32(S3E6)-I Want One

Episode 32

(Season 3, Episode 6)

I Want One

Rockwell had not slept.  His mind was consumed with the woman he had met the night before.  The daughter.

Rockwell had been around the block more than a few times.  He fucked just about every type of woman he could find.  He thought he had them figured out.  He had pegged them for mostly disposable or, in rare cases, gun toting threats.  There were a rare few who had an unprecedented ability to control men with their naughty bits.

Rockwell was immune to this kind of manipulation.  Love and seduction were foreign concepts to him.

This was different.

“No,” Stone said as Rockwell stood in his doorway and watched hers from across the hall.

“No, what?” Rockwell replied knowing what he meant.

Stone sighed. “She is off limits.”

“I want one.”  Rockwell said as her door opened and she strolled into her doorway wearing a tank top and short shorts she had obviously slept in.

She leaned against her own door frame and looked back at him as if she knew he had been there waiting.  Her jaw was bruised where he had smacked her but it somehow made her smile sweeter to look at.

“Maude,” The old voice of Gerald Roman dragged Rockwell back from perverse fantasy.

Rockwell turned to see Gerald standing in the hallway behind him, his eyes were cold and dark.  “Her name is Maude and she is mine.”

Mine.  The choice of words was interesting to Rockwell.  He did not say my daughter or my little girl, but ‘mine’, as if she were a possession.  Rockwell turned back toward Maude again and the girl had lowered her head and sunk back into her room.  Rockwell’s fractured mind started to put it together.  The night before he had seen the same madness in Maude’s eyes that he had in his own, but after he had been beaten and locked alone with his imaginary friend in his room and had a chance to think, he had wondered that if she was truly like him, truly fearless, truly mad, then why was she still here.

Now it came to him.  The Senator.

Her madness stemmed from him and his actions but it also held her, chained to him and this house.

“What did you do to your daughter, Gerry?”  Rockwell said, turning back to face him.

Jerry responded with a series of nervous, guilt-ridden twitches before he regained his scowl.  “Come with me.”

Gerald turned and walked back the way from which he came down the hall.  Rockwell considered, then followed.  He had put himself in this game, might as well play along.

Gerald led him through the giant house, so many hallways and stairs.  Rockwell could never imagine living in this place.  He would get lost.  He had never had the sense of direction that Stone had.  Stone was always the navigator in the desert and then in the urban jungle when they had come home.  Stone was the consummate professional, a jack of all trades.

Rockwell was a trigger finger and that’s about it.

A rare ping of doubt entered Rockwell.  Shaky was the best of the best.  Without Stone, maybe Rockwell could not win.  Rockwell didn’t fear failure.  For that matter, Rockwell didn’t fear anything.  He very rarely doubted and he almost never felt emotion, but in this moment, he missed Stone.

Gerald led them into a large museum-like room.  Around the room were well-made and kept glass cases showing all sorts of different items from the Civil War.

“This is my private collection,” Gerald began.  “My great, great, great grandfather was a general in the Yankee Army.  He fought under General Sherman.”

Rockwell’s eyes glazed over, he hated history.  “Should I save you some time and tell you now, how bored I am?”

Gerald ignored him as he looked around the room.  “I have read that you have an affinity for rare and classic firearms.”

Rockwell frowned at the way he worded it.  “I like bad-ass guns.”

Gerald again ignored him.  “Then you may find this interesting.  Everything in this room is actual artifacts that my ancestor used to fight that war.  He was cavalry.”

Gerald pointed to a display case in the center of the room, inside was a wild-west era silver revolver with an ivory grip and a strange hooked bar that ran the length of the barrel.

“A Scholfield,” Rockwell said as his eyes widened.

A Scholfield was a north side Civil War cavalry revolver made with a special design for easy reload on horseback.  The user would drag the hook against his leg to disengage the lock and it would break open from the top.  The rider could then dump the shells and, using a speed loader, reload it using only one hand.  This way, the rider could use his other hand to control the horse.

The gun came out toward the end of the war and this particular type was incredibly rare.

“I’m going to call you, Annie.” Rockwell whispered to the gun.

“Excuse me?” Gerald asked.

Rockwell looked up and smiled.  “Nothing.”

“Look,” Gerald said.  “I want to make this very clear to you.  This room is a shrine to doing whatever it takes to-”

“Stop.” Rockwell irrupted him.

Gerald gave him a shocked, angry look.  “What?”

“This is the part where you give me some speech about General Sherman’s Scorched Earth Strategy, and doing anything it takes and blah, blah, blah-do-fucking-blah.”  Rockwell said mockingly.  “And really, it’s all just to reaffirm that you are in charge and I’m not.  That you are the boss.”

Gerald frowned.  Rockwell had his full attention.

Rockwell loved having attention.  “But let’s face it, you’re not.”

“I have had just about enough of-” Gerald tried to retake the alpha spot and failed.  He was too far gone.

“You have a killer after you, and to deal with him, you have hired a monster.” Rockwell continued.  “You are hoping the monster kills the killer and then goes away, but that’s a best case scenario.  You can only hope he’s going to be happy with killing the killer.  You can only hope he’s not going to fuck your daughter and steal your gun.  In the end though, you can only hope because, after all, he is a monster. “

Gerald continued to stare in anger but now something else had crept into his eyes.

Fear.

Rockwell grinned.

“You should be careful.”  Gerald said his voice low and full of intent.  “I won’t need you forever.”

Rockwell shrugged.  “Carful is not my thing.”

Rockwell turned and walked out.  Stone was standing in the doorway as he passed.  “That was overdramatic.”

“That was fun.”  Rockwell replied.

****

Maude shut the door behind her, the fear binding her actions again.  She hated the fear and the self-loathing and all the other circular hate that she could not escape.  Her father had done this to her.  He had broken her mind and then freed it while also binding it to him.

Something was different now, though.  Something was allowing her to subdue her fear.  Something was allowing her true madness to take shape.

It was the stranger.  Rockwell.

He was undefinable.  New.  He was a walking disaster.  A force of nature.  A force of change that forever altered everything he came into contact with.

For the better or worse?  That did not matter.  She just wanted change.  She wanted her to burn her life to the ground.

She felt her bruise, which still hurt to the touch and her body clenched with hate and rage.  Her mind showed her sinking her teeth into the soft flesh of his neck and ripping his throat out, murdering him in the worst way she could think of.

Her finger found her lips and the hate disappeared as quickly as it came, being replaced with unending need.  She warmed and moistened at the thought of his lips on hers.  Her brain took her to a ferial session of sex while her house father bodyguards and all burned down around them.

She audibly moaned. The unknown was the best part.

Rockwell, her knight in shining armor.

No.

Her knight in blood soaked armor.

He was here and nothing would be the same.