Shadow & Soul (6 page)

Margot nodded and looked back out the window.

Faith was still standing in the doorway. She didn’t feel welcome enough to go farther into the room, but she didn’t feel like she could leave, either. “Is there anything I can do?”

“They won’t let me leave until they do a bunch of tests. They won’t let me have my arms free. I don’t know what happened.”

“You got hit by a car.”

“I know
that
. They told me, and that’s exactly what I feel like. I don’t know why I don’t remember. I don’t know why they’ve got me tied up. Did
you
give them permission for all this shit?”

Faith nodded. “I think that’s why they want to do the tests—to figure out what happened last night.” Part of her wanted to tell her mother how she’d been last night, raving and naked, but that part of her was a spiteful and hurting child, and Faith shut it down.

“Well, that’s just great. You show up here out of the blue and get me practically committed. Thanks for that.” She sighed. “I need some stuff from home, then. Call Bibi and ask her to put me a bag together. I know you talk to
her
.”

She heard the way her mother hit the word ‘her,’ but she ignored it. “Bibi was here with me last night. She’s coming by again today. She’s taking care of Tucker, so it’ll be later.”

Finally, Margot looked at her daughter with something like interest. Her blue eyes had an avid sheen. “You saw that little boy? You know whose he is?”

In that moment, Faith remembered the kind of hatred she’d once felt for this woman. The way she’d felt when she’d clutched her claws into Faith’s shoulders and snarled into her ear to
Watch. You watch, little slut, and see what you’ve done. You watch it all.
The way she’d felt a few weeks after that night, on the day her parents had done something even worse, and she’d known for a certainty that she’d leave at the first chance she had to be free of her mother, and of her father, and of that whole life.

“Yes. I know he’s Michael’s.”

Then her mother smiled a little. It wasn’t a cruel smile, but it was satisfied, and that was a cruelty of its own.

And still Faith couldn’t make herself turn and get the fuck away. “I could put your bag together for you. Do you still use that little frog for the spare key?” She could get the address from Bibi; she didn’t want to ask her mother for that information.

Margot shook her head. “I don’t want you in my house. Call Bibi.”

“Mom—”

“Go away, Faith. Go call Bibi and then just leave me alone. You know how to do that.”

With nothing else she could do, Faith backed out of the room and closed the door. Bibi had been wrong. Her mother hadn’t been missing her at all.

~oOo~

She left the room, but she couldn’t leave the hospital. It was stupid. She should just go back to Venice Beach. She wasn’t wanted here. But they were doing tests today, and those tests might explain what had happened and why the ungodly
fuck
Faith’s life had been turned upside down and shaken vigorously.

So she sat in the waiting room near the nurse’s station and waited. She read some old magazines. She played on her phone. She read and returned some emails, stray reminders of the pretty good life she’d had. And she stewed. She spent a lot of time stewing. When the stew got too thick, she pinched her arms.

She called Bibi and told her what Margot wanted. Bibi’s answer was, “Fuck that. I’ll pick you up and we’ll go over to that house together. I will not be a party to this bullshit a moment longer.”

Faith had agreed, if for no other reason than that she enjoyed the idea of going into her mother’s private space knowing she wasn’t welcome there. She might even rifle through her drawers. Maybe move some knickknacks around. Just for spite.

She’d told the nurses at the desk who she was and asked them to let her know if there was any news. Twice, she’d seen orderlies roll her mother out on her bed and down the hall toward the elevators, and twice she’d seen them roll her back. But nobody came to tell her anything. After a while, she stopped paying attention to what was happening around her. She crossed her arms and stretched out her legs and let her mind turn in on itself.

So she was surprised to hear a familiar male voice.

“Is that my girl?”

She looked up and saw Hoosier—a lot greyer, his beard a lot longer, his belly a little bigger, but still her Uncle Hooj, standing there smiling down at her.

“It
is
my girl. Oh, you are beautiful as ever. Get up here and gimme a hug.” He stretched his arms out. Faith stood and let herself fall into them. Those arms were still strong and solid. She turned her face against his neck and felt his beard on her cheek. That was like home.

“You okay, baby girl?”

She shook her head.

“I know, baby, I know. It
will
be okay, though. I promise. Any news?”

Another shake. She didn’t want to talk. She didn’t want to say that her mother had thrown her out of her room. She just wanted to be right where she was. Wanted.

“You waitin’ for news?”

She nodded.

“I got some time. Beebs’ll be here, and then I’m on Tuck duty. You mind if I sit with you a while and wait, too?”

And then, again, Faith had to cry.

CHAPTER FOUR

“Michael, did you hear me? Michael? Demon?”

Demon blinked and brought his attention back to the man in front of him. Findley Bennett—even the guy’s name reeked of rich asshole. Demon couldn’t stand him, even though he was a hoity-toity lawyer helping him try to get custody of Tucker, and he was doing it for free.

He was doing it for free so he could turn it into some kind of dog and pony show. The guy had already been on the L.A. morning news shows talking about fathers’ rights and using Demon and Tucker as an example. He wanted to bring them onto these shows with him, but he wanted to have some other asshole do some kind of ‘media training’ on him first, and that was really and truly not going to happen.

