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She didn’t look the same.
There were similarities, of course. The tip and tilt of the eyes, and something about the strong turn of her jaw. Mary’s jaw had been strong, and set more often than not into something stubborn. She looked at him square-on, his girl, right in the eye, telling him what she thought and what they should do. It wasn’t defiance, because Mary hadn’t ever thought he was in charge. They were equals, through and through, and if they fixed to do something or if they fought it out or even if they just disagreed, it was done with them both standing tall. That jaw, flexed, and her chin high.
Deanna’s not that way. She’s stubborn, sure, and she’s tough. John’s seen to that. She’ll look a man in the eye, and punch him in the eye too if it comes to that, a sure right hook that she’ll follow up with whatever dirty trick she has to. She can strip a gun as fast as John and she’s probably a better shot, though he wouldn’t tell her that. He keeps her on her toes, keeps her sharp. He needs her focused, and she is. Probably the best hunter he knows of, man or woman, and he thinks—he hopes—Mary would be proud, even if he’s sure Mary wouldn’t want what’s become of their family with her gone.
But she’s not—she looks at John square, her eyes huge and green (not blue), her long hair swinging over her shoulder (lightest brown, not blonde), but her lips are movie-star full and there are freckles over her nose and when John says sweetheart, she doesn’t smile at him all confident or roll her eyes and push away saying there are dishes to do, or weeds to pull, but instead just flushes up like a rose, her ears going pink and her cheeks red and her chin ducking, her shoulders curving, and John can’t forget, ever, that this is his daughter, not his wife.
It’s awful. For a hundred reasons, for more than, but that’s what keeps John up at night. It’s part of why Sam hates him, he’s pretty sure, even if he knows Sam’s not aware of the full extent of it. John’s mortally certain that, if Sam found out, he’d either disappear on the first bus out of Dodge never to be seen again, or there’d come some morning when Sam would sneak in while John struggled through whatever passed for sleep that he got now and would slit his throat, age thirteen or not, and if there is an afterlife, John doesn’t think that even in hell he could blame him for it. John’s done some good, he doesn’t pretend otherwise, but he’s done a lot of bad, too, and this is—the worst, he’s sure, and he doesn’t have an excuse.
If he were better, he thinks sometimes, he’d leave. He could get into the truck and say he was taking care of some hunt, somewhere, and it was too dangerous to bring the two of them along, and Deanna would frown but she wouldn’t argue, and she’d wave from the door of whatever motel or apartment he’d gotten for them, and he’d hold that image of her behind his eyes for whatever years left that would follow. He can picture it, perfectly. Her hair pulled up into a ponytail, her eyes squinting against the morning. Coffee cup in hand, resting lax against her thigh. She’s kept the family going, and she’d do fine, better, without him.
But there’s always something. A shadow in the corner of John’s eye; a ghoul, pinned under his gun, smiling about the devils lurking in every detail. A demon, in Wichita, with its mouth curving bloody even as John’s got it pinned to a chair, saying and where are those pretty kids of yours, John?, so all he can do is race home, heart in his throat, the truck giving its utmost under the thinnest carved slice of inconstant moonlight—to get back to a cabin, alone among bare trees, to find the Impala parked safe and quiet, and the light on in the window, and his girl appearing after a moment behind the glass, rolling her eyes at her little brother, safe. His heart hardly slows, and he sits there in the dark, engine off, watching. He can’t. He can’t, because even if he brings danger they’re in more danger without him. Even with what he is. Even with what he’s done.
It’s awful, and he has no excuse. There was a fight, he and Mary had—Deanna nearly two years old and asleep upstairs, bills coming due, life chafing the way that life did—and he remembers it in weird, sunlit clarity. Mary’s hair had been half-up, in that way she ruefully called messy and that he loved, and she’d been in bare feet in a thin dress that clung to her, and she’d been tired but snapping mad all the same. There’d been a bruise on her arm, which he hadn’t put there; her jaw had been square as a boxer’s. She’d said, excuses are just the thing you say to justify what you did. She was right, and he’d gone away madder for it. By the time she died he still hadn’t come up with the right response. Maybe there wasn’t one. He sits in the dark cab of his dark truck, and runs his hand over his face, and feels the week’s worth of not shaving on his jaw, and thinks sweetheart, grieving like he usually doesn’t, in no more detail than that.
