Shadow & Soul (5 page)

Her ponytail was wound around part of the rusted-out remnants of the drivetrain. He got his arms around her head and worked the strands loose as gently as he could. Her hair felt like silk.

She smelled like dirt and rust and oil. Also flowers of some kind.

She was a kid. A kid, a kid, a kid. A kid. Blue’s kid.

When her hair was free, she sighed happily and then giggled. “You just rescued me. I feel like Rapunzel.”

“Who’s that?”

“Rapunzel? The fairy tale princess with the long, long hair? She was locked in a tower and the prince climbed her hair to rescue her? ‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair’?”

He just stared at her, not knowing what she was talking about but not caring. Her eyes were so pretty. Today, they were mostly blue, he thought.

“You don’t know Rapunzel?”

He shrugged, and her eyes got sad. He didn’t like that at all. He didn’t want her sad for him. That was pity, and he didn’t need her pity because he didn’t know a stupid fairy tale princess. Life was not a stupid fairy tale, and if she thought it was, she was just as stupid as Rapun-whoever. “You go down first. I’ll follow. Be careful.”

Her only answer was a nod.

When they were safely on the ground at Dante’s side, they had an awkward moment when he was still feeling really pissed and defensive without being entirely sure why, and he could see that she sensed his feelings.

Then she got a goofy grin on her face and ducked to the ground. When she came back up, she had the shifter knob in her hand. “Aha! Cool!” She wiped it on her t-shirt. “See? Shiny!”

She looked so cute and proud of herself that his mood dissipated, and he laughed. Then she kissed the knob. Watching her full lips purse around that piece of plastic, Demon felt an urge that would have overpowered any inhibition, even had he had one. He slid his hands over her jaw, cradling her head, and he bent down and kissed her.

Before his lips had even reached hers, she was with him. Her hands went to his hips and her body bent backward, molding to his. It was her tongue, not his, that moved first, sweeping along his lower lip. Fuck, he’d never been so hard ever in his whole life. His body was functioning on a purely physical, elemental level, and his tongue overpowered hers and pushed into her mouth. He’d never kissed anybody like this, where he wasn’t even paying any attention to what he was doing or what she was doing. All he knew was the feeling, the way his heart pounded, the hot silk of her skin in his hands, the way her body slotted against his like it belonged there.

The way he wanted so much more.

Then she pulled back—just an inch, but it was enough for sense to shoulder its way back into a corner of his head.

“Fuck. I’m sorry.” He let her go.

But she grabbed his kutte. “Don’t be sorry. Please don’t be sorry.”

He looked into her eyes and tried to see what she was thinking. He thought he could see. He thought he saw trust and desire. But she was so much better than he was. Even if she hadn’t been untouchable, she was out of his reach.

“We can’t…”

She sighed and looked up at the clear blue sky. “I know. I know. The story of my fucking life.” Her eyes came back to his. “But that was my first kiss, so don’t be sorry. If you’re sorry, that ruins the memory.”

“Your first…? You never…?”

“Nope. And it was
awesome
. So don’t be sorry, okay?”

He smiled. “Okay.” He wasn’t sorry anymore. He was proud, actually. And sad.

~oOo~

When they got back to the club compound, the van was back—and so were the patches that had been on the run with it. Including Blue. By the time Demon had Dante parked and had met Faith at the back of the car to hand her back her keys, Blue was just about on them. He ignored Demon and smiled at his daughter.

“Hey, kitty cat. Where you two been?”

“We went to Pik-A-Part. Michael needed to get some stuff for Uncle Hooj, and the van was gone, so I let him use Dante.
And
I got some sweet stuff for myself, too. I put it on the account. That’s okay, right?”

“How much?”

“About twenty bucks is all.”

“Yeah, that’s fine.” He turned and shouted toward the open bays, “CRAPPER! GET OUT HERE AND HELP DEME GET THIS SHIT INSIDE.”

