Arrow of Time (19 page)

Vasco had talked about her. He'd also talked about Dawg and Edie... doing stuff. 'Hanging', he'd described it. He'd also said he suspected that there might be something else going on, but that the two of them were handling it well. It wasn't hard to figure out what had happened.

“What did you do?” He asked. “Besides the obvious,” he hurried to clarify.

“
I left.” Dawg emptied his drink. “I left her before she woke up and now she's... in India or something.”

“
India?” It took his son to get a girl to run off to a different continent.

“
Yeah. She took off. It was my fault, Mel's pissed as hell and... You get the picture.”

“
I get the picture,” Hawk confirmed. “Now what?”

“
Can't do much when she's in India. Either way, I'm probably screwed. I don't know.” He reached for the bottle and poured himself another drink. “At the moment I'm just gonna get drunk as fuck.”

“
Okay.” Hawk emptied his glass of whiskey and reached the glass towards him. “Don’t tell your mom. If she finds out...”

Dawg laughed. “If she finds out I actually felt something for a girl and fucked it up she’ll have a heart attack.”

“Yeah.”

“
Don’t worry, if I die childless she at least won’t know I loved a girl once.”

He hadn’t missed it, but he dropped it. ‘Loved’. Fucking hell, his stupid son had actually loved a girl and he fucked it up. You’d think he didn’t come from a normal family with a stable set of parents. He had no idea what went wrong with Dawg. His sister was happily married and currently trying for a second kid, but this one... He sighed and shook his head. At least he’d fallen once, that meant it might happen again. Hopefully he wouldn’t fuck up that time.

He didn't put much faith in Dawg being able to fix it if the girl took off to fucking India to get rid of him. He could push the right buttons to get a girl in bed, but once that was over, he didn't know shit about them and until now he'd never seemed interested. At the same time, it was probably good to try to be encouraging.

“
If she's worth it, you need to fight for her. Can't give up now.”

“
Happy headache,” Dawg mumbled and instead of asking what he meant by that, Hawk took the bottle from his son to get drunk right along with him. That was something he was actually good at.

-o0o-

Friday, September 28
th

BRICK WALKED INTO THE
clubhouse and immediately noticed Dawg sitting by the bar. He’d been away for about a week. He called in, letting them know where he was and that they could call for him if they needed him. Then his dad, Hawk, called to make sure it was okay, since Dawg apparently didn’t say much about why he was there. He walked up to him, and put a hand on the kids shoulder.

“
Come with me.”

Dawg looked at him and then nodded. They walked into the chapel and Brick closed the door. Once inside Dawg was just standing there, looking at him, probably waiting for the blow.

“If I wanted to beat you up I’d take you up in the ring, not into the fucking chapel,” he pointed at a chair. “Sit down.”

Brick wasn't fully convinced that this was the right thing to do, but at the same time, he figured that what he was about to do was the best for both Dawg and Edie. Because no matter what Mel said, what Dawg had done wasn't just to get into Edie's pants. He never bothered to get to know women before tapping them. What he and Edie had was more. And Dawg needed to know why he couldn't pressure Edie and why Mel was acting the way she was.

Dawg did as he asked and then looked at him. “Look, I know I...”

He didn’t let him finish.

“You’re gonna shut up and listen to me and what I tell you don’t leave this room. You don’t talk to Mel or Edie about it and you
do not
tell anyone else. You are going to shut up and listen to me and not say word before I tell you that you can. Is all that clear?”

“
Yeah,” Dawg said and looked a bit confused.

“
On the morning of Edie’s eighteenth birthday, she walked up to her sleeping dad, put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger.” He could see Dawg open his mouth and held up his hand. “Remember the deal, you shut up and listen.”

Dawg closed his mouth again and nodded. Brick picked up his smokes. He was going to need his smokes for this story, and he kind of wished he’d brought a bottle of whiskey with him. This story had been hard the first time Mel told him about it and now, when he knew Edie, fucking loved her, it was hell. Pure fucking hell.

“Their dad was an utter asshole and a complete psychopath. He treated Mel bad, horribly, controlled her twenty-four seven, but that had all been practice compared to what he was like to Edie. By then he’d perfected his shit.” He sighed, he was closing in on the things that were the core of the problems between his wife and her sister. The thing they needed to talk about. Or one of the things. “Mel moved away the day she turned eighteen. She felt bad about leaving Edie there, but didn’t have much choice. Edie wasn't even four years old. She kept an eye on her, but Edie’s very good at hiding her feelings, so Mel never knew how bad it was. She knew it was bad, just not how bad.”

Mel had told him that she’d packed her bags and on the morning of her eighteenth birthday, she took them and walked out. That she’d never felt so relieved in her entire life. A few years later she moved down to Arizona to start up a new life, something to offer Edie when got away from the house.

“With Edie, he wanted her to obey everything. He even told her how many times she could chew the food before she swallowed it. I’ve seen pictures of her, I don’t think she weighed much more than ninety pounds, looks haunted, her eyes were fucking dead. Compared to that she looked sparkling after Vasco’s death. So Mel knew it was bad, just not how bad, and even if she had known, there wasn’t much she could do about it.”

He shook his head. Again, those pictures had been bad before, but seeing them now and comparing them to that lively girl playing around with Eliza. The woman his baby girl idolized, they gave him nightmares.

“Their dad knew that Edie was planning on doing the same thing as Mel and that it was the only thing that kept her even remotely sane. That she’d pack up, and the prospect of getting the fuck out on her eighteenth birthday was her light in the tunnel. So he took that away from her. He told her that since she was legal by then, he’d let his friends have her as a goodbye present before she left.”

