The Hot Brothers Ch. 18

I'm in the mood to write something silly, so here's more of this story. no sex here, just country shenanigans. Also, this is fiction. Don't read and assume all churches in rural US are red-cap, gun cults. The Heir ending is being rewritten and hopefully up soon.

The moment felt undoubtedly perfect. Caleb gorgeously breathless beneath me, a perfectly laid out picnic to enjoy, and...I needed to leave. This wasn't perfect. Well, it was if not for John's inevitable arrival. The trees weren't too far, and the church could easily be reached. Not that I had any desire to be there, either. This was the sort of rural area where there were likely cannibals sprinkled in the pews. And, given it was an election year, there were probably rallies with guns and warnings of the end times. No, that was no escape either.

"What are you thinking, Little Red?" Caleb asked, glancing toward the treeline. Oh how he knew to tease me. Just the thought of the game to come had my heart fluttering.

He toyed with the frills of the skirt while biting his lower lip with wolfish amusement. "There might be big bad wolves in there."

"You're right here."

"I think I'd prefer wolves to the sorts of things that call this area home." He stretched back to pillow the back of his head with his hands.

He had a point. if not for John, I'd agree. But John was his own sort of beast who happened to be worse than the worst of what lingered in the hills. The sadistic kind of man that delighted upon cruelty. Sexy though he may have been, it wouldn't keep me around. Even the church began to seem like salvation in a twisted sort of way.

A hardly audible drumming came from the forest. It was both intriguing and concerning. Exciting while unnerving. "What's the matter, Red?" Caleb didn't mind the beat within the forest at all.

Now I hadn't a clue if the forest held more promise than the church.

"I believe I left something behind in the bus." Caleb nudged me off his lap.

I knew the opportunity he provided. The game he wanted to play. The next low beat that rang out reminded me of my plan. My goal. After all, all heroines have their goal. they can't back down. Well, I supposed some could. But what kind of story would that prove to be?

I feigned reluctance to part from Caleb. As he stood, he acted as though this would be a simple stroll through the blooms.

But what game might I play and how much of a head start? Were it a book, this moment would be when I furiously waited and hoped the heroine wouldn't leave. And, strangely, even now, I had my second guesses. The handsome man now several yards away proved to be precisely what I wanted in life. A man who loved to play as much as me.

But then there was John. To have one brother required the other. Not a why choose, but a captive and her master with the nice brother to sneak visits.

I stood. This time I knew I had my chance at escape--and not just a pretend run and being caught. Freedom to return to my blissful world of books and fantasies. Of pleasure without the pain. Just the way I wanted things to be. The fantasy that would play out under my control.

I stood, delighted in myself for steadily reaching for what I wanted.

The thud of a beat, low and menacing came again, though. Like the beat of the forest's heart. A fantastical world, perhaps? A hunt that was about to begin--

I needed to clear my mind of absurd wishes. I could return to this idea once home and safe.

With all the courage I could muster, I ran toward the forest. And as though it knew I requested entry, a stronger beat arose. One that made the rich sunset take on a new form as it called forth the evening. Perhaps a hunt would soon begin.

In my head were both Caleb and John. Everything a girl could want if they were only nicely inked on the page of a book. But real life didn't have perfect captors without the mental or physical pain. And real life didn't have a drumming coming from perfectly located trees either.

Yet there was a drumming that had nothing to do with my imagination. One which warned that something wasn't quite right.

With only one choice, I bolted through the colorful blooms and over the hill then down toward the proud little white steeple on the close hilltop. There I would find refuge. The people there would help me.

I did look back toward the bus and Caleb, but he wasn't within sight. He would have expected me to choose the forest. And if it were only us, I would have chosen the hunt. To be his Little Red. But that was a life sentence of playing the mouse to a merciless John.

Now I ran faster toward the building that granted me freedom. Already I heard the music and the hymns. Songs of praise to something better. People that...well, I had nothing good to say about what I would run to aside from it being better than the alternative with the brothers.

I only needed a phone. I could call Roy to come get me.

Just the thought of seeing him again slowed my steps. Things had ended far too badly for me to ever be bothered again by him. It would be just me and my books and my flower shop. That was what I wanted. Well, and to get some law enforcement protection to ensure the brothers didn't come around again.

I continued up the hill toward the doors of a white congregation building that beamed with the glow of waning sunlight. It seemed to call me forth to salvation. To where I would receive refuge behind intricately carved doors. To return to my life of old. Maybe I'd start going to church again.

No, just enter one of those buildings this one time. They only read one book, and it wasn't one with anything of any modern-day usefulness or to further critical thought. In fact, reading or thought beyond it was considered a wicked thing.