Crapper walked out, moving a lot more slowly than Demon would have, and they two unloaded Dante and brought Hoosier’s parts to his station. When they were done, Demon started to head back to say goodbye to Faith, but Fat Jack grabbed his arm hard.

“Stay put, kid. Don’t make it worse.”

The possibilities of badness that Jack’s warning portended were infinite. So Demon swallowed and stayed put, watching Blue hug Faith and send her on her way. He watched his daughter drive away, standing in the lot until Dante was out of sight.

Then he turned and headed back to the bays, moving fast, his head and shoulders brought forward like a charging bull. Demon locked his knees and stood firm. Whatever was about to happen, he would take it.

Blue grabbed a long, heavy screwdriver from a worktable he passed and came straight at Demon with it. Still, Demon held. When Blue reached out and grabbed him by the throat and dragged him back until he was bent backward over Fat Jack’s worktable, he went, not fighting, but not making a sound, either. When Blue shoved that driver into the soft underside of his chin, almost to the point of penetration, Demon held and kept his eyes on Blue’s.

“That is my little girl. If you touch a hair on her, I will cut off your dick, and I will fuck you right up the ass with it. Then I will shove it down your throat until you choke to death on it. Am I coming through here?”

Demon felt sick and dizzy and furious and scared. His face was hot, so hot, and he knew that meant he was blazing, beet red. He could sense that everyone in the bays was watching, that people had come from the clubhouse, too, and that they were all giving the scene a wide berth.

But all he did was nod. His eyes steady on Blue’s, the screwdriver digging dangerously into his flesh, he lifted his head and dropped it, twice, acknowledging that yes, Blue had come through loud and clear.

He understood. Faith was not meant for the likes of him.

CHAPTER THREE

Faith hadn’t slept. Maybe she’d dozed a little, drifting off into memory more than dream. But for the few hours between the moment Michael had turned and left her, again, and the moment the light in the sky became bright enough to call morning, what Faith mostly did was cry.

When Bibi had come back into the room, she hadn’t said much. She’d simply hugged her and then shown her where she could sleep. Then she’d said good night, hugged her again, and left her to her spiraling emotions.

So much was so fucked up. Just all of a sudden. She thought about the morning before, waking up in her loft a couple of blocks off the Venice Beach Boardwalk, having a regular morning before a regular day. Going down to Slow Drips for a coffee and a blueberry crunch muffin, hanging out in the sunshine, doing February as only Southern California did it, then going back to the loft to work on one of her current projects.

Her life. She’d been having her life. It was pretty good, all in all. Nothing special, but hers.

Now, twenty-four hours later, all that, all those years of her pretty good life, felt like a dream, one that was breaking into pieces and blowing away as she sat up.

Though she’d grown up with Hoosier and Bibi as her second set of parents and Connor as her honorary brother, though she’d spent about as much time in their house as in her own parents’ house, the bedroom she was sitting in now was alien to her. She’d never been in
this
house. She’d never been in
this
town. She’d never known
this
club. She’d never known
this
life.

In the years she’d been away, everything had changed. And yet, somehow, they’d managed to pull her back into her old life, one that didn’t even exist anymore. It made no sense, and it made her feel disoriented, as if the floor under her feet were unstable, like a carnival funhouse, each room tilting a different way.

Michael was here. Michael. He’d turned away from her, left her standing alone, but he was here, and he hadn’t gone far.

Michael.

She’d known he was back, of course. Bibi had never talked about him much, and Faith had never asked outright, but enough had gotten through during their occasional chats over the years to let her know that he’d been called home from exile with the Nomad charter and offered his L.A. patch back shortly after her father had been killed. She didn’t know the details. But after her father was dead, and with her in San Francisco and determined never to return, she guessed the club had seen no reason to leave him out in the cold any longer.

She had indeed been determined never to return. Almost two years ago, when she’d gotten the big commission that had brought her back to Southern California, she’d felt safe coming back, because the club she’d known had died. The compound had been blown up, and the club had reformed as a new charter in a different MC entirely. They’d moved fifty miles east. There were a lot of people in those fifty miles. Faith had felt sufficiently anonymous.

