The Night Horde SoCal: Shadow And Soul Part 16

But she'd been alive, flopped on a chair with an ice pack held to her face, when Hoosier had sent Faith here.

"Does he love her?"

Setting a small pot of milk on the stovetop, Bibi turned and gave Faith a sharp look. "No, baby."

"Did he ever?"

Bibi sighed. "I honestly don't know. She's a hard woman. I guess she's had a life to make her that way, but knowin' that don't make her easier to be around. Deme's so sweet and quiet with women, I don't know what he saw in her." She laughed and shook her head. "That ain't true. I do know. She looks like you."

Faith was offended to the point of outrage. That s.k.a.n.ky, spotty, bad-dye-job, grey-toothed junkie b.i.t.c.h looked like her?

Before she could find breath to express her affront, Bibi laughed again and waved her free hand, dismissing the vitriol Faith had been trying to gather up. "Easy, honey. I don't know what she looks like now, but I can guess it ain't good. The last time I saw her, she looked rough. Not like you. When Deme met her, though, she was pretty. Long, dark, shiny hair and big, light eyes. And that small frame. Like you."

Bibi shifted Tucker to her other hip, and, with a grunt, he protested being moved. Then he reached out both his hands and leaned toward Faith.

She looked at Bibi, who stepped closer. And then she took Michael's son into her arms. He was much lighter than she expected him to be. And much heavier on her heart. He smelled of lavender.

He held up his frog. "Vog."

"Frog, I see. Pretty cool." Faith had no idea how to talk to a child. None of the wacky people who had populated her life before, in San Francisco, or now, in Venice, had children. She saw Bibi watching and said, "He's littler than I expected."

"Small for his age. Behind in everything, so far. But he's catching up. She was using when she had him. He was born addicted."

"Jesus."

Bibi poured warm milk into a little blue plastic cup and then sealed it up with a rubbery lid. "You ready for a story, baby?"

"Mins." Tucker took the cup and stuck it in his mouth, holding the frog against the side.

"No movie tonight, Tuck. Granny needs to go back to bed, and so do you." She took Tucker from Faith. "They won't let him run far, honey. He'll come back, you wait and see. While you wait, you sort things through. n.o.body's got baggage like Deme's got baggage. Make sure you're ready to help him carry it. But don't add more. Say good night to Miss Faith, Tuck."

"Ni-bye," he said and laid his head on Bibi's shoulder.

"Night, handsome," Faith said, and then Bibi took him out of the kitchen and back down the hall to his room.

Faith went back to the sofa and waited.

It was only another hour before she heard the low roar of slow-moving bikes coming up on the house. More than one, but not many. Hoosier and Michael, probably. She stood up and, without thinking about it, primped a little, combing her fingers through her hair and smoothing her top. She was still dressed in the top and leather pants she'd worn to the clubhouse. She'd ditched the punk heels, however.

Though she was in the family room and watching the garage door, they came in the front. She turned and ran in that direction like she was expecting a romantic reunion or something. Realizing that she had no idea what to expect from Michael-or Hoosier, for that matter-she stopped in the middle of the main hallway.

Hoosier was just coming in, with Michael right behind. Her father's best friend, her Uncle Hooj, came up to her and gave her a quick hug and a rea.s.suring smile. "I'm gonna head to bed. I'll see you in the morning." He looked back at Michael, who nodded. Then he headed down the hall, deeper into the house.

And Faith and Michael were alone in the hallway, facing each other. He had washed the blood away. Faith was glad; that had scared her.

"Michael."

He took a step backward, toward the door, and she thought he was going to run again. But he stopped after that single step. "I...need to check in on Tucker."

"Of course. But, Michael-please, please talk to me after."

He took a deep breath and looked past her, into the dark house, away from her eyes. "I don't think I can."

"Do you love me?"

His eyes moved immediately back to hers. "G.o.d, yes. Faith, I've only ever loved you."

"Then try."

They stared at each other, and then finally he nodded.

