Chapter Thirteen – Sam

 

I pulled up at the roach motel and parked the Camaro right in front of my room. Already, my eyes were getting bleary from lack of sleep. The drive down the day before had been a hard one, and the fight and run, as short as they’d been, had still taken it out of me.

I sat there for a moment, my thoughts still swirling about Faith, about the cult that seemed to be in town. As I considered everything, including her, my eyes traveled over to the room next to mine, the one where the “loving couple” had been earlier while I was lying down to take a nap.

The lights were on in the window, and I could see two silhouettes engaged in what looked and sounded like an argument. The one on the left belonged to a shapely woman, and the other to a smaller man. Lots of finger-pointing from the woman and some frustrated pacing back and forth. The man just stayed rock solid, barely moving.

“You lied to me!” she shouted.

“I didn’t lie to you,” he said, maintaining a calm tone. “I didn’t have anything to do with this, and you know it. It’s all between you and Gus.”

Definitely not your typical lover’s quarrel, from the sounds of it.

Or, knowing this kind of motel, maybe one between a working girl and her john?

Intrigued for no reason other than my sheer curiosity, and that I never liked seeing a woman get taken advantage of or hurt, I climbed out of my car and began to listen.

“Look,” said the man, his voice a little older and weathered-sounding, “you have to keep at it. You don’t have an option, and you know that. I don’t see why you’re complaining. You agreed to this.”

“Why am I complaining?” asked the woman in a sweet Texas twang. “Why am I fucking complaining? Do you not see where he’s got me? Look at this shithole! He fucking lied to me!”

I didn’t like the sound of this guy. This wasn’t just some john paying for a little bit of time. No, this sounded like he was the woman’s pimp, or maybe he worked for the pimp. I stood there, just feet from my door, watching the dueling shapes from an angle.

I slammed shut the driver’s side door of the Camaro, crossed the dozen or so feet to my motel room. At my sides, my hands unconsciously balled up into fists.

A pause as the silhouette of the man looked around. “It’s not that bad. I’ve seen worse.”

“You’ve seen worse? Is that really how you’re going to try and fucking make me feel better? By telling me how much fucking worse I could have it?”

“Well,” said the man, “if this is the way you’re going to speak to me, I think I should be going, Abigail. It’s not Gus’s fault you didn’t read the fine print. He may not have told you what this kind of life got you, and what you’d have to do to stay alive in this world, but that doesn’t relieve you of the consequences of your choices. Even I have to live with them, Abigail. Even I have to.”

“Fine!” the woman shouted, her voice choked with tears. “Fine! It’s all my fault, then! Get the fuck out! Let me get back to that meal ticket, why don’t you!”

The man’s silhouette stayed motionless for a moment longer as she finished shouting at him, then when she was clearly done, he turned on his heel and headed for the exit.

As he came out, I turned my attention to opening my door and began to fish my keys from my pocket. I kept my head down, didn’t even bother to look in his direction when he left the room and gently closed the door behind him.

He stopped, fumbling with his keys for a moment. Some kind of smell, something sharp and chemically, drifted through the air to me as he halted, but I ignored it. Shifters get inundated with all kinds of smells every day, all day, and if we went chasing after the source of every single one, we’d likely just end up chasing our own tails. Thankfully, he quickly headed off towards the parking lot somewhere, his dress shoes striking the concrete with each firm step.

I had to fight the urge to go after him, to shove his face down into the pavement and stomp on the back of his head. “Don’t get involved, Sam,” I whispered as a reminder. “Just don’t.”

He hadn’t laid a hand on her, I told myself. What was I supposed to do? Pick a fight with him? I wasn’t here to save sex workers from their lives on the street. I was here to hunt down some nameless cult that was sacrificing livestock to their dark lord.

Unfortunately, it was about mission priority. Just like I wasn’t here to try and pick up Faith, or feel any attraction to her, I also wasn’t here to white-knight my way across the Texas countryside.

So, instead, I gritted my teeth and bore it. I just let him walk out to his car without even so much as glancing back at him.

Her room door opened again as I finally fitted my key in the slot and turned.

I glanced over, expecting to see some strung-out girl.

Instead, I was almost taken aback by her dark, intelligent eyes looking out at me from her heart-shaped face. By her well-cut red dress that looked as out of place here as I felt. Traces of drying tears ran down over her high cheekbones, but her eyes weren’t even puffy from the crying.