He knew he should be grateful, and he actually was. Sid had helped him get this guy to take his case, and he was getting a famously successful lawyer to fight for him and his boy. That was good. That was lucky, and Demon normally had the world’s shittiest luck. But he could see the distrust and contempt when the guy talked to him, and he hated it.

It was worth it. Getting Tucker would be worth just about anything, but he hated it nevertheless.

That wasn’t what had his attention wandering today, though. Today, all he could think about was Faith.

He’d been walking around like the undead all morning, and not just because he’d been up at first light and out of the house before anyone else was moving, hours earlier than he’d needed to be at the shop.

If he hadn’t left first thing, he would probably have ended up in the room Faith had taken. And he had to get his head straight before he did anything that had to do with her. He didn’t trust himself. Last night, he’d been hit by an old wave of want and need that had been overpowering long ago and had spent ten years only getting stronger, without him even realizing it. If he lost control of himself, he could hurt her. Even if she felt like he did, even if she wanted, too, he could still hurt her.

Besides, did it even matter what they wanted? He’d been no good then, and the past ten years hadn’t made him better. He had seen things, done things that should never touch her. The darkness in him was darker, the wrongness more wrong.

He needed to stay away. Far away. And he needed to stop thinking about her. If he couldn’t find even that much control inside himself, not even enough to focus his thoughts on what was right in front of him, then there was no way he could get near her.

Seeking control in a deep breath, Demon exhaled and made himself focus on his lawyer.

Usually, he had to ride to Findley-call-me-Finn’s swanky office in downtown L.A. for meetings, but today the guy had shown up unannounced at the shop, so now they were sitting in the showroom office, Finn in his custom suit and Demon in a greasy coverall.

“Sorry. Didn’t catch it, no.”

Finn sighed. “It’s big news, Michael.” Yep, only lawyers and assholes called him Michael.

And Faith. He shook her name out of his head. Tried to, anyway.

“My investigator has a solid lead on Dakota’s location,” Finn went on.

That got his attention. Dakota. Tucker’s mom. Demon never wanted to see her again. “I told you I don’t want her found. I will kill her if I see her again. That’ll probably screw up the case, don’t you think?”

“And
I’ve
told
you
that finding her could help us. It fast-tracks your case. And if she’s still the disaster she was when Tucker was removed, with all the evidence in his file of how often the first caseworker let her slide, and with your solid record for the past four or five years, that’s a strong visual for your case.” He smiled an oily, lawyer smile. “If you think you can hold off killing her until we win.” The smile disappeared. “That’s a joke, by the way.”

Demon leaned forward and held out his arm. It was covered in ink, but if you looked close enough, you could still see it. So he put his arm up in Finn’s face. “Do you see that, right on the inside of my elbow?”

Finn looked. “A scar, right? Yeah, I see it. Did Dakota do that?”

“No. I’ve had those since I was nine. Burns from the lit end of a cigar. Three of ‘em, all in a neat little row.” He dropped his arm. “Tucker has one like it on the bottom of his foot.”

“I know. They noted it in his file when he was removed.” ‘They,’ in that instance, was Sid. She’d gotten Tucker’s case when the first caseworker, a piece of shit who’d been trading Demon’s kid’s safety for trips to Kota’s cooze, retired. Sid had removed Tucker on her first home visit. It was how Demon and Muse—and the whole club, really—had met her.

“He didn’t get that with me. Kota doesn’t smoke cigars. So she let some bastard she was boning do that to my kid. You have any idea how a burn like that feels? Who the fuck knows what else my boy saw or felt with her. He wakes up screaming four or five nights a week. He’s not even three. So I’m going to kill her if I ever see her again. I’m not looking to go back inside, and that sure as fuck won’t help Tucker, so we’re all better off if she stays the fuck away.”

Finn closed the open file in front of him and sighed again. “Michael, I respect your passion. I know you love your boy. I believe one-hundred percent that he should be with you, and that you were treated unfairly at nearly every turn. But I need you to let me be your lawyer and give you counsel you’ll take. You look better the worse she looks. Let’s find Dakota and see what she’s up to. Let’s just see. If she can be useful to your case, then let’s use her. If she can’t, we’ll leave her alone. I think you can control yourself for that, don’t you?”

Demon laughed a little. Finn had no idea. The most control over himself Demon ever felt was maybe half. And that was on a good day, when everything was chill. Put him in eyeshot of the woman who’d fucked up his child, and no, he didn’t think he’d be able to control himself. Especially since the cunt got off on sending him over.

He’d liked her a lot at first, and he was fairly sure she’d honestly liked him at the beginning. He didn’t ‘date’ much at all. Usually he stuck to club girls, because that was simple. But sometimes he got lonely for more than just a fuck. He’d had somebody once, only for a brief time, but long enough to know the peace in a bond like that. So sometimes, he was lonely.

In the year or so after he’d been allowed to come back home, he’d had trouble adjusting. The club moved—and became a different club—and he’d been struggling with staying in one place after the years riding Nomad. He’d started thinking about what he’d almost had before, and he’d felt even lonelier. So when Kota came up to him at a bar and started talking, he’d been open to listening.