And she would have been. She should have been. She
had
been. Until last night.

She smelled coffee, so she pulled her UGGs back on and went out into Hoosier and Bibi’s strange house.

She found Bibi in the kitchen, and Michael’s little boy sitting in a high chair at the breakfast table—that table, at least, was familiar. The boy had a bunch of Cheerios on his tray, and he was playing with them more than eating them, lining them up along the rim of the tray. Every now and then, he’d pick one up and put it in his mouth, using two fingers to pinch the oat ring and then sticking out his tongue so he could set it on the tip.

He saw her looking and froze, his eyes wide.

He really was beautiful. His eyes were like Michael’s. His hair was darker, more a light, sugary brown than the pale gold that was his father’s, but he was obviously his father’s son.

As much as he’d been instantly, painfully familiar to her, Michael looked different from the way she remembered him. He wore the years hard; even though he was only thirty-two, lines around his eyes were noticeable. That pale hair was nearly gone—not receding, but cropped close to his skull all around. And he was much bigger than he’d been. She’d known a young man with a lean frame and wiry musculature. His physique had been beautifully cut but not necessarily intimidating. Now he was almost twice as broad and bulky. He’d been bare-chested last night, and he’d looked like a gladiator, his arms and torso brawny, with the sloped shoulders that came with hugely developed trapezius muscles.

There were ragged scars over his belly and chest—they looked old, but they were new to her.

And he had a
lot
more ink—both arms were fully sleeved and he had a large piece across his chest, all of it intricate and in full color. As he’d left her, she’d seen the word HORDE inked across his shoulders in heavy black letters. When she’d known him, he’d had only the kanji symbol for ‘strength’ over his heart and, after he’d earned his patch, a curving, black and grey scorpion on his left bicep. She’d seen neither last night. Of course he would have covered the scorpion, but it made her sad to think that his strength was gone, too.

She smiled at his beautiful boy. “Hi there, mister.”

Bibi turned. “Mornin’, honey. That’s Tucker. Tuck, say hi to Miss Faith.”

Tucker just stared, his tongue still out, balancing a Cheerio.

“Tuck. Are you a good boy?”

He turned to Bibi, pulling his tongue in. The Cheerio stuck to his chin. He nodded.

“Then be polite. Say hi to Miss Faith.”

“Hi,” he whispered, and covered his face with his hands. She did the same, covering her own face. She didn’t know why; it just felt like a thing to do.

And it was a right thing. Tucker threw his hands wide and grinned, his eyes squinching up. “PEE-BOO!” he yelled and then giggled like a little maniac.

Damn, he really was adorable. Faith’s heart ached, and she blinked before the burning behind her eyes could become something more.

Bibi came over then with a scrambled egg, a wedge of toast, and a half a piece of bacon on a little plate shaped like an airplane. She set it down on the tray, right on top of the Cheerio installation Tucker had been working on. “You want milk or juice, Tuck?”

“Mook, peez.”

“That’s Granny’s good boy. Milk it is.” Bibi turned to Faith. “You want some breakfast, honey? Coffee’s fresh, bacon’s fried, and I got plenty of eggs.”

Faith picked up a piece of bacon from a plate near the range and started to pick at it. She didn’t think she could face sitting at the table with this little family and having a cozy breakfast. “No, thanks. I’ll just have this and coffee. I want to get to the hospital when visiting hours start.” Then she asked the question that was burning itself into her brain. “Is Michael up?”

Bibi had been pouring Faith a cup of coffee. She stopped and let the pot hover for a second before she answered. “No, honey. He was up and out early this mornin’.”

“Avoiding me.”

“It’s a lot to spring on him, Faith. You know what he’s like.” She put the carafe back in its spot and handed Faith the mug.

“I know what he
was
like.”

“He’s the same as he was—if anythin’, he’s worse. There’s a lot of darkness in that boy. He fights it, and there’s sweetness in him, too, almost a purity. But he doesn’t always win. And now he really knows what kind of damage he can do when he loses control. We all know. So he runs before he loses it. You can’t push Demon. Let him come to you. And then we’ll see what we see.”

