Chapter Text
Be to her, Persephone,
All the things I might not be;
Take her head upon your knee.
She that was so proud and wild,
Flippant, arrogant, and free,
She that had no need of me,
Is a little lonely child
Lost in Hell, - Persephone,
Take her head upon your knee;
Say to her, “My dear, My dear,
It is not so dreadful here.”
Edna St. Vincent Millay
One
They buried her mother on a Tuesday, just a week shy of Kate’s eighteenth birthday. It rained like it had never rained before, as far as Kate could remember, that day. Everyone huddled together under big black umbrellas as they commended her mother’s body to the earth.
Ashes to ashes.
Kate stood in between Scott and her father, holding both their hands like a lifeline, without knowing at the time that it would be the last time. The heels of her shoes kept sinking into the sucking mud on the ground.
What a strange thing to be worried about.
Dust to dust.
Things didn’t get better after that. She was three months from graduating, but school had become a nightmare of sympathetic looks and special treatment, because she’d “been through so much.” As if it wasn’t hard enough, being the preacher’s daughter. Now add dead mommy to that.
Scott didn’t handle it well, and that didn’t help matters either. Kate was at a loss. She didn’t know how to help him, she was barely holding herself together as it was. And her father … Well. He might as well have not even been there.
They didn’t go to church any more, but Kate found herself praying harder than ever these days.
Salvation came nearly a month later, when she overheard Jessica and some of the other girls talking about their weekend plans. Sarah said her older brother knew a guy who could get them all fake IDs. In times past, Kate would have been the wet blanket. She would have been the first to scoff, maybe even condemn, anyone doing anything so immoral.
Kate Fuller was a good girl. Kate Fuller never did anything wrong.
She shouldered her bag then, and stepped closer to the group, the one she’d always been just on the fringes of. She heard her own voice then, and it sounded far away. “How much does something like that cost? I want in.”
Despite their incredulous, baffled looks, none of them were going to tell her no. She was the sad little girl whose mommy just died, after all.
That was how she found herself, Friday night, crammed into the middle seat of Kyle’s truck with three others – and more in the back – hair curled and makeup on, a dab of her mom’s perfume on her wrists. They were headed for the next town over. Where no one would know who they were.
Kyle was going to be the DD – he’d told her in a text that he just wanted to look out for her, and had added Matthew 6:13 to his message.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
She thought it was sweet of him too be so worried, but at the same time … things had been a little weird with them here lately. Truthfully, she didn’t even know if she was going to drink anyway. But anything was better than sitting around at home on a Friday night with her messed up, broken to pieces little family.
They arrived at the little dive bar shortly after ten. Jeff said he had on good authority that the place would serve pretty much anyone, no questions asked, as long as you minded your p’s and q’s.
As far as Kate could tell, the building looked like it ought to maybe be condemned, and it didn’t seem to even have a name. She was starting to seriously reconsider what she was doing here. This wasn’t like her at all.
Kate looked down at the fake ID that had been procured for her. She’d had to provide a picture for it, so she’d used one of her mom’s old college photos. It felt a little – no, a lot wrong – and she said a little prayer, her fingers going to curl around the cross at her neck.
Kyle parked the truck in the old dirt lot behind the … establishment … and the kids in the back clambered out. Kate moved to slide out of the passenger seat after Jessica, making a point to not look back at Kyle. She knew he was probably hoping for a moment alone with her, but she felt like she was breaking enough rules for one night, and making out in his truck behind the seediest bar ever just seemed like it would be pushing it too far.
There was probably something wrong with her. The other girls talked about kissing and sex as if it was the greatest thing. Kate wouldn’t know about the sex part … and as for the kissing …
Well. Kyle was very sweet and enthusiastic about the whole thing, but she couldn’t really say that she’d been wowed by her experiences with it so far.
She had to be some kind of monster, not appreciating him better. He was the sweetest, most encouraging boy. But she always thought … weren’t there supposed to be butterflies?
It was easier to get inside No Name Hole in the Wall than Kate would have expected. The big beefy guy at the door barely looked at her fifty dollar piece of plastic before waving her inside. It was in that moment that Kate truly realized that she had no idea what to do in a bar. Not the foggiest clue.
It was dim and smoky, and the music was waaayyy too loud, with a bass line that sounded almost satanic to her ears. The kids from school had all dispersed – some had gone to dance, others had found the dark corners and were ordering drinks from the waitresses who wore short shorts and halter tops and way too much makeup. Kate was starting to feel both over and underdressed in her jeans and black camisole with her plaid shirt unbuttoned over that.
She felt a little like she’d been abandoned at sea here. The place was pretty crowded for such a hole in the wall, but there was a empty seat up at the bar. She made her way to it, feeling the whole time like everyone was staring at her, knowing her as an intruder.
Maybe sitting at the actual bar in a place like this was the equivalent of sitting in the front row at school. Had she just outed herself as a total square?
“What’ll it be, princess?”
The voice startled her from her ruminations and she looked up, eyes widening.
The bartender was, quite simply, gorgeous. The kinda gorgeous that made you think he was probably a serial killer, just to balance things out. Kate was now acutely aware of why all the other barstools were occupied by women. Dark eyes and dark hair, the edges of a tattoo peeking out above the collar of his white t-shirt – he was sinful. Kate felt like she’d lost the power of speech, along with just about all her good sense.
