Chapter 80: Smart Girls Forgive What They Can Never Forget

Marley, just after the Irish fall

It's dark, and I can't see the grievous injuries of the dead Irish on the ground, but it doesn't matter. I saw Avery Thompson's brains splatter all over Bodie and TJ, and I saw his soulless eyes and gaping mouth. I know I will see every one of the dead Irish, just like that, in false memories that I will push away with my rational mind.

It's likely my brain will push back and insist on serving up their blank stares in nightmare.

The mind is made for imagination and the soul for guilt. When they come together, one can graft horrors on the other that are more real than reality itself.

I understand now, why Bodie has been haunted by Cain Priestly. I tighten my grip on Darius, who is thankfully numb. I feel guilt more searing than the brand that burned away my skin.

In the last twenty four hours, Darius has been abducted and brutalized. He's witnessed my tortured, and saw Daemon—who is not his father but is still a man he has been compelled to treat like a father—brutally stab a completely innocent girl. He's seen his other father shoot a man in the leg without even a thought, and he's witnessed ten people die.

All my fault. I brought my son here to this place. Because I love his father. I threw away all my reason and followed Bodie blindly—just like I once followed Daemon—and it led my son to this.

There's no point in denying it. Even now, with Bodie's arms around both Darius and me like a steel cage, I know I love him.

The problem is, I love him too much. I love him more than my own self-preservation, which might be okay except...I don't have that luxury of putting any man before myself.

"I'm sorry." My words shake in the space between my lips and Darius' ear as I hold on, incapable of letting go. "Oh Darius, I'm sorry."

He pries loose a little, shaking his head, grabbing mine almost like his father would. "You didn't do this. He did it."

Bodie hears his words, and he loosens his grip slightly, stepping back to look at Darius' face.

"Not you," Darius says. "Him."

His gaze is on TJ and rips free of both me and his father and shoves TJ, hard. "You are a fucking liar!!! You lie to me, and my mom, and Pat, and Bodie and Daemon and maybe the worst? You lie to Shay. You see what all your lies bought?" He shoves TJ again. "We almost all died and it all started with your fucking lies! I hate you!"

"Darius—" Bodie begins, but Darius cuts him off.

"Don't fucking defend him!" Darius throws a punch that lands squarely on TJ's jaw.

Bodie doesn't say anymore. He just yanks Darius away roughly, turning him toward Adam who is approaching us with a face full of...well...full of light. Like an angel.

The Preacher, always the best comforter, takes Darius by the shoulders and cups his face gently, like he were no older than Lennon. "Hey. Darius. Hey. We gotta get your mom to the hospital, okay? On the way, you can call Gwen. I just called her and told her you are okay—safe—but she needs to hear your voice. C'mon..." he's leading Darius toward a large truck that one of the Sixers has pulled close. Leed has already swooped Row up and is putting her in.

Bodie uses the momentary distraction Adam is providing to embrace me fiercely again. The contact to my burn is agonizing and I feel the swell of a scream in my chest, but it doesn't come out.

It can't. My voice is frozen.

I'm traumatized, I realize. My body at war with too many physical and emotional wounds, and I'm shutting down to feeling nothing at all. Apparently the voice goes first.

Bodie, sensing this, swoops me up just like Leed did with Row and carries me to the truck, installing me beside Row. Adam and Darius are in the front. Adam says, "Bodes, hop in, let's go."

Bodie shakes his head, his eyes on me. He braces himself in the doorway of the truck, talking low and fast. "Marley, I need you to focus." And when I don't, he grabs my chin, "Look at me. This is important."

I nod, trying to do what he asks. "You and Darius need to go to the hospital, but I can't come with you. I can't. What just happened here is not over yet. The Feds are probably already on their way. I have to be here, to tell them everything that happened. I bought drugs from Ryan, he answered to Lorcan, and Lorcan has bosses too. Bosses more terrible than Ryan or Lorcan. It can't wait—figuring out the next move. It may be the...the last move I need to make. Do you understand?"

I nod woodenly.

Leed appears from nowhere, and I note with detachment a bloody handprint his white dress shirt. Row's blood, I think, but it's not, because Row's hand is bandaged and that print is a perfect impression of a larger hand.

"The kid's got to go too. Right now. It's just a leg wound, but I think it hit a main artery," Leed says, low and calm as two Sixers let down the third row and shove Preston in, lying down in the back.

