Page 2 of Demon's Angel

“It’s on me, Vi, I should have made more of an effort to stay in contact. I promised Nathan I’d watch out for you.”

She startles, and a frown shapes her features. “Whether you pledged that or not was between you and him, and in the end, you didn’t.” Pain covers her face for a second, then with another little shake, she shrugs whatever is troubling her off. “There was no need. I’ve done fine without you, David.”

I can’t read her. It’s as if I’ve annoyed her.As if I’ve failed her.The thought doesn’t sit well with me.

Her hands take the stroller again, and she begins to wheel away what a brief glimpse showed me is a sleeping baby. I don’t want to let her go, not until I’m satisfied that all’s well in her world, just as I’d have wanted Nathan to do for my own sister.

“Hey, wait up.” Again I follow her, and wrap my fingers around the handle of the stroller, halting her progress. Pointing down to the quiet bundle, I pry for information. “You’re married?”

“No.” She doesn’t offer a lie, but the truth without explanation, while looking a combination of cross and apprehensive as her eyes scan our surroundings. Mine do likewise. If there’s a security guard or cop in the vicinity, a burly biker in his cut might be questioned as to why he’s upsetting a young mother.

Having expected an exuberant welcome, this reaction is not what I predicted from Violet. While I knew what she was doing for the first few years, I hadn’t actually seen her in person since the funeral. When I’d approached, I’d anticipated her delight at seeing me again, that her behaviour would have resembled what it would have been all those years ago. Back then, she’d been an annoying kid sister trying to tag along with her older brother and his friend. I’d been the same age as Nathan, Violet ten years younger; the gap large enough to be both frustrating and amusing. The kid had had a crush on me from the time she’d turned a teen, her efforts to flirt at that time irritating. Now it seems such attraction has faded in the intervening years. That should have been comforting, but seeing her today, grown into a beautiful woman, for some reason her lack of interest annoys me.

Wanting to continue the exchange, or at least to leave on better footing, I peer down at the blanket covering the bundle in the stroller. “Boy or girl?”

She replies hesitantly, as though not even wanting to give me that much information. “Boy.”

Age? Name? Father?A multitude of questions sit on the tip of my tongue but remain unasked. To let them spill would be more like an interrogation. But I can’t let her walk away, not like this. Now I’ve seen her, it won’t be possible to forget her so easily. Not now I’ve got a sense of unease warning me something isn’t right. Quickly I scan my surroundings. There’s a coffee shop newly-opened across the way. I point to it. “You got time for a quick coffee, Violet? Or have you got somewhere you need to be?”

She’s reluctant, but she could never lie to me or Nathan. Oh, she’d tried, but her tells always gave her away. Her cheeks would redden and her eyes would refuse to meet ours. “Mom said to tell you, you had to take me with you.” Yeah, right. The memory makes me smile. She’d tried that one more than once, both her brother and I knowing their mother had issued no such instruction. But often, her pout would sway us, and we’d more often than not let her tag along.

For a second her cheeks flush, then her shoulders slump in defeat, accepting that now I’ve made contact, she won’t easily get rid of me. “Yeah, okay. Just a quick coffee. He’ll be waking soon and will need feeding.”

I’ve not been around babies, never seen any in my future, so am relieved the bundle in the stroller remains quiet as we enter the coffee shop and place our orders. I’m not surprised we both order the same. My taste for black with one sugar was honed when I was a teenager, and a copycat child developed a liking for the same. It’s odd, but I find I’m pleased. At least in this, she hasn’t changed over the years. My lips curve as I recall her grimace when she’d taken that first long-ago sip. But she’d obviously persevered, and now it seems to be habit.

We find a table with space for the stroller. The silence is awkward.

“He’s good,” I point out, for lack of anything else to say.

From my limited experience, I don’t know if it’s not unusual that she doesn’t at least move the blanket to check he’s okay, but then I suppose it’s probably as true for babies as it is for dogs: if they’re sleeping, you let them lie.

“He has a good set of lungs when he’s hungry.” Without one glance the baby’s way, she picks up her coffee, blowing on it to cool it.

I’ve leapt to assumptions, I realise. “Is he yours?” I belatedly enquire.

Another unreadable expression, then, slightly fiercely, an odd response. “All mine.”

“What’s his name?”

She takes so long to answer, I start to think she might have forgotten, or be thinking up a lie. But if that’s so, for the life of me I couldn’t think of a reason. Eventually, just before I have to prompt her, she quietly replies, “Theo. He’s five months, to save you the bother of asking.”

I’m curious. There’s so much she’s not telling me. I take a few swallows to re-caffeinate myself. “The father?”

“Not in the picture.” This response comes quickly.

Too quickly?I vacillate between an unexpected elation that she has no man tagging after her, or not the one that’s fathered her child at least, and rage that someone impregnated her and presumably left her. A hundred things come into my mind that I want to say.

I settle for a casual, “Want me to kill him?”

A laugh’s startled out of her. Another one of those vacant expressions follows her momentary mirth. Then she gives my question the weight it deserves. Absolutely zero. In her world, the citizen world, killing is not the answer. In mine, it often is the quickest way to get a problem under control.

I turn to a safer subject. “You were living in New York, last I heard. Thought you were settled there?”

She sighs. “Dave, I know Nathan asked you to look out for me, but that was when I was still a little girl. He’s been gone nine years now.”

Her reminder makes me frown. I’m only too well aware of the time that the calendar says has passed, though often it seems just like yesterday. My childhood friend, best friend since kindergarten, had followed his dreams. While I’d gone into the motorcycle club, to eventually rise through the ranks to become president, Nathan had become a Marine. He’d been destined for good things, was going to be in the service for life. It had been all he’d ever wanted. He’d lasted eight years until he’d been taken out by a sniper over in Afghanistan. He’d been twenty-six when he died. His sudden and unexpected death shocks me to this day. His life cut so short, mine left with a fucking giant hole in it. A loss to me, his family and his country, while I, an outlaw biker, still breathed. The universe must have a warped sense of humour.

“I promised Nathan, and I let him down.” My lips thin. “I’m sorry, Vi. I should have made more of an effort to stay in contact.”

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