After a while, the light in the cabin windows dims. Midnight, when he checks his watch—the kids adhering to their curfew, even if he’s gone. Well, Deanna is. Sam’s probably going to read with his flashlight under the blanket until dawn comes or he passes out, whichever’s first, back in the little closet he’s turned into a bedroom. John should go inside. He didn’t bring food, too lit-up by the demon’s hint—that they were too close, that he’d pictured—that he’d thought—and they’ll have to get some cash, in the next few days. Things to do. He doesn’t want to do them.
The door to the cabin opens, and Deanna steps out onto the sagging porch. She’s bare-legged, in the moonlight, though he sees after a second that she’s wearing shorts at least, one of his cast-off coats tugged over her shoulders. She looks right at him, even if it’s got to be hard to see. He takes a deep breath, and doesn’t think about it more. He opens the truck door, and gets out into the cool autumn night, the wet mulchy ground sinking under his boots. “Hey there, sweetheart,” he says, and it’s quiet but it carries across the clearing, and there’s no way to see it in the moonlight but he knows she’s pinking up, and he watches her chin duck and the little smile tuck into her cheek the way it always does, and he hates it, hates it, and holds out his hand for her to take.
Her boots are just tugged on, unlaced, silent on the leaf-strewn ground. Her legs long and white, and the shorts with the frayed hems from where she’d destroyed some jeans in a werewolf hunt a year or two back, and a baseball shirt with a half-washed-off logo for some band he doesn’t know, and his big canvas coat over her shoulders, and her hand with bandaids over three of the knuckles when she slips it into his, and her face still ducked down, and her voice steady but soft when she says, “Hey, Dad.”
It aches. He tucks her hair behind her ear and feels the heat under her skin. “You good?” he says, and he means all of it but she leans in, looks up at him, licks her lips. He’s seen her play whorish for boys, and for men, and he’s seen her shift gears into charmingly cute for old guys who want a little shine of pretty, and he’s seen her, even, with a guy her own age she actually liked, grinning and flirty, confident. Never, anywhere else, is she like this. Her lips shine, and her white teeth tug into the bottom one, nervous, and he runs his thumb over her bandaged-up knuckles and says, “Sweetheart,” low and helpless, except he’s not helpless, except he is.
The truck-bed, folded down for her to sit, and his case of weapons shoved aside. He can’t see the color of her eyes in this light. The metal’s cold and he shrugs out of his own coat, lays it down, and peels his other coat off her shoulders and chafes her forearms when they appear. “What happened?” he says, quiet, because there’s a bruise on her arm too—memory, jostled—and the knuckles, and now that he’s close a scrape on her jaw, and she shrugs it off, away, says, “Fight at school.” She’ll tell him the truth, later, or Sam will if he thinks it’ll get her in trouble—Sam’s in that phase—but all John says for now is, “Good reason?”
She scoffs, but her teeth catch in her lip again and she only nods, eyelashes cast down, and he thumbs over her jaw, careful of the scrape. He touches her knee and it bumps up into the shape of his palm. Eagerness or surprise, he can’t tell. She isn’t wearing a bra, nipples pebbled hard in the cool air. His hands feel very rough when he’s near her. The callus on his thumb slides over her skin, marbled in the light but so, so warm, and he steps close and her knees part automatic around his hips. His balls ache. With Mary sometimes it was like a fight, push and pull, her giving as good as she got. He had to hide marks, sometimes, at the garage. With Deanna—he slips his thumb over her bottom lip and her mouth parts instantly, hot breath rushing over his skin. Her hands fist in his canvas shirt, her chest rising. He pushes his thumb in, just a little, just enough to catch the soft wet of her tongue, and then he cups her jaw and leans down and kisses her, finally, and groans hard not at the taste but at how her whole body curves up into his.
A fumble, a rush. Like being a teenager himself again. A week since he was here last, and a week before that when nothing happened—and he doesn’t much look to other women, and knows in his gut how sick that is. He slides his hands up her cold thighs, over her hips and up her sides under the shirt, her skin blazing hot there against his cold fingers, and she gasps, clutches at his chest, her knees around his hips. She’s sitting too far back but it gives him room—he slips a hand over her ribs, up the soft swell of her tit, her nipple so hard against his fingertips the skin feels rough, and just brushing it makes her chest heave, her breath coming gaspy and stuttered against his lips. They’ve got practice being quiet but maybe it’s been too long because she says oh, a complete syllable, and his dick strains against his zipper to hear it.
