She flung herself down on the couch in front of the fireplace.
“Call that cab back and leave,” Red said.
“Oh, oh, now that you’ve fucked me, fucked up my chance to start over, and fucked up my relationship with my sister, you just want me to leave. I don’t think so asshole. You’re going to call Sidney to come back and you’re going to explain to her that this was your fault.”
“The hell I am. Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to bitch?”
He stood up off the stool, she supposed he wanted to intimidate her, but that wasn’t going to happen. She stood up as well.
“Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to asshole?” she raised her hand in front of her sending out a sharp gust of wind that threw him back against the wall, crushing bottles and glasses. She raised her arm and his body mimicked her movement, sliding up the side of the wall, his bare feet dangling above the floor.
Jessica blew an errant piece of hair out of her face and looked at the piece of shit who’d had the nerve to come between her and her sister, “I haven’t been here a week and I already hate this goddamned town and everyone in it. But you, you I really hate.”
“Is Red planning to get here any damn time soon?”
He heard them complaining about him being late from the other side of the door. Red was there, but he wasn’t ready to go in and face all the guys who had seen him lose his grip on reality. He didn’t want to remember the looks of disgust on their faces as they’d watched him rip open Big Dog, slowly savoring the pain he caused.
But he had to. He had to get himself, and the club focused on what was important, and that was protecting Three Rivers. From whatever was threatening it. And if that meant they had to deal with Frederick, then so be it.
He collected his bearings, shook off his doubt, and walked through the door to the Sanctuary. All of the voting member sat around the huge table, and each one looked up at him as he walked in. He avoided their eyes, instead he made his way to the head of the table and took his seat. But he didn’t miss the fact that Demon, who had no business being in on a meeting where a vote would take place stood shoulder against the wall at the back of the room. This was the second group meeting he’d intruded on. Loners didn’t get to vote, they didn’t get to hold a position, and they didn’t count for much of anything in Red’s book, and Demon even less than that. But he let him stay, seeing as he had intel on the group that might come in handy.
“So, we’ve got to make some decisions,” he began without preamble, he didn’t want to drag this out any longer than necessary. “It’s obvious these guys, these supposed ‘super humans’, mean what they say. If we don’t agree to join with them then they’re going to come here and fuck some shit up.”
“But what does that mean? Join with them?” Moose asked, “I know what Big Dog told us, I was there,” his eyes slid over Red and he could feel the venom in them, “but what I don’t understand is why would he even need to use us when they’re obviously strong enough to kick our asses.”
Red started to speak but Demon cut him off.
“From what I understand, they don’t want to get their hands dirty. They want to use shifters, since our, your, laws make it clear you don’t play well with others,” Demon’s eyes flickered to Red, “and they thought you’d be open to killing off entire species without many qualms.”
“The Laws and The Book are old,” Donny-O said, “And I want to make it clear here and now, before we go any further, that no matter who or what your mama was you’re still part of us. So don’t be going around using pronouns like a weapon. You’re still in the Dogs man.” Words and sounds of agreement came from around the table and angry gazes flashed towards Red. He could see he’d lost the respect and loyalty of all of them, but from Donny-O it hurt the worst.
“Yeah man, without you, I wouldn’t have gotten my Maria outta that metal cage the Hellhounds locked her in,” Moose said.
“And we would never have been able to find that place they were holding Red, he wouldn’t be sitting there today,” Donny-O added.
Red could see what the others couldn’t, the way the words were affecting Demon, and he tried to stifle the hatred for his half-brother before it could surface. He needed to be calm and rational, he had to be.
“Demon has proven his worth to this group, I agree. I was out of control last night, I think you’ll all agree. And I was out of line, I said things I probably shouldn’t have,” he nodded towards Demon, “Demon is and always will be one of us. But that’s because he’s proven himself not because The Book is wrong. It’s old, yes, but there was a reason it was written. To keep us safe. Do I want to kill every other non-human creature in the world? No. Do I want to keep the shifters of Three Rivers safe? Yes. So we have to figure out how to do one without doing the other. But if it comes down to it, I’ll protect us at the expense of them any day of the week.”
Some of the guys were nodding, some shaking their heads.
“Nah, man. The people who have settled here, they’re family too. They’re part of Three Rivers just like everybody else, shifter, human, whatever. What they are don’t mean jack to me, fuck The Book.” Rollin’ set back in his chair arms crossed.
“You think they’d feel the same about us? The fucking witches, the faeries, the goddamned Old Folk who keep to them selves and don’t even come to the town festivals because they’re too good to have a fucking beer with us? You think they’d feel the same if they were given a choice like this?”
There were murmers around the table, he could see he was swaying some of them.
“What about Sidney man, word is she’s a witch, and you’ve claimed her, made her one of us,” Donny-O asked.
“Yeah and she’s not the only non-shifter someone has claimed. Renna adopted that little changeling boy remember?” Price asked.
Red nodded, “Those few we’ve claimed would have to be protected, hidden or something. The Book is clear, we can’t take it back after someone has been claimed, so we’ll just have to do our best to protect them.”
