this town's for the record | blitz [bella]

this town's for the record | blitz [bella] Jul 21, 2024 15:08:05 GMT -5

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Post by august vance d7b [Bella] on Jul 21, 2024 15:08:05 GMT -5

W R E N b e c k e t t

The third time he stole from her, Wren thought she might finally kill her father.

This time, he’d bypassed the change jar and went straight for the real stash. The jar, half-full of coins and a couple of bills, was a decoy that she left out in the open in the unavoidable event that he’d show up looking for money when Wren wasn’t at home. It was a shame to lose even that money, but at least it satisfied the old man’s compulsion. The real deal, her whole life’s savings, was hidden under one of the floorboards beneath her bed. One had to loosen it with a flathead screwdriver, which she’d thought made it extra secure, but he’d found out anyway.

Wren also considered–her temper rolling to a boil as she thought about it–that her mother, under the pressure of her father’s drunken rage, might have told him exactly where it was.

There were hundreds in that shoebox. Every penny earned with pure sweat and grit, long evenings spent shoveling horse shit alongside her siblings in a nearby rancher’s stables. Her father would drink and gamble it away in a matter of hours. He was efficient like that when he was least needed to be.

As she stared, fuming, at the bottom of the empty shoebox, her first thought was that she was going to kill him next time. Her second thought was that she was damned tired of shit-shoveling for money that would just get stolen anyway. It just made things a hundred times worse. She would find another hustle, another hiding place. She’d been saving that money for her own horse.

That’s how she ended up pulling a wagon into the market with two buckets full of wildflowers she’d plucked from the meadow beside her house. As summer was reaching its peak, the days growing relentlessly hotter, they were scraggly things, a few cornflowers and daisies. But, well-arranged, they could be... romantic-looking, she thought.

When she asked friends at school about the black market, one had told her to find a young woman with long brown hair and a couple of guns on her belt–you couldn’t miss her, they said. It was true; Wren could see the metal barrels catch the torchlight as the horse pulled in. But Wren, unsure of how best to bother her, followed and then waited for the girl to finish talking.

”Need somethin’? the girl asked, leaning forward against the table.

Wren drew her sore shoulders back. ”I’m fixin’ to sell these flowers,” she answered, ” and I was wonderin’ if you might have a few words of advice for a girl just getting started in…business.” Then she looked around, left and right, as if afraid to be seen, her blonde hair tossing to-and-fro. ”Being straight with you, I need to make some cash. Fast.”