Demon’s face was on fire, and he knew what that meant, what he looked like. He should get out. He should run right now before he hurt her. But he was trying to learn to hold. He would never hurt Faith. Not Faith. Right?
He cast about in his mind, pushing aside the shadows that were trying to crowd in. What could it be? It was about Margot. Something about Margot. But what could be so bad? She hated him? Not news. Did Faith not think he and Tucker should move in there? Well, he wasn’t so sure, either. They’d figure it out. There was nothing. He could think of nothing.
“Faith.” He’d meant to make his voice a plea, but it came out a threat. Now she was back so far that she was pressed against the dresser. She dropped her head again, and when she looked up, she was crying, but there was resolve in her eyes, sidled up to the fear. Fear and resolve. Bravery. She needed to be brave for this.
Demon began to despair in earnest. His beast stood up.
“When everything happened…before…when you joined the Nomads…” She stopped and swallowed so hard he heard it. “I was pregnant.”
His head full of shadow, he could see no sense in what she’d said. He stared at her, feeling dark and blank. “I don’t…what?”
Her chest heaved as she took a deep breath, and a tear dropped from her jaw. He watched it hit her white t-shirt and make a spot where her pink bra showed through. “My parents…they freaked out. Michael, they made me have…they made me have an abortion.”
“You were pregnant?”
She nodded. Demon’s brain was being slow and stupid, but his blood was loud, hot, burning his veins. He didn’t understand.
“We made a baby? You and me?” A child with Faith. Their child. Made in love.
Again, she nodded. Then she made a strange, strangled sound and took a couple of steps toward him. He stood, and she froze, her eyes wide. “I wanted to keep it. I loved you then like I love you now—with everything. It was a part of you, and I wanted to keep it.”
“Don’t say ‘it.’ Our baby’s not an ‘it.’” It was all he could think of to say. It seemed like an important thing to say. They could have had a baby together. He would have been nine years old. Or she. They would have made a family.
But she’d had an abortion.
He wouldn’t have said he had an opinion about abortion. Until this moment, he wouldn’t have thought he did. And maybe for anyone else, he didn’t. Kota had never suggested it, and neither had he, and now he had Tucker. Maybe it would have been better if Tucker hadn’t been born to that woman. Maybe it would have been the humane choice for Kota not to have him. But Demon knew love for his son like he’d never known before. He couldn’t imagine not loving him, not having him. He was fighting with all he had to keep him.
But a baby with Faith—that baby would have been born in love and known only love, would have grown strong and happy in love. Demon’s chest hurt—a searing, black pain.
“You killed our baby?”
She made a sobbing sound and closed the distance between them, but Demon thought he’d break apart if she touched him.
“Michael, please! I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t have a choice. They made me.”
He didn’t understand. “How?”
“My dad said he’d kill you if I didn’t. He said he knew right where you were and would kill you that night if I didn’t.”
Demon laughed. The sound grated at his throat. “I had my patch. He lost that vote. He couldn’t just kill me, not without facing the same vote himself.”
Faith didn’t answer; she simply stared at him, her face wrenched with sorrow and that fucking fear.
“Even if he did, it wouldn’t’ve fucking mattered. That was our baby.”
“It mattered to me. I chose you. And Margot wanted to win. No matter what, she’d never have let me stay pregnant. She kicked me in the belly when she found out.”
Demon’s knees gave out, and he sat hard on the bed and put his head in his hands. He had to hold. He had to keep control. He had to think.
Faith knelt at his feet and put her hands on his arms. He tried to pull away, but she held on, her nails digging into the meat of his forearms. “Don’t pull away, Michael. I need you with me. I hated losing our baby.”
“You didn’t lose him.”
“I did. I hated what they did to us. It’s why I left home. Don’t you see? I know you can see, if you look. I love you. You know that.”
“How did he know where I was?”
“What?”
“Blue. I was on the road. How would he even know where to look?”
“I—I don’t know. I was too fucked up with everything to question him. I guess Hoosier told him, or the Nomad president? I don’t know.”
Her mention of Hoosier’s name put another black shadow in his head. “Does Hooj know?”
Faith sat back. She stared for a few painfully long seconds and then nodded.
“Since then? And fuck, Bibi? Were they in on it?”
“They knew. They weren’t part of it, but they knew.”
They were the closest thing he’d ever had to parents. He trusted them with everything. With his child. His second child. “They let it happen?”
She didn’t answer. Demon shoved her away—too hard, he knocked her backwards, but he barely registered doing so—and stood. With his blood scalding and his head too thick and dark now for thoughts, for anything but feelings, he left the room and went down the stairs.
Behind him, Faith called out, “Michael, no!” But only the small part of him that was still Michael heard him. The rest of him, the bulk of him that was Demon, ignored her completely.
