Dogs of War MC Episode 6 (6 page)

Sidney stared into the caramel colored coffee as she sat at her kitchen table, the vision of Red pumping frantically into Jessica replaying in her mind over and over again. The same way the scene she’d walked in on with David had stayed on a constant loop behind her eyes for months after it had happened. She took a sip of the sweet brown liquid, David had always said that she liked a little coffee with her milk and sugar. He wasn’t wrong, life was so bitter on its own, why not make the things you had control over as sweet as possible?

It was really over with Red. Through everything he’d said to her, through the way he’d looked at her, with loathing clear in his eyes, she’d still held out hope that she could change his mind. Make him see her as a person, separate from whatever genes her parents had passed down to her. And maybe she could have. Maybe if things weren’t so messed up and she’d had time to really talk to him, she could have changed his mind. But not now.  It really didn’t matter if she could change his mind, she would forever see the image of him with Jessica every time she looked at him, any time he touched her or told her he loved her. And maybe if it hadn’t been for David she could have forgiven him. He’d obviously been drunk. Jessica hadn’t known about her relationship with Red and Red probably hadn’t known that Jessica was her sister. Not to mention the stress Red had been under the previous few days, bad decisions were common when people felt boxed in. And those things could be taken into consideration, but they couldn’t change the way she felt. Betrayed. Hurt. Torn apart. Broken.  She could forgive, in fact she already had after thinking it through, thanks to Demon and his strangely calming talking session, but she would never forget.

And then there was Demon. Red’s brother. That was screwed up too. Sidney fully admitted to herself that she wanted him. More than wanted him. Every time he touched her it felt like her body came alive and everything that went before was just a prelude. But he’d been right. She needed time and distance to figure out how she felt, to get over the damage that had been done, to try to let the wounds scab over, before she jumped into anything, no matter how much her skin wanted to feel those hands touch it.

She just had to have some time to be. And maybe get some answers. And give a few puppies their shots while she was at it. She just needed some time.

The kitchen door creaked open and Jessica walked in, a sheepish look on her face, the skin of her cheeks clearly mottled from a night spent crying.

“Hey,” she said, closing the door gently behind her.

“Did you stay at the clubhouse last night?” Sidney asked, it was one thing to screw up and sleep with Red when she hadn’t known, but it was another to stay the whole damn night after she’d found out.

“No, I called a cab and stayed at that shitty motel again. I didn’t think you’d want me here.”

Sidney nodded, that had been a good call on Jessica’s part. One of the few.

“Sidney, I swear I didn’t know. I know you don’t believe me but I’ve changed. I would never have slept with him if I’d known anything at all was going on between you two.”

Sidney toyed with the salt shaker, not really wanting to look at her sister, “In all honesty we’d already broken up. I just hadn’t accepted it yet.”

“Oh thank God. That guy is an asshole.”

“Red?” Sidney knew he’d been a jerk to her lately, but in general he was normally a pretty nice guy, “What’d he do? I mean besides sleep with my sister, because he gets a full boatload of asshole points for that.”

Jessica shrugged, “We had, er, words after you guys left and he tried to intimidate me, stood up and tried to walk at me like he was all macho and shit. Man, I hate guys like that.”

“Red?”

“Yes, Red. He never acted that way with you?”

“Never. Up until we broke up he was always kind and generous with me, protective.”

“Fuck if I know, he was a dick last night.” Jessica threw her bag in a chair and took a seat across from Sidney, “Maybe I just don’t bring out those kinds of feelings in guys.”

Sidney made a noncommittal sound and sipped her coffee. She wouldn’t say what she was thinking, that it was hard to feel protective over someone who was nothing more than a one night stand.

“So what happened, did he actually get physical with you?” Sidney couldn’t imagine Red actually hitting a woman, but then she wouldn’t have imagined him being so cold to her either.

“Oh hell no, that’s one thing I’m not putting up with. I stopped that shit before it could even get started.”

Sidney’s brows drew together. There was no way one hundred pound Jessica could have stopped someone as large as Red who wanted to get violent and walked away unscathed, and that’s not even taking into consideration the fact that as a shifter he seemed to be a good bit stronger than regular guys.

“How,” she asked.

“Weeeell, that’s whole different story, and one I needed to tell you anyway,” Jessica acted like she’d rather be anywhere than in the kitchen with Sidney.

“Ok, I’m listening.”

Jessica took a deep breath, “You sure you want to get into it this morning. Not to be rude or anything but you look like the shitty end of a dog on a bad day.”

Sidney’s eyes narrowed, “You don’t look like Miss America either. Just tell me.”

“Ok, but this is going to sound crazy, just sayin’. And I want you to listen to the whole thing before you freak out on me, okay?”

Sidney rolled her eyes and waved her hand, dismissing the warning, Jessica had no idea the amount of crazy she could actually consume without freaking out. One could say she’d built up a tolerance.

“So, about a year ago, around the time you were going through all that shit with David, I was at a club with a bunch of other girls right? And so I’d had a few shots and a few mixed drinks and I was feeling pretty good, and this guy came up to us, and he was hot as hell and he had some Molly and we were all like fuck yeah we’d do some. I’m dancing and shit was fucking wonderful, lights were bouncing the fuck out and everything was just pulsing with the rhythm of the music. I’m trippin’ balls and feeling great.

“So this other guy comes up and he’s like, ‘Do you want to go to the VIP room?’ and I’m like, ‘Fuck yeah I want to go to the VIP room’ and I just go with him. I didn’t think to take a friend because, remember, I’m trippin balls. So we get up there and this room is fantastic and I just want to lie on the leather couch and watch the walls move.