Dawg took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

“Mel doesn’t think he was going to do it, that it was just another way to fuck with Edie’s head and I think she’s right. He wasn’t about physically torturing them, he got into their head, so that’s probably what he did. Fucked with her hope. He made sure she wasn’t looking forward to her birthday anymore. Thing was, Edie believed him, by then she probably thought he was capable of anything, so in panic she shot him. She took his gun and shot the fucker with it. If you ask me, that piece of shit got off easy. He didn’t deserve going out while sleeping. She called the cops and she was still standing by the bed looking at him when they came.”

The cops had called Mel, too. It took her a while to get up to New York and when she arrived Edie was in a mental institution. She'd been sitting on a chair in a corner, staring blankly front of her. According to the staff and the cops, that's what she'd been doing since they put her in that room. It had been obvious to everyone that the girl wasn’t right in the head in any fucking way.

“Once Mel, the housekeepers and three sets of shrinks had testified, Edie was free of all charges. They also found the dad's notebooks on his 'experiments' with Edie. Not even the fucking DA was all that keen on trying to get her locked up after that as long as she agreed on staying at the institution until they deemed her well enough to leave. Like I said, I’ve seen the pictures, don’t need more than that to see how messed up she was. She spent a year at a psychiatric institution and then moved in with Mel, stayed there for six months before she took off.”

Dawg was staring in front of him, with empty eyes, and it looked like he was about to cry. Brink pushed the smoked towards him, and he lit one.

“Mel blames herself, that she didn’t do more to get Edie out of there when she left. That’s why she’s so protective of her now. Their mom tried to contact them when she heard the dad was dead, and Mel threatened to kill her if she got close to them, since she hadn’t done more to get them out of there when she divorced him. At the same time she feels that she did the same to Edie as their mom had done to them. Left her there.”

He could see that Dawg was shaken. When he moved his hand up to take of his beanie, it was trembling. He took some deep breaths and looked back at Brick.

“Why didn’t she?”

“
Get her out of there?” He asked and Dawg nodded. “Their dad was a hot shot businessman. He could probably have bought and sold half of New York if he wanted to. I always said most businessmen have to be psychopaths to go on the way they do, and he was. In their mom’s defense, when she left he made it clear he’d bury her if she tried to take the kids with her or even contact them, and he probably would’ve. He was very clear with Mel as well, that if she didn't play by his rules, she wouldn't be allowed to see Edie at all.”

“
Guess seeing her a little was better than nothing,” Dawg said. “So her dad being a money bag, that’s how she got the money to travel?”

“
No, he didn't leave them anything, they inherited money from their grandparents. They both got quite a lot. I think Edie wanted to feel that she was free to do whatever the fuck she wanted to and that's why she left. Can’t blame her for that.”

“
Did Vasco know?”

“
I told him the basics and I'm pretty sure Edie told him the rest.” He could really do with a whiskey and by the looks of it, so could Dawg. “Wait here,” he said. Then he walked to the door and called the prospect to get him a bottle and two glasses.

When he sat down again he poured Dawg a glass that he downed immediately. He refilled it but left in in front of him on the table.

“I have no fucking idea what you did,” Brick started and then couldn't help the smile. “Actually, I have some idea, but I don’t know what happened, how you fucked up. But when she comes back, you back off. She comes to you, I’m fine with that, but you don’t pressure her, she doesn’t need that.”

“
Okay,” Dawg said and it was with a tired voice. All of him looked tired and Brick was pretty damn sure that whatever happened, it wasn’t that he’d just fucked her for the sake of it. It was more to it. A lot more. “Okay,” he said again.

“
And I didn’t just tell you this. You don’t know anything about this.”

“
I know,” he nodded.

“
And for your own safety; stay the fuck away from Mel as well until she comes looking for you.”

“
Yeah. I got that.” Dawg looked at him and drew his hand over his face. “It wasn’t just about nailing her.”

“
Think I’d tell you this if I thought it was?”

“
No.” Dawg emptied the glass. “Can you tell her, that you told me to stay away, so she knows that I’m not....”

“
I’ll tell her.”

That, if anything, told him that Dawg hadn’t just been nailing her. Usually he’d jump the chance at getting away, but now he wanted Edie to know that he wasn’t avoiding her, he was giving her space and he’d be there if she wanted him to be.

Dawg nodded and got up and Brick stood up as well, giving him a hug.

“
Thanks, man,” Dawg mumbled.

He didn’t answer, just patted his back and sat back down, watching Dawg leave. Then he remembered.

“Hey! You owe a fine.” When Dawg turned around, looking confused. “You missed church, you need to pay it to Sisco before the end of the month.”

Dawg nodded. They all knew that missing church meant they had to pay the fine unless they were away for club business.

He wasn’t sure if this, telling Dawg all this, was such a brilliant idea, but Dawg only saw the girl who’d been around the world a couple a times and that wasn’t all there was to Edie. She wasn’t just a brave woman who could take care of herself, she was a lot more complicated than that, and if this would have any chance of turning out okay, he needed to know that, so he didn't hurt her more than he already had.

-o0o-

Bull saw Dawg leaving the chapel and decided to wait a while before going to find Brick. He turned to Bear sitting next to him.

“
Ten bucks says that was about Edie.”

“
Not betting against you,” Bear mumbled and looked at Dawg as he walked towards the dorms. “Got a twenty that says Dawg's got it bad, though.”

“
Whatta you mean?”

“
I mean, it's serious.”

Bull couldn't help laughing. “You think he's really interested? Like, 'thinking about getting an Old Lady'-interested. Dawg?” He watched in amazement when Bear nodded. “I'm taking that bet.”