There was more talk around the table, it seemed his words were working to change some of their minds, but Demon’s eyes were hard as they stared at him.
“What if we called his bluff, make him come here and then see how we do against them,” Rollin’ asked, “I can stomach fightin’ a whole hell of a lot better than I can the thought of killin’ innocent people. I mean I know we ain’t no saints but we ain’t never killed people who didn’t need killin’.”
“I saw how y’all did against them. We got fourteen dead members to show for it. We can’t take that chance. I don’t want to kill innocent people either, but it looks like the only choice we have is us or them.” Red said.
“Sidney took em out easy enough,” Moose said. Red stiffened. He didn’t want or need to be reminded that Sidney had saved the guys from being totally annihilated.
“Yeah man, maybe we can talk to the witches, tell ‘em what’s up and get them to help,” Croak added, he didn’t talk much because when he did his voice sounded like a car on its rims being dragged down a gravel road full of pot holes.
“Yeah, and we’ve got Demon here, he could probably help now that he’s not going to have to hide what he is,” Donny-O said.
Red wanted to say no, under no circumstances would they work with the witches, but he had to keep his composure in front of the guys. He didn’t want them to think he was any more unstable than they already did.
“You all know what The Book says, it’s clear we aren’t supposed to work with, live with, mate with, or otherwise associate with anything other than shifters.”
Rollin’ spit and look up at Red, the challenge clear, “Like I said, fuck The Book.”
Red looked up, trying to find any one of the guys who was thinking right about this, and he came to Demon’s half smirking face, and pushed the rage down. He’d prove to the guys that The Book was there for a reason. You couldn’t trust witches or anything else, his own life was pro
of enough of that.
Sidney stared into the caramel colored coffee as she sat at her kitchen table, the vision of Red pumping frantically into Jessica replaying in her mind over and over again. The same way the scene she’d walked in on with David had stayed on a constant loop behind her eyes for months after it had happened. She took a sip of the sweet brown liquid, David had always said that she liked a little coffee with her milk and sugar. He wasn’t wrong, life was so bitter on its own, why not make the things you had control over as sweet as possible?
It was really over with Red. Through everything he’d said to her, through the way he’d looked at her, with loathing clear in his eyes, she’d still held out hope that she could change his mind. Make him see her as a person, separate from whatever genes her parents had passed down to her. And maybe she could have. Maybe if things weren’t so messed up and she’d had time to really talk to him, she could have changed his mind. But not now. It really didn’t matter if she could change his mind, she would forever see the image of him with Jessica every time she looked at him, any time he touched her or told her he loved her. And maybe if it hadn’t been for David she could have forgiven him. He’d obviously been drunk. Jessica hadn’t known about her relationship with Red and Red probably hadn’t known that Jessica was her sister. Not to mention the stress Red had been under the previous few days, bad decisions were common when people felt boxed in. And those things could be taken into consideration, but they couldn’t change the way she felt. Betrayed. Hurt. Torn apart. Broken. She could forgive, in fact she already had after thinking it through, thanks to Demon and his strangely calming talking session, but she would never forget.
And then there was Demon. Red’s brother. That was screwed up too. Sidney fully admitted to herself that she wanted him. More than wanted him. Every time he touched her it felt like her body came alive and everything that went before was just a prelude. But he’d been right. She needed time and distance to figure out how she felt, to get over the damage that had been done, to try to let the wounds scab over, before she jumped into anything, no matter how much her skin wanted to feel those hands touch it.
She just had to have some time to be. And maybe get some answers. And give a few puppies their shots while she was at it. She just needed some time.
The kitchen door creaked open and Jessica walked in, a sheepish look on her face, the skin of her cheeks clearly mottled from a night spent crying.
“Hey,” she said, closing the door gently behind her.
“Did you stay at the clubhouse last night?” Sidney asked, it was one thing to screw up and sleep with Red when she hadn’t known, but it was another to stay the whole damn night after she’d found out.
“No, I called a cab and stayed at that shitty motel again. I didn’t think you’d want me here.”
Sidney nodded, that had been a good call on Jessica’s part. One of the few.
“Sidney, I swear I didn’t know. I know you don’t believe me but I’ve changed. I would never have slept with him if I’d known anything at all was going on between you two.”
Sidney toyed with the salt shaker, not really wanting to look at her sister, “In all honesty we’d already broken up. I just hadn’t accepted it yet.”
“Oh thank God. That guy is an asshole.”
“Red?” Sidney knew he’d been a jerk to her lately, but in general he was normally a pretty nice guy, “What’d he do? I mean besides sleep with my sister, because he gets a full boatload of asshole points for that.”
Jessica shrugged, “We had, er, words after you guys left and he tried to intimidate me, stood up and tried to walk at me like he was all macho and shit. Man, I hate guys like that.”
“Red?”
“Yes, Red. He never acted that way with you?”
“Never. Up until we broke up he was always kind and generous with me, protective.”
“Fuck if I know, he was a dick last night.” Jessica threw her bag in a chair and took a seat across from Sidney, “Maybe I just don’t bring out those kinds of feelings in guys.”