“Does he know?”

For a few seconds, Bibi simply looked her over, giving her an evaluative consideration that Faith remembered well. “He doesn’t know anythin’ you said you didn’t want him to know. That was a good instinct. It still is. I think knowin’ more is more than he can handle. So when you do talk to him, you think about that before you start diggin’ into old wounds.”

Faith hated Bibi’s tone. The secret they had wasn’t her fault. It was an injury done to her—and to Michael—and Bibi was talking like Faith was to blame somehow. Well, fuck that.

She shoved the nearly-full mug across the counter toward Bibi and dropped the remains of the piece of bacon she’d been taking apart. “I’m going to wash up and go to the hospital. Can I use one of your bathrooms?”

Bibi barely hesitated before she answered, “Sure, baby. The bathroom across from the room you slept in. In the closet, there’s new toothbrushes, deodorant, shampoo, everythin’. We’re practically a hotel. Will you be comin’ back and stayin’ here?”

When she’d woken, she’d thought that she wanted to stay. To be here, with family, with Michael so close. But now, feeling raw and defensive—and abandoned, too, though that was dumb—she wasn’t sure. She guessed that she’d have to drive back to her loft soon and pack up some things. It looked like she might have to stay in Madrone for at least a few days. She’d wait until she knew what was going on with her mother before she made that decision.

“Um, I don’t know. I guess I’ll work all that out after I know what’s going on with Mom. And if she even wants me around.”

“She does, baby. Trust me.” Bibi squeezed her hand. “Let me know when you know anythin’. I’ll come by the hospital this afternoon, while Tuck’s at speech therapy.”

“Speech therapy?” She looked at the pretty, happy little boy who was putting Cheerios on top of his eggs, placing each one carefully. “How old is he?”

“Two and a half, and he’s just startin’ to talk. He was slow to walk, too, but he figured that out. He didn’t get a great start in life, so we’re givin’ him some help up the curve.”

Faith had a lot of questions about this little boy and the circumstances that had Michael and Tucker living here with Bibi and Hoosier, but they were questions she wanted to ask Michael, no one else.

She hoped he’d give her the chance. He didn’t need to run. He didn’t have to back away, not anymore. Maybe those ten years felt like nothing, but they meant everything—or they could, if he now wanted what she wanted the way he’d once wanted what she’d wanted.

~oOo~

Her mother was awake and alert—and lucid—when Faith arrived a few minutes after visiting hours began. She was still restrained to the bed, though, and it was almost more painful to see her in restraints when her eyes were clear and looked at her with recognition.

At first, she stood in the doorway and simply looked. Her mother was turned to the window. The wild frenzy she’d been in last night was gone, and she no longer looked insane. Now, she was simply a small, aging but still pretty woman who’d been in an accident. Her broken leg was in traction. A nurse must have taken the time to brush out her blonde hair.

“Mom?”

Her mother turned at the sound of her voice, and Faith knew for sure that she was fully present and recognized her. But she didn’t smile. Or have any expression at all.

“Where’s Sera?”

It had been nearly ten years since Faith and her mother had spoken, and still, the first thing her mother thought about was Faith’s sister. She shouldn’t care. She’d left for a reason. For many reasons. She didn’t even like her mother. But that still stung. “In Japan, Mom. She got transferred. Remember?”

“Of course I remember. I’m not an idiot. Why isn’t she here now?”

Because Sera’s career was the most important thing in her life, and she didn’t like their mother all that much more than Faith did. Sera had been Margot’s clear favorite, and Faith had always fallen short of her sister’s mark, but being the favorite had come with its own special brand of baggage, and Sera had been happy to cast it away. There was a reason she’d gone to college on the other side of the country, and there was a reason she’d taken a job with an international company. Faith didn’t even know if Sera planned to come home at all. “Japan’s a long way away. I don’t know if she can get here.”