The Outliers (The Outskirts Duet #2)

All I saw was red. Bright blood red.

On the inside, I was a car skidding to a screeching halt on a wet road. On the outside, I was a fake soft smile and elevator music.

“Who did this to you?” Josh asked, gently. There was a lot of sympathy in her voice as she patiently waited for a banged up and bruised Bridget to answer the questions she’d asked several times already without a single muttered response. “We’re trying to help you.” Josh continued. She was in full cop mode, but her compassion for the woman in the hospital bed between us surprised me.

“Bridget, I told you. We can help you. We can protect you. Look at me. I’m here aren’t I? They are keeping me safe. They can keep you safe too,” I reassured her, placing my hand on her arm that wasn’t in a sling. Bridget stared at my hand as if I was burning her. I jerked it back and rubbed it like I was dousing the flame.

“Not for long,” she groaned, her one eye purple and swollen shut. She was banged up bad, and we had no idea how she’d gotten to be lying in the middle of the swamp but she’d live.

For now.

“Bridget, if you go back there,” I trailed off, knowing exactly what would happen. This was a warning for coming to me. She could have died. They wouldn’t have cared.

Monsters parading themselves around as Christians.

What if I could…” Josh started when two men entered the room. The first man I didn’t recognize at all, but he was wearing the church of god’s light pin on his shirt. The second one stayed behind the door in the shadow with his hat low on his head.

“Don’t answer anything,” the first man commanded, coming to stand at Bridget’s side. “This is my wife.”

“Funny,” Josh said, standing up to reveal her full police uniform. Her badge glinted under the fluorescent light. She scrunched her lips. “I didn’t hear a ‘thank, God you’re alright.’ I didn’t even hear a ‘I was worried sick.’ The only thing I did here was you proclaiming that she was your wife like you’re collecting your dog from the pound.” Josh pointed to Bridget’s eye. “This how you treat your dog, sir?”

“I’m in shock. That’s all,” the man said, picking up Bridget’s hand awkwardly like he’d never done it before. “How dare you accuse me of treating her like a dog.”

“No, I believe I indicated you treated her like less than a dog.”

“Can we talk later, officer,” the word dripped off his tongue in disdain. “I’d like a moment alone with my wife.”

“Only if it’s okay with our victim,” Josh said using the same stress on the word victim.

Bridget didn’t meet our eyes but nodded. “It’s okay. This is my husband.”

“Bridget, you don’t have to talk to them!” I cried as Josh moved toward the door. “We can stay. You don’t have to be alone with them. Never again.” Josh turned me around by my shoulders and guided me from the room, shutting the door behind us.

“We can’t leave her in there with them!” I shouted. “They’re monsters. Look what they did to her!”

“They ain’t gonna do shit with me standing out here.” She placed a hand on her belt. “I got a gun and shit. What are they gonna do. Fight me with some bullshit prayers? Sawyer, if they touch one hair on that girl’s head and I’ll go in their shooting like it’s the wild wild west up in here.” Her eyes were strong and serious.

“Thank you,” I said, grateful that I wasn’t the only one trying to protect her.

“But there is something you have to know,” Josh said, keeping her eyes trained on the door.

“What?” I asked.

She sighed and pointed to the window where Bridget’s husband was huddled over her bed. “That girl in there is gonna walk out of this hospital with them tonight.”

“No!” I shouted, feeling sick at the thought.

“What they did to her was a warning and she got the message loud and clear. Not even a blink or wink or shake of her hand to tell me otherwise.”

“No…!” I said, reaching for the handle. “My mother stayed with the man who tortured her. I’m not going to stand back and watch it happen again. I can’t I won’t!”

Josh pulled me back and set me down on the chair in the hallway. She crouched down so only I could hear here. “You need to realize they aren’t all as strong as you.”

The door opened and the familiar feeling of dread dripped down my spine as the men walked past me. I couldn’t bother looking up at them. I was too disgusted to give them that much. “We’ll be back,” Bridget’s husband said almost cheerily, like he was bragging. “To bring her home.”

When the bell chimed and the doors slid open, both men climbed inside. Before they slid shut again the other man spoke. The one who’d lingered in the shadows.

“Yes. We will be back. To bring them home.”





Chapter 14





Finn





I wish I could unsee the mangled girl lying between the reeds in the swamp. I wanted to wash Bridget’s image from my brain because it was all I could see except every time the image came to me it wasn’t Bridget I saw lying there bloodied and broken.

It was Sawyer.

The thought made me sick. I had to pull over twice on the way to Critter’s to purge the thought via the entire contents of my stomach. After heaving onto the road, I banged out my frustrations with my fists on my steering wheel. Screaming my rage out to absolutely no one.

Critter was out back of the bar puffing on his cigar and directing a liquor truck that was backing up to the door.

“A little early this morning?” I asked him as the driver of the truck hopped out and handed him a clipboard before sliding open the back door and pulling out the metal ramp.

“Is it? I hadn’t noticed,” Critter said.

“Maybe, if you got some sleep you would.”

“Too busy thinkin’ to sleep.” He said, taking a puff of his cigar.

I’d known the man my entire life. I used to steal sunflowers from the field around his house when I was still in diapers. Never once do I remember him appearing tired until that morning. I was too young when Sawyer’s mother left to remember how he handled it all although I’m sure he looked just as tired then.

“Anything you’d like to share with me?” I asked, hoping that maybe by talking I could ease his mind a bit.

Critter followed the drive ramp and inspected the shipment. He scribbled his signature on the paperwork, handing it back to the driver who tucked it away and started unloading. Critter, never one to sit idly by, grabbed a box and followed him into the bar, dropping it in the storage area next to the office. I followed and did the same. “Nothing you’d want to hear,” he grumbled.

“Try me,” I said.