Sidney made a noncommittal sound and sipped her coffee. She wouldn’t say what she was thinking, that it was hard to feel protective over someone who was nothing more than a one night stand.
“So what happened, did he actually get physical with you?” Sidney couldn’t imagine Red actually hitting a woman, but then she wouldn’t have imagined him being so cold to her either.
“Oh hell no, that’s one thing I’m not putting up with. I stopped that shit before it could even get started.”
Sidney’s brows drew together. There was no way one hundred pound Jessica could have stopped someone as large as Red who wanted to get violent and walked away unscathed, and that’s not even taking into consideration the fact that as a shifter he seemed to be a good bit stronger than regular guys.
“How,” she asked.
“Weeeell, that’s whole different story, and one I needed to tell you anyway,” Jessica acted like she’d rather be anywhere than in the kitchen with Sidney.
“Ok, I’m listening.”
Jessica took a deep breath, “You sure you want to get into it this morning. Not to be rude or anything but you look like the shitty end of a dog on a bad day.”
Sidney’s eyes narrowed, “You don’t look like Miss America either. Just tell me.”
“Ok, but this is going to sound crazy, just sayin’. And I want you to listen to the whole thing before you freak out on me, okay?”
Sidney rolled her eyes and waved her hand, dismissing the warning, Jessica had no idea the amount of crazy she could actually consume without freaking out. One could say she’d built up a tolerance.
“So, about a year ago, around the time you were going through all that shit with David, I was at a club with a bunch of other girls right? And so I’d had a few shots and a few mixed drinks and I was feeling pretty good, and this guy came up to us, and he was hot as hell and he had some Molly and we were all like fuck yeah we’d do some. I’m dancing and shit was fucking wonderful, lights were bouncing the fuck out and everything was just pulsing with the rhythm of the music. I’m trippin’ balls and feeling great.
“So this other guy comes up and he’s like, ‘Do you want to go to the VIP room?’ and I’m like, ‘Fuck yeah I want to go to the VIP room’ and I just go with him. I didn’t think to take a friend because, remember, I’m trippin balls. So we get up there and this room is fantastic and I just want to lie on the leather couch and watch the walls move.
“So I’m lying there, and the guy starts rubbing me and at first I’m into it, because my skin feels like… like,” she searched the air for an apt metaphor, “like the surface of water, one touch and everything ripples across my whole body. But then he starts getting rough, grabbing my arms hard, pushing me around, and stuff like that.
“I told him to stop, I didn’t like it like that. And he pushes my face up against the wall and tells me to shut up, he said I knew what I was coming up there for and that I couldn’t back out. I was so over this dude at that moment. So I pushed back and I turned around and I smacked his chest a couple of times trying to get him to back the fuck off, and I told him not to touch me.
“I think he might have liked that because he smiled at me and then punched me in the stomach. Then he pulled me up by my fucking hair and threw me onto the couch. Then he lays his rapey ass on top of me, pushing my face into the couch and putting his hand up my skirt. He then rips my panties off.
“And if you’ve never had your panties ripped off, let me tell you, it is not pleasant. That shit in the movies is fake as hell because it hurt. I had red marks for days.
“Anyway, so I’m lying there, eating fucking leather, and I’m scared shitless. I don’t even know what to do. I try to get up but the dude is too heavy and strong and he’s pushing me down. I felt like I was about to hyperventilate.
“Then my vision blurs and I see this white light, and I think, this is it, I’m dying. This asshole has suffocated me in the fucking couch
cushions while he’s raping my ass. And I get mad about it, because I had shit to do, ya know? I might not have gone to school like you or had the perfect life set up ahead of me but there were still things I wanted to do in life. And here this jerk was killing me and taking that away from me. And I’m thinking I’m dying and I’m getting angrier and angrier about it, just fucking raging inside.
“So this white light gets bigger and bigger and bigger, it seems like the angrier I get, the bigger it gets, and then it explodes, and I’m back in the room. I can see again and I don’t feel Raper McRaperson on my back anymore. I start getting up, it takes me a minute because I feel like everything, all my bones, all my energy, all my muscles have been sucked right out of my body. But I finally get up and look around, and Sidney, fuck me, but this dude is dead.
“Like seriously dead. Blood pouring out of his ears, nose, eyes, and mouth, just dead. And I panicked. Because, dead dude, right? And so I get the fuck out of there with the quickness. I didn’t even check to make sure I got all of my stuff. I left my panties that he’d ripped off of me and god only knows what else in that room. Spit on the couch, fingerprints on everything, there were probably traces of me in every square inch. And I’ve seen CSI, I know the cops are to come asking me questions and I haven’t got any answers for them. I haven’t got any answers for myself, I seriously don’t know what happened to that dude. One minute he’s pushing my face into a couch and the next minute the bitch is just dead.”
Sidney just stared at her. She’d been afraid she was going to have to explain about being a witch to an unbelieving and mocking Jessica, and here was Jessica explaining things to her. She didn’t know what to say, which was fine, because Jessica didn’t seem inclined to let her speak anyway.
Dogs of War MC Episode 6 Page 5
