The door off the mud room opened and Ava felt dread shoot through her. It made her lightheaded. She firmed up her shoulders, though, and called, “We’re in here, baby.” Then she listened to Mercy’s slightly uneven footfalls as he walked through the kitchen, not bothering to take off his boots. When he appeared in the doorway, even she was a little taken aback.
Usually, when he was fresh from the garage, he had his cut pulled on over whatever ratty, stained t-shirt he’d worn to work that day. Dirty, windblown, dark from the sun, and smiling was how he greeted her every afternoon, stooping low to kiss her lips and the top of Remy’s head.
Today, though –
He’d traded his undershirt for a black wifebeater that put his arms on impressive display. His cut shone softly with the glow of well-loved, carefully buffed leather, all his patches seeming more insistent than normal. Knoxville, TN over his breast pocket; Tennessee arcing beneath the lower pocket; the little embroidered knife patch with the bloodied tip, showing he’d shed blood for his club; BH for Baskerville Hall, to indicate that he’d fought with his London brothers; HH for hellhound, because he had earned special notoriety for violence and ruthlessness within the club; the fleur-de-lis, because he’d come from NOLA.
His black hair was pulled back in the front, and fell down past his shoulders, highlighting the lean angles of his face, the dark hollows around his eyes, the sharp blade of the Lécuyer nose. Glints of silver: wallet chain, the bracelet Ava had given him for his birthday, grommets on his black boots. He looked giant and terrifying, and Ava echoed Colin’s deep breath with one of her own.
Mercy heard it and turned, face softening. “Fillette,” he greeted, laying a hand on her waist, giving her a quick kiss.
Then he straightened, folded his arms, and squared off from Colin. “Enjoying yourself, sitting on my couch?”
Colin grinned, but there was a certain strain to the expression. “Good to see you too, Felix.”
“How’d you get my address?”
Colin hadn’t answered that question for her, but now, he shrugged and said, “I went by your old place. The agent was there showing the apartment, and she said I could find you here.”
Ava wanted to choke on the slam of betrayal. Real estate agents weren’t supposed to give out info like that. Mercy’s eyes cut toward her at the small sound she made, then returned to Colin.
“You could’ve come by the clubhouse, if you wanted to see me. Should have. But you came here, when it was just my old lady at home.” And by the dark quality of his voice, that wasn’t tolerable.
Ava was realizing, as she tried wildly to interpret Colin’s animosity, that Mercy wasn’t uncomfortable with the notion that he’d killed Colin’s father. Fake father. Whatever. A sentiment very much like hatred was lifting off him in invisible shimmers; Ava thought if she touched his skin, he’d burn her – that was how enraged he was. She’d anticipated awkwardness and a host of other emotions, but not this hatred.
It was frightening to behold.
Colin gestured casually to Ava. “She coulda left me standing on the welcome mat.”
Trying to pin it on her, was he? She scowled. “I was raised to take in family, even if they don’t deserve it.”
“Family,” he scoffed. To Mercy: “She keeps talking about us being brothers.”
Mercy snorted. “All my brothers have a black dog patch on their backs.”
Colin studied him a moment, smile frozen and insincere. “That’s right. You moved away from the swamp and forgot all about the people you knew growing up, right? Nothin’ but the brotherhood now. Fuck some old man who used to fish with you. Might as well put a shotgun in his belly.”
Mercy took an aggressive step into the room. “Were you there?” His voice was deadly-calm. “Huh? Were you there the day that ‘old man’ brought a murderer to my door, so he could kill me and do…God knows what the fuck to my wife?”
Colin sat forward. “He wouldn’t do that.”
“Yeah? I used to think that, too.”
Face flushing with anger, Colin’s hands twitched on his knees, like he wanted to do something with them. He held his ground on the couch, though. “My father,” he said slowly, “wouldn’t hurt children.” Insulting glance thrown Ava’s way.
“Oh, damn,” Ava said under her breath.
