Cut Off (Book 3): Cut Loose Read online

  “Our families have been fighting between themselves forever,” Louisa said. “We met and fell in love and knew we could never be together in this town or anywhere near our families. We decided to run away. But they saw us and chased after us.”

  Katie looked up at the two families. “Is that about the truth of it?”

  Oliver pursed his lips. “He put a spell on her. She would never have done this otherwise. She’s my little sister and I know her better than anybody. I’ll never let the Thornhill clan take her.”

  Clan. Warring factions called each other clans, not families.

  “And you?” Katie said to the Thornhills.

  “The same. I don’t know what sort of tricks they teach Wedge girls but she worked them on our boy, got her claws in real nice and deep. Now he can’t work himself free.”

  It was a mess. A hot mound of unmitigated mess. Why did it have to wind up on their front doorstep? Her grandfather’s decision was the cleanest option, she could see that. It meant they gained favour with the two families and allowed them to deal with their own children in whatever way they saw fit.

  But how many more times were they going to have to deal with something like this? How many more feuds between the two families did they have to come between? One day, they would have to deal with one member of the family or the other, and they would take it as a personal slight if they weren’t chosen. Then they would declare war on them too, no matter how innocent they were.

  Take drastic action, and they might turn both families against them, and then where would they be?

  Katie let out a long breath before making her decision.

  “There are no spells, no tricks,” Katie said. Then, more to herself than anyone else: “Except maybe the ones we spin on ourselves.”

  She caught the pointed grin that spread across Aaron’s face out the corner of her eye.

  “This young couple is in love. I’m not letting either family take them.”

  Louisa cried with relief as Luke wrapped his strong arms around her waist to comfort her.

  “You say what?” Oliver said. “Your grandfather just said we can have them, and we’re taking her.”

  “You’re outgunned,” Katie said. “Unless you think you can beat us with your knives.”

  The Thornhills sucked air in through their teeth. “Listen, little girl–”

  “I’m not your little girl. I thank my lucky stars I’m not part of either of your families.” Her tone was harsh and forceful.

  The Thornhill man narrowed his eyes and tried again. “Your grandfather said we could have them, and that seems like a fair compromise to me.” He glanced over at Oliver Wedge, who nodded. “See? It’s something the Thornhills and Wedges can agree on for once. I suggest you do as your grandfather says or face the consequences.”

  The threat was open and clear for all to hear. Katie was pleased every member of her family leaned forward, fists clenched and ready to fight. If she didn’t have their backing, she would have accepted she was wrong and not made the stand.

  Camden joined Katie. “No. You are the ones who’ll have to accept the consequences. We’ve made our decision. Now get off our land before we pump you full of holes.”

  Aaron, Bill, and Tanya placed their hands on their assault rifles and accumulated pistols from their father’s buried stash. Ronnie did the same up in the watchtower. Even combined, the two families were no match for them.

  “I guess we’ll be seeing you around.” Oliver took his horse by the reins and clucked out the corner of his mouth. He heeled his steed into a trot and took off down the driveway and out of sight. His posse followed.

  The other gang stood there for a moment before the leader spoke up. “My daddy used to count you as a good friend.” He looked directly at Bill. “He’s going to want a word with you about this.”

  “No doubt,” Bill said with a nod, but he didn’t change Katie’s decision.

  The man heeled his steed and his gang took off.

  Katie bent down and helped the couple onto their feet. “Go inside the lodge. We’ll get you washed up with fresh clothes, and a warm meal.”

  “Thank you,” the pair said, holding each other like the world was falling about their ears. And perhaps soon, it would be.

  Hannah, Jodie, and Nancy led the pair away.

  “You’ve got a good heart,” Bill said. “It’s put us in a whole heap of trouble, trouble we didn’t need right now. I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “No,” Katie said. “I only know what’s right.”

  “Doing what’s right isn’t going to keep us alive. Doing what keeps you alive does.”

  A rock fell in the pit of Katie’s stomach and she wondered if she had made a terrible mistake.

  “It’s done,” Bill said. “Let’s get inside to the food before it turns cold.”

  The family turned and headed inside to celebrate their arrival in this strange place, a great deal more sombre than only minutes earlier.

  6

  The house was a busted ruin, a far cry from its heyday as the hippest place in town. Well, hip if you liked good music, alcohol… and criminals. And there were a lot of ladies who liked that combination.

  Michael could still hear the music, the deep thrumming base note vibrating up the walls, making the dust powder their heads. It was perpetually snowing inside.

  Had it always been so small? Michael thought. After serving two years in a prison cell you’d have thought everything would look a lot bigger. But not this place.

  Michael held a hunting crop beside his leg and pulled the top half of the door open. He glanced inside, listened intently, before bolting inside on silent soles.

  “Ah! Get it off me!”

  “Hold still, you weakling!”

  “Weakling! Do you know how it feels when you– Ahhhh!”

  Michael’s heart jumped into his throat and then calmed when he recognised the voices. He shook his head and eased a sigh out between his parched lips. Some things never changed. Even if you wished they would.

  “I should have known it was you two,” Michael said.