He stayed in Tucker's room for almost half an hour. Faith sat and waited, staring at the photographs on the tables and walls of the room. Photos of Hoosier, Bibi and Connor. Of her parents and Hoosier and Bibi. Of the club she'd known and this new one she didn't know. Family times she hadn't been part of.

Then he came into the family room and stood behind the sectional. She looked up at him, and he winced.

"I scared you."

"No." That was a lie, but she couldn't say the truth.

He knew it anyway. "It's still on your face, Faith. You're afraid of me."

"Michael, no. I've never been afraid of you." Until tonight, that had been true.

He was on the same wavelength. "That was true. I never saw it on you before. But now you are."

"It's not fear. It's confusion." As Faith said it, she recognized that that was the real truth. "There's a lot I don't understand. Or only half understand. But I want to. I love you." She patted the sofa next to her. "Sit with me, Michael."

He ignored her request. "Why don't you call me Demon?"

"What?" The question threw her. She had always called him Michael. He simply wasn't Demon. That name sounded odd to her, despite the hundreds of times she'd heard him called it. "I guess...I met you as Michael. You've always been Michael to me."

"Hoosier and Bibi and Connor met me before I was Demon. They don't call me Michael. You're the only one who does. Michael is the kid I was. Demon is who I am. What you saw tonight-that's who I am. That's what's inside me."

"That's not true."

"It is. What I did to Kota-it's not the first time I hurt her like that. A big reason I'm having to fight so hard for Tucker is because I hurt her like that when she was pregnant with him."

Whatever she'd been about to say died in the back of her throat.

After a few silent beats between them, his mouth twisted into a sad, lonely smile. "That's who I am. Now you know."

"Why?" She felt like she had Tucker's frog lodged in her throat.

"Why did I hurt her? Is there a good reason? She was a woman and half my size."

His use of the past tense didn't escape her notice. "Was?"

"She's dead."

"Oh, f.u.c.k, Michael." She wasn't an idiot or a naf. She'd grown up in the family of a notorious outlaw MC. She knew that most of the men in her life had killed, and more than once. Her own father had been the club's Sergeant at Arms, and he'd been an enforcer before that, so it stood to reason that his. .h.i.t list was long. Bibi had told her that Michael was also an enforcer; that meant that he'd killed more than most.

She also knew that women in and around the life didn't always have such a great ride. But it had been different here. Hoosier's charter had always had a good rep in its local community and in the club at large. He didn't like innocents getting caught up in their c.r.a.p, and he had a hard limit to what kind of treatment of women was acceptable. Beating an innocent woman to death was far beyond his hard limit. Michael would face club consequences for that.

But was she innocent? She hadn't seemed like it to Faith. Not long ago, she'd been wishing Michael had killed her. Well, wish granted.

He started to speak and then stopped. When he started again, he said, "I'm gonna go to bed. I love you, but I was wrong. We can't be right, not even now. I can't ever be right."

Without another word, without giving her sore, rattled head a chance to process what the h.e.l.l was happening, he turned and headed toward his room.

Faith didn't know long she'd continued to sit on the sectional in Hoosier and Bibi's comfortable family room in their big, comfortable California ranch home. At some point, she realized she was sitting there with her mouth open; the sound of it snapping shut shook her from her mindless fugue.

No. Just no.

She got up and went to Michael's door. Raising her hand to knock, she decided against it and just opened the door.

He was standing naked next to the bureau, a pair of dark sweatpants in his hands. He'd frozen when she'd opened the door, and before he could move or say anything, Faith said, "You didn't answer my question."

Pulling his pants on, he asked, "What question?"

"Why did you hurt her the first time? Did you know she was pregnant?"

"No, I didn't. But does it matter?" He rubbed his hands over his head. He was a study in contrasts-big and muscular, his muscles flexing with the movement of his arms, but still lost and vulnerable. Faith wanted to hold him, but she stayed where she was, in the open door, her hand on the doork.n.o.b.

"Yes. To me, it does."

After a long, slow breath, Michael answered, "Same thing. She threatened to do what she did tonight. I lost my s.h.i.t the same way. I didn't mean it. I just...couldn't stop."