“Order or get out of the way for paying customers, sweetheart,” he told her, bringing her back to her senses, his expression expectant and not a little impatient.
Right. Crap. She needed to order something. But what? Kate had only ever had a sip of champagne at a cousin’s wedding once, but this didn’t really seem like the champagne kinda place. She couldn’t stand the smell of beer, let alone want to attempt to actually ingest the stuff.
All she could think of were those fruity things you heard about in movies – she had no idea what was actually in any of those, but she knew there was one called a margarita.
Margarita. It meant daisy, she’d learned that in freshman Spanish. That was nice, right?
Hot bartender looked about ready to spit nails at her, but she quickly found her voice. “I’d like a margarita,”she said, a little meekly when he fixed her those eyes of his on her. “Please,” she added, because manners.
He gave her a look that she really couldn’t identify, a little bit of a twitch at the corners of his lips. “On the rocks or frozen?”
What? Kate had no earthly idea what any of that meant, but she was pretty sure he’d toss her out on her backside if she took too much longer. “Frozen …?” She hoped that was the right answer, and that she sounded a lot more confident than she felt.
He definitely rolled his eyes before turning away from her, and she was pretty sure she heard him mumbling under his breath about “co-eds”. Which – hey, was a good thing. At least he bought that she was in college, right?
It was then that some of the others that she’d come with made their way to the bar, including Kyle. Kate didn’t know why, but she felt ridiculously uncomfortable when he sidled up next to her and ordered a soda. She could hear Jessica and the other girls giggling behind her, and she knew why.
Hot bartender was no longer her secret, hidden treasure, and she was more than a little salty about it.
Luckily, they didn’t want to stick around long after they’d given their drinks, and they pulled Kate away with them, off to a booth where Jeff attempted to teach them all a game called quarters that he said he’d learned from his older brother.
Kate sipped at her drink – surprisingly delicious, kind of like a grown up slushy, lime and a hint of salt – and watched the others. She didn’t really partake in the game, and found herself looking over her shoulder, back at the bar, more often than she’d care to admit.
She was probably hallucinating, but she thought maybe hot bartender was looking at her a couple of times too.
She didn’t really get a chance to test that theory, but Jessica came back with another round of drinks then and gave Kate a look.
“He says you have to go get your own if you want it.” She jerked her head back in the direction of the bar, giving Kate a look that clearly said that she didn’t get it.
Kate didn’t get it either. Of all the people in this group, she was never the one to get singled out for things. Especially not by men who looked like that. Kyle seemed like he wanted to make a move, but Kate shook her head at him. “It’s fine,” she told him.
Her heart was pounding as she made her way back up to the bar. She gave him a wary look, noticing that he had another margarita all made up for her. “Is this some new kind of initiation?” she asked, sliding back into her barstool.
“Maybe I thought you looked bored.” He shrugged. “I can tell when people aren’t in their element. And you, Daisy,” he slid the margarita toward her, “are definitely out of your element.” He crossed his arms in front of his chest, looking at her. “Let me guess. New in town. Trying to figure out where you belong?” He gave her a look that said he clearly thought that was a bunch of bs. “I can tell you, it’s not with them.”
Kate frowned, toying with the straw in her drink. Was this typical bartender behavior? “What are you, a life coach by day?” she asked him dryly, but it was hard to look at him. Not when what he said did have a ring of truth to it. She never really had felt like she belonged – anywhere, really. “I promise you, I’m doing just fine.” She started to take her drink and leave, a little shaken by the whole encounter, and him.
She’d only taken a few steps away from the bar when she took a sip of her drink, and whirled to look at him. “This is Sprite.” He grinned at her, a cocky, terrible, beautiful thing, and busied himself wiping down the counter, whistling a little. Kate narrowed her eyes.
“Let’s see that ID of yours again, Daisy,” he said, and Kate reluctantly slapped it down on the counter. He looked it over, then looked at her, and then back at the card. “Better than the shit we usually see. Who’s the girl?”
“My … My mother,” Kate admitted, looking down. There was no point I’m lying about it. She’d already been caught.
“How old are you? Really?”
“Eighteen,” Kate muttered.
He sighed, setting the card back on the counter and sliding it across to her. “Don’t let me catch you and your … friends in here again,” he told her, giving her another look that she couldn’t quite decipher. She grabbed her card up off the counter and shoved it back in her pocket, turning around just in time to see her friends being escorted from the building.
On the ride home, everyone was unnaturally subdued and silent, until Jessica broke the quiet with a groan. “I can’t believe we’re out fifty bucks now!”
“They could’ve done worse than confiscating the cards,” Kyle pointed out, giving Kate’s leg a squeeze. “Be grateful that’s where it ended.”
Kate didn’t say anything. They hadn’t taken her card.
Later, while she was getting ready for bed, she pulled the card out of her jeans pocket, brow furrowed. They’d taken everyone else’s cards. But he’d given hers back. And not just that … she hadn’t noticed it, in the confusion of their forced exodus from the bar, but there was something else with it.
A folded up scrap of paper, with just one word scrawled on it in a messy, masculine hand.
Seth.