“Anything else? You had no real friends, no constant lovers…all you had was the bar.”
She looks at me then with tears in her eyes. “Bars don’t hurt you. Bars don’t betray you. I loved someone, so deeply, and he left.”
“He left you?” I ask, eyes narrowed at her loving someone other than me. I want to kill him. Would it be too much to hunt him down?
She snorts. “Well, in a way, but that bastard,” she growls, “went and fucking died on me. The only fucking person who ever gave a shit if I ate, if I slept, and if I was alive, and he died. Not even my own dad did, and my mother didn’t even know I was there, she was too drugged up to care. But Rich, he did. He took me in when I had nothing. He gave me a job, a home, and then he fucking died.”
I consider her words. “He owned the bar?”
She nods. “I was already working there to pay off my dad’s debt when I finally got emancipated. I was living on the streets, and he noticed. He gave me the place above the bar, paid for the furniture and everything. Gave me a job, bartender then manager.”
“How did he die?” I query, prying. At least I don’t need to kill him. But I’m still jealous of the love in her voice. She doesn’t get to love anyone but us.
“Cancer,” she whispers, tears rolling down her cheeks before she dashes them away, not letting even that weakness escape her. My brave little bird. “It was horrible, so fucking fast. By the time we found out, it was too late. The bastard went and left me the bar without telling me, told me it was my home now. Hoped it gave me a better future than him.”
“I’m sorry, Little Bird.” And I am. She’s been through so much, survived so much, the scars painted across her body and soul. She doesn’t realise she’s more like us than anyone else. Maybe I should try and explain.
So even though I’ve never told anyone, I rip open those old wounds, the ones that poisoned me, just so she might understand. “My mother was a junkie too.”
She turns her head and looks at me, her dark eyes glistening with tears. Reaching up, I wipe one away and taste it on my thumb. “She cared as long as she could use me. Drug mule, runner, even tried to sell me once. But still I loved her. I got taken away from her a lot, put into homes. But I was what they called a troubled youth. I loved her so much, she was my mother. I always ran away and went back. But it meant back to that life, the life that got me locked in juvie for a while.”
Her eyes watch me intently as I turn and lay my head on my arm, my other hand reaching for her. She doesn’t stop me this time as I run it up and down her thigh. “When I got out, for GBH, she was dead.”
She gasps. “How?”
My lips purse as I try to push back the rage to speak. “Murdered. I figured out she owed a seller too much money, and couldn’t pay it back, so he called on her. Beat her to within an inch of her life, and while she was still alive, burned down the house with her in it. I got there right after. I tried to get in, to get to her, the smoke choking me. The flames burning me.” I hold up my hands, flipping them to show her the burns on my palms. “I couldn’t, I could hear her screaming though. Despite all the times she had let me down, she was still my mother. For all her faults, I loved her with every fibre of my being, she was my obsession. My only family.”
“Diesel,” she whispers.
“I chased him down, you know? I was so angry that night, watching the flames swallow her, that I finally let go. I’d held back for so long, pushing away my anger, all the darkness writhing within me. That night I stopped fighting it, I let it consume me. I hunted him across the city.”
“How old were you?” she asks.
“Seventeen. I found him, knocked him out, and dragged him to an old, abandoned warehouse. When he woke up, I made him pay. Repeatedly. I let everything out on him, and for the first time, I knew what it felt like to be free. To be me. To feel bones crack under my hands and blood spray across me, but it wasn’t enough, I needed him to feel the same pain she did. So I doused him and set him on fire and watched…and guess what? It still wasn’t enough. I wanted more, like that fire, I needed more. I’m fucked up, I’m crazy, I know it. Never thought I would find a place to fit in, then I found these guys and they are just as fucked up as I am, though they hide it better. We all know what it means to be lost, to be alone, Little Bird, but together? Together, we’re stronger. We shed that life, like a snake sheds its skin—”
“And became the Vipers,” she finishes, sighing. “Fuck, why did you tell me? It makes it harder to hate you.”
“Because you really don’t hate us, and you’re looking for reasons not to. There’s one. Yes, I’m a monster, Little Bird. I love people’s pain, I love my job, I enjoy killing people and making them suffer. I love protecting my family, and I do it all for them…and now you.”
“Me? You barely know me,” she murmurs.
“I know enough. You are one of us now. I will protect you like them, you entered a den of vipers, Little Bird. You choose whether to remain as our prey or shed and become a predator. Choose wisely. Not everyone is invited inside, in fact, no one is. Live or die.”
“But why me?” she demands. “And don’t say a debt, you could have killed me and been through with it.”
“Because, Little Bird, that night…the night your dad handed you over without a fight, we saw the same thing in you that’s in all of us. Garrett doesn’t even know why he saved you, I think. Ryder lies to himself, says it’s business. Kenzo plays it like it’s a game, keeping everything to his chest. But I see it. The moment your dad gave you up…you became like us. Another lost soul. Another Viper in search of a home. We all started with nothing, no one, and now look where we are. A family. A broken, fucked up family, but a family nonetheless, that would kill before they let anyone take you. Think on that.” Leaning down, I kiss her softly, and she sighs. “Goodnight, Little Bird. You can keep the knife, think of me every time you use it, but know if you use it on us, on my brothers, I’ll have to kill you. I might even enjoy it.”
With that, I slip from the bed and walk away. “Diesel?” she calls, and I stop.
“You’re right, I want to hate you, but honestly, I’m hurt. Hurt my dad could give me away so easily. I shouldn’t be surprised, but I guess I always wanted to see the good in him. Then you came and gave me people to aim that hate at, but I see it too. The ghosts in your eyes, they match mine…and I hate that more. Because it means…” Her words trail off, voice quiet.
“It means you’re like us.” I nod, looking over my shoulder at her. “A snake.”
I shut the door. She won’t come after me, and she won’t escape tonight, I know that now, even if she doesn’t. She’s home, and she’s finally starting to understand it.