When I pushed those wooden doors open, music enveloped me, sucking me into the building like a cycle raged within. But that music soon stopped when the heavy doors slammed at my back.

Heads, both young and old and some hidden beneath red caps, turned to face me. Eyes of the people all peered, measuring me in my corset dress. There must have been over a hundred people, mostly men, crammed in with additional folding chairs at the back of the congregation.

I looked up the narrow aisle at the center toward a cross at the far end. The man in faded jeans who stood there adjusted the red hat atop his head and scowled in my direction.

So what if he judged me? I couldn't hesitate, not when my freedom was at stake. Not when failure could end my chances at an ordinary life. Despite the sneers, narrowed eyes and whispers, I persisted, slowly walking the sliver of a center aisle. All the while stares were glued to me with piercing disdain.

My confidence in this route for escape began to waiver. Maybe the forest would have been better. But I'd grown up with absurd judgment from the pious all my life. They never had a genuine reason to loathe me, just a distaste in my willingness to be different.

"One of the heathens of the forest is among us." The man at the front scoffed and stepped to the podium.

"Liberal." The word, which boomed with accusation, came from my right. That wasn't a good word to be associated with in these parts. It was the sort of thing no one dared admit to.

I shook my head. "No. Not one of those."

The debilitating silence from the congregation had me desperate to find anyone that remotely seemed caring. Maybe it was how several of the scruffy-looking men stood, squaring their shoulders in a way that suggested hostility.

One held a Bible. But not a usual Bible. The front cover had the gold plated HOLY BIBLE with the backdrop of the design of an American Flag. That would have worried me plenty, but it was the pistols at his sides that alarmed me more. That was, until another man at the adjacent pew stepped out, lifting a semi-automatic at his side.

Fuck! This was one of those extremist churches. The ones that met and then went out in the adjacent towns and stir up trouble and threaten people. They were like their own little militias that managed to take over towns that no one stopped at since every local had a sadistic look to them. It was about as bad as the books with mafias in danger--minus the attractive men and reasoning ability.

What had I gotten myself into? Even a sheepish attempt at a smile didn't make me feel as though human connection would be possible. I just needed to back out of this vile place of conspiracies and lies.

Too many eyes followed me as I took my steps backward. I could still escape these nutjobs. Though, my every step was matched by a turn or movement from someone with a weapon.

There comes a point when playing it cool isn't as effective as a flat-out run. And as I realized my time was running out, I turned to run for the door.

But then I saw Roy near the door. He wasn't a truly bad person, not like these irrational people.

"Come beggin' for me ta take ya back, ye' cheatin' Harlot?" Roy spat.

My backwards step was met with an open aisle and the angry faces within the pews held a sort of delight at the sight of my terror.

"I want to go home." My trembling foot sought more distance from the man who'd assumed I would ever consider settling down with him. Maybe I should have at one point before the brothers arrived. I could have accepted the miserable fate of nothing else out there. Remain in an existence of stagnation.

"Upologyze and I might look past you bein' a slut!" Roy didn't seem himself. Just cold and bitter. As though the worst of the worst took him in in his time of need.

I had nothing to apologize for. I'd committed no wrong against him.

"We was ta get married me and you, damn it. And you go fuckin' city boy liberals." Roy readjusted his red cap and I could see the wetness in his eyes.

Gasps and shocked sounds broke the moment of apprehensive silence.

I could look nowhere that disappointment and disgust weren't oozing from someone. They didn't even know me. They only knew his delusional lies.

Maybe I was sorry for his hope in having me. "I never tried to lead you on, Roy. I've already told you that."

"Ya darned lyin' snake!" He threw his hat onto the floor near his dirty boot.

"Round here we teach our women to submit." From behind me, the preacher's voice seemed to reverberate in my skull. "She'll learn to be a good wife."

The fuck if I would! They could all go straight to hell!

A burly man with a semi-automatic strapped over his shoulder stepped in my direction squeezing through the narrow pew. He must have thought a gun would intimidate me, which it did, but not enough to remain in place in terror.

Roy began to march my way, as though I was his to capture and be caged as his wife. To push out little conspiracy theorist kids.

No. That would never be my fate. I'd rather be homeless and lost wandering about in the wilderness with bears and wolves to such a fate as Roy.

As the two men closed in on me, I bolted forward, knocking Roy off-balance as I rushed for the door.

As I reached the handle of the door and pulled, from behind, someone grabbed my forearm. With the door already open and revealing the darkness before me, I didn't dare risk being trapped and I pulled free of whoever attempted to capture me, racing from the building and straight for the silhouette of the forest. A backdrop of a fiery orange of the last trickles of day made the refuge seem ominous, but not so bad as the cult I'd just barely escaped.