Page 49 of The Devil's Ice

“I’m sorry to say that’s true,” he said heavily. “The things I’ve done, Vix… the things I’llstillhave to do until this is all over… I don’t want you to know. Even if Wolf and Scars said it was fine, or you’d be totally safe with the information, Istillwouldn’t tell you.”

“Why not?”

“Because –” Ice broke off speaking, decided to just tell this woman the truth. “Because then you’d look at me differently. Think about me differently.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“I do. I’m not – in a lot of ways, I’m not a good person, Vix. It’s how I ended up as Enforcer, and it’s why I’m the one who gets sent when the shit is hitting the fan. I’m willing to do things that nice, normal people don’t and won’t.”

Vixen looked at him for a few seconds, and Ice was suddenly sure that he’d fucked this all up. But then she said in a quiet voice:

“Do you think that I don’t already know that about you? You think that your face –especiallyyour eyes – didn’t give the game away, right from the jump?”

“Uh… well…”

“You might as well go around carrying a sign, or with a cartoon bubble over your head, saying: ’I’m a scary motherfucker and I’ll fuck you up and scatter your ashes where even God can’t find them’. I mean…you think you give off a cute and cuddly vibe?”

“Uh…” Ice repeated. “Well…”

“Well,nothing,” Vixen said emphatically. “You’ve never pretended to be anything that you’re not, and I knew that the first time I saw you.Everyoneknows it the first time that they see you.”

Ice sighed. “Yeah, OK.”

“Yeah. OK.” Vixen smiled at him to soften her words. “And when we were just about fun in the back rooms, that was all totally fine by me. You’d go off and do whatever Wolf told you to do, and you’d disappear sometimes for weeks at a time, and never say a word before leaving, and why would you? It’s not like I was your girlfriend or anything, right? And then you’d come walking into Satan’s like nothing had happened, like you’d never been gone, and you and me would just pick things up where we left off. And that was all cool with me, it was all I wanted from you. Then.”

Ice lifted his head to meet her steady gaze. “And now?”

“Well, now things are different, aren’t they? You’re here in my home, in my bed, taking care of me. We’re talking, like, with our clothes on –mostof the time, anyway, as last night in the bathroom shows – and sex is way the hell off the table for a good long while. So all we had in common for ages was a physical thing,thatwas all that we were about. But now it’s the exact opposite.”

“That’s all bang on the money.”

“So now I want to tell you some truth.” Vixen set her cup down on the tray. “You did that for me last night, and again just now, so I figure now it’s my turn.”

“Go on, baby.”

“OK.” Shetook adeep breath. “So the truth is that after what you said to me that day, after Wolf told you no to going with him to Utah, I was hurt. Like, reallyreallyhurt… and that surprised me. It surprised me that youcouldhurt me. That was my first sign that I cared what you thought about me, and how you spoke to me, and I realized that if I cared, then you were more than just a – ummm – a –”

“A back room boy toy?” Ice supplied helpfully.

“Yes!” Vixen laughed. “God, that’s itexactly.”

“Can I say again that I’m sorry for what I said to you?”

“You can, but you don’t have to.” She brushed his lips with her fingertips. “It’s forgiven.”

“Thank you.”

“Anyway, then we didn’t talk for two weeks, and you just stomped around being a glowering asshole toeveryone, so that’s when I knew that it wasn’t about me. It wasn’t personal.”

“Facts, Vix.”

“So I thought to myself, ‘I’m totally free to do whatever I want’. I mean, I technically alwayswas, because we weren’t official, but we weren’t with anyone else when we were together. But during that two weeks of you being such a prick, it occurred to me that I was free to go into the back room with anybody.”

Ice went very still; he was suddenly totally sure that Vix had been with someone else while he’d been a miserable piece of shit to her. He didn’t blame her, and he had no right to be upset, but hedidfeel a stab of hurt.

Your fault, man. You called her a whore, then you didn’t talk to her, didn’t apologize. She was a free agent and her own woman.

“Oh,” she said, seeing his face. “Oh, no.No, babe. I wasn’t with anyone. I haven’tbeenwith anyone since you. I swear.”

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