Leave a Trail (Signal Bend #7)(21)
And when it was over, they tore into their stockings, which always had a bunch of cool, junky little toys and good candy.
Also fruit. There was always an orange in the toe. Badger didn’t think either Jason or he had ever eaten their Christmas orange, but they always each got one. Usually, they ended up hitting each other with them.
A stocking with an orange in the toe made a pretty good weapon.
It was a good memory, and Badger knew that movie by heart. He probably always would.
When Show walked into his room much later in the same day that Len had been there, Badger laughed a little. Like Ebenezer Scrooge, he, too, was being visited by three ghosts. Isaac, the ghost of his Horde past; Len, the ghost of his Horde present; and now Show, looking still furious and terrifying, the ghost of his Horde future.
Show came in, closed the door, and leaned back on it, his arms crossed over his chest. One look at his stony features told Badger that there was nothing he could say to gain this man’s trust. Nothing.
So he didn’t know what to say. Show didn’t say anything, either. For infinite seconds, the room was a vacuum, the silence sucking Badger dry of any will or strength. He had to say something.
“I’m sorry, Show.”
“I’m only here because they won’t let up about it. They’re stupid to send me back here, because what I want to do is rip your f*cking hands off and shove ‘em up your * ass. So you got something to say to me, you say it, and I’ll get out before I do just that.”
But there was nothing he could say. Nothing he could do.
“I f*cked up so bad. I don’t…I want to fix it, but I don’t know how.”
Show’s eyes narrowed dangerously, but he said nothing.
“Show…please.”
Show huffed. “I don’t give a rat’s ass about the drugs. We knew it could happen. I get it. You’re a junkie piece of shit for putting the club at risk with your damn lies. After all we’ve been through, to—” He gave his head a sharp shake. “But I can set that aside.”
He came off the door and stalked forward, his arms unfolding and his enormous hands curling into bricks of fist. “But you put hands on Shannon’s girl. My girl. You screamed in her face. Called her names.
Bloodied her. You hurt an innocent girl. A girl who f*ckin’ cares about you. That makes you dead to me.”
“I’m sorrier about that than anything. Anything. I don’t know how to make it right.”
“You want your kutte back, you promise me right now that you will never speak to her again. I mean not one f*cking word. Ever. You don’t f*cking look at her. Ever. You make me that promise, and I will not stand in the way if they want to give you back your kutte. I’d f*ckin’ burn it if it were just up to me.”
He could have his kutte back if he made that one promise? Badger stared at Show’s ominous face. His kutte. His club. He needed that so bad. He needed it. He was nothing without the Horde. He was nothing.
But Adrienne was his best thought. He loved her. He thought about what Len had said. You don’t walk away from someone you love. Ever. But she was better off without him. Show was right about him, right in every way. He was a *. A liar. A junkie. And he’d hurt her.
You don’t walk away from someone you love. Ever.
“I…Show, I love her.”
One of those massive fists burst forward, and Badge’s head snapped back, his nose feeling like it had utterly imploded.
“No, you don’t. That’s not how you treat somebody you love.”
You don’t walk away from someone you love. Ever.
Blood ran down his throat and down his chin, and his voice sounded bizarre, plugged and garbled, but Badger persevered. “I do. I f*cked up so bad. But I do. I love her. I won’t ever hurt her again.”
A fist to the side of his head. He fell to the mattress on which he’d been sitting, his head ringing like a church bell.
“I will beat you to death right now if you say that one more time, *. Try me.”
You don’t walk away from someone you love. Ever.
Knowing what it meant, knowing that Show could and would do what he said, Badger closed his swelling eyes. “I love her. I love her, Show. I do.”
His eyes closed, he waited for the painful end he deserved.
There was nothing. Then he heard the door. When he opened his eyes, Show was walking through it.
He left it open behind him.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Hey, little one. Got a minute?”
Seated cross-legged on the bed in the little purple room, Adrienne looked up from her Mac. Her digital Nikon was still connected to it, so she dragged the camera icon to the trash. As she looked up and smiled at Show, who was leaning against the door frame, she pulled the linking cable free.
“Hi. Yeah, sure. Come in.” She set her camera aside and closed her Mac. Show didn’t need to see that she’d been looking at photos she’d taken of Badger.
Shannon and Lilli had taken Lilli’s kids and gone to Springfield for the day. They’d invited Adrienne along, but she hadn’t been feeling it. She’d been distracted and vaguely ill all week, worried about Badger.
The thought of pretending to be bright and chipper during a day of shopping for baby stuff and wandering around the town’s little zoo with two kids was too exhausting to entertain. So she’d begged off.