I take another bite of my steak, then another, more to buy time than anything else, and I don’t taste the food at all. Then I lower my fork slowly.
“How…” I lick my lips. “How do I do it, Cap? How do I accept... this?” My throat grows tight, and my hand unconsciously waves to the markings. “It’s like he’s two people. There’s two men inside him, and I never know which one I’m going to end up with. I dunno. That doesn’t make much sense, does it?”
He swallows a last bite of steak. “Yes. It does,” he says with an understanding that takes me aback. “It makes perfect sense.”
After a heartbeat, he puts down his fork and knife and crosses his arms on the edge of the table.
“I suppose it’s like that for a lot of the guys here.” He nods to the men in the room. “There is the Outlaw who does what needs to be done for his club. For his brothers and his family and his woman. He does what he has to order to keep them safe. And there is the man who hangs with his friends and goes to his kid’s school plays and laughs at his ol’ lady’s jokes.”
Once more, I look at my half-empty plate, pushing the food around it without eating it. Darkness weaves its way into my thoughts, deep, inky blackness that seems to have no end.
Did Spider have that other side? Is there more inside him than the monster?
Yes. There is. The Outlaw was with me last night, while he was belting me, punishing me in order to get information on a guy who endangered his club. He was with me in that cell in Casper’s. The Outlaw has left these marks on me, an insignia of his ownership, and a reminder of my place.
How much easier it would have been to say I’d never seen the man that lived beneath the beast. Easier, because then I could have shut out the emotions I felt for him. Because then I could have lived in the comfort and ease of my hatred. Except I had seen him.
He was the one who held me those nights after Cap was shot, who told me about the spider bite and his horrible childhood. He was the one who hugged Jules like a sister, and held Ben and cared for him as if he was his own.
I sigh, feeling suddenly heartbroken. I look around at the men, these grizzled and hardened bikers with their patches and their leather and their guns.
Over in a corner by the billiard tables, a girl with wild curly red hair takes one of the men’s hands. It’s the one with the scar on his cheek. Grinning, he scoops her into his arms and walks off with her toward the stairs. She whoops and laughs, content and happy as her voice fades.
My mind spins, wondering what sort of crimes he’s committed, wondering whose blood is on his hands, unseen by the woman he’ll now take to his bed. I’d think that woman would be scared, would have trouble not thinking about what he’s done and worry about what it means for her.
“Cap…” I look at a spot on his chest. “How do they do it? How do women… How do they make it okay in their heads? How do I?”
“Not every woman can,” Cap says honestly, swallowing the last of his beer. “You have to embrace the darkness. Be willing to accept the bad with the good, and know that when the real scary shit goes down, the Outlaw will do what must be done. The Outlaw and the man are one and the same, Angel. Being with one means accepting when the other comes out to play.”
“And if I can’t?”
“You can. You have to. You will.”
“How can you sound so sure?”
“Because you can’t have one without the other. If any man in here lost either one, he’d die. If Spider lost either one, it would be over for him. The Outlaw needs the man to keep him from being swallowed by the club. And the man needs the Outlaw to survive in it. Without it, he can’t protect anyone or himself. He cannot do what must be done. When you learn to accept both…”
“What?” I press, feeling as if I’m hanging on his every word.
“Right now, you are his. That’s why he marked you. When you accept both, he will be yours too.”