This Strange Addiction, Julie Steimle [little readers txt] 📗

he tried to glance at Audry—but with her in the way, his eyes lifted upon the woman, widening in horror.

The rest happened rather fast.

The woman grabbed Audry’s drink and threw the contents at Hogan. Her shouts stabbed into the air, her words pummeling Hogan as if she were using her fists and fingernails.

“You lying scumbag! You said you never would be able to love anyone else!”

“Cara…” Hogan was breathless, staring in complete shock.

“Don’t you Cara me!” She grabbed his glass next, chucking that water in his face. “You just left me with our baby! How dare you walk this earth as if you did nothing wrong!”

She then whipped around on Audry. She had a kind of salt-of-the-earth look about her, but her countenance was a mixture of grief and anger. Audry grabbed for her purse, reaching in for her pepper spray.

“If you are smart, you will get away from him,” Cara said, but thankfully not touching her. “He’s a bastard and does not mean what he says! He’ll leave you right after he’s had his way with you and gotten you pregnant.”

Then in a whirl, she stormed out with her girlfriends. The atmosphere in her wake was as deafening—a nuclear bomb on the room.

Hogan grabbed a cloth napkin and sopped up the water before quickly jumping out of his seat to follow her. “Cara!” He caught up, only to get slapped in the face.

When he dragged himself back to the table, Audry was eying him darkly. Though she had known he had been with other women and had a long history of serious romance between various girlfriends, the heavy idea that he had gotten one of them pregnant and left her sank against Audry’s chest like an iron. And it burned. Hogan met her eyes and shame immediately sprouted there.

“That was Cara Houston,” he said, now averting his eyes to the table. “Hera.”

Audry lifted her eyebrows dryly. She had never bothered to memorize the names of his goddesses. His previous girlfriends had not mattered to her much, as she had forgiven him as a foolish young man. But now she wondered exactly how foolish he had been. She could not hold Rick Deacon accountable for getting Daisy pregnant when he was eighteen if she excused Hogan for committing the same sin.

People who had been sitting around the table shifted to another place as they did not want to be in the middle of this argument. Hogan took up another cloth napkin, dabbing off the wet that soaked his collar, jacket, and shirt front, as well as his ashamed face.

“I met in her New Mexico,” he said while sitting down opposite Audry, reaching for her hand. Audry kept her fingers curled in a fist, but let him at least hold her wrist. He had to explain, after all. Cara could be as crazy as Charlene, though she did not feel crazy. “I was there studying the water table while she was a student of horticulture at the university. At the time, I really thought she was the one.”

Audry gazed back dryly.

“I know. Cheesy. Stupid.” Hogan shook his head. “It sounds like a line, doesn’t it?”

It did. He had said it to her. And she had believed it. And she wondered now how many woman had he used it on. Was he really what Silvia had assumed, a skilled player merely aiming to get into a woman’s pants just like Harlin? Audry didn’t want to believe it, but that Cara seemed normal—someone she might have been friends with… if the whole aspect of horticulture had not involved raising animals for slaughter.

“Look, I understand this looks bad, but hear me out,” he said. He then closed his eyes. “I really loved her. I did. We had a lot in common, like you and I. And it started out innocent enough. And you know I was a lot more loose then.”

Which he had confessed to a long time ago. Audry knew it.

“See, Cara and I snuck around together as her family wasn’t too hot on a traveling environmental chemist being with their daughter. They wanted her to stay on the farm, work with the animals, and marry a local boy. But she and I hit off so well we started to meet privately. And eventually things got really steamy.”

Audry delivered him a dry look. Hogan had respected her boundaries. The steamiest they ever got was a few heavy kisses. She had long made it a rule that they did not share a tent or stay in a room alone long enough for things to go too far. It was best when trying to avoid another Harlin Nichols.

“We made a mistake,” he said shamefacedly. He could barely meet her eyes, though he forced himself to. “And when Cara got pregnant, we had intended to elope. But her uncles found out and they threatened me.”

Audry stared blankly. This sounded like an old movie rather than reality.

“I know,” Hogan groaned. “More cliché. But they really did threaten me. They said they didn’t want me around there, and that I had to leave. And they said they would take care of the baby.”

With a dirty look, Audry huffed. “Right.”

He groaned, covering his face. “I know! Ok? I should have just grabbed her and ran. She was all for it. But those uncles were like racist, second amendment, hunting freaks. They carried guns and said they’d shoot me then leave me out of the coyotes after they dragged my body behind their truck into the desert. I’m telling you, my heart was absolutely crushed.” He closed his eyes, tears rolling down his face.

Audry felt a shudder go through her. He was crying. And they did not look like crocodile tears. His shoulders were hunched. His body hung as if Cara’s visit had beaten him down. He was even shaking.