Mercy took another step toward the couch, spine bowing up, furious energy whipping through him, visibly tightening all the exposed muscles in his arms. He looked every inch the crossroads devil hound, come to collect a debt. “What in the hell,” he said slowly, “is that supposed to mean?”
“I think you know.”
“Merc,” Ava said, and her voice brought him up short. She didn’t misunderstand the way he leaned forward. If she didn’t prevent it, he would drag Colin off the couch and inflict serious bodily harm to the man.
Colin, she saw by the sudden paleness of his face, didn’t misunderstand either. He saw the aborted attack for what it was; his eyes cut to her and he saw her for what she was: the holder of the leash.
Ava took a deep, steadying breath. “Colin, I think you ought to go.”
He scraped together a little indignation. “I need to–”
“Talk? Do it tomorrow. Go by Dartmoor on Mercy’s lunch break. You guys can hash things out. But not here. Not now.”
Mercy made a good show of collecting himself. He jerked a stiff nod toward the front door. “You heard the lady. You come find me tomorrow if you wanna talk.” It wasn’t a friendly invitation.
Colin got to his feet, face twisted with suppressed fury. “You killed my father,” he said, coldly, quietly.
“Tomorrow,” Mercy bit out.
Colin slammed the door in his wake, knocking askew the framed family photo Ava had hung in the foyer that morning.
Mercy walked to straighten it, tipping the frame to the side with one delicate finger. Then turned to face her. “So what’s for dinner?”
“I didn’t know you hated him,” Ava said, as she carved the grocery store rotisserie chicken Sam had left for them in the fridge.
Mercy sighed elaborately. He sat at the table, divested of cut, holding Remy. It always melted her insides, the sight of those large, ruthless hands cradling the fragile little body with such reverence and care.
“I don’t,” he said, frowning to himself. “I mean, I didn’t use to.”
“It’s been a year since Larry…” She didn’t say it, arranging the meat on plates for them. “So Evie must have finally told him what happened.”
“Or he’s just now getting around to caring about it,” Mercy said with a snort. “You gotta understand something about Colin – he’s a total fucking waste of space.”
Ava bit back a grin. “Do tell.”
Warmed to his topic, Mercy pulled on his storyteller voice with obvious relish. “Colin’s a little bit younger than me, but we were close enough that Daddy and Larry pushed us into being friends when we were kids. Colin went to school – real school – and I didn’t, so” – he shrugged – “Daddy and Gram thought I needed a friend.”
Much the same way her own parents had worried about her lack of a social life growing up. Thank God for Leah.
“But Colin was a little shit. He was bigger than all his friends, and he pushed them around; they were all scared of him, and they did what he wanted and pretended it was fun. Taunting homeless people; shoplifting; throwing rocks at cars that went past. Nothing too evil, I don’t guess, but just…shitty. I saw him cut a girl’s ponytail clean off once.”
“He was a bully,” Ava said, disturbed by the notion that someone who looked so much like her husband could be so different.
Mercy nodded. “And when he got older, he was aimless. Never holds down a job for more than a few weeks; gets fired from most. He sneaks out of women’s windows in the middle of the night and never calls them. His folks have needed a new roof on their house for years, and he never offers to give them a dime. Not that he’s got one to his name.” He pulled a disgusted
face. “He’s just a dickhead loser.”
“That was sort of the impression I got,” she said. They would make sandwiches, she decided, since she couldn’t locate half her pots. She pulled out bread, lettuce and mustard from the fridge. “But I didn’t expect you to be so upset that he was here.”
He was staring at Remy’s face. The baby was giving him an owlish look from the crook of his father’s arm. “I didn’t expect it either,” he admitted. “I just was.”
He seemed to shake himself and glanced at her as she assembled their sandwiches. “What about you, though. Seemed like you were awful pissed at him.”
She lowered her face over the plates, not wanting him to see her eyes. “I was. I am.”
He cleared his throat in an invitation for her to explain.
Carefully, she said, “I thought him showing up unannounced like that might bother you. And I didn’t want that.”
