Perfect Collision (2 page)

Vi and Ella had a difficult relationship, to put it mildly. They argued constantly. Or more, Ella yelled at Vi about everything, and Vi quietly glared at her mom as her only response. Lisa’d been surprisingly easy as a teenager; she liked school, had a lot of friends, and was a generally happy kid.

Vi, on the other hand, struggled in school—struggled with everything. They’d done some tests a few years back, and she had ADD. According to the docs she was smart, really fucking smart; she just couldn’t focus long enough to use it. To top it all off she had dyslexia.

The ADD, the kind she had which was without the hyperactivity, meant she never acted out. In fact, she had an extremely even mood. It was sometimes almost unsettling. He’d been worried she was depressed, but according to the shrink she wasn’t. She was just calm.

Vi was his girl, and he understood her. Even if there hadn’t been any tests or diagnoses for it when he was a kid, he knew she’d inherited her shit from him.

To save Vi the embarrassment of having the fight in public, something he knew would mortify her, he headed over to his still screaming wife and took Vi's arm as he looked at Ella.

“Go to Lisa, babe. I’ll handle this.”

“Do you see what she’s done?!”

“It’s hard to miss. Go to Lisa,” he repeated and started walking Vi towards the door. “You’re coming with me, Katze.”

He didn’t wait to hear his wife’s reply, but simply pulled Vi with him outside, walked her over to his bike, and gave her the helmet he always had with him.

“Dad, I'm wearing shorts.”

“We’re not going far, honey. You know that.” That’s when he noticed she looked scared, and he pulled her in for a hug and kissed the top of her now violet head. “I’m not angry.”

“You're not?”

He leaned back and picked up one of her curls. “Nah, kinda like it.”

She rewarded him with one of those far too rare smiles, and he hugged her again.

He took her to their spot. It was along the road, nothing special, just a big tree that gave them some shade. They sat down underneath it, and then he lit a smoke and looked at his daughter.

She was so much like him, so much it sometimes made it pretty fucking obvious Lisa wasn’t his biological kid. Lisa was his kid too, make no mistake. He'd been her father since she was three years old, and he loved her just like he loved the girl sitting next to him. But it was painful for him to see what Vi was going through. He understood it all too well, since he'd gone through the same thing when he grew up. The same feeling of being an outsider, of not belonging, and not understanding or being understood by other people.

He thought Ella treated Vi badly at times, but when he brought it up she argued he was more lenient with Vi since she was his 'real kid.' He fucking hated when she used that phrase—real kid. That wasn't it, but he couldn't figure out why she insisted on comparing Vi to Lisa instead of seeing Vi for the girl she was. He'd tried to ask, but they always ended up discussing him instead, and how
he
treated them differently. Of course he did! They were different people! Ella was expecting Vi to be something she wasn't and it pissed him off. More importantly, it made Vi feel bad about herself. Or rather, worse about herself.

“Drawn anything?” he asked.

She nodded, searched through her bag, and handed him her black sketchbook.

Vi loved to draw. When they did those tests, it turned out her sense of pictures was uncanny. Her capability of visualizing, seeing patterns, and remembering what she'd seen was way off the charts. They’d shown her pictures and asked her what was missing in them. She always noticed instantly.

In a picture full of stuff, she immediately saw the dog missing a leg, the board missing in a fence, or the stairs that were shaped wrong. They’d given her a picture to copy, and then asked her to draw it again thirty minutes later without having the original in front of her, and she did it. Obviously not to perfection, but pretty damn close. She saw patterns where he saw blur. She could see a picture, imagine it in 3D, and draw it from another angle as easy as breathing.

That wasn’t from him, and he had no fucking idea where she got it from. Ella said it was the same with him and engines, that he just knew how they worked, and he guessed she had a point.

He opened Vi's sketchbook and flipped past the pictures he’d already seen. He knew this was almost like a journal to her, and no one else could look in it. She had other pictures she showed if someone asked, which rarely happened, but never these. It was just pencil or charcoal and no colors; she wasn’t much for colors.