“Hey,” she said with that thick twang I’d heard earlier, full lips smiling a little as she came out of the room and looked over at me. Absently, she reached up, brushed a hand over her cheek like she was trying to wipe away the evidence of her tears, and ran her fingers back through her curly, raven-dark hair that tumbled down past her bare shoulders.

“Hey,” I replied, straightening up, my hand still on the doorknob. This was certainly not the kind of woman I’d expected. She was good-looking, nearly as beautiful as Faith, with a kind of sultriness to her dark eyes.

“Sorry about the noise,” she said, crossing long arms below her full chest as she leaned against the wall, her shoulder supporting her as she rested her head against it. She smiled a little more, giving me a flash of even white teeth. “How much did you hear?”

“Enough.”

“Sorry again,” she said, cocking a full hip out as she locked her eyes on mine.

“You doing okay?” I asked. “I mean, you need any help? Getting out of here?”

“Get out of here?” she repeated, laughing a little as she glanced away from me and out into the parking lot. “And leave all this?”

“Well, like I said, I heard everything. I can get you some money, maybe. A bus ticket, even, get you out of town.”

“Leave town?” the woman asked. “Lived here all my life, sugar, why would I want to leave now?”

“Well, that Gus guy, or whoever he is, wouldn’t be able to follow you if you left. You could put it all behind you.”

She laughed a little laugh, a warm sound like the burbling of a brook. “No,” she said warmly, “I could never leave Potterswell. Or Gus. It’s a part of me, you know? You’re from out of town, so you probably don’t realize how much we love living out here, with folks we’ve known all our lives. The soil here gets into you, and the air ain’t like air anywhere else in the world. Not even in Texas.”

Well, I’d offered, hadn’t I? I mean, I could understand wanting to stay home. Most humans in the world died just a few miles from where they were born. I was a shifter, though, so it was different. I’d always had an urge to travel, an urge to move to another place.

“Well,” I said, nodding to her, “guess I should get some sleep, then.” I opened up my door and turned to go inside.

“Sugar?”

I stopped in my tracks, leaned back, and stuck my head outside the door. “Yeah?” I asked.

She smiled a little, biting her lower lip. “You want some company, maybe? Make the time go by a little bit easier?”

An image of Faith’s smiling face flashed before my eyes as she spoke, and I quickly shook my head. No doubt about it, I didn’t want any company. “Appreciate the offer,” I said, trying to be as polite as possible, “but I’ll pass.”

“You sure? You seem like a nice enough guy. Good-looking, too. Hell of a lot better-looking than most of the guys we get through here. We can even say it’s on the house, if you want. No charge, promise.”

I just laughed a little, shook my head again. “No, no, I’m sure. Might say I’m taken.”

Her smile drooped a little, but not enough to disappear entirely. “Oh, sugar, think that stops most men?”

“No, really,” I said. “Not interested. I have an early morning tomorrow, and I better hit the hay. You know how it is.”

Her smile dropped a little, seemed to take on a hint of sadness. “Well, thanks anyways. For, you know, at least asking me how I was doing and if everything was okay. Not a lot of people would do that.”

“It wasn’t anything. If you change your mind, though, just let me know. I’ll help if you need it.”

She nodded, a little sadly, then turned to go back into her room. “Well, have a good night, sugar. I better get to work.”

“Yeah,” I said, stepping all the way back inside my room, “have a good night. And, don’t worry about any noise. I slept through it earlier today just fine.”

Her laughter drifted in through the door as I closed it. “Thanks. I’ll try not to.”

I shook my head as I closed my door and locked it. What a crazy freaking world we lived in. With as many problems as we already had from weird creatures stalking the night, madmen trying to do God only knows what, and ancient evils always attempting to raise their ugly heads, humans still managed to live the strangest, most desperate of lives.

I took my sidearm and its holster from the small of my back, going over and dropping it on the nightstand before sitting down on the bed and pulling my boots off. I flicked on the lamp, illuminating the rundown room.

Not for the first time, I wondered if hunting these creatures was actually worth it. If maybe I shouldn’t be more focused on just helping people in general, rather than hunting supernatural beings of the darkness. Seemed like I’d do just as much good, if not more, if I were to be a cop and go after pimps, drug pushers, and normal criminals. What good was I doing by killing cultists and banishing ghosts, when women could get forced to hole up inside a crappy motel room and fuck truckers, and somehow convince themselves it was the best option?

I lay back on the bed, just for a minute, my arm thrown over my eyes.

And, in the darkness, Faith seemed to come to me unbidden, her hips swaying as she stalked closer to me.

God, why couldn’t I get her out of my head?

But, more importantly, why didn’t I want to?