Page 67 of Demo

Bulldog handed him a pair of pruning shears.

Demo accepted them, but didn’t approach Barrington. Being in the cellar reminded Demo that the wall of torture devices hadn’t been set up for Bulldog, but for Scar. The line of daggers and throwing stars were all the former enforcer’s. Demo carefully turned the shears over in his hands. “Can I ask you something?”

Bulldog threw a punch against Merrick’s jaw. The man’s head snapped back. “Of course.” Bulldog used the fist with the brass knuckles to deliver a blow to the man’s right kidney.

“What’s up with you and Scar right now? You always seem angry at him.”

Bulldog took his right hand to cover Merrick’s mouth and nose, depriving the man of air. He held on tightly. Despite the man’s struggles beneath his grip, Bulldog’s voice was even. “I’m not angry with him. I’m concerned for him.”

The concept seemed so weird to Demo. “But…it’sScar. He’ll be fine.”

“And you think he was ‘fine’ when he got that scar across his face? How about the ones on his neck, arms, torso, and the rest of him?”

Demo shifted uncomfortably. He’d never known Scar without those markings, but he could admit that Bulldog had a point. It wasn’t as if Scar had been born with that scar on his face. “I guess he just gives off this air of confidence that it makes him seem infallible.” Demo looked down at his left hand with its missing fingers. “I of all people should have been more sympathetic. I mean, none of us walked away completely unscathed.”

“Some more than others,” Bulldog added. As Merrick’s struggles started to lessen as he suffocated, Bulldog waited another few seconds before letting the man’s face go. Merrick sagged from his chains, unable to hold up his own weight as he gasped for breath. “Why do you ask?” Bulldog turned his back on Merrick to look at Demo.

Demo shrugged. “The few times he’s been back, you always seem pissed at him.”

Bulldog waited a heartbeat before saying, “I didn’t ask him to go rogue. I didn’t want him to. I brought him to the club so he would have a sense of family, ahome, after what he’d gone through. For him to just throw it away?” Bulldog shook his head. “And forme? I’ll never forgive myself for that.”

“You didn’t ask him to,” Demo reminded him softly, remembering the Church meeting when Scar had turned over his cut to Steel. “I know both you and Steel feel guilty about him leaving, but it was his choice.”

“I know that,” Bulldog admitted. “But he was supposed to find peace here. Not going off hunting child predators and human traffickers.”

“Is that what he’s been doing?” Demo asked. “I mean, I knew he was going after certain people,” he tipped his chin towards Moore, “but I wasn’t sure if he was still doing it. He just randomly pops up places, so I figured he was hanging around town.”

“From what I can gather, yeah. He and Ivy are working on a list.”

Demo hesitated before asking, “Look, you can tell me to go fuck off, but I’ve got to know: does he talk to you? I mean, hecantalk, right? I always figured he could and stayed silent for the creep factor.”

Bulldog raised an eyebrow. “The creep factor?”

Demo shrugged, slightly apologetic, but didn’t say anything. Bulldog couldn’t be blind to how some of the club were freaked out by Scar’s silence.

Bulldog turned back towards Merrick. Without a word to Demo, he started on the suspected bomber like he was a living punching bag. Bulldog even circled around him, delivering heavy blows to the man’s back.

Merrick gagged, grunted, and heaved, but nothing came up. Demo doubted there was anything in the man’s stomachtocome up.

When Bulldog took a breather, Demo threw him a towel from the basket on the table next to him for Bulldog to wipe himself with. Bulldog caught the cloth with ease.

“I think the rest of you take for granted how easily you walked away from your tours. Even Jumper with his torments…” Bulldog shook his head. “I’m not even sure he would understand. Scar wasn’t justinjuredwhile out on patrol. He was captured for weeks. Tortured by the Taliban and watched as his teammates were slaughtered in front of him. Those scars you see on his neck?” Bulldog pointed up at the manacles around Merrick’s and Barrington’s bloody wrists. “I wonder if any of you have even pieced together how he got them.”

Demo’s eyes went to the prisoners’ wrists. Where blood seeped out from them trying to relieve just a little bit of pressure off of their legs. He swallowed sharply, finally understanding Bulldog’s meaning. The marks on Scar’s throat… They were put there by something tight around his neck.

“I didn’t know he was captured,” Demo said softly.

“For weeks,” Bulldog repeated.

Demo looked down at the shears in his hands. “That sucks.” Which was probably the understatement of the century. He wasn’t sure what else to say at the revelation.

“Scar’s silence isn’t a ‘creep factor’ or something he does to give him an air of mystery,” Bulldog admonished. He took the now soiled towel and threw it on the table next to Demo. “I wanted him to find peace here with the club. Instead, I sent him down an even darker path. You asked if I was angry with him? I’m not. I’mterrifiedfor him. There’s so little of my friend that walked out of those Afghani caves that I’m utterly terrified that soon I’ll lose him entirely—and I know that there’s nothing I’ll be able to do to bring him back again.”

The two men were silent for so long that Moore regained consciousness for a minute before passing out again.

Finally, Demo said, “I don’t think I ever realized… I don’t think any of us ever did. We took Scar for granted without seeing his torment. He was always just…there.” Looking up at Bulldog, Demo vowed, “I’ll do better. We all will. I’ll talk to the others. The next time one of us sees Scar, we’ll do more to encourage him to stay.”

Slowly, Bulldog nodded his head. “I appreciate it, but I fear it won’t be enough. Scar has it in his head that he’s better off away from us but I don’t know why.”

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