Putting out fires with gasoline (JACK)

The sizzle of searing flesh is satisfying to Tallow, as is the way that his eyes grow wide with fear. Not such the tough guy now then, all laid up in bed and confronted with someone who doesn’t have too kind a nature to consider fighting back. Tallow pulled away her cigarette and examined it for a minute, ignoring Jacks pathetic pleas to explain what she wanted from him; it would be a shame to waste good tobacco like that so she relit it. “Fuck, your face right now- it’s hilarious, Jack, really it is. Stuck in a room with a fifteen year old girl and shitting your pants about it. What a hero. I told you, Jackie; I just wanna talk to you… ” Tallow shrugged, as though nothing had just happened. Her hands weren’t shaking, but they might have been- she’d hoped that putting the cigarette out on his skin might have done something to put out her own fire. But it hadn’t

“And for you to learn what happens when you mess with my things. So shut that hole in your fucking face and listen,” Tallow added hotly, all wide eyed and deadly serious. “You have…” she struggled for the words to be found in all the bile and shards of glass that seemed to be rising in her throat. “You have no idea ,no fucking idea, what you’ve done. And you certainly have no idea what I could do to you right now because of it.” She had her father’s temper alright, Tallow could hear her mom say, and his violent streak too. But fuck her mom, seriously, there was nothing wrong with getting a little revenge on behalf of family member. Nothing wrong with sending out a message that Tallow Tansy was back in charge of the well being of her brother instead of flitty strangers that just didn’t know him the way that she did.

“Every bruise, every scar, every tiny last fucking damaged hair on his head…I could do the same to you, right down to the last detail. I got them all memorised in here,” Tallow tapped her head. “I’m the smart one, see…but Scutcher got something I definitely don’t. Compassion. Which is why I’m here.”

She sat down at the edge of the bed, casually, like just hanging out with friends. Took a drag of her cigarette to steady herself and continued, softer than before. But still equally as dangerous. “ I mean honestly, Jack. Try to see these things from my perspective.” Tallow tipped her head to the side and studied him. The broken down husk of a man; it was almost disappointing really. She’d come here all ready for a battle, geared up to scream and scratch but that idea had grown as impotent as a limp dick. Jack’s fire had all but gone out…and that would take some of the fun out of hurting him. Some, but not all.

“I told you to leave my brother alone, you and your dead little wifey. First night I met you. But you just wouldn’t listen. Especially not her. Just kept running off into the woods with him all secret like…which always struck me as a bit weird. I mean that’s not like Scutcher at all. Normally he tells me about these things in a week but…this has been going on for, what? Six? Six and a half months?”

“Huh…” said Tallow dimly, taking another toke on her cigarette before continuing innocently. “Noreen looked about six months pregnant or so the other day. How funny… coincidences like that…funny old world,” she smiled girlishly and for the first time looked her actual age. “But anyway, Jackie!” she brought her feet up onto the bed, like this was some kind of twisted teenage girls sleepover and they were about to engage in a long chat about cute boys, trailing the mud from her shoes all over the bed and really not giving a shit. “Whatever was going on…they found a way to pass the time. Ploughing, planting seeds, messing around with hoes… all of that stuff. Scutcher really does like his flowers. And I would have put a stop to it, really I would. But there just must have been something about that place…that kept them both going back there. Something she wasn’t getting at home. Do you…do you see what I’m driving at?”

Tallow giggled and waved her words and cigarette smoke away with her hands. “But I suppose it doesn’t matter now she’s dead ,does it? Or will be. And you’re gonna watch it all,” her lip began to curl. “Every last excruciating detail, every last scar and bruise and tiny little damaged hair on her head. I wonder if someone’ll stab her right in her great big belly….oooh exciting!!”

Flicking away her cigarette, Tallow threaded a hand through her hair and played with it a little, “Which is why aint gonna fuck you up too bad or kill you for what you did. And believe me I could. But if you so much as look at Scutcher again…I might change my mind. Do you understand me?”

Oh now this was more like it. Here was the fire and rage that Tallow had wanted to see, as he clutched onto her wrist, flaring up inside of him and matching her own. As pleased as she was to get a reaction, her collar bone might have jerked and she might have taken a shark intake of breath as he did so. The natural response, really; he probably could snap her wrist as easily as breaking a twig; she was fifteen and built like a cornstalk, and Jack definitely wasn’t. Tallow was under no illusions about that, and that kind of thing could probably really hurt too. But Tallow steeled herself, and looked very deeply into Jack’s eyes, close enough to see the swirling colors in his eyes and each fair eyelash. “Atta boy, Jackie,” she said huskily, raising her eyebrows. She’d be damned if another Tansy was going to get hurt in this place.

Tipping her head back, Tallow pushed it into his face with all of her strength. Hair swinging, catching the light from the windows, it probably looked very pretty, Tallow thought. The headbutt had knocked her a bit and there was a pain flaring up in her forehead, making her see a few lingering spots of purple here and there but it would be nothing compared to what Jack was feeling. Taking advantage of the sudden violence and confusion, Tallow took the hand that wasn’t in Jack’s vice like hold and pressed it very firmly into his abdomen, where all of the bandages were, pushing him back onto the bed. She jumped forwards and straddled Jack, digging into his hips with the souls of her shoes, entering into a sort of stand-off with him. “Let go,” she hissed, feeling around the bandages and finding a soft, promising spot, digging in with two of her fingers and her nails. “Let go and I’ll think about doing the same.” She pushed all of her weight into his wound and her nostrils flared.

