S-Duality: A Marauders Novella (13 page)

Once she was relaxed again, he pulled out, and she turned to her back. He slid inside again with a smile.

“Want me to knock you up?”

“Yes,” she said and grabbed his face to make sure he kept his eyes on her. “Knock me up.”

He did his very best. Twice.

They'd had several O.D.'s, one murder, and then came the suicide.

As suspected, all the press and demands had finally taken its toll on the singer of Haven, and he'd killed himself.

Sisco had to admit it; he wasn't surprised at all. And no matter what anyone said, he didn't think anyone else was. The guy had basically already tried several times, but they'd kept him on the road, doing the tour and the press to promote the new album. An album the label had forced them to polish before it was released, because they weren't happy with the unpolished, 'uncommercial' sound.

The death meant journalists flooded Seattle. He hadn't thought it was possible to fit more press into their town, but he'd been dead wrong. They were looking for anyone who'd even remotely known the guy, or who was at least prepared to lie on camera and say that they had. Sisco'd known him but not that we
ll. It wasn't anything personal or that he hadn't liked the guy—they'd just never gotten to know each other. They ran in the same circles, had been to the same parties and gigs, but that was pretty much it. Either way, Sisco definitely wasn't interested in talking about it on camera.

Trudy was pissed off as hell, and it took him a while to fully understand why. She thought it was cowardly. The man had a family, friends, even a kid, and committing suicide was the ultimate selfish act according to her. She was usua
lly pissed about the ones who O.D.'d as well, but this seemed to infuriate her even worse, and he had a hard time seeing the difference.

It didn't matter what he said, and soon he realized it was a very personal thing to her. If she hadn't committed suicide with her history, she thought other people should be able to fight, too. He tried to point out that not everyone was as strong as her, and that was when she really flipped and started yelling.

“That's not the point! You're missing the point. Look at me! Look at what I have, us two, our future. Life can be so fucking beautiful, and... It pisses me off when people can't see that no matter what shit-hole they're in, it can be so beautiful and perfect.”

“Baby,” he mumbled and caught her in his arms. “Okay. I'm sorry. I'm just saying that not everyone can see that when they're at the bottom.”

“I'm just angry about it. I don't get suicide. I understand using drugs to try to hide to some extent, because I tried to hide in different ways, too, but ending it all on purpose.... I don't get that.”

He dropped it. It was her opinion, and she had every right to feel that way.

Pete and Frank came back to Seattle the following week for the funeral and stayed with them for a while. They didn't talk much about the funeral, or what had happened. They had other things than death to talk about—more exciting things.
Because just the day before they arrived Trudy'd done a test, and it had been positive.

She was pregnant.

She'd been really nervous about it, and he'd spent many hours during long nights hugging her and telling her she'd be the best mom ever. He understood why she was worried, because he was worried for the very same reason. How the fuck did you become a good parent when you'd never seen good parenting first hand?

Then she just did one of those weird Trudy things and decided. She decided she could do it, and that was all there was to it.

During the following months, she threw herself into becoming a mother, and it even showed in her paintings. They were all of fetuses or babies in bright, happy colors.

He was quite impressed with her resolve but didn't comment on it. Instead he helped her with what he could, and most nights when he came home from work she was working in the nursery. Trudy didn't believe in different colors depending on the gender, she wanted
all
colors. It looked insane, almost like her fetus paintings, and he was a bit worried the kid would have an epileptic seizure when they eventually put it in there. The first time he had tried to protest, and she had started to cry. She cried a lot, and he soon realized it didn't matter what the nursery looked like because by the next week she would've changed it all again.

When she was about six months pregnant, he came home to find a forest full of animals painted on one of the walls, and the rest of the walls were in a soft green shade.

“Hey,” he said, as he wrapped his arms around her from behind, cradling her baby bump, and looked at the room. “I like this.”

“Me, too,” she said as she turned towards him. “Think I'm done.”

“Good,” he chuckled and gave her a kiss. “Getting to the furniture?”

“Yeah.” She took his hands and put them back on her stomach. “I've been thinking about names.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Noah for a boy.”

“As in Noah in the bible?”

“Yeah, because he survived.” She moved closer to bury her nose in his chest. “And because I like the name.”

“Okay,” he said after thinking about it for a while. “I like it. Short, good name. Can be barked out.”

“You're not gonna bark at our baby.”

He leaned down and gave her a kiss. “And for a girl?”

“Lorna.
”

“Why?” The question was more to win time so that he could find a good way to tell her he thought it was a
horrible
name. Really fucking bad.

“You're gonna laugh.”

“I'm sure I will. Make me laugh, I know you like my laugh.”

“I liked the book Lorna Doone when I was a girl. It's kind of doomy, but it gave me... I don't know. Hope?”

“Lorna?” He tried to hide the grimace, but she noticed it.

“You don't like it.”

“No.”

“I can read you the book,” she tried, and when he shook his head she grabbed his collar, bringing him down to her mouth. “I'm not gonna give up on the name. I've wanted a girl to call Lorna since I was a little kid.”

“Think we're gonna have to talk about this again.”

“We will, but if you want a different name you're gonna have to come up with a better one.”

He couldn't think of something right away, but when he knew the option was Lorna, he was going to make a real effort to find another name she liked.