“They shot at me when I tried to come back for her,” he murmured, hunched over in his chair resting his elbows on his knees and his hands over his face. “I tried leaving her messages, but I guess they got intercepted.”

“Not even a text message?” Audry asked, a strain of cynicism in her voice.

“They took away her cell phone,” Hogan said.

It echoed of something Daisy had said about Rick and his family. Rick’s father had taken away his cell phone to separate them. Things like that actually did happen.

“She didn’t have your number?” Audry asked, still doubting, though not so much. She was just angry to have to meet another one of his exes.

“Ah, come on, Audry,” Hogan looked up at her. “Who does? Nobody memorizes numbers anymore.”

Which was true. People put other people’s phone numbers in their phones and forgot about them.

“And after Cara, I dated Viviane on rebound—you know, Hela,” he said.

Audry had heard of Hela. Hogan had mention her because when he had met Silva Lewis he said Silvia reminded him of a freaky ex-girlfriend whom he had briefly rebounded with. But the differences between Viviane and Silva were actually quite large. Silvia was an ex-witch who kept pagan things around the apartment. But Viviane was an SJW activist with blue hair who was emotionally unstable and had often hit him, first in jest but later in anger. She had given him a black eye once and had scratched him with her fingernails. He still had the scar. He had left Viviane because she got too dangerous.

Audry felt her temper cool. It was ridiculous. Of course another ex would come out of the woodwork sooner or later. But she did have one question. “What about the baby? She said you got her pregnant.”

Lifting his head, Hogan said, “I checked in on that later. They set up the baby for adoption. From what I know, Cara went on with school and… I didn’t think it was right to follow what she was up to after that.”

Adoption.

And Cara—who was Hera, the goddess of marriage and fidelity—went on with her life holding a grudge against him. Admittedly, she was fittingly named. And Audry felt sorry for her.

Glaring at Hogan, Audry rose from her seat. “Alright, Hogan… You are on probation.”

He stiffened. Distress was all over his face. She could see him panic over the possibility of losing her.

“I’m not sure how I feel about your previous behavior with that ex of yours,” Audry said. “Getting a woman pregnant and leaving her is unforgivable. And I still don’t quite buy that you left her because of some scary uncles. But… as we did promise one another to let the past stay in the past…” she sighed, thinking on that, “I’m not going to break up with you just yet.”

He sighed with relief. Audry and he had played this song and dance a few times before. Whenever he crossed a line, he always ended up on probation. But in the end he always proved himself worthy and penitent. She was just waiting for him to do so. Besides, she needed time to think about things.

“That’s fair.”

Hogan drove her home.

It was with a heavy feeling in her feet and chest that Audry went up alone her apartment steps. She and Hogan hardly shared any words on the car trip together. She had a lot to think about. Yet when she put her apartment key into the lock, Audry had the peculiar prickly feeling that she was being watched.

Glancing back, for a split second she thought she saw a lady peering at her from around a corner. Dark hair. Medium height. But that was all she got.

Frowning, Audry let herself into her apartment.

The first thing she noticed about the place was a change in the air. It smelled like household cleaner as if somebody had hastily cleaned it using a spray bottle. A couple of Silvia’s pagan charms were also missing. Small bunches of certain herbs which had always hung by the door and windows were gone. Silvia’s weird Celtic knot pendant was missing from the wall over the couch. And on the refrigerator was another note from Silvia, next to a check written out to the power company.

 

Audry,

I won’t be home for a while. Don’t look for me.

The check is for my part of the power bill. Pay it fast so no one catches it. Burn this note ASAP.

Sil

 

Audry stared at it. She shook her head, sighing yet agreeing to do as Silvia asked. Silvia was paranoid to the extreme, but she had good reason to be. Though Audry did not believe in witchcraft, she knew that Silvia’s old coven did, and they were likely to go to whatever measures it took to find her. Silvia had explained that they were a brutal, unscrupulous group—and how.

And one of the things Silvia did to prevent her coven from finding her, was to make sure their trash was taken out where it could be incinerated. This was because Silvia believed that her coven could scry for her and find her using that stuff. Scrying was a kind of witch magic which Audry thought was creepy ridiculous. It was like magical lo-jack using a map and a hanging necklace. Anyone who knew how to scry, Silvia said, only needed a personal thing from the target they were seeking. This was why she burned a lot of things—things with her writing on it, stray hairs, toenails—anything that might have her DNA or fingerprints. This was probably also why the apartment smelled like cleaner.

Audry burnt the note with a match and let it char to ash in the kitchen sink, running water over it when she was done.

Taking the check, Audry went to her own purse and dug out her checkbook to write one out. In most other cases they would have paid online, but as the apartment wasn’t exactly in their name, but was leased by Rick Deacon as a favor to Silvia’s brother, they had to pay bills by paper since the computer system for the payment method required things be paid by the owners of the lease… and neither of them wanted Rick to pay