Jesus, the need in her. How easy it is, to bring it up to the surface. He skims his hand down her belly and goes right for gold, curving his hand down over her worn-thin shorts, the seam slipping against his palm. She flinches, grips his shoulders. “Dad,” she says, breathless, and it’s like there’s a roaring in his ears, a forest fire burning through the trees on all sides. He can’t feel the wet yet but he knows if he had the patience—but just rolling his fingers has her gulping, flattening her weight against his hand, her hips squirming, and he—yes, god—yes—“Come on,” he says and he knows it sounds rough, but she understands and nods frantic, pushing back and sliding on her ass up the truck bed, bringing his coat with her—and he climbs up, standing for a second above her, seeing her spread out, still clothed but—her eyes are on him, then, her mouth open, and he gets down on his knees and goes for the button on her shorts, gets it open and helps her wriggle them down over her hips, bringing her undies down too—purple cotton, printed with turtles—and he pulls them down, off along with one boot, and her knees spread and he leans down with his body covering hers from the light and rubs his fingers in her short-trimmed hair and finds the wet seam of her and slips, and then pushes in, just one, and she’s so hot and tight and clinging that he bites her shoulder through her shirt, even as she grabs his wrist and lifts into it.
God, god. “Fuck,” she breathes, and he gets one knee between hers and pulls out and pushes back in with two, with an audibly wet squishing noise which has got to be setting her face on fire—she gets so wet so fast and doesn’t understand that it’s the hottest thing in this universe—and he sets his thumb over her clit and works steady, firm, not that it’ll take much. Her thighs spasm and he can’t feel her skin through his jeans but god, if only—and she keeps her hold on his wrist but doesn’t try to guide him, which is just as well because it’s not as though he needs it, because he knows this body, knows what it wants, and he knows she’s had boyfriends—has at least gone home with boys, and when very drunk he’s wondered, vicious with himself, if she compares what she gets from them to this—if it’s better, two kids fumbling stupid, awkward—if she doesn’t get there, if she lays in the dark after the kid’s emptied into some Planned Parenthood free condom and passed out and she’s throbbing, unsatisfied—if she remembers—and he’s kissing her then, soft, pushing his tongue against hers and letting their mouths brush together, her hand clutched into his shirt, and she comes rippling, her hips curling into his hand, her muscles seizing hard around his fingers and her nails in his wrist for just the most intense handful of throbbing seconds before she lets go, her breath sobbing in her chest, her insides spasming still around the fingers he hasn’t moved.
He lays his cheek against her hair, rubs his thumb over her pubic mound. Two years since the first time and still, even with all he thinks about himself, the first thing he feels is this overwhelming sense of protectiveness. She pants, clutches her thighs around his hand and his leg, muscles twitching, and he kisses her forehead, her cheek. He shifts his wrist and his fingers glide like through silk, his knuckles slipping together, and—sometimes he’d slip down, shoulder her legs apart and do his best, and there’ve been times that was it, that he’d brought her there shuddering three times, five, and then pushed off and said—wash up, honey, and taken himself away before he could do more damage.
Tonight, though—with it cold, and her hand still locked into his shirt. He pulls his fingers out and drags them flat over the whole messy swale between her legs, from her so-sensitive clit to her vagina and past, sliding smooth, until his fingertip curls against the rim of her asshole. He looks her full in the face and she blinks at him in a wave of clear moonlight, lips bitten and wet, and he thinks, he could. He could, and she wouldn’t stop him, and she’d like it after a while—and maybe want it, too, and tip her ass up for it the same way she’ll spread and offer her pussy, bright red and eager to please, and he groans and says, entirely without input from his brain, “You’re killing me,” and her face does something he doesn’t understand but it’s—he has to be in her, he has to, and he kneels up between her legs and undoes his belt, his button, his zip, and she scoots up, seeing, spreads wider, lifts on an elbow and reaches down, and his dick practically leaps straight out when he shoves his jeans down his hips, his ass bare to the night sky, but—god—her hand, knowing, and he picks up her thigh and leans in, lets her guide because he always has, always, even that first time when they really were both drunk and frightened and she’d shushed him saying dad, come on—it’s okay—and this time’s just like that time in how she presses him up in the wrong place at first, too high, and drags his cockhead down between the lips to home and holds him there for an unbearable second before she presses, in, and he takes over and pushes, steady, hilting up inside with her making that same breathless high noise in her chest, her thigh clutching over his hip, the heat unimaginable, fuck, fuck, Mary.
