Tiny by Sam Crescent

they’d used the girl. Someone had shot her, leaving her to bleed
out. He’d never known her name, but he’d taken the time to bury her and give
her a headstone. She was laid in the Fort Wills cemetery as a constant reminder
of what he couldn’t do and what he was determined to change in the town.
    ****
    Eva placed the final dress
into the suitcase. She had a handful of clothes ready for the couple of days to
go. The purple dress for the baby shower was hung in her wardrobe along with
some jeans and shirts. Everything else was packed, ready for her father to pick
her up on Friday.
    She heard the door opening
and closing.
    Staring at the cases, she
waited for Tiny to make an appearance in her doorway. She still wore the blue
dress from that morning.
    When the door opened she
turned to look at him. Frowning, she saw he looked in pain.
    “You’re still leaving?” he
asked.
    “Nothing is going to stop me
leaving.”
    He was leaning against the
doorframe staring at her. Tiny looked ill as if he was going to vomit at any
moment.
    “The Skulls didn’t always
run this town,” he said, stepping into the room. She tensed, waiting for him to
continue. “This place was a fucking shit place to live. The town was shit with
no order. There were no cops. Well, there were cops, but they were fucking
useless, and no one gave a shit.”
    “What’s this all about?” she
asked, stepping in front of him.
    “There were a lot of
problems with this place. It was run by a small group known as The Darkness, a
group of thugs and fucking criminals. I don’t know why no one ever cared about this
fucking place. We must have slipped out of caring or something.”
    Eva knew this place had been
a nightmare. Her father and many of the fighters who worked for him had heard
about this place. The reason she’d chosen to come here trying to get away from
her father was because it would be the last place he’d look to find her.
    “What was The Darkness?” she
asked.
    He started laughing. “It sounds
like a fucking rock group. It wasn’t. Far from it. The
concept was when you met one of us, all you’d see is
darkness. You’d be dead.”
    She understood the term.
“You were young then?”
    “Yeah, I was young, foolish
and a fucking idiot.” He was silent for many minutes. “There is shit you don’t
know about me, and I never want you to learn the truth. I can’t tell you
everything. I will not relive it for you.”
    Eva wanted to ask so many
questions. Instead, she sat beside him. Taking his hand, she locked their fingers
together.
    “What happened to them?”
    “To who ?”
he asked.
    “The
Darkness. A group like that doesn’t
just disappear.” She knew he would have killed some of them to get Fort Wills
the way it was. Eva also knew that some of the men wouldn’t have left easily.
    “Who we didn’t kill left.”
    “It’s strange,” she said.
    “What’s strange?” he asked.
    “A group as powerful as
that, why did they leave and not come back, trying to get what they lost?” She
was thinking out loud.
    “A lot of them were killed.
The ones that left would know not to come back. Anyone with sense wouldn’t try
to fight for what they couldn’t win back. They’re gone, and for Fort Wills’s sake, they better never come back.”
    Getting up from the bed, she
left him alone, heading downstairs. She’d put a small chicken in the oven so
they could pick over the meat for some sandwiches.
    “Why did you leave?” he
asked, standing in the kitchen.
    “I always leave. You never
say much before it’s time for me to go.” She shrugged. They had a really
difficult relationship. There were times she was sure they were making progress,
and at other times she felt like they were taking a step back. She wasn’t
prepared to give into his demands. They had sex but that didn’t mean a
commitment to her. Tiny had a long way to go before she’d ever consider forever
with him. She didn’t trust him around other women, and he never