Ok, this is a three chapter Mac story that's almost done so I'm posting it. It's very simple and to the point, as you'll see. Also, listen to Veronica By Elvis Costello and Here's To Us By Halestorm. :) xoxoxoxxo Love you all.

******************Is it all in that pretty little head of yours?
What goes on in that place in the dark?
Well I used to know a girl and I would have
sworn that her name was Veronica.
Well she used to have a carefree mind of her
own and a delicate look in her eye.
These days I'm afraid she's not even sure if her
name is Veronica.

Do you suppose, that waiting hands on eyes,
Veronica has gone to hide?
And all the time she laughs at those who shout
her name and steal her clothes.
Veronica
Veronica

/

Veronica Baylor was not supposed to be there that day. When she woke up that morning being in bumfuck Utah was not on the agenda. That was the shittiest part of the whole thing, the worst. Carrie had called and needed her and, so, she took off like a bat out of hell, to go help her little sister finally get away from that prick she had married.

But rescuing Carrie had never happened because IT had happened instead. She didn't blame Carrie, how could she have ever known. Ronnie had just been passing through the town, on her way to rescue Carrie in California. But she crossed paths with someone that changed everything about the way she saw the world, and she was never the same after that.

But looking back, as she often did now, if she had never gotten that phone call, IT (yes capital IT, because now her life was divided in two; before IT happened, and after IT happened). If she had never gotten that phone call IT never would have happened and she wouldn't be at the shooting range now getting ready to go round two with the motherfucker that had done this to her.

Carrie did leave Jimmy finally, she came running when she heard her older sister had limped to a gas station somewhere in Utah after taking a beating that almost killed her. Carrie had come and rescued her instead of the other way around, the irony was almost comical.

She hummed to herself as he had done …"And her name was Veronica…" His voice murmuring in her ear, his hot breath on her skin, and all the ambiguity she felt about him returned in an instant, "You're making me love you, Veronica."

Ronnie could still hear his voice, smell him sometimes and with that came the memory of the worst night of her life and how he told her she had asked for it and that she liked it. That hurt worst of all, her body eventually recovered from his attack, but her mind had not. Maybe it never would, unless she evened the score.

Maybe she could handle all that bullshit, she knew how predators operated, but the singing of her song, in his dark gravelly voice, the song she was named after had ruined it forever for her, except when she had the gun in her hands. Then she sang it to herself and remembered him.

She had a scar across her cheek that she had to look at every day from where he had cut her. He had broken her nose, three of her ribs, choked her, raped her and stolen her car with the bumper sticker on it that said, Don't Be A Shitty Person Today.

The irony of that was almost too much to handle.

He had left her to die in a ditch like an animal and that as the most offensive part of it and now she had to kill him. She knew who he was, his first name at least, and where he was from because he had told her during the thirteen hours he had held her hostage, because he always intended to kill her, no matter what bullshit story he told her at the time.

His name was Mac and her name was Veronica.

/

**********Here's to us, here's to love

All the times, that we messed up

Here's to you, fill the glass

'Cause the last few nights have kicked my ass

If they give ya hell

Tell em to go fuck themselves, here's to us, here's to us.*****

Here's to Us by Halestorm.

The phone call had come at four am and Ronnie knew it was bad news, how could it not be? Carrie was crying, she had checked into a hotel in Hollywood and needed Ronnie to come to get her and bring her home to Denver.

She jumped out of bed, threw on some clothes and packed a small bag and was off within the hour. From the road she called out sick for the week, and headed down the long stretch of highway to California, blasting her favorite band Halestorm and singing at the top of her lungs.

But she was sidelined somewhere in the canons of Utah and her life would never be the same again.

She had stopped briefly and innocently in some shit hole town for gas, it was quick enough she pumped her gas, paid and got the fuck out of there. Ignoring the catcalls from a few men across the street from the gas pump at some seedy bar. In no time she was on her way again, blissfully unaware that she had just crossed paths with something evil. There was no more gas for a hundred miles so she had to do what she had to do, although this place certainly was not her first choice. Cainville, the name itself gave her the heebie jeebies.

