The man’s work pants were unbuckled, hanging down below his big belly. The sagginess nearly made him trip as he dropped to the ground. TJ raised the pistol toward his chest now, knowing he wasn’t about to stop. She just might have to kill the son of a bitch.

Behind the man’s shoulder, Chastity appeared in the open door. She had blood across her face, one eye snapped shut. That frilly little white shirt ripped away, exposing a hot pink bra.

“I’m sorry,” Chastity said, sobbing. “God, I’m so sorry.”

“Step away, mister,” TJ said.

The man buckled his pants, not bothering to zip his fly, moving on toward her with his hand out, grinning. He walked slow and heavy, breathing rough, red smears of blood across his saggy chest. “Give it here, little girl,” he said. “And I’ll let you suck my peter, too.”

“Shoot him!” Chastity said, screaming. “Kill the bastard!”

TJ walked backward, feet splashing in the water glowing purple, gun raised up on the man until he was damn near close enough to touch. He reached back and slapped TJ hard against the face and sent her reeling. The one-eyed man reached out, trying to take her daddy’s gun. The slap just like a thousand damn stings from all those last-call dates her momma brought home from the Southern Star. Damn near taking Gina piece by piece until there was barely nothing left. TJ had the horrible thought that maybe whatever Chester Pratt had done was an act of mercy. That her mother had been gone for years.

TJ could taste the blood in her mouth as she pointed the gun at the man’s chest and fired twice. One hit him in the mouth, the other tore at his belly, the huge one-eyed sack of shit still reaching out for her as he collapsed down on one knee and then the other until he gagged and fell face-first into a puddle.

“Holy shit,” Chastity said. TJ walked over to her and offered her a hand. “Holy shit. You did it. You really did it.”

“Are you all right?”

Chastity began to cry some more, trying to hold her frilly shirt together over her little bra in the dim light and cold wind. Her face and hair a mess, the top of her fancy blue jeans ripped, with claw marks all up and down her stomach.

“Did he?”

“I just asked him for a twenty,” Chastity said. “A lousy goddamn twenty dollars. He said he wanted a hug. Wanted to talk. He told me I was as pretty as his daughter.”

TJ pulled at Chastity’s arm as she hovered over the man’s body, staring down at him, face-first in the puddle. Chastity kicked hard at him a few times, crying and sobbing, until she stopped cold, reached down, and plucked the man’s wallet from his back pocket.