“I thought you just said you didn’t expect it to upset me.”
“Upset you that much.”
When she glanced up, he was starting at her, brows drawn together, and she sighed. “I know you don’t want to think the worst of your father.”
“I don’t.”
“Even if your half-brother is living proof that he–”
“That asshole isn’t my half-anything,” he said with finality. “Daddy would never have done that.”
Ava started to argue, and changed her mind. Let Colin be the bad guy here, she decided. “You’re right,” she said, lifting their plates. “Let’s eat.”
Four
Sins of the Father
The ropes again. Biting into her wrists, pulling her arms at unnatural angles. The bed again. The sheets damp from sweat, clinging to her skin. The room again. Her father again. His hands again, sliding up the bare smooth length of her thigh.
And then, as shocking as a bucket of cold water dumped across her exposed body, her own face, hovering above her, alongside her father’s. She saw herself, naked and scarred, the old rope burns at her wrists inflamed and red.
“Don’t fight.” She heard her own voice, saw her own lips move. “It’s over faster if you don’t fight.”
And then she realized what was happening. She wasn’t in her own body, but in that of her daughter. She glanced through her child’s eyes, up at herself, a compliant bystander as Abraham Jessup reached her hip and smoothed his rough hand across her belly.
“No!” she screamed, lurching against her bonds. The ropes didn’t hold, and her arms shot forward. She surged up off the bed, reached with curled fingers for Abraham’s face, sharp-tipped claws going for his eyes.
“Jesus Christ!” It wasn’t her father’s voice, cursing in the dark. And they weren’t his hands, she realized, as they curled around her wrists and held her back.
Her eyes opened.
For real this time.
“Hol. Holly! Wake up!”
She was not in the old farmhouse, in that awful bed where her mother had died; where her father, uncle, and cousin-husband had violated her body, heart, and soul.
She was in her new home: the Craftsman in Knoxville, with the brick and concrete porch and the shag carpet. The place she lived with Michael. Her husband, who knelt on the bed in front of her, holding her arms, holding her at bay when she would have gouged his face with her nails.
It was only a dream. A nightmare. Sparked by the feel of Michael’s hand on her skin.
“Wha…what…” She panted. Tears filled her eyes, distorting the shadowed bedroom and Michael’s silhouette in front of her. She knew it was him now – his smell, the sound of his voice, the energy pulsing off of him. But the nightmare still had tendrils wrapped round her.
She sucked in a deep breath and started again. “Oh, God. What time is it? What…”
“It’s eleven,” he said. “I just got home.”
Home from the club run he, Ghost, and Walsh had headed off for that morning. Something so wrapped up in Lean Dogs’ secrecy that he could only tell her he’d be back later, and not to wait up for him. She’d waited for a while; she hated going to bed alone. But finally, the exhaustion of pregnancy had drawn her to bed, and she’d succumbed to some of the worst nightmares she’d had since meeting Michael.
“Oh,” she said stupidly, and all the energy drained out of her in a great rush, leaving her dizzy and weak. “Right.” She started to shake.
“Jesus,” Michael repeated, a whisper this time. He was nothing but a shadow in the dark of their bedroom, but when he bundled her into his chest, she could smell the soap on him, feel the warmth of his bare skin. She hadn’t heard him come in or shower, but was grateful for the feeling of him naked against her now, in the wake of terror.
He didn’t ask her what she’d dreamed of; he knew. He smoothed her hair back, let his fingers work gently through its tangles as his arms supported her.
It felt like a long time before her shaking subsided and she was able to draw in a deep breath. The thing she hadn’t been foolish enough to say in the daylight came falling off her tongue now. “I’m not ever going to be normal.”
He snorted, breath rustling through her hair. “Who the hell’s normal?”
“Lots of people,” she said against his chest. “You ought to be normal if you’re going to be someone’s mother.”
