Tanner's War (4 page)

He was dimly aware of
Tamsin whispering in his ear, her tongue flicking around his neck, but it was
irritating instead of arousing. He shifted in his seat, just enough to break
the contact, and Tamsin moved back, pouting.

"You can just say
you're not interested," she said, reaching for one of the shot glasses
Roxy had brought over. "I'm not a bunny-boiler."

"Are you okay,
Alex?" Roxy asked, looking up from her conversation with Judge. Her dark
eyes glowed with genuine concern. That was Roxy. She had the biggest heart of
anyone he'd ever met.

"He met a
girl," Judge said, kissing Roxy's hair. "Got himself all tied up
about her."

Roxy and Tamsin let out
identical squeals of delight. "Alex! Are you in love?" Roxy teased.

"Where is she? Who
is she?" Tamsin put a little distance between them, her manner changing
immediately from 'girl on the prowl' to 'girl ready to offer relationship
advice.'

"It's not like
that." Tanner glared at Judge, who shrugged and took another shot of
tequila. "I figured you'd be more sympathetic."

"If the girl's
come from a bad place, I got all the sympathy in the world," Judge said.
"But it doesn't sound like you know her story. Until you do, don't go
throwing punches, that's
all I'm saying."

Tanner sighed and
slumped in his seat, feeling defeated. Tamsin patted his knee, in sympathy this
time, and offered him a shot of tequila. He took it gladly.

Chapter Five

Beth awoke
disorientated and panicked, and it took her a second to remember where she
was—and more importantly, where she wasn’t. She sat up, kicking off the sheets
that now felt too heavy and restricting, and inhaled slowly. She wasn’t at the
Church. She wasn’t in the dilapidated house she shared with her family. Better
than that, she wasn’t in Abram’s house, Abram’s bed.

She was free.
Sort
of.

It was dark outside and the storm
had passed. Beth padded to the window and threw it open, breathing in the
scents of wet grass and clean air. The world stretched out before her, shadowed
but within her grasp. That was a new experience. “So what now?” she whispered
into the night.

There was no answer, of course. She
wondered if she should pray, but her prayers had never been answered before, so
why start
now?
Everything she’d achieved in life—which
wasn’t much at all—she’d achieved through her own efforts. She wasn’t really
sure whether she even believed in God, and she was almost certain she didn’t
believe in the vengeful, cruel God that Abram preached about.
Fire and brimstone, blood and venom, sacrificed children … Who
would serve such a God willingly, lovingly?
Who would turn to Him for
help?

So she didn’t pray for guidance,
but she did hope for clarity.
Direction.
It would
come, if she looked for it, she was sure. It only took a moment to change
things. Wasn’t the very fact that she was here proof of that?

She closed the window and went to
find the shower. Most of the noise she’d heard earlier, the pounding music and
muffled cries of pleasure, were dimmed now. She showered and went back to her
room without seeing anyone, which was a relief. After Rattler, she wasn’t sure
she wanted to meet anyone else, no matter what Tanner said. Something about him
had reminded her of Nathaniel and Abram.
Some cruelness, some
arrogance.
She guessed she couldn’t avoid the other people here forever,
but just a little longer would be nice.

She put on the clothes Tanner had left
her, made the bed, and then wondered what to do next. Go find Tanner? Would he
still be here? The thought that he’d left her alone was a little unsettling,
but it didn’t last long. The way he’d behaved with her, right up until the
moment he’d kissed her hair and told her to sleep well, had been nothing less
than caring. She didn’t think he’d abandon her in a strange place without
saying goodbye. Her only lingering concern, that he was an ex-convict, she
pushed to the back of her mind. She shouldn’t judge, and he hadn’t hurt her.

After a few moments of silent
contemplation, she realized how hungry and thirsty she was. They’d never gotten
those burgers at the diner, after all. She decided it was probably late enough
that she could sneak down to the kitchen without running into anyone else, and
left her room.