  A cigarette lighter flashed, revealing a pair of faces in the sphere of pale yellow light. Jack sat perched on the table, legs dangling over the side. His ear hung lower than it should have. Jill was in the process of stitching it back into place when Michael entered. She dropped it and let it fall. Jack hissed and cupped his hands together to hold what remained of his ear in place.

  “Michael!”

  Jill screeched as she launched herself at him. She wrapped her arms around him tight as he spun her around. He’d long since gotten used to feeling her meat and veg press against him, but an erection? That was a bit much.

  “You must be excited,” Michael said.

  Jill looked down at herself. “I can’t help it. When it happens, it happens.”

  “Can you try to make it not happen around me?”

  “That’s promising too much, sexy baby.” Jill hugged him again and kissed him on the cheek. “I knew you’d make it out okay! Unlike some people.”

  She cast an irritated glance in Jack’s direction.

  “I got squashed against the fences and then a stampede of prisoners ran over my head!” Jack said. “I’m lucky I only lost an ear!”

  Jill pouted. “Good. It matches your good sense, which you lost a long, long time ago.”

  Jack rolled his eyes. “Being anywhere near you requires that deficit.”

  Jill pouted and growled at the back of her throat. She could be a real rattler when she got going. She loosened her deathlike grip from around Michael and slipped down his body to launch herself at Jack but Michael was faster and clamped his hands over her exposed thighs and held her steady.

  She turned her venom on him but her expression broke when she saw his baby blues. She pressed a hand to his cheek and kissed him on the lips with a soft mewling noise.

  “I never could stay angry at you, could I?” she said.

  “I don’
t know. I seem to recall one or two instances.”

  “Nope. Never.” She crossed her delicate fingers and held up a dainty hand to make a promise.

  Jill opted for a sex change. She was a beautiful woman in her day, but due to – or perhaps despite – hanging around with the boys, she was always a bit of a tomboy – and even out-boyed them from a young age. They still referred to her as a ‘she’ and she was forever correcting them, but that was part of the fun.

  None of them would let political correctness dictate how they felt about the woman who was like a sister to them. It didn’t bother him that she changed sex. She would forever be the little girl with the red hair and fiery temper.

  They took turns at her when they were energetic young teens. She took them into her bed willingly, but always at a time of her choosing. She enjoyed the power over them, knowing they all wanted her but couldn’t do a thing to choose the time and place. She had few lovers, each meeting a grisly end, almost always as part of a plan Michael and Quentin had dreamed up.

  “I want you to help Jack with his ear without him losing any other parts of his anatomy. Do you think you can do that for me?”

  Jill pouted. “Baby, who do you think you’re talking to?”

  “Atta girl.”

  Jill did as Michael asked – she always did – but that didn’t mean she couldn’t have some fun while she was at it.

  Water dribbled through gaps in the ceiling forming green lines that ran like veins on a giant’s arms.

  “Time hasn’t been kind to this place,” Michael said.

  “Nor to any of us,” Jack said.

  Jill scowled.

  “Except to you, honey. That goes without saying.”

  Jill pursed her lips and stifled a smile. Like any woman, she lived for compliments.

  “But none of us are young anymore,” Jack said. “What are we supposed to do now?”

  “I’ve got an idea for that,” Michael said. “But I want us all here before we begin. Have either of you seen Isaac?”

  They both turned quiet. Michael knew why. Rumour was, he changed while he was inside – and not in the way Jill had.

  “I saw him at the back,” Jack said. “He was walking so slowly I don’t know if he even made it out.”

  “Or if he wanted to come out,” Jill said.

  The thought bothered them both.

  A prisoner in no particular hurry to leave a prison…

  Michael wasn’t surprised by the news. Housed on different wings, the gang still managed to pass messages between one another on a near-weekly basis. Michael did it as much to keep in contact with his friends as to learn the weaknesses in the prison’s system. Isaac’s messages began normal and then shifted halfway through the first year, reverting to quotes from the Bible.

  For a long time, he thought someone was hijacking their messages and replacing them on either side. That was until he asked Isaac a personal question only he could know, and the response was correct.

  The door opened, spilling sunshine across the three of them.

  Michael was up in an instant, swinging the washing prop around at head height. He stopped an inch before striking his target.

  Isaac’s expression was calm and relaxed. He walked with his hands tucked in his jacket pockets and a ponderous smile on his face. “Hello, friends.”

  “Jesus, Isaac!” Michael said. “I almost knocked your head clean off its shoulders!”

  “I’d prefer it if you didn’t use the Lord’s name in vain, but I thank you for your concern.”

  “Isaac!” Jill left Jack to catch his ear in the palms of his hands again.

  She rushed the boy and wrapped her legs around him the same way she had with Michael. She covered every square inch of his face with kisses. Then she pulled back and her grin faltered and then faded. She lowered herself back down and looked at him questioningly. “You’re not Isaac.”

  “You’re half right. I’ve been reborn in the light of the heavenly father. I learned a great deal while I was inside and I hope to bring that same light to each of you.”

  “Uh, I’m okay with the light I already have, thanks,” Jack said. “Jill, love. Come finish me off, will you?”

