Page 42 of Miserable Marionette

Kiddo.

He's called me that since Dad died, always checking in and lingering year after year. Like he’d hoped he could take me in, like he’d meant to make me one of his own, but the connection never quite formed. Good intentions be dammed, all it did was deepen the wound, watching his face age. Wondering why the universe didn’t think my dad’s face deserved to. Wondering if they’d still go out for coffee on their days off if he were here, if Dad would’ve been one of the officers called down the street to help.

Finally gathering myself, I manage to muster up a voice, even if it is quiet and small. “What’s going on? You found somebody?”

“Audrey, you know I can’t—"

“Officer Braylon, if you don’t tell me, I’m just going to be anxious all day and find out later anyhow.” I cut him off. “Lenard’s would tell me, is he over there? I can call him at the station—"

His face pitches into a deeper frown, his finger jutting out to point wildly. “Lenard’s is a foul-mouthed idiot, and you stay away from him.”

I almost crack a smile. It’s something Dad would’ve said, something they bonded over is their shared dislike of the cocksure younger man.

Gideon stiffens further at my side, his eyes glued to the officer currently gearing up to tell me exactly what we both know he shouldn’t.

There are no secrets in a town like ours.

None.

At least he knows when someone inevitably catches wind from someone else, who tells their mom, who tells her sister, who tells their cousin’s husband, that the leaked information won’t have originated from me.

“Squirrel hunters found a body this morning.”

The slight smile that had snuck onto my face vanishes, my heart dropping to my feet as I try to move away from Gideon.

His grip tightens, his fingers pinching the skin on my side in warning. I nearly wince as I open my mouth only to be pinched harder and shut it again. The response is familiar, automatic, ingrained so damn deep to give Gideon what he wants.

“Did you ID them yet?” Gideon asks, his voice the perfect example of neutrality despite the fact that he’s currently bruising me.

I don’t miss the hardened look in Officer Braylon’s eyes as he meets the wire-rimmed ones above me. It’s nothing new, the same way most everyone has always looked at Gideon. I don’t know why it only adds to the growing imbalance in my chest. “We were fixing to send someone down to get you. Looks to be accident—"

“Who is it?” I cut him off, my palms getting sweaty despite the chill.

“Kiddo—“ he starts.

“It’s a local, though. If you need Gideon’s help, it’s a local, right? So who—"

“Gideon, take her home,” he orders, but Gideon doesn’t move, not yet. Not on his command, at least.

Gideon’s velvet voice soothes my nerves. He’s still holding me, so tight it aches. “I’ll find out more and meet you back at the house, okay?”

At the house.

The house.

Not mine, not his… the.

Officer Braylon reaches out, patting me on the head like I’m a child, uncaring when his fingers brush Gideon’s chest in the process. “It’ll be okay. Hang in there.”

His words are meant to be comforting. But all they tell me is soon, I, in fact, will not be okay.

I let Gideon lead me back to my house, my thoughts blurred and mushy, my heart still pounding. I sit numbly on the porch swing, huddled under the blankets he brought outside since I refused to go in. My eyes on the unfolding chaos as if somehow, I’ll see a sign of the body in the woods, like somehow in all the moving parts I’ll know. My pulse is deafening in my own head, stomach twisting in rough knots.

I barely react as he leans in, pressing a kiss to the top of my head, although my heart jumps in my chest. That, alongside the adrenaline-fueled anxiety keeping it at a full gallop, I worry it’ll stop altogether. “I’ll be right back.” His words are nearly a whisper. Despite opening my mouth to say… something, anything. I just close it again.

Despite myself, I inhale him as he passes, heading down the steps. Watching his lean, muscular frame eat up the space far quicker than it did when I was with him. Regardless of all the past feelings and messiness of our current situation, I can’t think of anyone more equipped to be at my side. Gideon knows me; it’s clear that’s never changed. He knows that even if the answer is shattering, the waiting will shatter me too, worse even. Already, I can feel last night’s dinner roiling in my gut as I picture everyone from our small town that I love, the people I care about, lying in the woods. Strung up by the neck like Uncle Rodney. Pale, stiff, lifeless, and off-kilter like Dad. Bruised and naked like Mrs. Bell.

He’s over there for so long, led back deep into the woods, past the yellow tape, and out of sight. Untucking my arms from the blankets, I lift the hem of my hoodie, prodding at the discolored flesh at my side where he’d gripped me… pinched me. He’d done that when we were kids too, but never that hard… never hard enough to bruise. Before it was when he was jealous, when I spoke to someone else or about someone else for too long, and he got tired of hearing it. When my attention had strayed from him longer than he deemed appropriate. I numbly settle the hoodie back in place, planting my now bare feet on the cold porch, stopping the swing from moving.