As she stepped into the hall,
another door further down swung open. A woman ran out into the hallway,
squealing with laughter and clutching a bed sheet to her naked body. A man ran
after her, snatching at the sheet. He tripped, she grabbed him for support, and
they both went down in a flurry of shrieks and giggles, rolling around as if
Beth didn’t exist. She saw flashes of flesh, plump breasts, strong thighs, and
felt her face flame.

“Oh Lord.” She turned quickly and
hurried for the stairs.

“Come join us if you want!” the man
called cheerfully. “The more the merrier.”

“Wolf! You finish with me before
you start on anyone else!” the woman cried, mock-outraged.

Feeling like her head was going to
explode, Beth all but ran down the stairs. A rich mix of embarrassment and
curiosity filled her. They’d been having fun—sex wasn’t about fun. It was for
procreation and duty, or so she’d been taught. She’d never liked that thought
but even her mother, who had five daughters, had never talked about sex as
anything other than a chore women had to perform. Beth had asked her once if
she ever found any joy in her chore, and her mother had simply smiled sadly and
changed the subject. It was a memory that had always sat uneasily with Beth.
Sex came with marriage and she thought marriage ought to mean love, or at least
affection. The idea that you’d get neither was depressing.

The kitchen was blessedly empty and
she rummaged around until she found a clean glass. Food seemed in short supply,
but she wasn’t entirely comfortable with helping herself to the bits and pieces
in the fridge anyway, not without asking someone. She was painfully hungry now
though. Her last meal seemed a lifetime ago. Everything that had happened before
Tanner almost ran into her seemed a lifetime ago.

She sat at the table and sipped her
water, and probably would have just gone back to her room if someone else
hadn’t come in. Beth started at the sight of the other woman, mostly because
they were dressed very similarly in worn jeans and a plain button-down shirt.
Was this Roxy? Tanner had mentioned getting clothes off her. The woman had been
heading for the fridge, but she stopped dead to look Beth over, her face
breaking into a wide, knowing grin as she did.

“I guess you’re Beth, right?”

“Yes, sorry,” Beth stuttered,
leaping up and sloshing water all over
herself
. It was
her destiny to end up soaked in other people’s clothes, it seemed. Feeling
stupid, she stared at the floor, hoping it might swallow her. “Sorry,” she
heard herself saying again.

“Relax.” The other woman’s voice
was gentle, making Beth raise her head again. “I’m Roxy and I promise I don’t
bite.”

Something about her reminded Beth
of Mia, and she managed to smile back. “Hi.” It was all she could manage to
say, and she felt pathetic for it.

“I bet you’re starving. Tanner told
us what happened in the diner. Why don’t you come through to the bar? We just
ordered pizza.” Roxy took Beth’s glass from her and slipped her arm through
Beth’s, tugging her out of the kitchen. She didn’t give Beth a chance to say
no, which was probably just as well, given how thick her tongue felt in her
mouth.

The bar was a cacophony of music
and chatter, and for a second Beth wanted to bolt. There were men lounging on
sofas and playing pool, women dancing with each other and grinding against some
of the men. The smell of beer hung thick in the air, along with something musty
and dank she didn’t recognize. The lights were low, the music was aggressive.
There was a heavy sense of carnality in the room, and Beth had a feeling Abram
would expire of outrage on the spot if he could see it.

The thought gave her courage and
she let Roxy guide her to a table in the corner. She could see Tanner, or
rather the back of him—his unkempt dark hair was unmistakable. He’d stripped
off his leather jacket to reveal a T-shirt and a leather vest underneath, and
she could see tattoos snaking all around his big arms. An older black man sat
with him, dressed similarly, his vest decorated with patches. His thick, bushy
beard put her in mind of a Viking, but there was a kindness in his face that
she liked instinctively. The third person at their table was a black woman with
thick, glossy hair that Beth envied immediately. She was laughing wildly at something
Tanner had said, slapping his arm in an easy, affectionate way that Beth envied
even more.

