Page 82 of A Brother At My Back

30

Zeb…

“Are you flinching?” Ghost asked her and she nodded. “Well, stop flinching,” he said and she looked a bit taken aback, but I could see her think about it and by god, it worked. She wasn’t flinching every time one of the guns cracked off. I smiled to myself and wished everything was that easy. If it were, I’d tell her point blank things like well, stop being afraid, and stop being so hard on yourself.

Right now, she was listening closely to what Ghost and Trig were telling her, and while they were at it, I was standing in line with Archer, Rush, and Nox, having a go at some target practice of our own. I didn’t fancy getting shot again like I had last year. Right in my leg, trying to help Data and his girl. That had been one hell of a firefight, I tell you.

Tiffany’s fingertips sometimes traced the scar as she lay across me, but she’d never asked about it. There were a lot of things she didn’t ask about me and I didn’t think it was disinterest so much as street smarts on her part. There just were some things you didn’t ask about, but then again, I think she and I were past the awkward phase of our relationship. Still, I had to be careful with club business. Club business was just that, club business. Not girlfriend business and not even ol’ lady business. Certain things you just kept to yourself, as much for your safety as the safety of your bros, not to mention the peace of mind of the girl you were with.

I know that Tiffany knew I was a man capable of violence, but I wasn’t entirely sure she realized that she was, too. Everyone was, it just required the precise set of circumstances, like a lock-and-key setup. The circumstances had to be the right set of teeth to move the tumblers aside to unlock that potential in a person. Everyone had a lock, it just was a fraction of the population that ran into the right trigger or key to make things move and subsequently, things to happen.

“Good, job,” Ghost said, squinting downrange.

“Did I hit it?”

“You sure did,” Trigger said. “A decent shot, too. Now let’s see you do it again so we can rule out luck.”

“Okay.”

She took aim and sighted and cracked off a shot, and though she hit the paper, she missed the black. Still, she managed to hit the target at all, which was an improvement in and of itself.

“To be fair, I don’t think you’d be this far away from whatever you were shooting at,” Ghost said.

“Probably not,” Shelly agreed from behind us all. “I wasn’t.”

“No. No, you were not,” Ghost grunted and shook his head.

“What do you mean?” Tiffany asked. “You shot someone?”

“Yeah, he attacked me in our kitchen. I was home alone. I got the gun out of the drawer Ghost kept it in and he was pretty much on top of me when I blew his head off.” Tiffany blinked and Shelly gave her a sad smile, “It was him or me and I wasn’t about to get raped a second time.”

“Me, too,” Tiffany said softly and sighed. I stood up a little straighter and focused on her.

“Silas, during our relationship. I didn’t know it was really considered rape. You know, the old-fashioned backward ideas –“

“Oh, believe us. We know,” Shelly said cutting her off. “You don’t have to explain yourself, honey. It happened and we believe you.”

Tiff nodded and explained anyways, “I didn’t realize it until I started my schooling in social work. We have a series of classes about dealing with trauma and sexual assault was a big chunk of it. Reading other survivor’s stories really clued me in.”

“No shame in it,” Ghost said and Tiffany made a face like he was an idiot and I tried not to laugh.

“I know that now,” she said. “Took me a while to get there, but it happened and it’s a part of me now, like so much else he did.” The steel and determination were back in her voice, that iron will to not be a victim anymore.

“Sorry,” Ghost said.

“Sorry I snapped,” she apologized. “I’m still working on a lot of it.”

“That’s what matters, eh. That you’re dealing with it,” I said and she turned to me and nodded slightly.

“Enough of this heavy shit,” Archer grated, and put out his cigarette. “I’m gonna go find something and kill it, anyone want to come?”

“Deer or wild pig?” Rush asked.

“Human,” Archer answered, and stalked off with his bow. As a felon, he tried not to carry a gun anymore at all. He had two boys and Melody, now. Said the last thing he wanted was to let them down by getting picked up on a weapons charge and that sticking to his namesake unless shit was dire was good for him.

No one argued. We all knew just how proficient he was with that compound bow of his. A silent killer, nine times out of ten you never saw or heard Archer coming. He’d come by his road name honestly, that one.

“I’m in,” Nox declared, his gaze lingering on the deep scar marring my girl’s cheek.

---