Bodie shoots around the truck, grabbing Preston's hand. "You go with Marley. And Darius. You look out for them..."

Preston grabs his shirt. "Man... Dae's in there raging...he's hurt bad."

"He's awake?" Bodie looks back at the building.

"Yeah..." Preston pants and I look over the seat at him. He's pale, and I have the feeling he's already a spectre. "He's mad as fuck. He's saying...his kid...is actually...yours?"

"Yeah," Bodie says grimly. "It's a long story. You wanna hear it?"

"Yeah," Preston says.

"Then don't fucking die, and I'll tell you later," Bodie embraces him and slams the tailgate.

He rolls my window down, closes the door, beats on the hood, prompting Adam. He walks with the truck as Adam rolls forward.

"I love you, Marley. I'm so fucking sorry, but I'm so fucking proud of you. You are so brave, so strong. I'll be there as soon as I can..."

Finally, I find my voice.

"I love you, too," I say simply. It's true, even if it is wrong. The wrongest I've ever been.

The look on Bodie's face? Pure relief, that I spoke words of love. I don't share his relief. A tug of war is waging inside me, and I wonder if this is the last time I will tell Bodie what will always be true. Dr. Watkins wills it so, and she is a far better judge of what is right than Jasmine, the girl that loves him.

Bodie masters himself, nods and calls to his son in the front seat.

"Darius—"

Darius turns around, already on Adam's phone. What they did with ours, I don't know. "It's okay, Dad. We are okay. Just...do what you gotta do. Just...get fucking done, okay?"

Bodie stares at him. "I'll do my best. I swear."

Darius nods, but turns away at once as Gwen answers. I climb over the seat, painfully because of my arm, but just so that Preston won't be alone. I ease his head onto my lap and he grips my hand and he and I stare at each other in silence as we listen to Darius' conversation from the front.

"It's me. No, don't cry baby. I'm okay. I'm okay. I swear. I'm okay, don't cry." A pause, and I can hear Gwen's voice, normally softly accented, now high and tight with distress. "Shhh...calm down. I'll tell you...but, I can't even explain it all, Gwen. It was fucking crazy. They put hoods on us and tied our hands and brought us to an abandoned airport. They were going to take us with them. Then...some...some...sniper saved us. Like kill shots, bam, game over." He pauses again. "I swear. Yeah." Another pause. "I don't even know." He turns to me. "Who was the sniper?"

I just shake my head.

"Some Fed, I think.Probably shouldn't even be talking about it on the phone..." Another pause. "Why?" He puts a hand to his eyebrow, shielding his face like he always does when he lies. "Ransom. Some Irish gang that had dealings with my dad's old gang from when he was in high school...they knew he was rich and famous. They wanted to take Row hostage for money. Me and my mom too. The wedding was a good way to do that, I guess...everybody happy, but a private event, everyone's guard let down..."

I look out the window, grateful that my son has enough sense not to discuss the IRA with Gwen, sorry that he is in the position that he has to lie, and wondering...just how much of his lie is self-serving?

I know that Darius and Gwen love each other deeply, but they are both still minors, answerable to parents. Gwen was put in danger because of her association with us, and I know now, what every parent should know, apparently what even Darius knows instinctively—good parents don't let their children hang with thugs, no matter how much love is involved.

He is upset to learn that she's not at the band house but that her parents have already retrieved her and she's on her way home to Tennessee. After hanging up with her, he grumbles to Adam, who simply says, "You can't blame them, Darius. This is not your fault but this is serious. They just want her home safe, for now."

Adam says nothing else, because he's driving much too fast on unfamiliar, unlighted, country rodes.

"First love. Good while it lasted, wasn't it?" Preston croaks, and I look down at him, smiling.

"My first love wasn't anything like Darius and Gwen," I say.

For some reason, Daemon, much younger than he is now, flashes in my mind. Handsome, charming, and at first...so careful with me. He treated me like I would break, and not just physically but emotionally.

For a little while, I really did think I was in love with him. Then, Bodie meandered through my life with his books and his coffee conversations and his shy sexy sweetness and whatever I had with Daemon wasn't strong enough to shield me from that mysterious pull Bodie—barely more than a boy—had on me. I realized the difference between attraction and need and true connection.

Bodie and I were made to be together, but we are like a Shakespearean tragedy. Star-crossed lovers. Never meant for easy happiness.

"Mine was...good...but all good shit ends..." Preston pants.

