Evil’s Pact by Raven Dark

8

Embracing the Darkness

Spider sits in the chair with me in his lap for a long time, his arms wrapped tightly around me, as if he intends to never let me go.

By the time his arms loosen, it’s already getting dark, the sky outside the front windows of the clubhouse a gunmetal grey that’s slowly turning to blue-black. Spider presses a kiss to my forehead and lifts me off him with a shocking gentleness. He seizes my hand and his palm burns mine as he pulls me over to Ben. Pip releases him, and Spider lifts the boy into his arms, being careful with his wounded arm and holding him mostly with the other.

Ben murmurs groggily, and Spider lays the boy’s head on his shoulder.

“Let’s get you upstairs to bed, boy.” He’s still holding my hand as he takes us both toward the stairs.

“Spider, hold up.” Jules stops us at the bottom of the steps. “He doesn’t sleep well unless he’s with Penny. Take him to her room. Here.” She holds out the key. “She might be sleeping now.”

Spider nods to me to take the key, as if he can’t bring himself to let go of me and free his hand. I hold out my hand and Jules presses the key into my palm. She gives me a sudden tight hug and goes back to the men.

Spider is still holding my hand when we get up to the room. I knock on the door, and when Penny doesn’t answer, I extract my hand, unlock the door, and let us quietly in.

Penny’s fast asleep. Spider looks at her, and it occurs to me that he probably hasn’t had time to visit her much since we got here. She looks better than she did that day at the hospital; her bruises are mostly healed, but she looks so tired that it takes me aback and sends a bolt of anger with Gary through me.

Spider crosses the room and lays Ben next to his mother with an astounding gentleness for a man of his size and strength. He tucks the boy into the blankets and brushes his pale hair off of his face.

“I’ll get him,” he growls softly. “I promise.”

My throat tightens painfully.

Spider stands up and puts his arm around me, drawing me close. We quietly leave the room and he shuts the door. After everything that’s happened between us in the past couple of weeks, the gentleness in his touch is startling. Unsure what to do with that, or with what I just saw between him and Ben, I lower my eyes to the floor.

“Are you tired?”

My eyes lift to his face. The huskiness in his voice is so like the way he was after Cap was shot, and so different from the way he’s been these past few days that it’s painfully confusing.

“Huh?” I whisper. My brain is too disconnected to come up with the correct response.

His thumb brushes my cheek. “Are you tired?”

I give a jerky shake of my head. He’s being so nice that I don’t want to trust it. I lick my lips. “I could use some fresh air.”

As soon as I say this, I expect him to refuse on the grounds that I might escape. Instead, he guides me to the stairs.

“Come with me.”

“Er…why?”

Saying nothing, his arm tightens around me, his eyes focused on the hall.

Baffled, I follow him down the steps to the main floor. Next thing I know, he’s pushed the door to the clubhouse open and we’ve stepped outside. He gives an awkward sort of shrug and gestures to a table on the otherwise deserted patio.

My heart starts to flutter, an erratic beat, like butterfly’s wings.

It’s surprisingly quiet out here. There’s no one partying out in the lot or sitting on the bikes, drinking and carousing on the patio. It’s dark, the lights by the door creating a pool of luminescence on the deck and throwing the rest of the lot into shadow.

I asked for fresh air, and he’s giving it to me, without reservation. The gesture feels huge somehow, and I quash the significance of it down. I’m still a prisoner. This small concession doesn’t change that. Determined not to read too much into it, I lower myself slowly onto the chair.

He still won’t look at me. An emotion I can’t name flickers across his face, half hidden by the glare of the lights behind him. He clears his throat.

“I’d take you for a ride, but I’ve had a fuck of a lot of Jack.”

The regret in his tone startles me almost as much as the words.

I blink. He’s talking like I’m his girlfriend or something.

Monica and the other girls at Casper’s had said he was bringing me out to White Springs for more than just sex. No way. I can’t go there.

My eyes veer to his arm. Before I can stop myself, I reach up and lay my fingers close to the wrapping, careful not to touch it. “Does that still hurt?” I rasp.

