Boondocks

Chapter 13: Bad Man

Realized I'd accidentally swapped chapters 10 & 11. It's fixed now. 😁 I apologize for any confusion. Hope you enjoy!

TEX

The scent hit me first; a punch to the gut far worse than any Reggie could deliver. Her sweet smell, tainted by fear. It was the same smell she'd had when I mentioned the suits, and I'd hated it then. Something that goddamn sweet shouldn't have shit surrounding it.

Now, I was that shit. Me. A bad man. A violent man. How much had she seen?

Reggie gave a hoarse laugh. "Fucked up your knight and shining armor act, did ya?"

I stepped over and kicked him hard in the side then stormed after her. If she left because of this, I'd have Reggie's balls. That dumb son of a bitch. He'd done it on purpose. Of course he had. They'd all been giving me shit since I showed up at camp, damn near swooning over a girl who'd shot me. Reggie just always took things too far. He wanted to fight. He liked watching others snap. Normally, he couldn't get the better of me. I was one of the few who didn't give a shit about Reggie or his opinions. But not this time. Not about her. Hell if I knew why. Her scent. Her skill. The way she blushed as if she'd been kept inside a bubble her whole life.

Girls like her didn't exist anymore. The government stole them. They took their families and broke their hearts, violated them until they were just like the rest of us. Harder, darker, burned. No amount of light could survive in this place. Not here, not anywhere, not since it all changed.

Fern was a rarity; a wildflower yet to be picked. I could tell she'd lost people, her folks, possibly more, but whatever strength had allowed her to survive for three years on her own had protected all the best parts of her, and I'd be damned if I let some asshole like Reggie—or any of them—even think about changing that.

I let her stay ahead of me, keeping to the trees until she reached her camp, then I stepped out and waited for her to acknowledge my presence. She didn't know I was there. She glanced in every direction but mine, then gripped her hair and heaved a sigh. Her gaze darted from the shelter to her pack and back again. She wanted to leave. No. She was deciding. She didn't want to leave. If she wanted to leave, she would have done it already. She wanted to stay. She was just scared. Of me. "Darlin'?"

She jumped and spun around, finally finding me between the trees. Her doe eyes widened, shiny with unshed tears, and the sight was enough to make me want to cry for her. For fuck's sake, maybe Reggie was right. Maybe I had gone soft, all in a day, all over one girl. As much as I admired her softness, it couldn't be mine. I couldn't be soft. Not even a little. If I let myself do that, I'd lose the men. If I lost the men, I lost the war. How many wars had been lost over a woman? I'd bet more than a few, and I'd bet all of them were just like her.

"I'm sorry if I scared you," I said. "I didn't mean for you to have to see that."

She nodded, eyes still wide and fixed on me. The fear in her scent magnified, and I'd have given my right arm to be able to read her mind. "That's normal," I said. "That's what we do. We talk shit; sometimes it leads to a fight. Reggie is fine. He knows he deserved it." My tension grew as each thing I said only seemed to make it worse. "Shit," I hissed between my teeth. "What I mean is—"

"You don't owe me an explanation," she said, that soft voice of hers even despite the panic I knew she felt. "What you do is your business. I'm fine. I just...I'm thinking it might be best if I stick to my camp. I'll still show you, like I said, and I'll patch that wound again." She motioned to the blood I hadn't even noticed running down my arm. "But, I don't..." She chewed her lip as if the words were hidden inside it, then something shifted. Some part of her solidified, and the fear in her scent didn't smell as strong. "I'm not going to put myself at risk to help you."

Good. God. She made my blood heat. All that bravery packed inside such a tiny, pretty package. If I were smart, I would have let Reggie have a go at her just to see him come back with an arrow in his ass. "I don't want you at risk." I stepped closer—slow, even steps that I prayed wouldn't spook her. "Please believe me, Darlin'. That's the last thing I want."

Her throat worked, and the fear returned.

I stopped and took a deep breath through my nose. "Your safety is what started it. You're a single woman in a camp full of men who don't get to see too many single women."

She stiffened, and I wanted to take it back. I wanted to lie and say it wasn't true, that all the men were eunuchs and uninterested. Better yet, I could go back to camp and make them all eunuchs, then come back and tell her a better truth.

"Is that why you burned him? Because he wanted to—" Her words broke apart as the pink bloomed in her cheeks.

Fucking Reggie. I was going to kick his damned ass. "I burned him because, if I hadn't done something, him and every other man there would have viewed it as weakness. They wouldn't have taken my warnings seriously, and while I wish you hadn't seen it, that's just how it is. That's..." Fuck, why was this so hard? Because I wanted to pretend. I wanted to go back to the day before when she wasn't looking at me like I deserved to be looked at. I wasn't sweet. I wasn't innocent. Hell, I wasn't much better than Reggie. The truth was, I was selfish. The rules I'd set upon the men weren't all about keeping her pure. They were about keeping her to myself. "That's the only language they understand, and they only follow me because I'm the most fluent."

I stepped close enough I had to look down at her. I needed her to hear me, to believe me, because I wasn't sure I'd be able to warn her again. "I'm not a gentle man, Fern. I won't pretend like I am, but I wouldn't hurt you. Just leave the men to me. They won't give you any trouble."

Her blue-green eyes peeked up at me through thick lashes, and the fear I'd expected didn't come. Instead, a wave of that smell, that sweet scent of hers, interested, curious, wafted up to my nose like an aphrodisiac. I shoved my hands in my jacket pockets to keep from reaching for her. She was too good for me, and if I was any kind of man at all, I'd tell her to go. Run away. Run as fast as you can before I become the person you hate the most.

"I'm sorry I ran." She stepped back and walked over to take a seat beside the dwindled fire. "I suppose it's a bit silly. I guess I was just...shocked. I've never seen men fight like that. My daddy never fought anyone, not even when—" She paused as if she'd stop talking, then looked at me and continued. "Not even when the officials came." She grabbed a stick and poked at the embers.

I stepped over and sat across from her, silently pleading that she'd continue. For some reason, her sad story meant more than the others. I wanted to know hers, inside and out, frontwards and backwards. I wanted to understand every facet of what led her here. I wanted to figure out what made her stay the way she was. But she didn't continue, and I didn't have the heart to try and make her. So, instead, I matched her offer. A detail for a detail. A chapter for a chapter. "My father led these men before I did." I never talked about him, and neither did anyone else, not around me. It was off limits, an unspoken rule. The men knew if they brought him up it would flip the same kind of switch that caused me to burn Reggie's face.

For some reason, telling Fern felt different. The memory didn't surface the way it usually did. She held my attention too tightly for it to venture off someplace so much less appealing. "The government killed him."

Killing was an understatement. They'd made an example of him. They'd humiliated him. Desecrated his legacy and all the respect he'd earned in his sixty-four years of life. To know what happened to my father was to know me. I'd been narrowed down to that day. I was that day. Everything I did, every decision, every plan, every step in building this army was all to undo that day. To make it right. To give him back what they took from him.

Fern reached forward and took my hand. "I'm sorry." Honesty. Genuine concern. For me. It wasn't an empty statement meant to fill the silence. She meant what she said, and I wanted to keep her. Put her in my pocket and pull her out whenever I felt the world couldn't be saved.