“So I’m lying there, and the guy starts rubbing me and at first I’m into it, because my skin feels like… like,” she searched the air for an apt metaphor, “like the surface of water, one touch and everything ripples across my whole body. But then he starts getting rough, grabbing my arms hard, pushing me around, and stuff like that.

“I told him to stop, I didn’t like it like that. And he pushes my face up against the wall and tells me to shut up, he said I knew what I was coming up there for and that I couldn’t back out. I was so over this dude at that moment. So I pushed back and I turned around and I smacked his chest a couple of times trying to get him to back the fuck off, and I told him not to touch me.

“I think he might have liked that because he smiled at me and then punched me in the stomach. Then he pulled me up by my fucking hair and threw me onto the couch. Then he lays his rapey ass on top of me, pushing my face into the couch and putting his hand up my skirt. He then rips my panties off.

“And if you’ve never had your panties ripped off, let me tell you, it is not pleasant. That shit in the movies is fake as hell because it hurt. I had red marks for days.

“Anyway, so I’m lying there, eating fucking leather, and I’m scared shitless. I don’t even know what to do. I try to get up but the dude is too heavy and strong and he’s pushing me down. I felt like I was about to hyperventilate.

“Then my vision blurs and I see this white light, and I think, this is it, I’m dying. This asshole has suffocated me in the fucking couch cushions while he’s raping my ass. And I get mad about it, because I had shit to do, ya know? I might not have gone to school like you or had the perfect life set up ahead of me but there were still things I wanted to do in life. And here this jerk was killing me and taking that away from me. And I’m thinking I’m dying and I’m getting angrier and angrier about it, just fucking raging inside.

“So this white light gets bigger and bigger and bigger, it seems like the angrier I get, the bigger it gets, and then it explodes, and I’m back in the room. I can see again and I don’t feel Raper McRaperson on my back anymore. I start getting up, it takes me a minute because I feel like everything, all my bones, all my energy, all my muscles have been sucked right out of my body. But I finally get up and look around, and Sidney, fuck me, but this dude is dead.

“Like seriously dead. Blood pouring out of his ears, nose, eyes, and mouth,  just dead. And I panicked. Because, dead dude, right? And so I get the fuck out of there with the quickness. I didn’t even check to make sure I got all of my stuff. I left my panties that he’d ripped off of me and god only knows what else in that room. Spit on the couch, fingerprints on everything, there were probably traces of me in every square inch. And I’ve seen CSI, I know the cops are to come asking me questions and I haven’t got any answers for them. I haven’t got any answers for myself, I seriously don’t know what happened to that dude. One minute he’s pushing my face into a couch and the next minute the bitch is just dead.”

Sidney just stared at her. She’d been afraid she was going to have to explain about being a witch to an unbelieving and mocking Jessica, and here was Jessica explaining things to her. She didn’t know what to say, which was fine, because Jessica didn’t seem inclined to let her speak anyway.

“So I’m freaking out. Seriously. I’m paranoid that the cops are going to show up at the door at any minute and then Mom and Dad are going to freak out and it’s going to be all over the news how,” Jessica lowered her voice and used her best news anchor expression, “’Daughter of prominent local family arrested under suspension of murder,’ and the shit I’d have to take from Mom over being in jail and how Dad would bitch about the money it took to get me out on bail and… shit. I was just having a really bad time. I didn’t eat, I didn’t go out with my friends or even talk to them, I didn’t even come out of my room. So, of course, Mom comes in all bitchy concern and tells me she’s made an appointment for me with my therapist. You remember the one they made me go to after they’d found out I was having sex when I was fourteen? Yeah, that same woman. I liked her, she actually did help me out, just talking about things back then, so I thought why not. I needed someone to talk to and I was tired of staying in bed all day anyway.

“So I went, and I told her everything, expecting her to tell me I’d had some kind of selective memory black out where I’d forgotten everything that had happened as a coping mechanism. I really believed that the guy had raped me and I’d lost my mind for a minute and somehow beat him until his internal organs liquefied and seeped out of his ears. I know it wasn’t rational, I’m tiny and he was big, but I kept telling myself that people did crazy things when their fight or flight mechanism kicked in, like that mom who picked up the SUV when her kid was trapped under it.”

“I think that was just an urban legend,” Sidney said.

“Whatever, the point is, I spent the whole time thinking that I’d gone ballistic and done some crazy shit.

“So my therapist, Bailey is her name,  Karen Bailey, she says, ‘I’ve been waiting for something like this to happen.’ And I’m like, ‘Bitch, what are you talking about, you knew I was a psycho killer and you didn’t tell me.’ But here’s the thing, she’s a witch. Now don’t start rolling your eyes and shit, she said she was a witch and I was too and that she’d gotten the job as my therapist for the sole purpose of watching me to see if my powers ever manifested. There was a lot of cursing and screaming on my part, because who comes in and says, ‘Oh you’re a witch’ and expects you to take that shit well? “

Sidney’s mind went to Fran, but she didn’t say anything.

“ So anyway, I’ll spare you the whole drama that went on. Let’s just say I took some convincing. Karen took me to her, uh, I guess it’s a coven, to tell me about what was going on and I’ll admit, there was some freaking out on my part, but I got the whole story from them. So anyway, long story short, come to find out we’re witches, we’re adopted, and our powers were disabled so that we could pass for human with our normal family. But the spell that disabled us seems to be running out of… juju I guess, because our powers are returning to us.”