Then he came and took Hoosier’s hand. As they walked back to the house, he asked, “Gramps, did Sly die?”
Hoosier stopped walking and looked down at the boy. “Yeah…Tuck. He did. He lived…a long time.”
“As long as you?”
“He was…an old man…like me.”
“What happens in kitty heaven? Are there kittens? Sly likes kittens.”
“In heaven…you get what makes you…happy.”
“Kittens make Sly happy. And baby chicks and baby goats, too.” He started walking again, now leading Hoosier toward the house. “Why he is under the bush, if he went to kitty heaven?”
Jesus. This conversation was exhausting, and heartbreaking, and terrifying. Hoosier could think of dozens of ways he could screw this up, and he was also thinking about how Faith would take this news. “He…got a new…body. A young one that doesn’t…hurt.”
“With good eyes? Pa said his eyes didn’t work much anymore. Do they work now?”
“They do.”
“Can he see us?”
“I…think so.” He opened the door and let Tucker go in first. Faith stood in the kitchen, her hair wet and twisted into a braid over her shoulder. Virgil was drinking from his water bowl; he came up and gave Tucker a drippy kiss and then wandered back toward the bedrooms, keeping guard over the sleeping toddler.
Faith smiled as Hoosier closed the door. “Hey, guys. You went outside, huh? Taking a walk?” She gave Hoosier a curious, pleased look.
“No,” Tucker said, climbing onto his chair at the table and pulling over the paper and crayons he’d been using earlier. “Sly went to kitty heaven and got a new body. I covered his old body up with a blanket because he’s cold. Gramps said he can see me with good eyes, so I’m gonna make him a picture.”
Faith stared dumbly at her son for a moment and then turned back to Hoosier, her eyes wide with shock and incipient sorrow. “Sly?”
He crossed the room and took her hand. “I’m…sorry, baby girl.”
“Sly?”
Tucker looked up, and a crease of concern tightened his little brow. “It’s okay, Mommy. Gramps said he’s happy and has lots of kittens in heaven.”
Hoosier’s heart hurt watching Faith struggle to be strong for her boy. She blinked and swallowed hard, and then she worked a smile back onto her face. “That’s right, honey. You color with Gramps, okay? I’m gonna go say goodbye.”
“You don’t have to go. He can see you here.”
“I know, Tuck. But…” She faltered, and Hoosier squeezed her hand.
“Let Mommy say…goodbye…her way. Like you did.”
Tuck thought about that a moment and then nodded. “You can put a blanket on him, too.”
“I’ll do that,” she said, too brightly.
Before he let her go, Hoosier pulled her close. “Call…Demon. Don’t…do it on your own.”
“Michael’s on a run, Hooj. Won’t be home until tomorrow.”
Fuck, he’d forgotten. He was still so far out of the loop with club business he might as well have given up his kutte. They tried to keep him involved, but his short-term memory hadn’t yet rebounded enough for him to keep everything that was going on straight.
He’d been out of the Center for a couple of weeks, and he was still making good progress. He was walking well, using the cane only when he first got up in the morning, or when he was outside. His lungs were stronger, and though he needed oxygen while he slept, he didn’t need it during the day, at least not while he was around the house. He was starting to read, and picking up the words quickly. His speech still sucked, but apparently that was better, too. Even his short-term memory was sharpening.
Just not fast enough. None of it was fast enough. “Let me…take care of it.”
This time her sad smile was sincere. “No, Hooj. I want to do it. But thank you. It seems like you said all the right things to help him.” She nodded toward Tucker, whose concentration was now fully on his art. “And that’s pretty wonderful.”
He kissed her cheek. “Okay. I’m here.”
“I know. Thank you. Where is he?”
“Creosote bush. Chicken…coop.” The word ‘creosote’ had sprung to his lips without effort. ‘Coop,’ on the other hand, he’d had to search for. What a pain in the ass.
She nodded and went out the back, and Hoosier walked to the window and watched her. When she got to the body of her cat, she dropped to her knees. He saw her back shaking, and he looked away.
That goddamn old ornery cuss of a cat was Faith and Demon. He was some kind of symbol, practically a talisman, for them both. Hoosier didn’t know all of the story, but he knew that Sly had been Demon’s first gift to Faith—back in the time when they’d all been blind to what had been going on between two stupid kids getting in way over their heads.
And oh, the mess they’d all made.
~oOo~
“There more there than you can handle here?”
Doc Dandridge shook his head as he finished a row of stitches along Demon’s hairline. “No question a hospital would be better, and it’s too early to know for sure. But there’s nothing broken that could be set in a cast. Keep a close eye on him. Big bleeds I’d know about by now. But if there’s any kind of small bleed in his brain or lungs, it could be trouble. I can’t know that just by looking.”
He dropped a suturing needle in a plastic bowl and looked up at Nancy, the sweetbutt at his side. “Thanks, sweetheart. We’re done now. Take all this and go on and wash up.” He pulled off latex gloves and dropped them onto the dresser.