Roxy all but
pushed Beth down onto the stool next to Tanner’s.
“Look who I found hiding in the kitchen! Beth,
this is my old man, Judge, and this is Tamsin.”

Tanner turned to smile at her, his
entire face lighting up, and if the other two spoke, Beth didn’t notice. She
smiled back, warmth threading through her. In the dim lights he looked
enigmatic, a little dangerous, but for that beautiful smile. She wondered how
she looked to him, dressed in someone else’s clothes. Not that the ones she’d
been wearing when he found her were any better.
Much worse,
in fact.

“You okay?” he asked her. “Sleep
well?”

She had to lean in to hear him over
the music and he slid his arm round her shoulder as she did. It was a
protective gesture that both soothed and stirred her. "I'm fine," she
assured him.
"Just hungry."

"Well, take the edge off while
we wait for pizza." Tamsin pushed a beer towards Beth.

Beth hesitated, then thought of how
furious Abram would be and accepted. She sipped her beer while the others
chugged theirs, savoring the taste. Even so, by the time the pizza showed up,
she was a little lightheaded, just enough that the room felt hot and her body
felt fuzzy at the edges. It was a nice feeling, she decided, leaning closer in
to Tanner. He still had his arm around her, his touch creating a simmering
tension in her belly that she didn't have a name for. But that was nice too.
She tried to keep track of the bubbling conversation around her, but compared
to the heat of his body against hers, their talk didn't seem to matter.

"When we're done eating, we
should talk," Tanner said to her as she reached for a slice. Her stomach
lurched a little, and she became aware of the group's eyes on her.

"Of course," she said,
not really sure what she was agreeing to.

Roxy reached over from her seat on
Judge's lap and squeezed Beth's knee. "Don't look so scared, honey."

"Long as you're here, you're
safe," Judge added. Tanner gave him a sharp look that Beth didn't
understand, but the older man smiled at her, leaving her in no doubt he meant
what he said.

Still, she could only manage a
couple of slices before she felt sick, and worry over what Tanner wanted to say
erased both her appetite and the light buzz she'd got from the beer. She eased
out from under his arm and stood up. Tanner jumped up immediately, knocking his
stool over and earning a burst of laughter from Tamsin.

"Let's go somewhere
private," Tanner said to Beth, turning his glare briefly on Tamsin. She
didn't seem to care anymore than Judge had.

He took her out the front door,
where they stood under a porch sheltered from the wind, and stared out at the
rows of bikes and trucks together in silence for a few minutes. There was a touch
of awkwardness between them that she hadn't felt inside. Well, there was really
only one thing she could imagine he wanted to talk about, so she decided to
break the silence.

"You want to know what I'm
doing, don't you? What I'm running from?" She hugged herself, both against
the cold and the anxiety filling her.

He glanced down at her, expression
soft. His scowls may not have affected his friends, but his tenderness
definitely affected Beth. She wanted to throw herself into his arms, hide away
from the world there. "I've got an idea," he said, "but yeah, it
would be good to hear it from you."

She swallowed hard.
"Okay." She couldn't look at him as she talked. It was much easier to
stare into the darkness and let the words spill out. The sense that she shouldn't
bad-mouth the Church was just so hard to shake off—if she didn't look at him,
she could at least pretend she was just ... talking to herself.
Thinking out loud.

She could do this. She could.

Chapter Six

Beth's parents had joined the
Church of the Serpentine Cross six months before Beth was born. Her father had
left a year later. She didn't remember him, but her mother always described him
in such virulent terms that Beth couldn't help but think that was a good thing.
The Church had arranged a marriage for her mother with a good man, Samuel, and
they'd had four children together. That was Beth's family. It wasn't an overly
affectionate family, but there was a quiet love between them all.

