My Little Shadow

Chapter Seventeen: Devils Daughter

May on the farm was like watching a book lover in a bookstore full of their preferred genre.

She lit up at the baby cows, awed at the chicks that followed their mother, and gushed at the sun hitting the pond just right.

Mr. and Mrs. Jaded were still away on vacation but even if they weren't I knew they wouldn't care for May being out here. They trusted me more than they probably should, I shouldn't hold myself to that level but it was the truth.

I knew that I would never do anything to hurt their property, I knew that I would put my life on the line saving their livestock or their home.

The question was how did they know that? I'm sure they have heard about the murder I committed, the whole town has to know by now but still, they leave the care of their entire life into my hands with the knowing in their eyes that it would be standing when they returned.

They shouldn't trust that easily, because the next person that comes along could rip them apart because there was cruel people in this world that couldn't see past their own bubble to see the pain they inflict on others.

"How do you get to do this for a living?" May ask from the passenger seat of my truck. She's staring out at the field, the grass swaying past us.

"What do you mean?" I was puzzled by her question, not fully following where she was going with this.

"Like, how does someone get to have this much fun and get paid for it?" She says sticking her hand out of the window and letting her fingers move up and down from the oncoming wind.

"Well, it isn't all petting animals or staring at the beauty of this place." I knew what I was about to say would make her second guess everything she saw but I didn't want her to think of this place as pure beauty when it could in fact be nasty and dangerous. "A few weeks before I was put into Mary Hill, I had to put a calf down from a coyote attack."

She glanced at me her eyes growing wide with shock and a newfound understanding. "I don't think I could."

"You could. If you would have seen it suffering you wouldn't have hesitated." She seems to think it over for longer then I thought she would have.

"Your right." She nods her head in confirmation as if she needed to believe she would have had the gal to take care of a situation like that.

Maybe it brings her a sense of comfort knowing that she still had it in her to make the tough decisions, but if I could help it she would never have to, again.

~.~.~.~.~.~

"We need to stop and get gas," I noted on the way home. The sun was just a shade before setting and despite May giving it her all today I could see how tired she was. If the truck wasn't sputtering I wouldn't have bothered pulling into the small convenient store on the wrong side of town.

"N-Not here, August!" She tenses up in the seat beside me and I eye her carefully. Her muscles were twisting together her eyes looking around rapidly, and her lungs expelling co2 faster than they could pull in oxygen.

"I don't have a choice unless we want to be stranded out here." She seems to think over the possibility and nods her head restlessly. Curiosity was an understatement, I was bubbling to understand why this part of town invoked such a response from the ordinarily well-put-together shadow.

Was this close to where her attack happened?

Just the thought of being here stirring up all of those haunting memories for her made me feel like a shit person for now being more responsible and filling up on the way to work instead of getting sidetracked.

I step out of my truck and to my surprise May gets out quickly eyeing all around her and making sure no one was near. I wish my being here was enough for her to feel safe but whatever memories she was currently reliving were too scary for her to see this situation like this. She has to know I would kill for her by now, has to know I would be killed for her...

Seeing her revert back to the May I met all those months ago was heartbreaking and I wished anything that we didn't have to be here. We could drive off and make it to the next store but I couldn't risk it.

"It's okay, I'm not going to let anything happen to you." I knew the words did little for her but I needed her to have some type of reassurance especially when she jumped at the sound of the bell above the door.

I walk straight up to the register, not wanting to waste any time in getting out of there and putting my little shadow at ease back at my apartment.

"Twenty on pump four." I go to hand the older Mexican man the cash and watch his brown eyes gaze at May with a look of recognition on his oldened face. He points to her and mutters something in a different language.

"She, hija del diablo, Martinez!" He looks at me with determination, he wanted me to know that I was running with the devil's daughter. I could see the panic and the worry he admitted with each word he spoke. It made my blood pump and had me throwing the money on the counter before turning around, grabbing ahold of a shell shook May, and taking off to the truck.

She was shaking like a leaf, shaking too bad to even open up her own door so I took it upon myself to get her settled back into her seat. I reached over her and buckled her up.

"Don't listen to him, May. Your father's sins are not your own." If anyone needed to hear those words it would be her, I knew what it felt like to be related to a monster, considering my father was nowhere near as ruthless as Daniel. God, it had been a long time since I had thought of his name but somehow he continues to haunt me without even being near.

"It's not that, August! You don't understand." She was growing more antsy and looking around us carefully. I closed her door and pumped the gas as quickly as possible for some reason her antsy behavior set me on edge, what was she so paranoid about?

Why was she looking at the houses surrounding this store waiting on people to burst through them?

By the time we had pulled back onto the road and away from the store, May wasn't the only one shaking. "What don't I understand?"

"My papa doesn't know I'm out." She whispers softly, looking in the rearview mirror. "Or at least he didn't." She sobs towards the end of it. "I should have just stayed in the truck, but I ... I just couldn't." She shakes her head as tears flow freely from her eyes. "Those are his streets, August. He'll know I'm out of the asylum by the end of the night, then he'll look for me."

Everything came into perspective, Danial wasn't the type of man to leave loose ends, as he told me once upon a time. He wouldn't just not pick up his own daughter, the ultimate loose-in. He was never listed as her contact. Daniel Martinez was more than likely illegal, considering he had gotten away with so many crimes in this small town, no way would have pulled that off if he had a paper history here. He doesn't like drawing attention to himself, an insane daughter in a place like this would get people talking.

"Listen, whatever happens you know I'm not going anywhere. I don't care what I have to do. I don't care if we have to go to war May, he's not getting you back if you don't want to go." I had to add the last part of that speech because once again I didn't know the degree of their relationship, whos to say she doesn't want to go back?

The way that she was still shaking in her seat made me think she feared him, feared her own father.

A man like that doesn't deserve her back.

"I don't want to go anywhere that you're not."

Her voice was as soft as an angel, reminding me again that she was my heaven and that I would do everything in my power to protect it. Build walls no man can climb, arm it with an arsenal Ares himself would be jealous of, and watch it with the eye of a hawk.

No one, not even the devil himself can rip my heaven away from me.

~.~.~.~.~

I really like this chapter<3 I hope you all did as well.