The first new drawing was a view of the compound. Bikes and people scattered around. She’d been there waiting for him a few days back; this could’ve been drawn then, and he remembered her sitting at a table sketching. He hadn't reacted at the time since she always did that.

The next was Mel sitting by her desk, talking on the phone, with Brick standing next to her. Bear’d seen Vi's drawings for years, but he was still impressed with how it was always so obvious who the people in them were even if it was just simple sketches like this. She somehow managed to catch a person's stance or just a few things that immediately made it clear who it was. Mel with her curves, leaning her elbow on the table, and playing with her hair like she always did. Brick with his ponytail and big mustache, holding a hand on the backrest of Mel's chair leaning over her. It almost looked as if he was peeking down Mel's cleavage, and knowing Brick, he'd probably been doing just that.

The last drawing was Edie lying on the couch at her and Dawg's place. Vi had spent the night there just a few days earlier when she and Ella’d had a bad fight. Edie was Vi's escape, a place where she could go and relax for a while.

“Did you have a girls' night?” he asked, pointing at the picture.

“Yeah. Dawg came later, but he brought pink cotton candy, so we said it was okay.”

He could’ve told her how fucking amazing the pictures were, but she didn’t like to hear it, and she already knew he thought so. Instead, he pulled her closer and kissed her cheek, then held up a strand of her hair.

“Wanna tell me what the thought was with this?”

“I don’t know, Dad,” she sighed. “She’s gonna kill me.”

Then she started to cry. He pulled her onto his lap and held her close. He hated her crying; every fucking sob tore through his heart like a dull knife.

“Oh, baby girl.”

“Especially now when the perfect daughter is home. Her pride and joy, and then she’s got me... such a fucking disappointment.”

“Baby, you know that’s not true. You’re amazing, smart, nice, and so extremely fucking talented.” He stroked some of the purple hair back from her face and fastened it behind her ear. “And, sweetie, even with bright violet hair, you’re so beautiful.”

Her light brown, almost amber, eyes hit his. “I’m not. Lisa’s beautiful, and Mom is beautiful—I’m just... plain.”

“Katze, there is nothing plain about you.” He stroked the little dimple in her chin and up over her very full lower lip. “You’re beautiful. I wish you could see that.”

He stroked her hair from the from the top of her head and down the sides to cradled her face between his hands, making her look at him.

“And I gotta admit, Katze, that hair color kind of suits you.”

It did. He would’ve thought a hair color like that would look horrible, but it made her skin look almost alabaster, her eyes brighter, and... in general it worked.

“You mean I can keep it?”

“Yup. You can keep it.”

He didn't see any point in arguing about it. When it came to Vi, you had to choose your battles, and making sure she went to school was the biggest priority.

Ella would go crazy, but he'd deal with her for Vi. He was so fucking fed up with all these fights, and at the moment he was mostly trying to keep Vi out of Ella's way. He hadn't come up with a long term plan yet, but he was getting very close to taking Vi and getting the fuck out of the house. She didn't need all this shit, and neither did he.

-o0o-

Mac looked at Vi sitting on the couch next to Edie. Edie seemed to be trying to encourage her, which was a very Edie thing to do. She'd always had a soft spot for Vi, and he'd seen her at Edie and Dawg's place a few times. He'd been talking a lot to Dawg before he took off to prospect in Emporia, Kansas.

When Mac'd mentioned to his dad he wanted to prospect in another charter, someplace where he wasn't just 'Brick's kid,' his dad had told him to talk to Dawg, since he'd done the same thing when he became a Marauder. That's how Dawg'd ended up in Greenville.

Mac didn't really know Vi as he'd mostly hung out with her older sister, Lisa. With Vi being so much younger, she turned into one of those annoying younger siblings you did your best to avoid. To add to that, Vi hardly ever talked to anyone and tended to disappear among the other more outgoing kids in the club.

When Edie left her alone on the couch, Vi picked up a book and a well-used pencil from a worn bag. She seemed to scan the room for a while before she started drawing.

“Is it me or is that hair color... surprising?” he asked, turning to Mitch and Lisa.

