Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from SOA. I own the characters that you haven't seen on your screen.
A/N: Wow, again you guys really blow me away with the response to this story, thank you all so very very much. I've got a lot of stuff coming up for Eden and Kozik that I hope you'll like.
Once again, special thanks goes to R3-1 My3r for her help with this. She's been a blessing to have in my corner. If you're not reading her yet, you should be. She is seriously freaking talented.
Chapter Nine
Edge hung up the phone and looked over at Megan, he still felt like hammered shit and shaky but that was going to change. "My friend works at the pharmacy, he'll bring me by something to fix me up." He let the cell drop. "You got anything to drink? I need something." It would take the edge off, no pun intended. Make him feel a little bit normal until Tony arrived.
"I've got water, tea and lemonade."
"Nothing stronger?" he tried to keep the disappointment out of his voice.
"Sorry," Megan replied, "I really only drink at the club, no fun drinking by myself."
"You got anything for pain? Fuck, my body hurts."
"Some aspirin maybe, no hard stuff," Megan rose from the arm chair. "I'm going to grab us some waters," she told him. She didn't add that she was also going to make a call to Happy because she was getting a really fucked up vibe off of Edge right now.
"Alright," he grunted as he leaned his head back against the soft couch cushion. Of course he'd find the one crow eater who didn't party in her spare time, that was just his shitty luck. But Tony would be there soon, he'd get his shit and then he'd be right.
9 9 9 9
"He killed her?" Kozik hadn't seen that coming. "How do you know?" He held tight to her as she tried to shift away from him.
"I saw him, saw them. They were in the back yard, arguing as usual. My mother had a garden out there, it was just starting to grow and she'd spend hours with her hands in the dirt out there. Used to piss him off all the time she spent out there but at least we always had food once the plants started producing," Eden laid her head back down against her chest. "I don't know what they were saying, I've tried to figure it out but I can't. But she said something and he just hit her like she was a man. Wasn't the first time that I'd seen him do that either, she fell down. It should have been over then but he just kept hitting her, over and over and over. I just stayed in the window and watched. I should have done something."
"Baby, he would have probably killed you too," he pointed out.
"I just watched, he kept hitting her and then he stopped. I felt relieved, it was over. I could take her to one of the walk in clinics, get her patched up using a fake name. I was relieved and then... then he picked up the trowel that she had been using to get the weeds out and he..." her voice cracked but there were no tears, "he buried it in her throat. She bled out next to the tomato plants. I haven't been able to eat a tomato ever since."
"Jesus Christ, Eden," he held her tighter against him. "Why didn't you tell?"
"They'd have separated me and Eddie, he was only ten and I had to take care of him. She always made me promise that no matter what I'd take care of him. I think she knew, on some level, that my father would kill her one day but she stayed."
"I'm sorry," he rubbed his fingers over his name on her back.
"I didn't tell you for pity," she replied. "I told you so that you'll understand what else I have to tell you. Before I say it, I... it's not... it's bad. It's really bad and if you can't deal with it, I get it. I won't hate you for leaving."
Kozik inhaled deeply, continued to stroke her back. Here she was worried that he was going to leave her when he was sure that she was going to leave him. "Nothing that you can tell me is going to change the way I feel about you," he didn't make her any promises about forever, that was going to need to be her choice. "You can tell me anything or not tell me at all." He didn't like the way that she was shaking against him.
"He never knew that I saw or that I followed him into the woods and watched him bury her. I never told Eddie either but he figured it out later." Eden closed her eyes tightly. "I stayed, just like my mother stayed and I knew just like I think she did that one day he was just going to snap and kill me, I waited until Eddie was eighteen. I had saved up enough money to get us away from him, away from here so we could start over."
"What happened?"
"My father happened, he found the money. I don't know how he found it, but he did and he took it all. I came home from work one night and he was waiting in the living room, told me that he'd come into a windfall and he thanked me for it. I knew that he'd found it and I... something inside of me just... snapped."
"Snapped?" Kozik was getting a bad feeling to where the story was heading. "What happened Eden?"
"I told him that I hoped he enjoyed the money, that I really hoped it brought him some happiness," her voice was different now, colder than Kozik had ever heard it. His stomach was tightly clenched as he waited for her to continue. "I went into the kitchen, got a knife. He was sitting in his favorite chair, beer in his hand and telling me that when he was done with his drink he had something for me, something he'd been wanting to give me for a long time."
"Jesus," he read between the lines and was glad, if he could be glad for her being abused, that it had never turned sexual.