As he walked, he saw nothing, heard nothing, his eyes trained only for what he sought. He found Hoosier in the kitchen, leaning in a corner of the counter, his arm around Bibi. There might have been other people around; he didn’t know, didn’t heed. Hoosier and Bibi looked at him, and he watched as interest became confusion and then alarm, but it was too late. He was there. He grabbed Bibi by the arm and yanked her out of his way. And then, with all of his might, he slammed his fist into Hoosier’s face. Bones cracked, possibly his own as well as his President’s, but he didn’t care. Hoosier sank to the floor, and Demon fell on him in the way that had earned him his name—fierce, blazing hot, and senseless to anything but pain, delivering and receiving.
When his sense returned, his rage had not abated. But he was on his back, held down by the hands and knees and feet of his brothers, and Bart had a shotgun aimed right at his head. The room was stormy with yelling.
Still fighting against the restraints on him, he looked at Bart and then into the barrel of the Mossberg. “DO IT !” he shouted. “JUST FUCKING DO IT! DO IT! DO IT! DO IT!”
“ENOUGH!” Hoosier’s voice was strong, but the word was thick and wet. “Bart, put it down.”
“This is my house. There are women and children here. My pregnant wife was in here. He almost knocked her over.”
Demon calmed enough for guilt to emerge from the shadows in his head. Had he hurt Riley? He lifted his head and saw Bibi sitting on the floor. Fuck. Had he hurt her? And Faith? Oh, fuck.
As he calmed, hands left him. He rose onto his elbows and turned his eyes to Hoosier, who was on his hands and knees, leaning against the lower cupboards. “You knew. All this time, you both knew. You let them do it to her.” He looked up at Bart, who was still aiming a kill shot. “Just do it,” he said again, quietly now.
“Put it down, Bart,” Hoosier said again. Bart raised the barrel and dropped the Mossberg to his side. He stepped back, out of Demon’s range.
Demon heard Faith’s voice. “Tucker, no!” And then his son ran into the room.
He stopped in the middle of the kitchen, not far from Demon’s outstretched legs. “PA! Bad noise! Bad noise! No, Pa!” He shook his finger like a schoolmarm.
And now his son had seen how bad his father really was.
“Get him out of here.” Demon didn’t say it to anyone in particular, but it was Faith who
scooped Tucker up. He squirmed in her arms, calling “Pa! Pa!” as she took him away.
It was over. Everything was over. Ash and shadow, all of it. He shrugged off J.R. and Trick, the last of his brothers holding him down, and he stood. Bart raised the shotgun again, but he ignored it and looked at Hoosier, who had stood and was taking Bibi from Connor, who’d apparently helped his mother to her feet.
“You knew. You let them do it, and you never said.”
Hoosier spat into the sink and wiped the blood from his mouth. His nose was swelling already. “It wasn’t my place to stop it, son. And what would I have told you? How could knowing have helped you at all?”
He didn’t know. He felt like there was nothing in the world that he did know, except that he had trusted and been betrayed.
Absolutely alone, Demon turned and walked out of the house.
He was just mounting his bike when Faith ran out of the house. “Michael, NO! Don’t run! Please don’t run! Please!”
He fired up and pulled away.
~oOo~
He’d vaguely meant to head into the desert, but he found himself coming up on the hospital instead. So, feeling numb from his vibrating nerves, he went up to check on Muse.
Keanu was sitting in the waiting room at the end of the hall. He stood when Demon came up, but Demon waved him off and went down the hall.
Muse was talking with Sid, almost sitting up. He looked pretty good for a guy who’d been gutshot less than twelve hours earlier. Sid saw Demon first and smiled. “Hey, Deme.” She stood up, and he gave her a hug.
“Hey, Sid. You okay?” He felt like he was on Novocain or something. Or out of sync with time. Detached.
“I’m fine. Muse is a whiner.” She smiled at her old man. “I’ll give you guys a few minutes. You want me to scavenge up some more Jell-O?”
Muse groaned. “You’re a cruel woman, hon.”
“You love it.”
“I do.”
She left, and Demon turned to Muse. The first thing Muse asked was, “You take care of it?”
“Yeah. Went clean, too.” Before Demon had gone to take Faith upstairs, before his life had burned down, the club had met. They’d been building goodwill in the community—in the whole county, especially with people like Sheriff Montoya—for all the years they’d had stakes down in Madrone, even when they’d been legit. Building it with deed and cash both. It was as though Hoosier had always known they’d go outlaw again. Montoya was a true friend. He was going with the story Hoosier had given him, and nobody was looking at the club for the shooting at the Rats’ clubhouse. Demon was dirty again, but he was clear. They all were.
At least as far as law was concerned. What had happened the night before was an escalation, and it wouldn’t die just because the Horde had fought back quickly and decisively. They’d need La Zorra to lean in if they wanted to end a full-out war with the Rats before it started.