Lisa started laughing. “Yeah. She usually tends to look as if she's trying to blend in with the walls. Think she looks kind of cute, though.”

Lisa wasn't that close to her sister, it was once again that age difference making it hard, but she always defended her.

“Well,” Mitch started, “you sure as shit notice her now.”

“Don't think she'll see that as a positive thing.” She studied her little sister with a small smile on her lips.

“What's she drawing?” Mac asked Lisa, still looking at Vi and her focused expression.

“Only one who ever sees the drawings in that black sketchbook is Dad, but you could ask him,” she suggested with a sweet smile.

“I think I'll pass.”

It wasn't that he was scared of Bear, he'd pretty much been a second dad to him and Mitch, but Bear was very protective of his daughters.

Mac kept looking at Vi. She was so focused, like she was the only person in the room, so he decided to go have a look. When he started towards her, he heard Mitch laugh.

“Are you pissed she's not giving you those long, longing looks anymore?”

“Shut up,” he said and kept walking.

Vi'd had a bit of a crush on him a few years back, and Mitch had found it hilarious. It might be because she was the only one of the female club kids that was crushing on Mac instead of him, which was the normal thing, but it was more likely he'd known how uncomfortable it made Mac. Not because it was Vi, but more because it was someone so young.

As he came closer to her he saw it—her drawing. It was Wolf and Bear by a table, and it was amazing.

Wolf was leaning back with his leg resting on another chair in front of him, and his arm was on the table holding a glass. Perfect down to the last detail with the long hair in a messy ponytail, the goatee, and the drooping bad eye. On the other side of the table was Bear, with his long hair and full beard down to his chest. He was resting both his elbows on the table with a glass standing between them.

Mac'd never seen anything like it and definitely not from a fourteen year old girl.

“Wow!” he said before he could stop himself, and she immediately slammed the sketchbook shut.

“No!” he protested as he sat down next to her. “That was fucking amazing. Let me see.”

She shook her head and put the sketchbook back into her bag. He should've remembered what Lisa'd said not too many minutes earlier––no one ever got to see except Bear.

He would've loved to see the rest of those pictures; it must be like a diary showing biker life. That's when he finally got it—it probably was her diary, but in pictures. He knew Vi'd had some problems in school, and it seemed likely she'd rather draw than write in it.

“It was good, what I had time to see. Looked just like them.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?” he laughed. “You're not good with compliments, are you?”

She shrugged and looked at everything and everyone in the room but him. More than anything, she seemed embarrassed, and he could see a slight blush on her cheeks.

“Fine. I'll leave you alone, but for the record—that hair color is fucking awesome.”

He thought she should know, and considering Ella's earlier reaction she probably needed some encouragement. But she just stared at him, glaring, as if he was making fun of her which hadn't been his intention at all.

“Not kidding you, Vi. It's great.”

“Thanks,” she almost whispered. She always spoke in that low voice. When she spoke at all.

He gave her shoulder a slight nudge before getting up. “
That's
how you respond to a compliment, girl.”

She shrugged again. As he walked back, he snuck a glance behind him and saw her taking out the sketchbook from her bag again.

“What did you say to her?” Lisa asked when he was back next to them.

“Not much. Just that her drawing was good, and that I liked her new hair color.”

“Marcus Baxter, you are a good person,” Lisa declared and rose up to her toes to give his cheek a kiss. “Thank you.”

“Hey!” Mitch yelled. “What the fuck, you didn't give me a kiss.”

“I did, don't get greedy.” Lisa lowered her voice to a whisper. “I'm gonna have to be all nice with Mom and Dad tonight, but the roof tomorrow night? I bring the drinks, and you bring the smokes.”

They'd done that often, spent a night on the roof of the garage, smoking pot and having a few drinks. It had been a while since the three of them did it together, but he'd like it.

“Absolutely!” Mac agreed, looking at his brother who nodded with a big smile. “We're in!”

PROLOGUE TWO:

16 years, 3 months

-o0o-

I RAN THROUGH THE
apartment, trying to find my phone. It was just me and Dad living here. They'd separated over a year earlier, and now they were divorced. I had a feeling it was my fault.