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away, and then he did what he should have done before. He turned tail and ran.
     
    Without looking back, he went down the hall to Tucker’s room. Bibi was just walking out.
     
    She gave him a sharp look and then lifted her hand to his face and wiped his wet check. “Oh, baby,” she whispered. “Oh, darlin’.”
     
    Words had not yet returned to him, so he simply looked down at her.
     
    “He’s sleepin’, baby. You should get some sleep, too.” She slid her hand around to the back of his neck and pulled his head down. He didn’t fight her. She kissed his cheek. “I love you, Deme. Whatever happens, it’ll be okay. We’ll stick it out together.”
     
    He stood straight up. That wasn’t how it had worked out last time. But still he said nothing.
     
    With a reassuring pat on his bare arm, Bibi headed back toward the family room. Demon went into his son’s room and closed the door. Then he locked it. He locked the door to the bathroom, too.
     
    For a long time, he stood at the side of the crib, watching his son peacefully sleeping. He tried to make himself remember that peace he’d been feeling, watching an animated movie, snug under a blanket with his little boy. But all his mind wanted to remember was Faith. He shouldn’t have kissed her. That kiss felt like another point of no return. Why the fuck couldn’t he control himself better? Why the fuck was it always wrong urges that got the reins in their teeth? Why the fuck did he feel everything— everything —so fucking hard?
     
    After a while, feeling finally the sleepiness that matched his utter, desolate exhaustion, he sat on the floor and grabbed Tucker’s big stuffed dog. Using that as a pillow, he curled up at the side of the crib and tried to sleep, lost in the memory of the first time his lips had touched hers.
     

memory
     
     
    Michael walked out into the hot sunshine of an L.A. spring afternoon. No, he was Demon now. He needed to learn to think of himself that way, though he wasn’t sure how he felt about it as a name. He guessed it sounded pretty badass, though it really came from being made fun of. Nobody but club needed to know that part, though.
     
    Could be worse —the other Prospect, who’d only been wearing a kutte for a few weeks, was already being called ‘Crapper,’ because he’d gotten trapped in a port-a-potty. That would be way worse.
     
    Demon was pretty sure that guy was going to wash out, though. He was a lot older, in his thirties, probably, and he bitched a lot about the work Prospects had to do. Demon knew to just shut up and do it, whatever it was.
     
    He’d dug a big grave in the woods a couple of nights ago and dumped three reeking, half-decomposed bodies into it. No idea who they’d been or why they’d gotten dead. He hadn’t asked. Hoosier had said dig, so he’d dug.
     
    He’d been prospecting for just over three months, and it had been the three best months of his fucking sad excuse for a life. For the first time in his whole life, he had a home—a place where he could really sleep at night, without being on guard for bad shit of one kind or another to go down on him. A place where, when he got up in the morning, people smiled and said ‘hey’ and fed him breakfast. Sure, he also had to bury bodies or unclog vile toilets or whatever job the patches could think up for him, but he could see that they liked him, too. He felt their affection for him. They let him in on the jokes.
     
    And when he’d gone mental on that asshole at the party a couple of weeks ago, they’d fixed it up for him and started calling him Demon, laughing at the way his face had gone fire-engine red.
     
    So yeah, Demon was an okay name.
     
    But right now, he was fucked. Hoosier was in a terror of a mood about something, and Demon knew he was looking for a reason to fuck somebody up. Now he was standing in the middle of the lot with a shopping list of parts for Hoosier’s pet restoration project. Big parts. Not just nuts