“Brave Jackie boy, picking his battles with vulnerable people who don’t know any better and with little girls,” she spat. “Scutcher told me about her father. And you tell me I’m shitting all over your wife’s memory? Look a little bit closer to home, Jackie.”

“You’re lying!” Tallow shouted into his face, whimpering and pathetic, beads of sweat starting to form on his forehead. What he’s saying about her big brother makes her clench her teeth, want to shut him up for good. She slapped him, but it was like slapping a limp rag against a rock to dry it. “And you know it. I’ve seen his face.” Yeah, Jack ‘got Scutcher away from Noreen’… repeatedly and in the ribs. “I found him…” she said hotly, her voice cracking. “I was the one who found him, you fucker. Just hanging there from a rope tied to the ceiling, not moving, not anythin’...I told you... I told both of you to LEAVE HIM ALONE,” she finally roared, getting…in essence to the main point of all of this, her lips trembling as she sniffed sharply to keep herself from tearing up.

Removing her hand from Jack’s abdomen to wipe away a stray mote of dust that was probably caught there, she looked down to find that it was covered in blood. That was…what was that? She hadn’t drawn any blood, not yet. Tallow peered beneath her to find it blossoming thick on Jack’s bandages, staring to slide underneath it to and, despite herself, had to leap away with an “Oh shit.”

The wound had opened up and that gauze wrapped around it must have been for shit because the blood was still seeping through. She’d actually done it. Tallow had killed him. A nervous hand went to her throat, smearing it with Jacks blood as she got up from the bed. They were going to catch her for this, make an avox out of her and she could feel her voice box through her neck, trembling. She’d only wanted to scare him, maybe making him bruised a little and hurt him but…Tallow hadn’t planned for this. Sure, she might have pretended that she was capable, that it was what she wanted but…not like this. Not with Jack’s parents downstairs and no way out for her…or to dispose of a body.

Would she have time to go home for Scutcher, Tallow wondered…just get him and go, take off into the woods and live out their days there? But even if she did, there was no way that Scutcher would understand, no way that she could take care of them both in those circumstances. And what if she took off without him? He’d never be able to cope, especially not now.

So Tallow did something she hadn’t envisaged she would,not in her wildest dreams when she’d imagined all the likely scenarios, all the ways that today would go down. Not for Jack, no fucking way. For Scutcher, it was all always for Scutcher. Tallow grabbed a bed sheet and folded it into a tight bundle. “Press it down,” she said sharply, catching sight of blood dripping into the mattress. “Hard. And try not to go into shock, you pathetic little piece of shit.”

Ripping pillows off the bed, Tallow piled them high and bundled Jack’s legs into her arms and elevating them, all the while thinking how shit her life was that she knows how to stop bleeding without even thinking, how to fend off shock with a practised hand. Up at the other end of the bed, Tallow rushed over, her hands shaking as she pressed down onto the sheet too.

“Okay…listen, fucker,” she said in a hurried tremble. “You’ll probably die if I don’t take that chair there away from the door and get some help .But if you tell anyone it was me…” Tallow took one hand away from the sheet and reached under her dress, far too practised at doing this one handed than any fifteen year old should be,“And I’ll cry and clutch at these,” Tallow brought her hand up, holding a set of small girlish white briefs, complete with a little chequered bow on the front between forefinger and thumb, dropping them onto Jack’s chest. “Tell any peace keeper who’ll listen that I had to do it," she scrunched up her face and started to tremble and stutter as though she was distraught "else you would have your..w...w...wicked way with me. And I’ll be the one who isn’t from a family of violent criminals, who’s already attacked one of their ranks and gotten shot for it. We’ll both go down together and then what will your parents have left? No son, no daughter in law, no grandchildren, no nothin’. ”

Tallow breathed out to steady herself, “Or, you know, we can just have you bleed out right here right now and they still won’t have nothing left.”

With a sharp hiss, Tallow pulled her arm away from Jack reaching out pathetically to her, as though she’d been burnt there herself. Still, there was something in the way that he pleaded for his life that was like music to her ears. Scutcher wouldn’t have pleaded like that when Jack had kicked seven shades of black and blue into him. No way. She’d seen him get silently kicked from room to room for years- being brave in his own way. Like how she’d said at the reaping; Scutcher was a survivor. And Jack Lexington was just chicken shit, pleading for his life and passing out like a flushed girl.

“Jackie boy, you’re no fun at all,” said Tallow with an eye roll watching him pass out. She lit a match quickly and held it under her eyes for a minute so that the tears would start to fall and…as a little insurance, a little reminder of their talk, tucked her panties into his pocket. Standing up, she smoothed down her hair and took the chair away from the door, placing it neatly besides the dresser again and knelt down besides Jack, pressing the sheets again to stop the bleeding. He said he wouldn’t tell and Tallow had to believe him; more fool him if he didn’t anyway, Tallow would make sure of that.

And yet, she couldn’t help but be a little pissed off at herself; that she hadn’t had the balls to finish the job. He might not remember it, but at about eleven years old Tallow had made her brother a solemn promise to kill anyone that hurt him. And here she was, four years later; her dad still alive and…well, not well…but alive at any road, as well as here with Jack, actually doing her best to stop him from dying. It was weak and it was feeble…she was far too kind for her own good sometimes.

“HELP! HELP,” Tallow screamed. Her voice was more than loud enough to carry down the stairs and into the hall, scared and fifteen and innocent, all the things she’d never get to be. People like her father had made sure of that, people like the man Jack probably was. “PLEASE, HELP.” There was a scuffle, the sound of footsteps and Tallow raised her head to the opening door.

“He just…he moved and the…I don’t know…but there’s so much blood!” Tallow trembled, “I don’t know what to do…I don’t know what to do!”