But that wasn't where the family
ended. There was the Family, the Church itself.
The little
community that followed Abram and his teachings.
Abram, a wild, bony
figure who'd always reminded young Beth of a scarecrow.
Abram,
who plucked writhing snakes from wicker baskets every Sunday and shook them
over his head while he talked of sin and transgression, of God and punishment.
Abram, who came round the run-down houses of his congregation to whisper of the
evils of the outside world, the sanctuary of the
Church.
You are safe here
, he'd tell Beth and her sisters.
Safe
from wicked men and the corruption of the modern world.
God will
scourge them from the earth, but you will be safe.

He was mesmerizing, with his snakes
and his visions of a doomed world.
Terrifying.
His
wife, Mary, was forever pregnant, a wan, gaunt figure silently pumping out
babies. Sometimes her thin face or neck would display ugly bruises, but
whenever Beth asked her mother why, she would be shushed and told to mind her
business. Good girls held their tongues. Good girls obeyed.

Life in the Church was one of
constant work. Work to maintain their little house, which leaked in the winter,
where the hot water was never quite hot enough, and where the stairs creaked
dangerously when you ran up them. Work to watch over her younger sisters. Work
to memorize the right parts of the Bible and Abram's teachings. There was a
school for the children, but Beth had no idea if what she was learning was true
or not. They were expected to take everything on faith, and faith was something
she struggled with.

She wasn't sure she could have
faith in a God who apparently wanted so many of His children dead. She wasn't
sure she could trust a God who would pick Abram as His voice. Where was the
compassion and forgiveness in what Abram taught? Where was the kindness in a
God who told his prophets to take venomous snakes to their breasts?

When Beth was fifteen, Abram told
her mother and Sam that she was ready for marriage. In a rare act of defiance,
Beth's mother insisted she was too
young,
and still
needed at home. Her siblings ranged in age from two to ten, and Beth's mother
couldn't care for them all alone. Sam, of course, did little to help, because
raising children was women's work. Abram dropped the matter, but afterwards
Beth was always aware of him watching her, and she felt there was something
poisonous in his eyes.

When she was twenty, Mary died. It
wasn't really a surprise to the community. She'd had thirteen children, and
each one seemed to leave her more and more frail. Abram made a show of
mourning, but it rang false to Beth. She watched him every Sunday, sweeping his
gaze over the women of the Church and she wondered who he'd pick as his new
bride.

A few weeks before Beth’s
twenty-second birthday, Abram came over for dinner. This was a huge event,
verging on terrifying, and Beth’s mother bewailed the state of the house,
forgetting that it was Abram who kept them from repairing the cracked window
frames or the dying boiler in the first place. Beth’s gut churned the whole day
as she pictured Mary’s black eyes and wasted body. She couldn’t eat the meal
her mother served. She pushed the meat and vegetables around her plate
nervously while Abram talked of duty and honor, and her parents nodded
solemnly.

Afterwards, her parents and Abram
retreated into the front room, leaving Beth and her sisters to clean up. Beth
felt dizzy and faint, barely able to concentrate on her chores. A grim sense of
foreboding fell over her like a shroud. Once Abram left, her parents delivered
the news. She was to be married. Her oldest sister, Hannah, could take over
helping with the youngsters and the household management. Beth was to become
Abram’s new bride.

She’d known it was coming, but
their words were still like ax blows, blunt and brutal. She barely managed to
get outside before she threw up.

“It won’t be until after your
birthday,” Sam said, as if that made it any better. Beth punched her pillow
that night, then cried into it, unable to shake cold visions of the future
where Abram kept her pregnant and beaten until she was dead too.

The day after her birthday, Abram
cornered her alone in the kitchen. Her sisters were at a Bible study class, her
parents were working. She realized later it had probably all been
pre-arranged—how often was she ever alone? She’d been sat at the table, trying
to mend a shirt that really needed to be thrown away, when he appeared in the
doorway, his shadow falling across her.

“I thought it would be prudent for
us to talk before the wedding,” he said.

Beth swallowed the bile that rose
in her throat, keeping her eyes fixed on the shirt. “Oh?” Her voice trembled.
She hated herself for it, but she simply couldn’t overcome it.

She felt him move closer. “You
shouldn’t be afraid to look at me, Bethany. I’ll be your husband soon.”