"I told him that I had something for him too," Eden shifted, moved out of his arms. This was the part that she was dreading, this was the part that would make him turn away. Now that she'd come this far there was no turning back.
"Baby, where are you going?" Kozik watched her get out of bed, still gloriously naked, and stand near the window.
"I can't look at you when I say this," she kept her eyes on the woods, her eyes searching for the trail that would lead to the thicket where all of her worst secrets were buried. "I told him that I had something for him too," she exhaled deeply, "and then I stabbed him in the neck."
"You stabbed him?"
"I killed him," she confirmed and refused to look over at him. "I stood there and watched him gasp out his last breath and I... I was glad."
"Fuck," Kozik threw back the covers and walked over to her. He ignored the way that she went stiff. "You did what you had to do Eden, you did what you needed to do."
"He didn't hit me that day, he hadn't hit me for months. Not since Eddie got big enough to hit him back."
"He threatened you."
"It was probably an idle threat, he was good at those." She still couldn't look at him, afraid of what she was going to see. "I could have just left, I could have just gotten in my shitty car and left but I was pissed, I was mad about the money."
"You had every right to be pissed, I'm sure that you worked hard for that money."
"It wasn't that much money when I look back on it, I don't know what I thought that I was going to do with fifteen hundred dollars. I stabbed my father in the neck of fifteen hundred dollars Kozik, I killed the man who gave me life."
"You killed the man who abused you Eden, the man who made you so scared. Fuck Baby, you're still scared now."
"I lost control Kozik, I lost control and killed him," Eden sighed as his phone began to ring somewhere on the floor where it had dropped when they stripped down. "That's the prepay."
"Let it ring," he made the decision in a split second even though he knew that it could be Happy calling about finding Edge, it could be Lee about Valhalla but at that moment there was no way he was turning away from her.
"It's the prepay," she repeated. "You have to answer it."
"Right now, I don't give a fuck about anything but you." Kozik met her eyes. "Nothing's changed Eden, nothing at all. If anything, I'm more amazed by how strong you are."
"That's all that you have to say?"
"No," it wasn't. "I love you." Kozik watched her eyes light up.
"I love you too," she let herself relax against him, let out the breath that she was holding. The dark secret was out and he was still there, he was looking at her the same as he always did. He still loved her.
9 9 9
Happy swore and shoved the prepay back into his pocket, why the fuck was Kozik not answering? "Put that ice back on your face," he told Megan as she shifted the bag of frozen corn from her cheek.
He wasn't one to get attached to the sweet butts, they came and left and he simply enjoyed the variety but Megan, well she'd gotten under his skin a little. He wasn't in love with her but he loved being with her. She didn't have any delusions about her place, she simply enjoyed herself when she was with them. "I didn't know who else to call Hap."
"It's alright," he looked around the apartment. "You hurting anywhere else?" The destruction of the small space was almost complete.
"Just my pride, I'd like to put my foot up his freaking ass! I was trying to help, thought he was sick until he started asking me for shit to get him fucked up." She had made the decision to call Happy and it was the right one, a moment later his dealer had shown up, the same scar faced guy from the fight at the club, and when he'd left Edge had shot up right there in her living room. As soon as the needle was out of his arm, he'd been up on her and when she'd refused he'd backhanded her into a wall.
He would have taken what he wanted, she was sure of it but he'd heard Happy's bike outside. He'd kicked her in the stomach as hard as he could and then took off out the window.
"Should go to the club house," he told her.
"Nah, I'd rather not walk in there looking like this, I'll be fine here."
"I can't stay," he told her as he dialed Kozik's number again and listened to the phone ring.
"I know," Megan managed a smile at him. "I'll be fine, got a lot to do here."
Happy nodded at her. "He comes back, call." Without waiting for a response he left the apartment and took the stairs two at a time. Once more he dialed Kozik's number. What the fuck was his friend doing that he couldn't answer the phone?
9 9 9 9
Kozik watched as Eden lit a joint, she very rarely got high so he knew that her nerves were shot from telling him her story. "Baby?"
"Yeah?" She looked over at him.
"We need to talk about Eddie," Kozik folded his hands together to keep from touching her, "tonight when I left, I took him with me. Went back to the club house so that he could start detoxing, told him the truth that it's the only way he'd keep his prospect patch."
"You did?" Eden smiled widely. "Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet, I got called into church. Bowie was looking after him and he took off when Bowie went to the kitchen."