We go over a bump, and Preston hisses "fuck," in pain, then a muttered. "Sorry."

He's always so polite to me, and there is something in me that has a deep suspicion that Preston, like me, was a runaway that came from a place where "please and thank you" and surface niceties, were a part of his childhood.

I smooth the hair off his sweaty forehead. "Fuck indeed."

He smiles, closing his eyes. I check his pulse. It's thready, and I have the sudden urge to keep him talking.

"Do you have someone now? Someone we should call?"

"Not for a long time, but..." he grimaces as he tries to prop up on his elbows. "I need to tell you something...okay?"

"No sir," I say sternly. "No confessionals. I'm not a priest, and you aren't dying."

"Hell no, I'm not dying," he agrees. "But Dae...he's bad, Marley..."

"He's too mean to die," I scoff.

"I know you hate him," Preston eases back down onto my lap and closes his eyes. "He made me swear not to tell, but you should know..."

"There's nothing you can tell me about Daemon that I don't already know. I've known him literally half my life—"

"It wasn't me that wanted to warn Bodie about the crew rollin' on you at the club. I mean...not that I wanted anything bad to happen to you...but it was Daemon...you see..."

He trails off. I say nothing. Preston is hurt, probably delirious with pain, and it doesn't matter.

His eyes open and he looks at me clearly. "That night at the pool hall, he was pissed at you, because he knew you and Bodie were just keeping your deal on the low, but that really you were together behind his back. He was drunk and he said something like, It would be easier if she were dead, than seeing her lie about him..."

"He meant it would hurt less, you know? But a couple of drunk dumbass brothers took him literally and jumped in the ride to take care of it while he went to take a leak. When he came back and realized...well...he's too prideful to call them off directly. He was just back from prison and didn't want to seem weak.

"I was a nobody back then; he didn't care what I thought of him. So he drug me out back of the pool hall and made me call Bodie over and over until I got through...I was on the line when we heard the shots...he freaked the fuck out. I swear he did. He didn't want you to die, and he didn't mean what he said as a hit..." he's worn out from his speech, he lapses into silence, and then gasps in pain again as Adam takes a corner roughly and we slosh around in the back.

"Shhhh..."I soothe, seeing the blue lights above the awning, recognizing the universal signs of an ER.

It's all confusion and chaos as soon as Adam opens the tailgate. As the transporters yell, trauma nurses come running. I try to stay with Preston but they whisk him away, and Row, too. Adam is insisting that I get looked at, at that he will stay with Darius.

The burn is bad but very localized. I hiss through an examination and cleaning but the ER doctor wants me to wait for a plastics consult. He offers me a pain prescription. I hesitate, because we never keep pain pills in the house.

Then again, who knows when or if Bodie will even be home? Do I even want him home?

Yes, I do, but should we have a home together? He said this isn't over. Will it ever be over? Will Darius ever be safe now, if Bodie is his father?

The curtain is ajar, and various medical staff are rushing in and out of Daemon's treatment area. He's flat on his back, but I see his hands moving, like he's talking, so I know that he is alert.

I watch for a long moment.

Practically since I met the man, all of my feelings for him have been confused, inflated. At first, they were feelings of such gratitude at his help, that I mistook them for love.

After Bodie's initiation, and finding out that I was pregnant, my feelings swung like a wrecking ball to the other side of love—and I hated Daemon. Hated him, but for nearly fifteen years, I felt tied to the man. First as his lover, then through the child I thought we shared.

He is undeniably a man whose demons control him. He does terrible things under the influence of his arrogance and his rage. I still can't understand how the man could stab an innocent girl.

Then, not half an hour later, throw himself into the middle of a deadly struggle, without a thought to his own life.

He probably saved TJ's.

Oh god, TJ.

Even thinking of him makes my insides quake and I want to scream and cry. I never trusted anyone—maybe not even Bodie—like I trusted TJ. And now...I see...there's not so much difference in TJ and Daemon. Or even Bodie, really.

These brutal, rough-raised men look through a periscope of truth and live by their own code, and they lie and lie.

I have loved all three, in different times, in different ways. I am betrayed, but I am bound to them all.

Like I can't even stop myself, I creep to the curtain of Daemon's treatment area. Daemon's eyes are roving the room and nurses and doctor's and all his muscles are tensed in rebellion. He's a wounded Rottweiler—fearful, nearly cowed, still so dangerous.

He sees me. One long exhale. He reaches out his hand. "Marley."