When she still didn’t look up, he
knotted his fingers in her hair and yanked her head up. She gasped in pain,
eyes watering. Abram smiled.

“You’ll quickly learn I’m an
impatient man,” he told her. “But you’re a good, obedient girl, or so your
mother assures me, so I’m sure we won’t have any problems once we’re man and
wife, will we? Stand up, please.”

He released her hair and Beth
stood, chewing her lip to keep herself from crying. He pulled her into the
middle of the kitchen and paced around her, like she was a horse he was
assessing for purchase. She gasped again when he ripped her shirt open,
exposing the dirty white bra underneath. He grabbed her by the hips, squeezing
and tutting critically.
“Narrow hips.
Mary had good,
strong hips.”

“Sorry,” she heard herself saying
distantly, as if she was watching herself on TV. His touch repulsed her, but
she couldn’t pull away.

He groped her breasts, flexing his
fingers hard into her flesh, as if he was trying to bruise her. “You’re young,
at least. And your mother is obviously fertile, so let’s hope you inherited
that.” He sounded vaguely disappointed in her, and Beth wondered what he’d
expected. He’d known her for her entire life—it wasn’t as if she’d been hiding
childbearing hips and bountiful breasts away somewhere. He could have picked
any woman in the Church.
He
had
forced himself on
her
, not the other
way round.

He tilted her chin so she was
forced to look at him, one hand still mindlessly roaming over her left breast.
His touch was passionless, automatic. It made Beth feel infinitely worse.
“Given my position within the Church, Bethany, it would not be improper for us
to consummate our relationship before the actual marriage. God has chosen you
as my bride—we are already wedded in heart and spirit.”

Horror cut through Beth and it must
have shown on her face. Abram frowned and pinched her breast, making her wince.
“’Wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord,’” he intoned.
“’For the husband is the head of the wife.’
Do you
understand, Bethany?” A slow, menacing anger filled his voice and darkened his
face.

She tried to answer but her throat
was too dry. Her skin crawled and she could almost feel herself shrinking under
his glare and his touch. This would be her life, night after night, growing
weaker and smaller under Abram’s dominion. Something inside her revolted.
“Please,” she managed to say, keeping her eyes down, “please, can we wait? I
want … I want to go to my marriage bed pure and humble before the Lord. This …”
She waved her hand around the dingy kitchen, “this isn’t where we should …” She
couldn’t quite spit out the word
consummate
,
but something in her tone made Abram back off. He released her with one last,
slow caress of her breast. She hugged herself, hiding her breasts from him.

“You are a modest girl. You will
make a good wife, a good example to the women of the Church.” He
nodded,
an oily smile on his face. She wondered if it had
been some kind of test. If she’d submitted and let him have sex with her, would
he have called her a whore and cast her out?

It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter.
He was leaving, nodding politely to her as if he hadn’t just assaulted her.
Beth didn’t dare breathe until he’d shut the front door and she knew he was
really gone. Then, only then, did she cry. A bitter mix of fury and grief
filled her, and she saw her life stretching out into dismal daily abuse at
Abram’s hands. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t.

She stared around the kitchen. The
windows were clean but the frames were warped and rotting. The plates in the
sink were chipped and the tiles underfoot were scuffed and cracked. The house
was always cold, no matter what time of year it was. The clothes she wore had
been her mother’s, and her own clothes would be handed down to Hannah
eventually. Her mother and Sam always insisted happiness didn’t come from
material possessions, but from the joy of the spirit. But Beth didn’t have
either, so how was she supposed to know?

She couldn’t stay. She couldn’t be
his wife.

Once the idea was in her head, she
couldn’t get rid of it. It hung there like poisonous fruit, sweetly tempting
and sickening at the same time. Where would she go? Could she really leave her
sisters behind? What would she
do
?
She had no skills, no formal education … Nothing.

She sat down, realizing she was
shaking.

There was no other choice. She
would run. She had to.