"No," she sighed and took a long hit off of the joint. "So, he's out?"
"Yeah, he's out. It's not just that he left when we were trying to help him, there's more."
Eden felt her heart sink. "Tell me," she dropped the joint into the ashtray, rolled on his side to face him. "What did he do?"
"You made a real impression on the guys from Charming, Jax had their intelligence officer sit down with Wolf like some fucking nerd think tank. They ran the name Valhalla using whatever technological voodoo that they do and they got him."
"Who is he?" Eden frowned. Why was he telling her Edge had done something and bringing up the reason why she was stabbed?
"He's a drug dealer Eden, big time dealer who supplies Edge's dealer."
"You can't know that!" She sat up, her eyes wide. "You're not saying that my brother had something to do with me getting stabbed. No Koz, no."
"I'm sorry," and he was. "They've got phone records and emails, he owed this guy a lot of money," Kozik sighed, "and his dealer was at the club house the other night. He's the one who grabbed you."
"They've got to be wrong, there's got to be some mistake."
"Baby, there's no mistake." Kozik could understand why she'd want to believe that something had gotten misconstrued. He'd wanted to believe it himself but the facts were the facts.
"He couldn't have... he would have said something! I could have died, he would have said something. He couldn't..." Eden knew that she was making excuses and that they weren't even really making sense. Maybe that was because some where deep inside she knew that Kozik was telling the truth. The big change in her brother had occurred after she was hurt. She'd put it all down to him being pissed about her ink but what if there was something darker?
"He knew that I'd kill him Eden, I'd kill him for hurting you."
Eden let everything he didn't have to say sink in, he was going to kill her brother. One look in his eyes told her that and showed the conflict inside of him over it. "Oh Koz, he's all I have left besides you. He's my brother."
"You almost died Eden." Kozik felt pure rage as the image of her, bleeding and passed out, flashed through his mind. He'd come too close to losing her, there was no way he was going to let Edge get away with his part in it. She would have never been on their radar if he hadn't owed them that money.
"So now he has to?" She remained sitting and closed her eyes as he moved his hand to her back. His fingers traced the letters on her spine, his mark on her. The truth was she found herself touching it when he wasn't around. It was physical evidence of their connection.
"I don't see another way Eden, he's too far gone."
"He's my brother," she repeated. "I raised him Kozik, how do I just accept this?"
"I don't know Baby," he admitted. How could he have a fucking clue as to what it must feel like to her. "I love you Eden, you know that I do."
"You're sure that there's no other way?" she asked without much hope, it felt like she couldn't breathe, couldn't properly think. Her brother had been the reason she was attacked, and he'd said nothing about it? After everything that she'd done for him, he'd nearly got her killed. It was the worst betrayal that she could imagine, how did she forgive him?
"We wouldn't be having this conversation if there was another way," he'd given it so much thought. "I didn't decide this lightly."
"Okay," it was all she could think to say. "Excuse me," she told as she rose and walked quickly towards the bathroom. She shut the door and for the first time locked it so that he wouldn't follow her in.
Eden barely made it to the toilet before she started to throw up, her stomach was twisted in such tight knots that she wasn't sure they'd ever go away. She supposed that she should be crying but no tears would come. Instead she felt rage, hot and spreading fast through her body, the last time that she'd felt like this, she'd ended up stabbing her father. It was apparently what happened when she reached her breaking point.
She washed her face, pulled her hair back into a ponytail and stared at herself in the mirror for several minutes. Her thoughts were jumbled, her emotions raw and it took some effort to not just scream.
Her thoughts were still damn near incoherent when a noise from outside of the bathroom drew her attention. It sounded like... it sounded like someone had just kicked in her front door.
"Fuck," Kozik swore and she heard him checking the clip in his gun. "Stay in there Eden."
"Yeah, that's not going to happen." Eden pulled open the bathroom door. "This is my house, I will not stay in the bathroom."
"Eden!" Edge screamed her name from downstairs. "Where are you?" He sounded so much like their father when he was shouting, Eden had never really thought about it before maybe because he very rarely shouted.
She moved over to the dresser, opened the top drawer to take out the gun she kept there. Her hands shook as she checked to make sure it was ready to fire. "Baby?" Kozik looked over at her. "Put down the gun."
"No," she replied, her voice calmer than she expected as she listened to Eddie's footsteps getting closer.
It wasn't a surprise that he was armed when he stepped in the door, his gun trained on Kozik. "Miss me Sis?"
