In My Blood

Chapter 2

Chapter Playlist:
Dead Memories by Slipknot
Different for Girls by Dierks Bentley
Every Little Thing by Carly Pearce
Club (ballerini album version) by Kelsea Ballerini

X.x

Renae had grown up in Travis County in the dust of Texas. It was the very epitome of down South; hot, dry, flat ground, spanning for miles. The kind of place that worshipped the rain when it finally did come, however few and far between rainy days could be. She had known the Hewitt's her whole life, but had only heard the rumors that surrounded their existence when she got to the age of ten. Freaks, people called them, There's just something not right about them. Renae had never noticed anything wrong with them. Her grandmother on her father's side had been very close friends with Luda Mae Hewitt, the matriarch of the family. There were four of them living in an enormous old farmhouse on a huge plantation miles from any other home. There was Luda Mae, whom Renae had grown up calling MaeMae. An older woman, short but tougher than most men, with a sweet inflection but a sharp temper. Luda Mae didn't take shit from anyone, especially not those who tried to badmouth her family. There was her brother, Charlie Hewitt, an army vet with tattoos on his forearms and piercing blue eyes that could see straight through someone's soul. Renae didn't remember at what point he had taken to wearing the Sheriff uniform, or driving the patrol car, but people had talked even more after that. All she knew was that she'd been calling him Uncle Hoyt as long as she could remember. She didn't think that was part of his actual name, but it was what he liked to be called. There was Old Monty Hewitt, whom everyone called Uncle Monty. He was the oldest, and brother to the mother of Luda Mae and Charlie. He was a thin, wiry man with glasses, and almost always had an old baseball cap on his head. He mostly kept to himself, preferring solitude more than anything else. Apparently folks in town liked to say he was the most normal out of the bunch - which wasn't saying much.

And then there was Tommy.

Thomas Brown Hewitt, the biggest man Renee had ever seen, but the person who's presence and memory by far outweighed the actual sight of him more than anyone she'd ever known. Standing at well over six feet tall and weighing about two or three of her put together, he was more afraid of her than she could ever be of him. He always had been. To anyone who hadn't known him or his history, it would be odd to see such a man so afraid of anyone - especially a young woman. The Hewitt's had taken him in when Luda Mae had found him outside of the local slaughterhouse in a dumpster when he was a newborn. When she'd found him, he'd been born with deformation on his face that, doctors had advised them, would only get worse over the years. This had not only caused discomfort for him growing up, but it had been a source of great torment for him by other people. Luda Mae had stopped sending him to school before he'd gotten past sixth grade because of how horrible it had been for him.

Renae had always had a soft spot for him, though she could count on two hands the amount of times she'd ever actually seen him. It didn't necessarily bother her per say, although part of her had always wondered what she had ever done to make him so uncomfortable. Luda Mae and Hoyt had always told her that it wasn't her. She was young, attractive, nice, kind-hearted; Tommy just didn't know how to handle her.

If she really thought about it, she guessed it did bother her more than she liked to think it did.

Every time she'd seen him was like an imprint on her memory; it had bordered on obsession when she'd been a younger, hormonal teenager. Not like she'd fantasized about him like some sort of romance character, or anything... But more so she'd just always wondered what it would be like to befriend him. And what would happen from there. She never pushed him; she knew how fragile his mental state was. She didn't want to make him fear her forever. But she wanted him to know that she could help him; that they could work through their issues together. Renae knew she would now need someone who could understand pain now more than ever.