/

Ronnie kicked the tire of her car as it billowed steam from the hood on the side of the road, not five or ten miles from where she last stopped for gas. As she sat on the side of the road for what seemed like hours trying to get a cell signal she looked up when she saw a red truck approaching. It would be dark soon and that was concerning her so at the time the red truck seemed like a godsend.

Seeing a strange man out in the middle of nowhere might have scared her if it wasn't for the tow boom she saw in the back of his truck as he pulled up next to her. He would rescue her.

"Evening Miss," He said as he pulled up next to her and Ronnie noticed the name on the side of the truck, Luna Mesa Gas and Eats, the name on the work shirt he wore said Mac, 'You in need of some help?"

Ronnie nodded slowly, suddenly a little nervous being out here alone with him, as he got out of his truck he gave her a slight grin. She watched as he strolled over to her car and popped the hood like he did it every day, which probably he did if he was a mechanic. Still, he made her uneasy, she couldn't figure it out, he was good looking in a hard weather beaten way, but he unnerved her.

The man who said his name was Mac was from that town, from the gas station she was at just a little while ago. He told her as much as he tinkered with her engine and waved the smoke from under the hood away with his hand.

Then he looked up from the hood of the car and the twinkle in his eyes made her want to run, but then it was gone and she felt like maybe she imagined it. It wasn't like her to doubt her own instincts but there was something both calming and unsettling about him.

"Looks like you got some bad gas, maybe a little water in it?" He said softly in that gravelly voice some men had, it scared her, as if he was glad she had broken down on the side of the road, 'You'll need a tow."

"I have to be somewhere, I have to…"

"Relax sugar, I got you…" He said as he walked over to the hod and closed it, "I can tow you to town, get your ride fixed up and you'll be on your way." Ronnie let herself relax a little and he noted that; Mac noticed everything, it was what he did.

"Thank you…" She called after him as he took a cigarette from behind his ear and lit it.

"It's nothing…"

"I can pay you," She offered, but a chill was creeping up her spine and in the back of her mind it was becoming clear that the watered down gas maybe wasn't an accident. He worked at that gas station…

And he said it was bad gas...

"I said it's nothing, didn't I? My dad owns the gas station, it's his truck, I can throw a pretty girl a freebie if I wanna."

He took a step forward, and she stepped back, recognizing him now as one of the men that were cat calling her at the bar. SHIT! Everything happened in slow motion in her mind as Ronnie connected some dots she didn't want to at that moment. They fired one after another in her brain, making her dizzy for a moment and before he said another word she knew she was in deep, deep trouble.

Still, she hoped it was her imagination playing tricks on her in the heat of the afternoon, "I can't let you do that sir…"

"How about I just fuck you?" He snarled, reaching for her and she turned to run. He was quick though and had her by the hair before she knew what hit her. Then she was slammed against the side of the car so hard she got the wind knocked out of her.

Thankfully most of it was a blur, but she remembered his smell and his voice saying "You're making me love you." to her and singing her song…

"And her name was Veronica…"

*****Did the days drag by? Did the favors wane?
Did he roam down the town all the time?
Will you wake from your dream, with a wolf at
the door, reaching out for Veronica.
Well it was all of sixty-five years ago
When the world was the street where she lived.
And a young man sailed on a ship in the sea
With a picture of Veronica.

On the "Empress of India"
And as she closed her eyes upon the world and
picked upon the bones of last week's news.
She spoke his name out loud/ again.

Veronica sits in her favorite chair and she sits
very quiet and still.
And they call her a name that they never get
right and if they don't then nobody else will.
But she used to have a carefree mind of her
own, with a devilish look in her eye.
Saying "You can call me anything you like, but
my name is Veronica*********

So, let me know what you think :)