Page 72 of Demon

Something grabbed me, stopping me momentarily, pulling me away.

“Demon,” the voice cut through my head, slicing me open, more searing pain consuming me.

“Leave me the fuck alone, Ciara.”

“Demon. It’s ok. Whatever this is, we can sort this out. Together. We can do this together.” Her voice, the level social work approach to calming a psycho, set off a whole other explosion.

“There is no we. Remember? You don’t want me. You keep telling everyone you’re not an ol’ lady. Seems no fucker does. I don’t need anyone. So do us both a favour and fuck off!”

*****

It was dark before I crawled off the garage floor. The big shiny Harley lay on its side, bike parts ripped off and strewn across the ground. My arms ached from where I’d swung the bar at it for so long I’d lost track of the time. Behind me, Kinobi scratched at the door. A tiny whine and then an occasional bark. I let her through, watching as she paused, sniffing the air, before looking at me cautiously.

“Go wee,” I instructed, pointing to the street outside the raised shutter and watching the big dog trot off to a patch of grass on the other side.

I hadn’t seen the car pull up, but suddenly Kinobi barked, pricking her ears and staring at something I couldn’t see. Normally, I’d be on my feet, always at the ready. But not today. Today I didn’t care.

Indie whistled, high pitched and irritating. He stood just inside the shutter, looking at me and then scanning the shadows, before flipping the light on and swamping the space with bright white. It burnt my retinas, stoking the dull thump of the headache that had been beating inside my brain for the last few hours.

“Like what you’ve done with the place, brother?”

“I’m not though, am I?”

Indie’s face stilled, the smirk dissolving and something else moving to take its place. Pity.

“You knew?”

He shook his head. “Not really.”

“Yet you’re here. Right after Ste has been dishing out his best yet. I don’t know whether I should be happy that I didn’t come from that ball sack or devastated at the alternative.”

“I’ve suspected for a long time. The benefits of being older. Seeing things you couldn’t.”

“Like what?”

“The physical resemblance to Uncle Si. Those dark eyes. But mostly your explosive temper. He was always like that. Uncontrolled.”

I stared past him. I couldn’t remember Si that much now. I was nineteen when he died. Barely an adult. Ste must have watched me grow up knowing I wasn’t his. And my upbringing made more sense now. The brutality of it. The clear difference between how he treated Indie, his actual son, to how he treated me. And now I was more no one than I had been yesterday.

“What you doing here, anyway?” I asked Indie, who was still gazing around the mess of the garage.

“Dad sent me. Said you’d had a big row and things got ugly. Told me to check you were ok.”

“Well, I’m not. So now you’ve checked, you can fuck off as well.”

“As well? Who else have you told to fuck off tonight, like?”

I groaned, dropping my head to stare at my feet and raking my hands through my hair.

“Demon?”

“Ciara. I was angry. Still am.”

“So, you told her to do one?”

“Guess so.”

“Then you’ve got some apologising to do, brother.”