Abandonment

{Nineteen} Part I

 "I don't know why I'm so surprised you left me—again!" a shrill voice screeched. "Some husband I married, I tell you."

"Would you please—keep your voice down!!!!" Johnse roared. "There are kids tryin' ta sleep here!"

"The hell with that! I'm tryin' ta talk to you! How dare you leave yer wife behind! Oh I bet y'all thought I wasn't smart 'nuff ta find yer lil hideaway! Can't escape me that easily, Johnse Hatfield."

"It all happened so fast, Nance!" Johnse defended. "They wouldn't'a hurt ya."

"Nope—they'd rather keep her alive to have her followed," Cap said with a steely gaze on Nancy.

It wasn't until he'd spoken up that I'd finally caught up to him. While he didn't care how rumpled he appeared, I had to take just a little bit more time in getting dressed.

So this was the infamous Nancy McCoy Hatfield.

I looked her over suspiciously. It wasn't that she was homely or anything, but damn Roseanna was just far more striking than her cousin. Her hair was a dingy brown kept in a wild braid, her eyes round and almost too blue. It gave me the impression of a crazy blue eyed horse. She was smaller than I'd expected too. A skinny little thing and probably a couple of inches shorter than I was. But you could see in those wild eyes she had an attitude. I'd only been looking at her for a hot minute, but I already could tell she was exhausting.

She whipped her head around to fix Cap a glare. "Ya think I'm fuckin' stupid?!"

He raised his brow as if to ask, 'do you really want me to answer that.'

She huffed, throwing her braid over her shoulder. Somehow her eyes found mine and I stilled immediately with the intensity she shot towards me. "So," she scoffed, pulling back her full top lip in a sneer that revealed rather large teeth, "this must be the lil whore I been hearin' so much 'bout. Heard ya got my kin killed!"

Before Cap even dared to defend me, I straightened and corrected, "Actually I killed one myself."

Her eyes widened and she gasped audibly. "You—bitch!"

Johnse caught her by the wrist she already had raised as she began marching towards me.

"Let her go, Johnse," I said. "See how close she can get to me. I dare you, little girl."

Her jaw dropped and she started sputtering a wretchedly high pitched noise. "Johnse! Are you gonna let her talk ta your wife like that!"

Johnse shrugged, clearly fighting a grin. "You started it."

"Ugh! You dirty bitch!" She screamed a few other obscenities at me before finally, "I'm glad my uncle hired that Frank Phillips! I hope he guts you all! I can't believe you'd let this horrible creature into our lives! She's tearin' this family apart! She killed one of my cousins! An ya just let her stay here? No justice! Frank Phillips will bring ya all justice!"

"Actually, Nancy, she wasn't the only one to kill ya yellowbelly cousins," Cap said in a low, gravelly voice.

Her eyes went absolutely wild. "Oh I know all bout you beatin' Jr to death like a goddamn animal! An then shootin' poor ole Pharmer!" She looked at me again. "Or was that you?"

"Oh no, I got the pleasure of blowing out Tolbert's disgusting little brains. Not much was actually in there, though. Shocker."

I liked how we were all dodging the fact that it was Johnse who'd shot and killed Pharmer. I didn't want to out him necessarily, but I wasn't going to let Cap take the fall again either. If it was suggested otherwise even one more time, I was going to speak up. It wasn't like it was going to damage Johnse's marriage that much more...