My name is a prayer. I answer, stepping forward automatically.

A nurse turns. "You can't be in here."

"He's my ex. We have...we had a son together."

The doctor turns abruptly. "I'm Dr. Lardner, the surgical consult. He's in serious condition. The bullet perforated the gut—he needs emergency surgery, of course. He's been made comfortable with pain medication." He gestures me forward. "You can speak to him...just a minute."

The doctor snaps off gloves. "I'm going to scrub. See you up there," he pats Daemon. "We'll get you patched up." He strides away, yelling at a desk nurse. "Why the hell is that OR not ready? Do the third shift Surg Techs not know what STAT means?"

"Three trauma surgeries all at once, Doctor? It's not exactly the norm," the nurse responds curtly.

I'm already stepping up beside Daemon's bed, gripping the rail tightly.

"What I tell you, girl? If I ever got shot?" He grimaces tightly.

"To have them take you to Grady."

Grady is the urban hospital in Atlanta. Daemon's "practice makes perfect" reasoning is supposed to be funny. They get alot of gunshot victims there, so they must be good at treating it, he always says.

"Well? What the hell am I doing here at this country hospital in Alabama?"

"Your boys brought you here."

"Naw, they just followed your boys. Your rock stars." His voice is dreamy now. "You fucked up, Jaz. Your rock stars don't know shit about gun fights and hospitals. You shoulda told 'em...take us to Grady." There is no malice in his words. He's grinning. He must be high. "But you never do as you are told. That's why I loved you so much."

I say nothing. He takes my hand and draws it on his chest.

"I did," he says. "Loved your spirit. The way you could think for yourself. Needed that. Somebody to stand up to me. Make me think different."

Again, no words. Only the memory of my biggest rebellion—refusing to taunt Bodie for his initiation—and the fist to the face I took for it. I didn't stand up to him then.

He's thinking of it, too. "I didn't hit you because you stood up to me. I hit you, because I knew you had been going 'round with him. I couldn't believe it. How you could do me like that...I loved you but I hated you then, too."

"So you wanted to make him hate me...and me hate myself."

"If you say so, Dr. Watkins."

I try to withdraw my hand, he holds tight.

"You never listened. Need you to listen now. There's a safe deposit box and you are listed as co-owner. There's a will, a legit life insurance policy for Dana and the boy. You're the executor of the will."

"Daemon, your wife should—"

"Dana went through this with her parents, she doesn't need to go through it again so soon, if something happens to me in surgery.If something happens to me, you take care of it all, okay? You owe me. I took care of you when you were alone in the world, Marley..."

"You did," I agree, and the tension in his face relaxes. "You were good to me that first year. Generous, patient, protective."

"It woulda stayed that way...if not for him."

"No. We were too far apart in everything, Daemon. In age, in experience, in dreams."

He opens his eyes. "When did you know? What TJ did, switching the paternity tests?"

"I didn't know about that until now. But I knew Darius was Bodie's when Bodie came back from Thailand, with a picture of Clayton Jamison. Bodie's grandfather. Darius looks just like him. We had another test. Now it finally makes sense, why the first one was wrong..."

There is no point in lying about Darius' paternity anymore, but I am wary of what I say. Daemon seems accepting of the situation right now, but what happens when he has recovered?

"Two years?" Daemon's expression goes slack. "You've known for two years? You let the boy go on believing he was my son? Why?"

I ignore the mistaken point Daemon has made. If he thinks Darius was deceived like him, all the better."I was afraid for Darius. Of what you might do. I still am," I say softly.

Daemon laughs bitterly then groans at the effort. "You think I'd do hurt a child I swore to protect his whole life? It ain't his fault you fucked around on me. You really think I'm a monster, don't you?"

"Row del Marco is someone's child," I say softly.

He turns his head to the wall. "I admit...that was a mistake. I saw red...I lost my shit for a minute there..."

I don't say that's exactly the problem. When Daemon's rage overtakes him, he will do anything.

I think Daemon is going to drift to sleep in a morphine haze but suddenly he turns back to me. "I'm sorry, Marley."

"I don't think sorry is going to be good enough for what you did to her," I say as neutrally as possible. Not knowing Bodie. Or Trace. Or Matt del Marco.

"Not talking about that. About your birth control. I thought...you were just scared to choose a baby, because you thought it would be embarrassing to be a young mom. I thought...you didn't want to make a dumb choice, but once the baby came, you would love him, and be glad...I knew it was wrong to do it, but I didn't know you felt like I raped you. I get it now. How I took your power. Why you hate me. I get it, because I been raped."