“Like a motherfucker.” His hand closes over mine and holds it there for a long moment. “It’s a hell of a lot better than it was.”

Heck. I want to be angry with him, but I can’t.

“I’m sorry.”

“Had worse.” He grabs the chair across from me and moves it against the wall beside mine, then lowers himself into it.

Worse? I study his hard features, the pain, the memories that seem to have etched themselves into his face over the years. Knowing what he told me about his parents, about his neglectful mother and his jerk of a father, it’s impossible not to imagine what horrors this man went through as a child.

It’s on the tip of my tongue to remind him of all the damage that lies between us, but the words seem wrong somehow.

Turning his head, his eyes fixate on the side of my neck, the tattoo that, with the light coming from the door on his other side, is probably barely visible.

“You might hate me for that, but I did it to protect you.”

Shock bolts through me. My chest shudders. He’s opened the door now. “You drugged me and branded me to protect me?”

He shrugs.

“How does that even make sense?”

“It doesn’t.” He puts his head back against the wall. “It shouldn’t surprise you. I’m a twisted man. In my fucked-up head, branding you was the only way to keep you safe from asswipes like Primer.”

My eyes go wide, stunned at his admission. I look out at the darkened lot, trying to process what the heck is happening here. My heart speeds up again.

I lick my lips. “And what about…” I swallow again, almost afraid to hear the answer to the question I need to ask. “What about what you said? After he…” I close my eyes, trying not to think about Primer’s hands on me, the smell of his breath.

Spider’s reaction to what happened still cuts like a blade.

“Why did you say that?”

He looks skyward, and then his eyes close. “I…” He trails off, and I can see him fighting some sort of inner battle.

One heartbeat passes. Then two.

Spider turns in the seat to face me. His palm cups my nape. The heat of it sends a shiver through me.

“Because when I saw you with him, I didn’t know how to handle it.”

“But I wasn’t with him, Spider. I didn’t lead him on. I didn’t ask for it.”

His fingers squeeze. “I know that. But it’s…” He shakes his head and looks upward. “Fuck. It’s like when I saw what he was trying to do… Look, there isn’t a reason I can give you that won’t make me sound like a fucking lunatic.”

Oh, Lord. I have no idea what secrets lie inside his head, but the one embedded in those words feels huge. “Tell me anyway.”

He searches my eyes for a second, as if weighing the price of his answer. Then he pushes to his feet and walks to the railing.

Shoulders tense, he lights a smoke, blows out a puff, and rests his hands on the railing. When he speaks, his voice is low and hoarse.

“When I saw you….him, all over you, it’s like…” He draws another puff. “It’s like there was a voice inside my head telling me that’s what a man is supposed to do.”

“Um. You’re being figurative, right?” My voice shakes.

“Yes.” He turns to me. “And no.”

“How does that work?”

He sighs and holds out his hand. “Come here.”

I can see it in his face. He’s worried he’s scared me. The need for connection in his eyes tugs hard at me.

I rise from the chair, slip my hand into his, and join him at the railing. His eyes seem to be studying the shadows out there, the darkness that obscures all but the faint shapes of the bikes.

“I never told you how my dad died, did I?”

Where is he going with this? I shake my head.

There’s the barest pause.

“He ate his gun.”

I blink. Then the meaning in the words hit me and my mouth drops. I grip his shoulder without thinking. “He killed himself?”

He looks away, and his shoulders drop as if a huge weight is pressing on them.

Horror for him washes over me. “Dear God. Why?”

He takes a long puff of his smoke. “To make a really long fucking story short, he took the coward’s way out. He was a hitman for the Outlaws—”

“Your dad was a…”

He nods. “I was sixteen. Mom knew the son of a bitch was taking out targets on the side and not giving the club their cut. When he wouldn’t give her drugs, she threatened to tell the MC. He knew what would happen if they found out. He beat her to death and buried her. The club showed up, but he’d offed himself before they could do it for him. He killed her, and I did nothing. I fucking stood there and did nothing.”