"You mean what she said. That was true."

He didn't look away. "No. But yeah. She twisted the truth up in lies so it would hurt me as much as it could. What she said about when I was a kid-that was true. Saying I liked it was a lie."

Then she hadn't been remotely innocent. She had dug into Demon's deepest wound, and she'd done it with glee. If she'd known Michael enough to know such a secret, then she knew the limits of his control, just like Faith did.

Faith closed the door and stepped into the room. True to form, Michael took the same number of steps backward, so she stopped.

"Quit moving away from me, Michael. Just quit it." Her voice was quiet; sadness had sapped the volume from it. "I love you." She took another step, and he held.

"I never want to hurt you."

"I'm not afraid of you, Michael. You're not a demon. You're a man-a scarred man with a beautiful heart. I love you. We can be right. We already are."

He stayed still and let her close the distance between them. When she put her hands on his chest, he closed his eyes. "I don't know why you would give me this chance."

"Because you deserve it. I think you're owed a lifetime of chances." She leaned in and kissed his chest. "I'm so sorry for what your life was."

That was a wrong thing to say; he stiffened, but he didn't pull away. "I don't want that-pity." He spat out the last word as if it had a foul taste.

"I don't pity you. I pity the boy who went through that. And I understand the man he became a little better now."

In Faith's head were still questions about Tucker's mom and how Michael had ended up with her, how someone like that had come to know his secret pain, but she didn't let them get as far as her tongue. Her jealousy was stupid, and talking more about the woman who'd torn him up so much, and whom he'd killed for it, would only cause him more pain.

Finally, Michael touched her. He lifted his hands and cupped her face. She smiled at the familiar sense of his love in that touch. She thought he was going to kiss her, and he licked his lips as if preparing to do so. But then he said, "It wasn't me who killed her."

"What?" She frowned, trying to make room for that new bit of information. Then it clicked. If it wasn't him, then it was a club call. Though she'd once watched Michael suffer at the hands of club justice, it was something Faith understood. Any reservations that might have been caught in the cracks of her mind were washed away, and she smiled. "She wasn't an innocent, Michael. If I know that, you have to."

He shrugged. "I do. But what I did-there's no way she could fight back against me. I was bigger and stronger. She was an evil c.u.n.t, but it doesn't excuse what I did."

And with that, Faith understood. Tucker's mother was small and, he thought, powerless to defend herself. Like he had been. Exactly what his childhood had been like, Faith didn't know, and she didn't know if he'd ever tell her, or if she'd ever ask. But now she knew he'd been abused when he couldn't protect himself. It tore him up to hurt somebody smaller and weaker than he was, even somebody who was hurting him and laughing about it.

She'd always known that he would never hurt her. Even after what she'd seen tonight, most of her turmoil had been trying to reconcile that gruesome show with the gentle man she knew, grappling with the thought that the years had changed him so much. But now, in this moment, as she dropped her hands from his chest, sliding over the firm sculpts of his torso and belly and then around his waist, she regained her equilibrium. She was safe. She loved him. He loved her. Now, at this time, in this present, they made each other safe.

"I know I'm safe with you, Michael. And you're safe with me."

He blinked. Then, at long last, he bent his head and kissed her.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

The grunting was almost the worst of it. And the talking, the things the guard said. "Give it to me, oh yeah. Yeah. Pretty boy. Yeah." Michael gripped the edge of the rickety metal desk that shook under him, and he waited for it to be over, trying not to hear, trying not to smell. Trying not to feel. As always, a wide, fat hand slapped him hard on the side of the head when it was over.

Demon bolted upright, taking in a huge swallow of air and holding the side of his head. He recognized the dream for what it was as soon as he was awake, and he started counting heartbeats, trying to come down, as he oriented himself back into his room at Hoosier and Bibi's.

He hadn't had that dream, or any of them, for a long time. Years. But the box in his head had been opened last night. All those torments loose and dancing.

"Michael?"

He ducked away from the sound of Faith's voice behind him, as if it had been a touch. "I'm okay."

"You're not."

"Just a dream."