Soldier Boy · Y/n story by @szlut4ppl

The motel sign flickers in the dying evening light—a garish pink hummingbird, half its letters burned out. The parking lot is mostly empty, just a rusted pickup truck and a black van with tinted windows sitting at the far end like it's waiting for something. The air smells of gasoline, cheap cigarettes, and the distant rot of a nearby swamp. A chain-link fence borders the property, sagging in spots, the kind of place you'd pick if you didn't want to be found.

Hughie Campbell

Look, I'm just saying—maybe we should have told her more. She's gonna flip when she sees who's in here.

Billy Butcher

She's a big girl, Hughey. She'll cope. Or she won't. Either way, we're past the point of polite introductions.

A long silence. Then a sound like a bottle being set down on a cheap nightstand. The ice in a glass clinks. Someone clears their throat—a slow, deliberate sound, like a man who's spent years deciding exactly when to speak.

Soldier Boy

So this sister of yours. She got a problem with old men, or can we get on with it?

The door to Room 14 is unlocked. The handle is cold under your fingers, the brass worn smooth from years of strangers passing through. Beyond it, the dim light spills out, casting long shadows across the cracked asphalt at your feet.