The blood drains out of my face. I move closer until I’m almost pressed to him. “Spider, you saw him do this?”

He whips his cigarette butt across the lot. “I was right fucking there, and like a weak, bitch coward, I froze.”

His words crash over me. My eyes sting for him. My whole being cries out to wipe away the guilt and pain that’s rolling off him.

I take his shoulder, pushing gently until he turns to face me. His head goes back, and I take his face in my hands. “Spider, look at me.”

It shocks me a little when he does.

“What happened wasn’t your fault. You were a kid. If you had tried to save her—” He shakes his head and I grip his face firmly. “No, listen to me, okay? If you had tried to save her, he would have killed you, too.”

“You don’t get it, Em. If—”

“Yes, I do. There’s no way this was your fault. You couldn’t have stopped him—”

“I helped him.”

“Wh—what?”

He nods and points to his chest. “I fucking helped him bury her.”

My hands jerk from his face, the words stunning me.

He whirls on his heel, putting his back to me. “After he shot her, the son of a bitch sent me out to get a tarp to wrap her in. I didn’t run to the club. I could have told Bones. Could have grabbed his gun and shot him. I didn’t stop him. I wrapped my mother up and put her in the ground while he watched.”

Horror for him washes through me and I blink back tears. “Spider—”

“I hated her,” he growls, facing me again. He jabs his chest. “She spent years forcing me to get money for her fucking drugs. Getting high instead of being a mother.”

“She was cruel, Spider. You could have died because of her. This wasn’t—”

“You don’t get it. I was fucking glad she was dead.”

I look at his hands. They’re shaking. Slowly, I close mine over them.

His eyes go skyward again. “That’s how it was in our house, you know?” he croaks. “That bastard told you to do something and you did it. He told you how things were and you believed them. He has this way of getting inside your head. He said women were whores, so they are whores. He said someone deserved to die, so they died. After a while, I felt like I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak around him unless he told me to. Everything he thought, every twisted, evil thought the bastard had ended up in here.”

He points to his temple.

“The fucker has been dead for years and he’s still in here. His voice is here. All the time. I look like him, I sound like him. His words come out of my mouth. I don’t want them to, but they do.”

A lump forms in my throat, hearing the agony in his voice, seeing the struggle all over him. His father is like a demon, a devil inside his head. The man’s body is gone, but the most dangerous part of him is in there, screwing with Spider’s head.

It hits me that this sounds remarkably like something I have been through, something I know far too much about.

Slowly, I take his hands in mine. “Spider, do you know what that sounds like? Do you know what that is?”

He shakes his head, clearly trying to figure out what I’m getting at.

“He controlled you. You said you got to the point where you couldn’t think without his permission. Couldn’t do anything without him saying it was allowed.”

“Trust me, I’ve heard all about it. The fucking therapists, the pamphlets. I know all about child abuse.”

“No. No, this is more than that. There’s another word for what he did to you.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

I take his face again and say very slowly, “Brainwashing.”

He scoffs. “Oh, fuck off. I wouldn’t have let that happen. Don’t make excuses for me.”

“I’m not! Spider, I spent my entire life around people who told me how to think, how to act. They made me believe I needed them in order to survive, that if I didn’t follow their rules, I’d burn in hell. The Colony keeps people under its thumb by brainwashing them. It took a long time—it took Sarah getting out to realize what they had done to me. That’s exactly what your father did to you—programmed you with fear and intimidation until you behaved exactly the way he wanted.”

“So he turned me into a weak little pussy who stood there and let his mother die. Who sees his woman get attacked and then accuses her of being a fucking whore.”

He called me his woman…

“No.” I grab his shoulders. “Listen to me. You are not a coward or a…pussy. You were a kid when that happened. Your father was no different than David Gild. He may have only programmed one kid and not hundreds, but he’s the same breed of psycho. You stayed alive, and now he’s gone. It’s over. You are not him.”

He lifts his fingers to my lips. Anguish flickers across his face. “What I said after Primer… That’s the way dad would have acted. He was in my head. I didn’t know how to shut him off.” He turns away from me, his back stiff.