“Fuck, Hol…” He eased her back, hands on her arms, far enough so she could see the faint glimmer of his eyes through the dark. She thought she could make out the grim set of his mouth. “Alright, look. Your friend Ava – is she normal?”
“Well…”
“Or is she the weird kid who’s been obsessed with Mercy her whole life?”
“That’s not fair.”
He made a disagreeing sound.
“It’s not,” she insisted. “Ava has a mom – she has a whole family. She’s been to school. She has things together–”
“Which is why she ran off to the swamp with Mercy last year, right? Because all her shit’s together?” he asked, dryly. “Sweetheart, you don’t know how normal or abnormal anyone is. That’s not something people go around telling the world about.”
He gave her a little shake. “We’ve talked about this before. You never did anything awful; you survived awful. How’s a kid get a better mother than that?”
“But what if…what if I’m not strong enough to protect her?”
Michael took a deep breath. “From what?”
“Everything.”
He had no answer for that. They sat facing one another, quiet in the dark, his hands warm on her arms.
“Sorry,” Maggie said when Holly jumped, and Holly shook her head, berating herself mentally for startling so easy.
“No, I wasn’t – it’s fine,” she assured with a forced smile, glancing up at the MC first lady standing in front of her desk. “Can I help you with anything?”
Maggie set the cardboard box she held on the front of the desk and propped her hands on her hips, head tilting as she gave Holly a nerve-wracking once-over. She, as always, made a plain white tank top and holey jeans look chic; might have had something to do with the high-heeled sandals and the rattling bangle bracelets, but mostly was because of the aura of authority that seemed to radiate around her shining blonde head.
“You look tired,” she said, and it was neither an insult, nor a show of concern.
Holly tried another stiff smile. “A little. Guess it’s a side effect of–” She gestured to her stomach.
Maggie nodded and picked up the box again, stepping around the desk, going to the file cabinets at Holly’s back. “Yeah,” Maggie agreed. “Growing a human being is exhausting.”
Sound of cabinets pulling open with metallic clicks and whooshes.
“You feeling alright otherwise?” Maggie asked, tone casual.
Holly still felt shaky with the chief old lady. She was observant enough to know that Maggie was only truly casual with her blood relations, but not in-the-know enough to figure out the woman’s true feelings toward her.
Maggie nodded to herself, slotting file folders from the box into the drawers she’d opened. “Always a good stage. You know, Nell said she wasn’t ever sick, not during one of her three pregnancies. The bitch,” she said with a quick, playful smile sent Holly’s way. “Some girls have all the luck.”
“Hmm.” Holly moved her hand absently to rest against her stomach.
“You picked out a name yet?”
Why was that the thing everyone wanted to know?
“No.”
“You’ve still got plenty of time.” It was said in a comforting way. “I took forever to come up with ‘Ava.’ And then I almost didn’t use it, because that meant two Teague kids with A names. But…” She shrugged and pushed the drawers back in. “That was just her name, you know? I couldn’t imagine anything else.”
Holly nodded. She was hoping that would happen. That suddenly a name would bloom to life inside her mind, and the baby would become that much more real to her, not just a little girl, but a girl she’d named.
Maggie lifted the box up over her head, stretching upward to slide it onto the top of the cabinet. “These are old receipts that wound up in the wrong office,” she explained. “I don’t have time to file them all now, but…”
Holly wasn’t paying attention. Maggie’s shirt had ridden up and revealed a tattoo just on the inside of one hip. Its black ink slightly faded from time, a realistic paw print marked her skin, as large as the print of a big dog, complete with little triangles of claws on the ends of the toe pads. Beneath it, in flowing script, Ghost.
As quick as the tattoo had appeared, it was covered, Maggie tugging the hem of her shirt down as she lowered her arms.
Holly felt a sting of guilt as she looked up and met the woman’s gaze.
But Maggie didn’t seem offended. “All the old ladies have one,” she said, then frowned. “Though I guess Ava doesn’t, since she got pregnant so fast. Guess you don’t either, for that matter.”
Half My Blood Page 4