They’d been okay for a while. Just hanging out, steady but not really serious. It never occurred to him to put his ink on her; that wasn’t what they’d been. She was a stripper, and he was fine with that. He’d gotten between her and a few overly excited customers who’d been lurking after hours, and she got to calling him her bodyguard. She’d given very enthusiastic head on those nights.

But he’d been a moron, because he hadn’t known she was using, all that time. He didn’t figure it out until it had taken her over completely. She’d robbed him blind. Then she’d started whoring herself out for her fixes. He’d ended it and left her to her vices.

And then she’d tried to use the club to blackmail him. She didn’t know anything about the club; he never talked about that shit. But he’d opened up to her, during their good times, and told her about his childhood. Things he’d never said to anyone, not even Faith. Secrets and shames he’d harbored. And Kota had said terrible things that night, promising to twist old pains into lies that would hurt him now, make his club, his family, see his wrongness, make him lose what he’d only just gotten back.

All to squeeze more money out of him to get her next fix. He barely remembered what had happened after that. Except he remembered her laughing in the middle of it, her mouth full of blood, and he remembered thinking that she didn’t even care if she got her next fix. She’d been high on tearing him down.

In the ER that night, while he was in lockup, she’d found out she was pregnant.

She’d declined to press charges. They’d let him go, and he’d gone to see her in the hospital, to apologize for hurting her. She’d told him about the baby and said it was his. Demon didn’t know why he’d just believed her, but he had. He’d brought her home to his trailer, and he’d tried to help her kick the junk. He’d tried and tried, and he’d failed and failed. But he’d stuck it out with her, finding her again and again in some flophouse, her belly getting bigger and bigger, trying to figure out how to keep her away from trouble and never coming up with the answer.

Tucker was born with his mother’s habit. He’d had a rough first few weeks. But the first time that boy’s eyes met his own, Demon had known for an absolute fact that he was looking at his son. And he’d known purposeful love for the first time in his life.

DCFS didn’t take Tucker from her, despite the addiction she’d shared with him. They put her in an outpatient program and gave Tucker a caseworker, and they sent them home. Kota moved out of Demon’s trailer right away and took his boy to live with a girlfriend.

His fight to be a father to his son had started then and still hadn’t stopped.

He stared hard at his lawyer. “Go ahead and look. You better know your business, though. Keep her the fuck away from me. Don’t tell me where she is. Just do your thing. But if this blows up in my kid’s face, then I’ll know who to blame for it.”

~oOo~

Demon pulled up to Hoosier and Bibi’s house later that afternoon, and he was relieved and disappointed that Faith’s car wasn’t around.

When he’d left that morning, he’d stopped cold on the sidewalk. She still drove Dante, and the car itself was in the same cherry condition it had been in before. But now it looked finished, completely covered from top to bottom and front to rear in art. It was beautiful, and so very Faith.

He’d had an urge to hug the fucking thing—that urge, at least, he’d been able to master. But he’d ridden off with his stomach in knots.

She was gone now, though. That was a good thing. He needed time, and if she hadn’t been gone, even though he’d been as prepared as possible for her to be there, he’d have panicked—which would have led to stupidity. But he didn’t know if she was gone for good or just for a while. He had no idea why she’d even been there in the first place. Maybe last night had just been a special torture for him, stirring up everything and then coming to nothing.

Inside, he found Hoosier and Tucker in the family room. Tucker was playing on the floor with his beloved wooden train set, and Hoosier was watching ESPN. Bibi wasn’t around, but Demon had known that when he’d pulled up—the garage door was open, and the space for her Caddy was empty.

His gratitude and trust for Hoosier and Bibi was boundless. They were giving him the best chance he’d ever had to be a father to his son. They’d been the closest thing to parents he’d ever had. Since he was nineteen, when he’d started hanging around the clubhouse, they’d treated him almost like a kid of their own. They’d given him a home and a family.

He didn’t blame Hoosier for taking it away. Demon had done that to himself.

Hoosier had kept it from being worse. He hadn’t lost his patch or his life, and both of those had been on the table for a vote. He’d been exiled, not excommunicated. Not ended. And things had turned out more or less okay.

As much as he’d been torn apart to be sent away from his only home, he’d felt like he fit as a Nomad right away. Rootlessness was something he understood. He’d partnered with Muse right off, and he’d found his first actual friend. They’d been rootless together, except when one or the other of them was inside, and that had been okay.

And damn, the shit that the Nomads of their old club had been into. It was life or death business in those days, and they were up to their shoulders in it just about nonstop. Demon had found stability in the surge and release of adrenaline in a firefight, and he’d learned how to channel his darkness and violence into the work that needed doing. He’d found his calling as an enforcer. Sometimes he’d gone too far, but even so, he felt more a master of his impulses than he had before.

He’d been arrested a few times, and he’d done a couple of bids, but they were short enough. If his childhood had prepared him for nothing else, it had prepared him to survive prison. Even to thrive there.