“Wanna order in?” he asked instead.

“How about we cook something? I'll make the base and you can make some meat sprinkles for yourself.”

“Okay.”

Jane came by later that night. She was so eager about the baby, and Sisco found it pretty cute, even if he'd never use that word out loud for anyone to hear. She kept talking to Trudy's belly while referring to herself as 'Aunt Jane.' He didn't object, since he definitely considered her a part of the family of misfits they'd created for themselves when their own blood had turned out to be a complete bust.

CHAPTER TEN:

-
o0o-

Present day, Greenville, Arizona

Tommy was the newest member, and Sisco quite liked him. His intelligence wasn't dazzling, but he had a lot of heart, and that counted for something. As opposed to a lot of biker clubs, the Marauders didn't have many ex-military men, but Tommy'd been a Marine. He'd been injured and his best friend had died in the same attack. He'd taken his discharge as soon as he could after that. Tommy didn't talk much about what'd happened, but Sisco knew some of it. He'd become a prospect while Sisco was doing time, but they'd caught up pretty quickly once Sisco was released. Often while they were watching strippers.

He was a pretty-boy in his early thirties; the sweetbutts were just dying for him to pick them, and he did his best to oblige them all. Not in a Mitch or Dawg kind of way, but he was single and liked to fuck, so he got around.

“I heard you were working in Seattle during the grunge era?” he asked one night while they were watching a woman pretzling herself around a stripper pole at the Booty Bank.

“Yeah.”

“Like, in the music industry?”

“I wouldn't say I was
in
the industry, but I worked for some of the bands.”

There was a tangible silence from Tommy's direction, and Sisco knew what was coming.

“So... do you still know some of the guys?”

“I still talk to some of them, yeah.” He turned his head and smiled. “Just fucking
ask.”

“Which bands?”

“Riot Act, mostly. Pete was a schoolmate. I was the tour manager for his bands long before he was in any band you've ever heard of.”

Tommy was staring at him. “Mr. Epps?”

“Fucking hell,” Sisco laughed. He hadn't expected that, and he knew Tommy must be a real fan if he'd heard about Mr. Epps. “Okay, yes, I was their tour manager at the Mr. Epps tours. You a fan?”

“Yeah. Like... since I was a kid.”

“Are you calling me old?”

“If you were around for Mr. Epps, I fucking am.” Tommy kept smiling. “It must've been so cool.”

Sisco nodded, but thought to himself that it hadn't just been cool. Maybe at first, but then the money people came along, and with them came a lot of other shit. A lot of their friends turned to drugs, and maybe they should've said something, done something, but they were just fucking kids. They didn't know how to deal with other people's messes, since they couldn't even deal with their own. Those broken people in combination with the music industry that hit them like a bomb, it was a recipe for disaster, and a disturbing number of them didn't make it out alive. Grunge didn't die when the singer in Haven committed suicide. That was just the end stage of a disease that had been plaguing them for a long time. When he thought about it, it probably started when Roz, the singer in Pete and Frank's earlier band, O.D.'d—when heroin became a factor. He didn't know. He just knew that he lost a lot of friends during those years. To drugs, murder, and suicide.

And he lost Trudy.

-
o0o-

Nineties, Seattle, Washington

“You need to come to Harborview right now!” someone yelled at him through the phone line.

“Who the fuck is this?” he growled, while he wiped his hands with a rag. He was at work and had been in the middle of an oil change.

“It's me, it's Jane... Sisco, it's Trudy... We...” Then she started crying and at that exact moment Sisco's heart stopped beating.

“What about her, Jane? Why the fuck are you at Harborview. Is it the baby?”

“No. Yes. I don't know. They won't tell me anything, since I'm not family. There was an accident.”

“Accident?”

“She was hit by a car. I don't know... It was all so fast.” She was sobbing so badly he could just barely make out what she was saying. “There was so much blood, Sisco. You need to come here.”

He heard that part
too
well. “I'm on my way.”

Decker shook his head when Sisco started towards his bike.

“You're not riding, Sisco. I'm taking you.”

“What?”

“I'm not gonna let you get on your bike right now. I'm taking you there. You'll be of no use to your wife if you're in a room down the hall in the E.R. I'll take you.”

He wanted to protest, but another pa
rt of him knew Decker was right because he couldn't even feel his own hands. He was somehow shut off from everything, including his own body.

Thankfully Decker didn't try to talk to him during their ride to Harborview, not even to tell him it would all be fine. He didn't want to hear that, because somehow... he didn't believe it. The one line going through his head over and over again was Jane's shaky comment, 'There was so much blood.' He couldn't stop thinking about it, and in his head
Trudy’s blood was coming from all over her. His girl.

This couldn't be the end. It just fucking couldn't. He'd done it all the right way. He'd met her, taken care of her, loved her, married her, stayed at home for her, and stopped selling drugs to keep them safe. He'd done all that shit just to make sure they got what they wanted—a new, better family. So it couldn't end like this.
With a fucking car accident. All the shit they'd made sure to stay away from, just to be hit by a car.

He ran into the emergency room, and Jane caught him in a hug.

“You have talk to them. They won't tell me anything.”

She was a mess, and once again her line about all the blood went through his head. He didn't even want to know what she'd seen and didn't ask. Instead he looked towards the reception to find someone he could talk to.