My friend Candy requested some Trevor. I doubt this is what she had in mind, though. It’s pretty dark.

Getting away was the immediate need. Getting away, getting safe. Helping Eliza and HJ get away, too. Jeremy would take care of himself. He always did. He’d stay there and taunt Hank for awhile, give the rest of them time to get away, and then somehow escape without too much damage to himself.

He’d turned it into an art form.

It had to be something like that. It sure as shit wasn’t a gesture of kindness on Jeremy’s part. Fucker had no kindness in him. In his own way, he was worse than Hank.

He gave HJ a shove to help him get further under the trailer faster, then held out a hand to Eliza. Of all of them, it bugged Trevor the most that she had to face this shit. She was the only girl. She was the family treasure. Even Hank said so. He cried before he whaled on her.

But he’d started doing it anyway.

Trevor figured it sucked, but not so bad if the fucktard never found Eliza’s bedroom. He and Jeremy slept in there sometimes on nights when Hank wasn’t needing some exercise, taking turns, keeping her company and guarding her from things that went bump in the night. Or worse.

Eliza took his hand and turned her face to his. She was biting her lip, but it trembled anyway. Her eyes were big, huge, scared.

Trevor knew the feeling.

“C’mon,” he whispered to her. “The faster we get safe, the sooner Hank gives up looking for us.”

A tear leaked out of one eye. “Trevor.” Her whisper started to get loud, to turn into one of those whines that wound up sounding like a fucking air raid siren from those old movies his mom would watch sometimes.

Trevor tried to shush Eliza, whipping his head around to look for people in the window and door of their trailer. Hank didn’t know about this hiding place, right under his stupid fucking nose. He figured sympathetic neighbors were hiding his kids, even though he’d put fears worse than God into them and now, none of ’em would even so much as look at the Wolff kids.

Trev bent down so he was closer to Eliza’s eye level. “It’s okay. We gotta get under there for awhile and then when Hank passes the fuck out, we’ll come back in. Come on, Eliza. You’ll like it under here. Me and HJ fixed it up. We got bottled water and maybe there’s some cookies left, too.”

“When I grow up,” Eliza said, her voice rising again. Trevor waved it down. She whispered, “I’m gonna play the violin. I’m gonna go all over the world. And I’m never gonna be scared again.”

Trevor swallowed down the impulse to cry. She was fucking eight years old. That was too fucking young to want to run away.

Then again, HJ was nine. He was eleven. Jeremy was twelve. They were all too fucking young to have to face this shit.

A crash came from inside the trailer. With a terrified squeak, Eliza dove for the hiding space. Trevor followed on her heels, not wanting to know if that had been Jeremy or their mother who’d just gone flying.

He let Eliza climb onto his lap, let HJ snuggle up against his side and cling to his arm like it alone was the only thing that would save him. He’d figure out a way to get them out of this mess. He would. After all, he was Trevor Wolff, and Trevor Wolff could do anything he set his mind to.

Somehow.

More Three Word Wednesday for you (immediate, treasure, gesture), and some Friday Flash as well. Remember, too, that 50% of my reported royalties in November and December are being donated to charity, to help fund music programs in schools. Join in — and if you already have my books (and so do your friends; autographed books make great gifts!), remember that if you use my donation link on the contests page, you’ll be entered to win… more books!)

Yep, I’ve also linked this at Weekend Writer’s Retreat and Writer’s Island. What can I say? I like maximum coverage. Which is a dangerous thing to say when Trevor’s around…

If you’re new here, these characters can be found in all three of my books, The Demo Tapes (Year 1 and Year 2) and Trevor’s Song, the new, full-length novel starting the toasted marshmallow featured below. There are no spoilers in the following piece.

Noooo. Hotel pools were no longer good enough for the Great Mitchell Voss, it seemed. Nope. The fucker had to be outside, in the sunshine, where it was warm and where the sun would glisten off his fucking suntanned skin and make all the housewives swoon with longing at the way the golden tan contrasted with the loser’s silver-blonde hair.