Nancy gathered up the bloody supplies and leavings from the dresser and left the room. The doctor stood and crossed his arms, looking down over his unconscious patient. Demon had woken a few times while he’d been patched up, but pain had driven him back under. Now, he was well medicated.
Hoosier loved that broken boy. Loved him like a son. How the fuck had he let all this go on under his nose and let two kids he loved get so fucked up?
Demon had started hanging around the club when he was around eighteen, nineteen years old. Something about him had caught Hoosier’s notice right away. He was hyperaware of his surroundings and skittish at first, and he’d seemed innocent in a way not often seen around an MC. Innocent and weary. It was a strange combination.
He’d been hanging around regularly for a couple of months when Bibi, in her inimitable way, sussed out that he was homeless. And just like that, they’d had another kid living in their house. Connor had moved into the clubhouse when he’d started prospecting, and Hoosier guessed his old lady had been lonely in her empty nest—which was hardly ever empty, in fact. There were always patches and club girls and kids popping up at his table. Muse’s little sister was a regular guest, too. His house was like some kind of hostel half the time.
With Demon living with them, they’d learned that the kid was seriously fucked up. He didn’t talk about it—ever—but he didn’t have to. He was a sweet, quiet kid, but his temper was short and explosive, and he carried a heavy load of shame. He wore it over his shoulders like a hair shirt.
None of it made either Hoosier or Bibi love him any less. Quite the contrary.
Doc Dandridge turned to Hoosier and Fat Jack. “Keep an eye on him around the clock for at least twenty-four hours. Let him sleep as much as he can, but check his eyes every hour or so. I don’t want to see a blown pupil. And make sure he doesn’t choke on blood or anything else. He’s a mess, Hoosier. I’m not gonna ask why, but the kid’s a mess.”
“He’s gonna be okay, though.” Hoosier stared until the doctor eyes came around to him.
“Yeah. He’s young and strong. He’ll be pissing blood for a couple of days, and those ribs are gonna cause him trouble for weeks. But if he clears tomorrow without trouble, then he’ll heal fine.”
“Thanks, Doc,” Fat Jack cut in. “Why don’t you belly up to the bar awhile. Maybe pick out a girl.” Hoosier’s VP hooked a heavy arm around the doctor and lead him to the door.
Hoosier sighed. “Damn, I don’t know how I missed this.”
“Are you shittin’ me, Hooj? I told you this was a problem. More’n once I said to look out for these two. They been making eyes at each other since Deme signed on to prospect. And I will tell you somethin’ else—this dumb bastard didn’t stand a chance. Faith put herself in his way every chance she got.”
“I didn’t think he’d face off with Blue over her. And put the club on the line. Deme needs a home. I never known anybody to need one more. I didn’t think he’d be so fuckin’ stupid to throw it out the window over a girl. I never thought he’d risk his kutte over a girl. Even one like Faith.”
Jack laughed. “You did. You gave up your kutte over your woman once.”
“That was different, and you damn well know it. And I wasn’t a twenty-two-year-old kid. I knew what I was doin’.”
“You’re right. But to a twenty-two-year-old kid, I don’t think it’s different at all.”
“Guess not. Christ on a crutch, this is a mess.”
“It was. Now it’s done. Now we move forward. You call Zed?”
Zed was the president of the Nomad charter. LA had voted Demon out, but hadn’t excommunicated him. Hoosier had made arrangements to send him to the Nomads. “Yeah. Worked it out so Muse’ll take him in hand.” He sighed again. “You got him?”
Jack pulled an old vinyl and chrome chair from the corner. “Yeah. Way he gets, best not have a girl watchin’ until he’s got his sense about him. Even as weak as he is, he could still do some damage.”
“Yeah, agreed. Okay. I’m gonna pay the doc, check on Blue.”
He went out—and nearly ran into Connor, who stood right outside the door, looking stressed. His son had had a patch for three years—quiet years. This internal strife was the biggest crisis they’d had to deal with since he’d moved into the clubhouse.
“You okay, son?”
“Dad…I…” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. “What the hell is happening?”
“You were at the table. You voted just like the rest of us.” Connor had, in fact, voted to take Demon’s patch completely. When Hoosier then had not, his son had gone pale, and regret had warped his face.
“I know. Fuck, I know. But Faith! Dad, she was begging. We hurt her so bad today, and we didn’t even touch her. Why’d they make her watch?” Connor’s eyes brimmed over, and Hoosier reached up and grabbed him by the shoulder of his kutte. His son had about four inches on him, but when Hoosier yanked him into an empty room, he came easily.
He pushed Connor against a wall and closed the door. “Get control of that, boy. You feel it. Feel it all, every bit. But don’t you fuckin’ show it.”
Connor nodded and wiped at his eyes. “I just…I don’t understand.”
