of ways to be scared. Physical. In your head. Both.”

“So which way do I scare you?”

Quarry put his hands together and leaned forward, his big head dangling over the table center, as blood from his punctured lip plopped on the wood. “You make me afraid that this old world will never be good again. For none of us.”

She sat back, stung by his words. “I’m a good person! I’ve never hurt anyone.”

“You hurt that girl, even if she don’t know it.”

“I gave her up so she’d have a better life.”

“Bullshit. You gave her up so you wouldn’t have to deal with it.”

She reached across the table and slapped him, then drew back, a look of terror on her features. She eyed her hand as though it belonged to someone else.

“At least you got some spirit,” said Quarry, who had been unfazed by the blow.

“So I’ve ruined the whole world?”

“No, you let other folks do it. People like you let other assholes walk all over’em. Even when they’re wrong. Even when you know they’re wrong. That makes you as bad, as evil as them. People like you don’t stand up to nothing where you got to fight for what’s right. You just crawl into the dirt. You just take it. The shit they hand out. Take it with a smile and say thank you where can I get me some more shit please?”

A tear from Diane’s right eye hit the table where it mixed with Quarry’s blood. “You don’t know me.”

“I know you. I know you and people just like you.”

She brushed at her eyes. “So what are you going to do? Kill me?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m gonna do with you.” He slowly rose, his back killing him from where he’d hit the rock. “You wanta see Willa again? Might be for the last time. Things coming to a head now.”

Diane’s eyes were blurred with tears. “No, I can’t.” She wagged her head from side to side, her fingers coiled tight and shaking.

“Crawling in the dirt again, lady? Trying to hide? You say you’re scared of me? You just slapped me. Showed some backbone. You can stand up to folks if you want to. The people who think they’re strong, who look like they got everything? The rich and the powerful? They ain’t got shit. One time you stand up to them, they just run away,’cause they ain’t really strong, or tough. They just got stuff. They just got puffed-up pride based on nuthin’.” He slammed his big fist down on the table so hard it knocked the lantern over and the light went out. From out of the sudden darkness he said, “I asked you if you wanted to see your daughter? What’s it gonna be?”