Side Story #1 - Colt - Page 26

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Colt wasn't sure what to say now. If he couldn't make her laugh, then perhaps there was simply no salvaging this situation. Shit, what would a normal person do here?

Uh.

Uhhh.

Maybe ask her if she was okay? No, wait, he'd already asked her that. Fuck.

"...It's not the graffiti itself that troubles me," said Alice. "As you said, it can be taken care of easily enough. The problem is that this... just keeps happening."

"How many times has it been?" said Colt.

"I'm not even sure, anymore," she said. "Enough that I've run out of paint multiple times now."

Now that he was thinking about it, Colt recalled her buying a fresh can of the stuff just the other day. "That much?" He craned his neck in order to eye the purple demon another time. "It shouldn't take much paint to fix something like this."

"Oh, this one--yes, this one isn't that bad. Vulgar, perhaps, but I already have everything I need in order to fix it."

"Ah. And there have been instances in the past where that wasn't the case?"

She met his gaze briefly, as if ashamed for some reason. "Yes. The entire building has been covered with obscenities and insults before. On several occasions."

Damn. That sounded like a lot of work. And not just for her, either. For the vandals, too. Covering an entire building? Granted, it wasn't that large, but still. That required some real motivation.

In Colt's experience, most vandals were just shitty little kids or teenagers with too much free time on their hands. Which, he supposed, fit the bill for what he'd seen when he was driving up earlier. But the whole church? Multiple times? This was beginning to sound more like a concerted effort to harass her, not just the work of a few punkass brats.

"How long has this been going on for?" he asked.

"About two years or so," said Alice.

Mm. So it was as he'd thought, then. The deadly fire that the townspeople blamed her for had occurred two and a half years ago.

He didn't bring it up. Nor did she, though she must've known the vandals' motivation even better than he did by now.

It still amazed him how she could stay in a place where she was clearly unwanted like this. And for no other reason than because Cocora told her to?

"Anyway," said Alice. "I'm sorry for complaining. You're very kind to have listened so patiently."

Kind? Him? Fucking laughable. If she really believed that, then she must've had one fucked up perception of kindness.

Maybe that made sense, though.

They went back to his car and then drove to the cabin. Alice didn't even try to keep up the conversation, and Colt didn't particularly feel like trying to get her talking. He did wonder if he might still be able to learn more about this tragic fire from her, but that was obviously a sensitive subject and probably not worth the risk.

Truthfully, though, he was mainly just glad that she didn't look intensely uncomfortable in his presence. She barely knew him, and she was already coming back to his place of residence with him. Maybe she was just too distracted by her current melancholy to realize what a weird situation she'd agreed to.

Or maybe she was just nuts.

He really had a difficult time trying to read this woman.

At the cabin, he parked in his usual spot along the building's western side, then gathered the kids up.

"Wow," came Alice's voice while he was still busy rifling through the backseat. "This is quite cozy, isn't it?"

That was one word for it, he supposed. Primitive and cramped were two more.

Alice was already peering through the cabin's front window by the time Colt managed to get both kids out of the car. "Ah, I see him!" she said. "Oh, what a beautiful animal! And attentive, too! He's looking right at me! I bet he's a fantastic guard dog."

Not for Janet Beaumont, he wasn't. Colt kept that thought to himself, though. He set the kids down so that he could unlock the front door.

Thomas waltzed right in and went straight over to the dog, who hadn't budged at all since they left.

Colt followed closely and watched Brick like a hawk. Stephanie approached more slowly, though she was obviously interested in petting him, too.

Brick, for his part, just let it happen. The twins patted him on the head and neck, and he didn't budge at all. He barely ever removed his gaze from Colt, and when Colt got closer, the bastard growled at him again.

That frightened the kids enough that they backed away, and Colt ushered them over to their toys in the main room.

"He's a spirited one, isn't he?" said Alice from the open doorway.

She sure had a way of describing things in the nicest possible way, didn't she?

"I should probably keep my distance," Colt told her.

"Yes, that might be for the best." She hunkered down as she stepped closer to Brick, circling around so that she could approach him from the side. "How are we doing, boy? Not feeling well? What's the matter?"

"I felt a bump on his right hind leg," said Colt.

"Oh, so he let you touch him?" she said.

"Right before he tried to bite my face off, yeah."

"Ah. Well, he seems quite calm now, thankfully. Ears are up. Body language looks good. He doesn't feel threatened by me."

"If he tries to bite you, I'll knock some sense into him."

She turned toward Colt with wide eyes. "Please don't do that!"

"...It was a joke." It wasn't, really.

Her concerned expression lingered on him before returning to Brick. She kept talking to the dog under her breath, quietly enough that Colt couldn't make out what she was saying.

He decided to just relax and let her work. He still sat relatively close and kept an eye on them, just in case Brick did decide to do something, but after a while, it seemed clear that Brick was perfectly fine with her touch.

Which was fucking horseshit, by the way. What, did he have a bias against men or something? Or did he just hate Colt specifically?

The furry son of a bitch.

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