Page 54 of Demon

Fifteen minutes later we are outside the home where my sister is staying at. Once we get off, she puts the helmet on my handlebars.

“Is everything all right with your sister?” Her voice is filled with worry.

“She’s fine.”

Ivy lets out a heavy breath, her shoulders falling.

We walk along the path and inside the home and to the front desk. The lady’s eyes bug out when she looks at me. “I’m Jett Miller, here to see Madeline Miller.”

“Yes, down the hall and to your left. Room 10.”

I feel Ivy’s eyes on me as we walk to the room. Once inside, I look at Maddy. She looks the way she always does—peaceful. Ivy goes into nurse mode and looks her over before standing at her side.

I pull a chair over and sit facing Maddy. I might as well get this over and done with... “So... you want to know what I’ve been through. I’ll tell you. My dad had schizophrenia...” I start off the shitshow story that is my life. “So Mom was the one who worked. He’d go off his meds a lot and get real paranoid. We got home from school one time and he had barricaded the front door with all the furniture.” I chuckle. “Other times, he thought we were being spied on and ruined parts of the house, furniture, microwaves, anything that he thought the government was watching us through in his delusional state.”

Ivy walks around the bed and stands next to me with a hand on my shoulder. I keep going. “The disease got worse until he was convincedwewere spies for the government, so I spent as much time away from the house as I could.” My hand clenches.The biggest mistake of my life.“One night, I was at a friend’s house. After I got home it was late...” My heart palpitates. “As I walked to my bedroom, that’s when I first smelled that metallic scent, like coins.”

Ivy’s body freezes.

I close my eyes. I remember it like it was yesterday. “I followed the drops of blood, first to my parents’ room. I walked in to see my mom on the bed. She was pale. She’d been stabbed multiple times. Blood covered her and saturated the white sheets. I checked her pulse just in case she was alive, but her skin was cold to the touch and she was gone.” My last memory of her, seeing her dead, is burned into my psyche.

Something between a gasp and a sob tears from Ivy’s throat. She hugs me from behind, fiercely.

“My dad was rocking on his feet, looking out the window. When he saw me, his eyes were frenzied. As he turned, I noticed the bloody kitchen knife in his hand. He ran at me.” I shake my head. “The whole fight is a blur, but he was the one who ended up with the knife in his chest.” Even though it’s been years since it happened, the internal scars from my father are faded but still there.

I shiver, wondering if I’ll ever get schizophrenia since it’s genetic. I think I’d kill myself if I ever had those dark thoughts about hurting someone who means something to me.

Ivy’s cries are louder, so I turn. Her eyes are red and mascara stains her cheeks. I guide her around me, and she sits on my lap. “I’m so sorry that happened to you,” she says, her voice tortured, brittle. She looks at the bed. “What happened to Madeline?”

There’s a painful tightness in my throat. I take a moment before I carry on. “I rushed to Maddy. She was bloody but still breathing... still alive. She was still under the bed sheets, so she didn’t even hear him coming. I called an ambulance and went to the hospital with her. On the way she had a cardiac arrest from the blood loss, which caused a lack of oxygen to the brain.”

Ivy turns, wrapping her arms around me and hugging me so tight that it’s like she’s trying to put all the broken pieces of me back together.

“She’s been in a vegetative state ever since.”

She pulls back, and I can see the misery swirling in her eyes. I lean in and tenderly kiss the salty tears that are falling down both cheeks.

Ivy clears her throat. “Madeline got transferred from Las Vegas. Is that where you’re from?”

I nod. “I used to go there to see her and visit Mom’s grave.”

She sniffles. “How have you coped?”

I pause. “I haven’t.” Something inside of my brain broke that day. I flatlined too. I let out a heavy breath. “From then on everything went to shit. I was still under the age of eighteen. Child protective services put me in foster care, but I ran away. I lived on the streets for a while... over a year, but I always went back and checked on Maddy. To make sure she was okay. My life spiraled into alcohol... drugs. Anything to numb the pain, until the fighting competition at the club’s warehouse.”

I let out a dark chuckle. “Joining the MC kept me out of jail. I found somewhere I get patted on the back for being a monster. I get to punish people for hurting the MC or people we care about.” Since stabbing people is socially unacceptable and illegal, the club has provided me with a place to exercise my demons.

I look at Maddy. “It’s why Bomber and I are serious about protecting the club. We couldn’t protect the people we loved from getting hurt, so we’d die before letting anyone else hurt the people we care about.” I fucking hate myself for not being there to protect my family against my father that night.

She places a hand on either side of my face and makes direct eye contact. “It wasn’t your fault. You know that, right?”

I don’t answer. It may as well have been. “If I was there, my family would still be alive.”

She abruptly shakes her head. “No. Itwasn’tyour fault,” she whispers. She presses our foreheads together. “I know your heart’s been sliced open, but I’m here now. I won’t let you bleed out any longer.”

* * *

Ivy

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