The Scars That Define Us (The Devil's Dust #2)(2)

***

I’m sitting in the spot at the wooden table where I always sit. It seems I’m always in trouble when I’m sitting at this table.

“What did you f*cking tell them?” my dad questions. “And, Dani,” he pauses, “I want everything.” His voice is demanding, and his menacing eyes penetrate my soul. Gone with the loving, caring father he was before, before my mother tried to bring the club down. I can’t believe she had the nerve to make it look like I was part of it.

His voice is cold and laced with warning, making me think hard before answering.

“They asked if I knew Ricky, the boyfriend of Shadow’s mother, Cassie. I said no. The agent showed a picture of Shadow carrying me out of Ricky and Cassie’s house, when you guys rescued me from being kidnapped, making me out to be a liar. So I said I woke up to Shadow carrying me and I don’t know or remember anything else.” I stop to look around the table at Locks and Bobby, their faces not giving any indication they believe me or not. “I didn’t tell them anything. I swear.”

“She’s a liar, Prez,” Locks says as if I’m not even in the room. My hands begin to tremble with fear; if my dad listens to him, I won’t be alive much longer.

“She’s my blood.” My father speaks with emotion. It takes me back. Maybe I have hope on my side after all.

“I think she’s telling the truth,” Bobby says, looking right at me, his words making me smile slightly.

“What the f*ck would you know?” Locks snaps.

“I got to know Firefly a little bit, and I think I would have seen something along that time to indicate she had something to do with it, and I didn’t,” Bobby insists. The name Firefly catches me off-guard. I remember when he gave it to me how ridiculous it sounded. Yet, I fell in love with it after Shadow said it was perfect for me; that I was his light in his cruel, dark world. Shadow. Where is he?

“Vote,” Locks demands.

Vote? What the hell does that mean?

Bobby and my dad both look in his direction, Bobby’s face unreadable and my dad’s angry.

“Fine, but until then take her to your room, Bobby. Get all the guys rounded up. I want this shit aired out now.” Bull moves his hand toward the door, indicating Bobby to take me away.

I stand up, the chair scraping the hardwood floor with a screech. I make my way out of the doors, not looking back at the table, which will hold my fate.

“I don’t need to stay in your room, Bobby. I can stay with Shadow in my old room,” I declare, shaking his grip off my shoulder as we head toward the hall.

“No, you need to stay with me, Firefly. It’s for the best,” Bobby whispers softly as he tries to grab hold of my arm again.

“You can shove that thought up your ass, Bobby. I’m not staying with you. Shadow wouldn’t allow it.” I look at him over my shoulder with raised eyebrows. He looks shocked at my crude tone, but if I’ve learned anything by all this, it’s that you can’t be soft. Soft means you’re weak, and weak can break you.

I open the bedroom door to mine and Shadow’s room and see Shadow lying on the bed naked, a sheet wadded around his crotch. There are empty beer bottles on the floor, and the nightstand has drugs laid out across it.

“Shad-“

“Who the f*ck are you?” a female voice interrupts from the en-suite bathroom the bedroom holds. Snapping my gaze from Shadow to her, I notice a tall, skinny woman. She has dark-brown hair which is long and tangled; overall, it’s just disgusting. She is tying up her slutty dress around her neck like she had been naked just moments before. My gaze slides back to Shadow, who looks like he’s seen a ghost. I suddenly feel sick to my stomach, and I want to claw my heart from my chest from the unbearable ache spreading from it.

“What the f*ck is she doin’ here?” Shadow asks Bobby as if I’m the stray dog who came in from the rain.

That is the first thing that comes out of his mouth? No “I’m sorry, baby; it’s not what it looks like”? No, he doesn’t even try to hide that he just messed around on me.

“Meeting now,” Bobby says, pulling me from the doorway. “Come on, Firefly.” I pull my arm from him and stare at Shadow, my eyes beginning to glaze over with tears. How could he? I want to jump on the bed and beat him in the head with the alarm clock sitting on the nightstand, but I can’t even move from the hurt radiating through my veins.

“It’s all right, Firefly. I got you. Come on.” Bobby pulls me with a little more force to get my feet moving before he closes the door and opens the one directly across the hall.

***

“You were gone for a few days. Everybody thought you were in on it, including Shadow,” Bobby explains, as I sit on the bed dumbfounded. His blue jeans hang low on his hips, and his white shirt is bunched upward on his hard stomach. I avert my eyes to the trashy floor.

“My mother kept me, trying to use me as a witness,” I say flatly. Suddenly cold, I pull my leather jacket tightly around my body. Bobby nods in understanding as he hooks his fingers into his belt loops.

“Hell, they let the brothers go pretty quickly when they couldn’t prove they had anything to do with Cassie’s death. They didn’t have shit on ‘em,” Bobby says, crossing his arms and widening his stance. I forgot I saw him running with a gun after Shadow’s mom, Cassie, had been shot. I guess he got away. I am still in shock my mother used Cassie as a criminal informant. My mother is like a venomous snake, slithering her way in any way she sees fit. Cassie almost killed me, pissed that Shadow had killed her boyfriend Ricky. She wanted to take Shadow’s only love, me. She got her wish, only it was my own flesh and blood who did the taking.