“Not for us to understand. This is Blue’s. Deme betrayed a brother. That’s what we voted on, that’s where our say ends.”
“She was begging, Dad.”
Hoosier knew. It had broken his heart, too, to see that pretty little girl, the moppet he’d been shooing out of his station since she was three, weeping and screaming and begging for Demon. God, the whole damn thing turned his stomach. “That Blue’s girl. Not our call, son.”
If it had been his call, it would have gone down another way. But years of fighting with Blue had turned Margot into a hard woman, and Blue—well, what he loved most in this world was his baby daughter, and knowing that Demon had been inside her might well have broken him completely.
Maybe he should have intervened. But how? Fuck, they’d all screwed up.
“Get yourself under control, Connor. What’s done is done. We made the vote. Demon’s out of here as soon as he can ride. Then we get back to normal.”
Connor heaved a sigh and shook his head, but he said, “Okay.”
“You good?”
“I’m good.”
“Okay.” He slapped his son’s shoulder. “Take a minute. Then go home and see to your mom. This has her fried, too, and I don’t want her alone tonight.”
“You’re not going home?”
“Eventually. I need to keep an eye on Blue.”
~oOo~
Blue sat at the bar, drinking Southern Comfort straight from the bottle while Dandridge worked on his hands—which were bloody hunks of raw meat. He’d wrapped chain around them both and then beaten the bejeezus out of Demon. When the pain he was causing himself got to be too much, he’d unwound a length of chain and used it like a whip.
Hoosier had seen a lot in his day. In this club, working hand in hand with a cartel notorious among cartels, he’d seen things he still saw in his dreams years afterward. Gory, sick shit. He’d seen the human body tested to the limits of its endurance and beyond. But what he’d witnessed on this night—brother against brother, a father’s manic outrage against a young kid’s reckless love—it had rocked him to his marrow.
Demon had found Faith again and again, holding her eyes with his, throughout the beating, as long as he’d been conscious. Hoosier thought that stalwart insistence on his love was why Blue could barely get a hand around his bottle of SoCo, and why Demon wouldn’t be standing on his own for the next few days.
He sat at his best friend’s side as Dandridge was finishing up his bandaging. “I need you to promise me this is done. You stay out from the back and leave him be, now.”
Blue only grunted.
“Blue, goddammit.”
“He should be dead. He damn sure shouldn’t have a motherfuckin’ patch. Only reason he’s not out is you’re not the friend I thought you were.”
“You’re not seein’ this clear, Blue. There’s more—”
Blue slammed a bandaged hand on the bar, and then winced. “That fuckin’ psycho with who knows what goin’ wrong in his head had my baby girl naked and spread wide like a fuckin’ whore. In my house, even. There’s nothin’ more.” He picked up the bottle in his mangled hand and took a long swig, swallowing again and again. When he set the bottle down, he asked, almost pleading, “How’m I supposed to look at her again and not see that?”
“See your girl. She’s still Faith, same as ever. She’s not a baby, Blue.”
“Hooj, you need to back off.” Blue’s voice now was deadly quiet, and he didn’t look away from the bottle in front of him. “If you say another goddamn word, I will take what’s left of these hands and use ‘em to tear your throat open. You don’t have a daughter. You don’t know.”
Hoosier wondered if the damage done in these past few days could ever be undone. He didn’t think so. They would all carry the scars—on their bodies, on their relationships, on their hearts.
All because a couple of kids had fallen in love.
And it got so much worse.
~oOo~
Connor had spent the night, and Muse’s sister, Carrie, had dropped by. Carrie and Connor were close in age, and Hoosier thought his old lady might have been attempting some matchmaking, because Carrie had been around a lot lately.
All four of them had sat down to one of Bibi’s famous Sunday breakfasts when they heard a bike roar up the driveway. It had come in hot, and Hoosier and Connor glanced at each other and stood, just as the front door burst in.
Blue tore through the house and went straight for Hoosier. He looked insane, his eyes wild, and his long, greying hair loose and flying around him. Connor dove between them and muscled Blue to the floor, making the china cabinet rattle dangerously. As the two wrestled on the carpet, Hoosier pushed Carrie toward Bibi and sent them both out of the room.
Then he opened a drawer in the cabinet and pulled out a loaded Beretta. Blue had gotten Connor pinned. Without cocking the gun, Hoosier bent down and put the muzzle against Blue’s head. Both men on the floor went still. “I will shoot you dead right here, Blue.”
Blue let Connor go and sat back. “She’s gone. You know where
she is. You or Bibi. I know you helped her.”
Connor stood, wiping blood from his mouth and nose. He shook it off his hand and then stared down at the blood on the carpet. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
Blue ignored Connor and directed his answer to Hoosier. “Faith. She’s gone. She left in the middle of the night. Don’t you try and tell me you don’t know. She wouldn’t know how to run.”
Dream & Dare Page 18
