Take Me Instead

The Long Black Train pt. 1

A/N: Friendly reminder that some of the timelines of the show have to be adjusted to make sense for Marley's story. I am not re-ordering events, but merely stretching out the length of time between happenings. Enjoy!

Chapter 9: The Long Black Train

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For the next few days, I barely saw a soul apart from Gator, who brought me grilled cheese and the occasional glass of Coke with lemon. With each new day, I moped around the cabin, sheltered under blankets, or wallowed in a swamp of self-pity in the bathtub.

Not even Daddy, nor Jamie for that matter, came to check on me.

Figures, I grumbled and sipped my Coke that was leftover from lunch. You truly are just the family pet around here, I reminded myself.

Why hadn't I left by now? As much as I loathed Beth, she had a point that wouldn't stop nagging in the back of my pounding head. If I wasn't responsible for anything on the ranch—I wasn't a wrangler, could barely even call myself part of the family business—why did I stay? But I supposed that every lost puppy would stay put when it found food or shelter, regardless if it felt a sense of purpose.

Everyone in our family had a purpose, even Mom. She was the brick and mortar to Daddy's foundation. Lee was the leader, Jamie was the defender, Kayce was the prodigy, and Beth was the mastermind. And then there was me; no skills or talents to speak of, hardly able to call herself a Dutton without people smirking with skepticism.

I picked at the stitches that hadn't fully dissolved from my fist as I mulled it over. The only damn thing I was good at was being in a room full of people trying to get my father's attention and not being seen. I flicked some of the black thread onto the floor. I suppose I was also phenomenal at oral—so talented that I hadn't gagged since I was fifteen. I'm sure that would be an eye-catcher on a resume.

Then there was always my skill of winding up in situations where I didn't belong, such as running into Rip after he fucked my sister, or getting fucked by a bastard like Fred. And while I was positive that those were impressive enough, they hardly compared to how my abilities soared when feebly fanning the embers of my relationship with Toby.

The skin on the back of my hand was pink and patchy where the glass shards had dug in, but it hardly hurt anymore. It took a lot more than glass grinding against bone and nerves to hurt me nowadays. Whenever I could coax myself to sleep, I was tormented with fragments of dark and twisted memories that usually resulted in my body jolting off the pillows as I gasped awake. Sometimes, Lee would die in front of me, unable to help him. Other times it was Mom. Once in a while, I could hear Fred's grunts over my shoulder or feel Caleb's hands on my hips. Other times I would be tortured by Toby's eyes piercing my soul, or with Rip's condescending words that cut me like a knife.

My inner crisis reached a point that I couldn't sleep in past dawn, no matter how hard I tried or how many pills I took. My eyes would flutter awake on cue with the pink light that decorated the mountains in the distance. The first few times it happened, I would lay there in Lee's bed, watching the ceiling as the light turned from pink to golden and made its way down the wall. Though I knew I needed to get up, it was like the weight of all the things I was thinking held me down. As if bags of sand were draped across my chest, making it hard to breathe or even think without feeling pain.

One evening I sat in the bathtub quietly with my thoughts, just as I had every moment since I became secluded. My arms wrapped around my legs as the lukewarm water pruned my fingers and toes. As I stared at the beige tile along the wall, I thought about something I hadn't allowed myself to think before: what would Lee say to you right now?