“Muse, I’m—I have to—I…”
“Deme?”
“I’m leaving. I have to leave.” He was surprised to have said it. He was more surprised that it was true. It felt true, and it felt like lead in his chest.
Muse frowned. “Leave what?”
“Town. The club.”
“What the fuck? What happened?”
Demon shrugged. He couldn’t say. He didn’t fully understand.
“Don’t fuckin’ shrug at me, Deme. If you’re running, have a reason.”
“I’m not running. I’m leaving. I have to leave.”
Muse simply lifted an eyebrow, waiting.
So Demon told him. He started at the beginning and told his friend the story of him and Faith. He’d never said it to anyone before, and putting it to words brought feeling back into his limbs. About halfway through, Sid opened the door. Muse shook his head, and she backed out and closed the door again.
Demon told him about the past, and the present, and what had happened barely hours before. “I just beat the fuck out of Hooj. He’s the only father I ever had. I trusted him. I trusted them both. I can’t…I have to go.”
“Shit, Deme.” Muse looked out the window. Some machine started beeping, and within a minute, a nurse came in and changed out an IV bag. She asked if he needed anything, and when he said he didn’t, she left.
“You blame her? Faith?”
At first, hearing her tell him, he had. But not now. “No. She was just a kid. Blue told her he’d kill me if she didn’t do it. I blame them—all of them. Blue and her mom most of all. But Blue’s dead. And her mom—she’s a woman, and losing her mind. There’s nothing I can do. But I can’t be around Hooj. I can’t say what I’ll do. I would’ve beaten him to death today. That’s what it wanted.”
“It?”
“The thing inside me.”
Muse shook his head. “I love you, brother. But that’s a crock of shit, and it always has been. There’s nothing inside you but you. You want to find control? You get right with what’s wrong.”
“You say that like I can just decide.”
“Can’t you?”
He’d thought Muse understood. “Don’t you think I already would’ve if I could?”
“I think it’s easier to believe you live with something else inside you than to face that it’s all you. I think you’re afraid.”
His face grew hot. “Fuck you. I’m no pussy.” He turned and went to the door.
“You’re running. Again. Pussies run.”
Demon stopped, with his hand on the door handle.
“What do you want, Deme? Know that, and then do what you need to do to make it happen.”
He opened the door and went out, walking past Sid without stopping, going down to the main floor and out the automatic doors without stopping. He was astride his bike before he realized that he had no idea where to go.
~oOo~
It was dark when he pulled back into Bart and Riley’s crowded driveway. He’d ridden into the desert and sat alone on his rock until dusk. Hours. The windows of the big house were bright with light, and he could see his brothers, their women, the children—his son—moving about in the uncovered windows. Dinner was happening in there. Family dinner.
It was what he wanted. Family. Love. Home. All he’d ever wanted. He couldn’t leave it behind.
Muse was right. He had to get right with what was wrong. He had to give trust, and let that trust ride. If he trusted Hoosier and Bibi, then he had to believe that they’d done the best they could. They’d kept it from him to help him. After spending a few hours on his rock, he could see how they would think that was true. They were wrong, but he could see how they thought they were right.
Maybe that was what real trust was. To see love even when it wore the face of betrayal.
The side door opened, and Faith stepped out. She was wearing different clothes—jeans without holes and a black sweater with a wide neck that showed the straps of her pink bra. He didn’t recognize them, and the jeans were maybe an inch too short. Riley’s clothes.
She stayed just outside the door, standing barefoot on the topmost step. Her arms were crossed under her breasts. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She looked tiny and delicate. Vulnerable.
Demon dismounted and set his helmet on his bike, and she didn’t move. He walked toward her, and she stayed put, except to cross her arms differently, moving them over her chest, hooking her hands over her shoulders. Like a fragile shield for her heart.
He walked to the foot of the steps and could think of only one thing to say. “I love you.”
She collapsed into weeping and, nodding, wrapped herself around him. He lifted her up and carried her inside.
He would make it all right. All of it.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The couple of weeks after St. Pat’s was a strange whirl of comfort and chaos. Michael had come back that night, and he’d been calm. Faith would have almost called him serene, except it was Michael, and serenity was impossible for him. He had apologized to her, and to Hoosier and Bibi, and
to Bart and Riley and the rest of the family, and, after hugs and handshakes, the matter had simply been dropped.
Ten years of pent-up turmoil and unhappiness had simply been bled off, as if an infected wound had been lanced. After his fury earlier, Faith didn’t completely believe that it could be so easy, that Michael had simply gone for a ride and then come home and forgiven everyone—including himself—everything, and had likewise been forgiven, but it appeared to be true. He seemed at peace, and that made Faith feel a little hopeful.
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