Wow. I had no idea. I don't think he would ever admit this, except for the morphine. I can't imagine one man being able to overpower Daemon, so my mind conjures a brutal prison scene.

"I'm sorry Daemon. I didn't know. You survived, though. That's what is important."

He turns his head to the wall, nodding heavily.

"I survived only because of Sixmob. Tyson was running things back then, and he found me in the back alley one night, after...and made me tell him what happened. It had happened more than once that summer. He let me join Sixmob, even though I was only eleven."

Everything in the room seems to stop. I look at Daemon, covered in his own blood and Row's, dark and powerful, even in drug haze, a frightening specimen of a man. And I see what I have never, not once, seen in him.

An abused boy. An angry, terrified, traumatized child. A soul wounded even more deeply than Trace's. A man hiding a child like so many I have sought to help.

I am mute with shock, but Daemon is still talking.

"They caught him for me. My mama, she thought he just ran off, but they caught him and Taye put the gun in my hand..." he shrugs, "It was easy to kill him. I just thought of TJ, just a baby, but how it would happen to him sooner or later, and it was easy to squeeze the trigger. He wasn't my daddy, wasn't TJ's either, just the guy that came after them, and my mama had no clue what a sick fuck he was..."

"Oh, Dae..." I say softly, putting a hand on his shorn head.

He shirks me in irritation.

"I don't need your pity. All I'm saying is, I get why you hate me, why you would kill me if you could, and I can't take it back, but I am sorry. If I could take it back—"

"I wouldn't," I say, knowing it's the truth but surprised that I have enough generosity to say it to Daemon. "I wouldn't take it back. No matter how I feel about what you did, I can't imagine my life without Darius."

He nods and closes his eyes again. "Guess it's good that he's Bodie's kid. No child should have to know he's a child of rape. No matter what kind."

"No," I agree softly.

Another long moment passes. We say nothing. He groans again. "Goddamn, Jasmine. I don't want to go back to prison. Bodie has fucked me. But you know what the crazy part is? I don't even hate him for it. He was just doing what he had to do. For his son. I know that."

"Maybe...maybe you won't go back to jail." Even as I say it, I don't really hope that's the case. I don't why I say it, except to offer him some comfort.

"Ten people died. You think the government is gonna own that? Not to mention, I stabbed the daughter of a very rich, very famous white man. Maybe a lot of people are going to jail, but I'm definitely one of them."

My heart beats wildly all at once, like it both agrees with and flees from Daemon's assessment.

The tinny whir of the ball bearings atop the curtain lets me know the nurse is back, and I see two transporters with her.

"It's time, Mr. Turner," she says. "Don't worry, you're in good hands."

He squeezes my fingers gently. "I was, once," he smiles at me. "But I was too much of a bastard to stay there."

I am shocked to feel the spill of tears. "Stop making me feel sorry for you. We both know tomorrow you might be plotting revenge on me."

He shakes his head. "No." He pulls my hand to his lips. "I am done fucking up like that. I promise."

I squint through my tears, clearing my throat. "I'm gonna hold you to that. And we aren't done talking about the past."

"Oh god, you gonna psychologize me now? See, that's why I never told you about my shitty childhood..."

They wheel him away. One hour and forty-two minutes later, in the surgical waiting room, Dr. Lardner is pulling off his surgical bonnet in defeat and giving me the news that Daemon hemorrhaged on the table and his heart stopped. Despite extreme life-saving measures, they were unable to revive him.

Sixmob reacts as one with violent grief. Beside me, Darius takes the news stoically. I wonder if he simply feels too much to process. My own emotions are like staticky songs rising and fading on a radio dial quickly turned.

Alarm. Disbelief. Realization. Liberation. Guilt. Confusion. Sorrow. Relief. Regret.

Finally, the echoes of sad songs settle into nothing.

And nothing is what I'm feeling when I look between Bodie and TJ and tell them Daemon is gone.

Well, now. A conclusion we all thought we wanted, right? We all knew Daemon was complicated...a mix of incomprehensible darkness and fierce protective instincts bordering on obsession. Now you see what I've always known...that he is Trace's foil. A man of ruthless intelligence, a born leader, a victim that was driven to and remained in the protective cloak of his rage and pride, instead of struggling to heal. How are we feeling?