No—
“Oh, fuck,” she says again, and he’s reoriented, and fucks in quick and sharp without fully meaning to. She groans then, deep, deeper, and he slides a hand under her shirt to tweak her nipple, gripping her tit in a rough palm, fucking forward, bringing her hips with his. The truck rocks, counter to their rhythm, and she gets a hand in his hair, grips, says, “D—” but he fucks into her again before she can say it and she gasps instead, and then he’s fucking her easy, slipping through her wet and letting her clutch all around him, knowing that he’s making it good, that he’s getting her there, and the world fading past his back—just the pound of her heart in her throat where he’s buried his face, and the press of her skin, and below where his balls slap against her ass and he grinds in deep, forces his pelvis against hers and feels her thighs start to shake, her hands gripping. She goes off again, his easy girl, and he wants to yank out of her, to shove her on her belly and push in again—to take her ass—to get her on his lap and play with her clit until she’s wrung out and desperate, wanting only to sleep—to get her to say, at last—no, Dad, no—stop—but she doesn’t, and he doesn’t, and he lifts up and drags his cheek against hers and gets a hand under her ass to tilt her into just the position he wants and drills her hard, not trying to get her off but just wanting to empty himself out—to be done—but she does come again, shocked and suddenly-loud, clutching around his dick, and he unloads in her only then, stomach coiled and gritting whatever noise he might’ve made into silence between his teeth, his hips slamming in two, three more times, his fingers gripped so tight into the meat of her ass that his knuckles hurt, and ache more when he finally lets go.
She’s quiet, after. Always is. Their breath slows down only slowly, and despite the cool air John’s sweating like a pig but she doesn’t push him off, or complain. Her fingers are soft against his neck, light on his side. He kisses her jaw, obscure apology, and she makes a very soft sound for that, and none at all when he pulls out, wet following. She’s been on the pill since she was fifteen but he has a moment, every time, where he thinks—good—and then the sickness washes in to cover it, and he has to turn his face away. He turns away now, kneeling up, tugging his jeans into place. She’s a mess below him, breathing quietly at the night sky. He glances around, habit, but of course there’s nothing to see. Just the woods, and the dark cabin, and his girl.
Her jean-shorts fell down to ground, and both boots too. She’s left in her socks, bunched around her ankles. He climbs down and says, “C’mere,” and he sees her chest expand on a big breath before she sits up. She wrinkles her nose, slipping a hand between her legs, and his stomach flips, knowing that it’s him she’s feeling. She just scoots forward, though, and he holds up the shorts and she blinks at him, but presents one foot and then the other, letting him slide them up her legs. She missed a little patch in her shaving, on the side of one knee, and he holds his palm over that and leans down and kisses her soft, her mouth opening plush and giving. Endlessly giving.
“Go on,” he says, when he pulls away. He puts a little smile in it, so as not to seem cruel. It’d be too cruel, to be cruel now. He picks her up by the hips—he can still pick her up, even with her grown—and she slides her shorts up the rest of the way, and drops onto her bare feet on the soft wet ground. He picks up her boots and hands them to her. “I’ll get this squared away,” he says. “You go and clean up.”
She’ll need it—wet as they were—and she’ll need to pee, to wash up. Deanna nods, and fishes a hairtie out of her pocket, and in an instant her hair’s in a messy bun, heavy at the back of her head. She picks up her boots again, but hesitates, and then leans into his side, not exactly a hug. “Glad you’re home, Dad,” she says, quiet, eyes flashing up, and then walks barefooted across the big clearing, up the steps. Into the cabin, without looking back.
John drags a hand over his face. There’s spunk on his coat. Where are those pretty kids of yours, he hears, like it’s echoing across the clearing, and he looks behind himself like a fool, and then up at the moon. “Yeah,” he says, chest sore. When he looks down he sees her panties, floated down among the leaves. He stoops and picks them up, stuffs them into his pocket, and gets to work. He’s got to clean this up and square it away, and then get into the house where the broken-spring old couch is waiting to be his bed, and then—the morning, and Sam wanting to join some club or other, and Deanna making breakfast in the lit-up kitchen, and looking in the paper for some kind of dark, something that’ll take him away from here again. “Excuses,” he says, to no one, and bites the inside of his cheek. Then he grabs up the coats, and puts up the tailgate, and heads over to the water pump, to wash.