"Put it down Edward," she never used his full name, ever; not since they were kids and their mother was still alive.
"You gonna shoot me Eden? I don't think you will."
"Why don't we all put them down?" Kozik suggested.
"You think I'm that fucking stupid? You fucking prick!" Edge lunged forward, brought the gun closer. "Who the fuck do you think that you are? You aren't better than me motherfucker!"
"Sister fucker, actually." Kozik replied. "If you were going to shoot me, you'd have done it already."
Normally Eden would agree, Eddie would back down but she saw something in his eyes, he was so fucking high that ordinary rules wouldn't apply. He would pull the trigger, on Kozik or on her. That knowledge sent a cold rush through her. "Cut it out Eddie, get that gun away from him."
"What if I put it on you instead?" He shifted the gun, Kozik moved forward. "Back off Blondie, or I will fucking shoot her. At least she'd see it coming, unlike our father. Put the gun down Kozik."
Without hesitation Kozik did what he demanded. "Point it at me, leave her out of it."
"He knows," she didn't flinch as he took several steps closer to her. Eden raised her gun to him. "You don't want to do this," she didn't want to do it either but there seemed to be no alternative besides just letting him shoot her, Kozik or both of them.
"Gonna kill me Eden? Like you killed Dad for no fucking reason at all!"
"I had reasons Eddie, I had a whole fucking list of reasons like being tired of seeing Dad smack you into walls!" she ground her teeth together. How could he say that? No reason, no reason! Maybe he should take a look at the scar on her back or the one on his chest to remember what they'd gone through. "I had no fucking choice!"
"He was making me a man."
"He failed at that," Kozik said with a snort of laughter in an attempt to distract Edge, he wasn't disappointed as the man swung the gun back to point it at him.
"What did you just say?" he snarled as he shoved the gun closer. "What the fuck did you just say!"
"You heard me, he failed. You're not a man. You're a fucking junkie, a piece of shit," there was no way that Kozik was going to back down from him or let him put that gun back in Eden's face.
He wished that she would just run but he knew that she wouldn't. Her grip on the gun never waved, her face showed no real emotion. It took Kozik a minute to realize just where he'd seen that expression before, on Happy whenever the man was in work mode.
"If I'm a piece of shit, so are you! You're a fucking junkie, in fact you know what would be fun?" Edge pulled a bag out of his pocket. "Snort this or I will put a bullet in between Eden's eyes." With speed that defied how wasted he was he had the gun back in his sister's face.
Kozik looked down at the baggie, he knew what it was. Fuck, he could practically smell it through the bag. It had been nearly seven years since he'd gotten high, he'd sworn that he never would again but it wasn't even a choice right now. He'd do anything to get that gun out of her face.
"No," Eden watched as Kozik held his hand out for the bag. "He is not snorting that," she tightened her grip on the gun. "Don't do this Eddie, please." In that moment she realized that her brother was far gone, even she couldn't deny it.
"I'm sick of hearing you say that. Shut the fuck up. He does it or you die, there's no other fucking option." Edge took two steps forward, they were now only a foot apart.
"There's another option, not one that you're going to like," Eden was perfectly calm. Shit, she realized that it was exactly as she felt before she'd stabbed her father. "I don't like it much myself but I'll do it."
"You're not a better shot than me," he was no longer slowing his words, there was an intense expression on his face. "Fuck you Eden." His eyes were dead as he spoke, cold and uncaring. This was no longer her brother standing in front of him. He was now a fucking monster. "Say hi to Dad," his finger tightened on the trigger.
There was only a split second to react, Eden closed her eyes as she took the shot, the impact that followed jarred her wrist and the sound was so loud that her ears were ringing.
"Give me the gun Baby," Kozik spoke softly. "Just give me the gun." He'd given her a moment to take in the situation, wanting to see what her reaction was going to be. He hadn't expected her to just standing there without a word or sound. "Eden, come on," his voice became a little more forceful. "Say something Eden, damn it talk to me."
"He was going to kill me, he was going to shoot. He was going to shoot me," she didn't remember feeling like this after she killed her father. No, this was different. Her head felt... strange, light. Fuck. "He was going to shoot me!"
"I know Baby, just give me the gun," he kept his voice low because he didn't want to startle her. "Eden, please."
"Oh fuck," she sighed. "I need to sit down," she looked over at him and then there was nothing.
"Jesus," Kozik caught her before she hit the ground. He moved Eden onto the bed and tossed a blanket over Edge. "I'm so sorry Baby."