My heart breaks for him. “That’s not who you are.”

I stare at his back, the urge to touch him almost overpowering. Knowing what he’s been through, knowing how deeply embedded all his messed-up beliefs are, I can’t help wanting to take away his pain, to show him that he deserves to be cared for and loved. The knowledge of where his actions come from somehow wipes away any hatred or animosity I feel toward him.

I join him at the railing again, staring out at the darkness with him. Letting the silence stretch between us. Letting what’s happened between us wash over me. He’s opened up to me, bared his soul in a way that goes far beyond anything he did or said to me the night Cap was shot. I feel closer to him than I have ever felt.

“I think I get why you’re so close to Ben now,” I say at last. “You don’t want him to go through what you went through. That’s why you protect him.”

His gaze remains on the parking lot. “You’re too smart for your own fucking good.”

Unsure what to say to that, I turn to him and lean on the railing.

“I went to the club after,” he whispers. “As soon as I could get away, I ran to Dragon and Cap. He’d shot himself before they showed up. The club was all I had left. They’re my family. They saved me.”

“So every day, you pay it forward. You save them.”

He takes out his cigarettes and lights up.

“A guy like me can’t lose my edge. The club is all that I am. It has to be that way. Otherwise I go soft and people die.”

What he’s saying strikes like an anvil to my heart. There’s no place in his life for someone special, for letting someone close. For me.

Throat tight, I watch the smoke swirl around him, watch it disappear into the darkness like a specter. Longing to touch him reaches into me, but I can’t.

Here and now, I feel as if I understand him better than I ever have, as if I’m almost able to see into his soul. He looks so huge, so strong, like a mountain that’s stood through a terrible storm.

He looks so…alone.

The connection I feel for him burns itself into me, a brand that goes deeper than any tattoo. I don’t want to feel this deeply for him, don’t want to understand him, but it’s too late. He’s in my heart, and I’ll never get him out again.

Suddenly it doesn’t matter what crimes he was out there committing when he was hurt or what club business he might have been on. Everything he does is to hold the club together, to keep everyone, including Ben, safe. I can feel it in his words; when he justifies the darkest acts he commits, he thinks of Ben. He thinks of his friends, of those he cares for like Jules and Penny and Diesel and Cap and Striker.

The last of my anger toward him shatters with an abominable force, cutting my heart to ribbons far more effectively than any barb he could sling my way. My eyes blur. Thank heck that with his eyes on the lot, he can’t see me fighting not to break down.

“It’s getting late.” His voice is low and quiet, his face a mask of shadows, solitary and remote.

It feels as if he opened himself wide to me, and now that gateway into his soul has just slammed shut. The thought makes me sad somehow.

He takes a last puff and tosses the rest of the smoke away. “Let’s get you back inside, Wildcat. I got club shit to take care of tomorrow. Gonna be a long-ass day.”

Wildcat. His pet name for me makes my heart hurt. He’s closed himself off again. I’m his prisoner, he is my captor, and there are a million miles between us once more.

As he takes my hand and leads me inside, Cap’s words hit home hard, and I finally understand them. Spider needs the monster in order to do what he does. It’s what allows him to keep people safe and destroy those who threaten what is his. And the monster needs the man to keep him from going too far into the darkness. Except, here and now, I can see it; both parts of him are at the fore, visible and shining through clear as day.

Earlier with Ben, he’d promised to take Gary down, but the promise was from both of them.

And that’s when the devastating truth hits me.

Weeks ago, I fell for the man, but in this moment, I’ve now fallen for the monster, too. I’ve fallen so hard and so completely that I can feel myself plummeting over the cliff. A cliff below which is a raging sea that will drown me.

I know he can destroy me, and he probably will, but my heart doesn’t care. It swells for him until it threatens to explode. I can’t forget what he is, can’t forget what he’s done, but I am his, mind body and soul.

The knowledge twists in my chest, excruciating in its finality. Because I realize not one truth now, but two.

I’m wholly and completely in love with Spider…and he will never, ever love me back.