Of course, there was a plus to this outdoor pool they were walking into: Charlie had promised them up and down no one would bat an eye at them. This pool was part of some blueblood health club, where any idiot could come ogle the pro athletes and the local TV people and everyone else who didn’t deign to be bugged by the adoring yokels who don’t know when to give a person some space.

They probably wouldn’t get anyone to play in the water with, Trevor figured. Places like this, no one did anything but swim laps and work on their tans. The people here were pampered. They preened.

They’d never let the likes of ShapeShifter invade them again.

They hadn’t even gotten into the place, and Trevor knew how it’d end. With the four of them walking out, laughing over a good time — and every other poor sod in the joint trying to figure out what had just happened to them. Oh, some of the women would be all intrigued, biting their lower lips and considering taking old Trevor up on his attentions. If only they weren’t married. If only they didn’t have the kids, or the stretch marks, or the guts…

Yeah. Nothing would come of that, either. Talk about a waste of a day’s good flirting.

Except… once they got there, count on Mitchell to fuck up the script. To pull off his shirt and make his hair cascade out behind him like some fucking romance novel cover model. If the band tanked, the asshole sure had another career waiting — so long as someone airbrushed his face real good. Then again, the girls seemed to like that cleft chin and those blue-green eyes well enough.

By the time Mitchell swan dived off the diving board the first time, every one of those pampered moms, their bodies too taut to have birthed babies and look so good without the benefit of plastic work along the way, their kids snot-nosed despite the good, chlorinated water to rinse it off. Yeah, every last person at that pool was sighing and wishing Mitchell would come talk to them. Even the grandma, her skin leathery from too many days out by this pool and her hair one of the fakest oranges Trevor had ever seen. Yeah, even her.

They’d be invited back, no doubt about it.

Trevor wasn’t sure if he should be grateful to Mitchell — burning every bridge you came to got old every now and then — or hate the bastard for the way the big idiot could make every single person on the planet eat out of the palm of his hand.

Maybe he’d settle for doing both.

**
Once again, I’ll be linking this piece up at a bunch of places. The Weekend Writer’s Retreat. Friday Flash. Writer’s Island.

“It’s a gift.”

“It’s a gift I don’t want,” Lyric told her mother with a scowl. She crossed her arms over her chest and hunched her shoulders, as if that could ward off her mother.

“Honey,” Melody cooed, “it’s a blessing. You’re a Maker girl, and this is how we all are. We’re superheroes, after all.”

Lyric squeezed her bottom lip between her thumb and forefinger. “I don’t know, Mom… It doesn’t feel right. You always said it would feel right and I’d know and it would be natural and all that. But it doesn’t. Don’t make me do this.”

“Now, honey,” Melody said, pressing her knees together and pursing her lips slightly, “you’re just scared. That’s natural.”

“According to you, everything is natural!”

Melody nodded, her eyes crinkling slightly. “And that, my dear, is the secret. The one and only secret you’ll ever need if you want to make it in this life.”

“Maybe it is for you, Mom. You’re the one who’s the star. Not me. I’m just your kid. Things are different for me.”

“Stop thinking that way, honey! You are so much more than you realize. You deserve this. You’ve got your own talents, Lyric. All you need to do is show them off. People will sit up and take notice. I promise!”

Lyric played with her lower lip again. She didn’t see it. Didn’t see how she could ever be anything but Melody’s daughter.

On the other hand, Lyric couldn’t remember Melody ever being wrong. If Melody said she could be more than a porn star’s daughter, she could be.

Lyric smiled. Melody mirrored it, magnified it. “You are a superhero, baby. You are. It’s your gift.”

“I don’t know…” Lyric said, but she did know. It wasn’t what she would have picked for herself, but there it was. She may as well grab onto it and go along for the ride.

**
A bit of Sunday Scribblings and Writer’s Islands prompts rolled into one. They worked so well together, it was hard not to. I’m not convinced this is finished yet, but that’s okay. This place was meant to be for rough fiction, and the books for the polished stuff. Speaking of books… Stay tuned.