  “Uh, yeah. Sure.” Jill backed away from Isaac but couldn’t help but keep casting glances over her shoulder in his direction.

  “It’s great to see you, Isaac.” Michael embraced his friend. The hug that he returned bore none of the warmth the youngest of their gang usually shared with him. He pulled back and looked in Isaac’s eyes.

  He saw none of the boy’s quiet innocence either. Oh, he’d committed his fair share of violence over the years, he wouldn’t have been sent to the slammer for so many years if he hadn’t, but he wasn’t the same boy that entered his prison cell all those months ago.

  “Et voila!” Jill planted a big wet soppy kiss on Jack’s cheek. “You look gorgeous now, handsome!”

  “He looks like a Picasso painting,” Isaac said.

  “A what?” Jack said.

  “A Picasso painting.”

  Jack didn’t get it. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Your ear’s upside down.”

  Jack snorted at the joke and turned away from him. Then he caught the titter Jill hid behind her hand. The blood drained from his face.

  “I think it makes you look more… debonair this way. Definitely unique. Do you think this means you can hear differently to the rest of us? Your ear is upside down so maybe it helps you to hear what we’ve got going on inside our heads? Guess what I’m thinking.”

  “Are you serious?” Jack delicately ran a hand over his ear and found Isaac was right. “You twisted fuck!”

  He raised a hand to belt Jill across the face.

  “Never hit a woman!” Jill screamed, covering herself with her arms.

  “How come you get to choose when you’re a woman and when you’re a man?” Jack said. “And we have to be the ones to suffer the consequences?” The anger drained out of him. “Just do it properly, will you?” He jabbed a finger in Jill’s face. “The right way round this time.”

  Jill chuckled and tittered behind her hand. “It was funny though.”

  Jack couldn’t see the funny side and sat downbeat and morose as Jill worked to release the stitches.

  “So, what’s the game plan?” Jill said. “Are we going to knock over some banks?”

  “We’re going to knock something over, but not a bank.” Michael’s grin was infectious and within seconds, they were all grinning.

  All but Isaac.

  7

  The meal was as delicious as it looked and went down a storm. Katie counted an accumulative thirty-six cries of “This is delicious!” Nancy was quick to point out that every meal they thought was delicious was cooked by Jodie, who bowed her head and blushed prettily.

  After a while, Nancy looked a little concerned that none of her food was getting the same praise until Steve piped up with: “I love the corn on the cob best.”

  Nancy grinned like a little girl whose drawing was now getting pride of place on the refrigerator door. She flushed again, a red hot patch working its way up her neck and across her cheeks.

  Katie was horrified to see half the table noticed the exchange. How embarrassing.

  Nancy hadn’t noticed and instead cast looks she mistakenly believed to be secret in Steve’s direction.

  Camden caught Katie’s eye and wore a disgusted grimace. He mouthed: “What are we supposed to do?”

  Katie knew what she wanted to do. She reached for the spatula to heap more delicious mashed potatoes onto her plate. Jodie whipped fresh milk and butter from Oscar’s cows into it and sprinkled a little cheese that melted on their tongues. It had to be the best mashed potatoes she ever had.

  “Did we travel back in time at some point?” Darryl said, taking an unusual break from stuffing his face. “Is this place a magic portal of some kind?”

  “It seemed that way without flushing toilets,” Camden said.

/>   “I’m not sure about medieval,” Darryl said, bending back over his plate and tucking into a lump of soft chicken meat. “I’d swear we walked into an old western movie.”

  He was referring to the couple they met earlier with their families in tow.

  “People are reverting to the weapons and tools they had before modern technology,” Bill said. “The people are the same. They have the same anger issues but without the tools to keep themselves distracted, so they make up their own entertainment like earlier.”

  The front door opened and half a dozen hands moved for the pistols at their waists. It was only Ronnie, who was cold, wet, and bedraggled. His angry eyes searched the diners until they latched onto his sweet twin sister. He jabbed a finger at her. “You were meant to relieve me of watch duty unless I’m very much mistaken.”

  “Oops.” Tanya jammed two small baked potatoes in her mouth and held them in her cheeks like a hamster. “I’m sorry. I forgot.”

  “Forgot, my arse. You left me up there, starving hungry, while you stuffed your fat face down here.”

  “It honestly slipped my mind.” Tanya downed half a bottle of beer and added a thick wedge of chicken to the concoction in her mouth.

  “It hasn’t slipped your mind now, has it?” Ronnie said. “Get up off your fat arse and get up in the watchtower.”

  “Let me finish eating first,” Tanya said.

  “Take it with you. It’s my turn to eat.” He helped drag his flailing sister off the bench and through the door.

  “Have fun,” Ronnie said.

  His sister stood in the doorway with her back to them.

  Ronnie turned serious as he drew up alongside her. “What is it?”

  “We’ve got guests,” Tanya said.

  Bill dropped his fork and leaned back. “It’s one hell of a busy morning. Well, we’d better go see what they want.”

  8

  Bill, Aaron, and Tanya stepped outside to meet their latest guest. The others were meant to sit and enjoy their meals but how could they, knowing something might kick off after what they witnessed that morning?