Chapter 6: Smart Girls Had To Lose To Win

I love this song, Lose You To Love Me, for Marley's experience with Daemon. It's spot on.

Marley, present day, after the early morning call with Bodie

I manage to put thoughts of Bodie away as I shower and rush to work—this morning I'm leading a group at a women's shelter.

As I enter the shelter and see bruised faces and avoiding eyes, Daemon and his world come rushing in with a vengeance. I smile in empathy at a young woman with a black eye and remember how it's even painful to breath with all the swelling and tenderness from an injury like that.

Daemon hit me, a few times near the end.

I was very confused about his anger. Not that the abuse could ever be justified—but his anger erupted from nothing and was never explained. Always just washed away with tears and gifts and promises it wouldn't happen again.

Except it did.

I didn't understand it at the time. I'd been with him over a year. He was in complete control of my life— and that was a form of emotional abuse in itself—but he had never hit me before.

It was only after Bodie's initiation that I realized, he had people spying on me all along. He paid some of the younger kids to keep tabs on me. He knew the minute I met Clayton. Knew when I started spending time at the library with him. Knew Clayton and I would ride the train together to spy on my birth mother and go to the coffee shop together afterwards and talk about the parents we never knew, and how that made us feel.

Daemon never confronted me about it, and I never felt wrong in my friendship with Clayton. In my mind, it was completely separate from my life with Daemon. Even though Clayton didn't know my real name...I was Marley with him. I was real. I was me. With Clayton I wasn't Jasmine—the girl that Daemon molded. The girl that was a gangster's dimepiece.

It never occurred to me that Clayton could be anything other than a friend to me. I was so overwhelmed and overpowered by Daemon that I would never have thought of being with Clayton like that. Or anyone else—not until Daemon commanded me to. But the minute I knew that Clayton and Bodie were the same person...that was the minute everything changed. I wanted to give Clayton one real moment, before I was forced to give him the betrayal of his young life.

I couldn't understand why Daemon would ever ask me to mess with one of his initiates like that. Daemon was my first and only lover, and he had been good at schooling me the way he liked things, but he had mostly been considerate and protective. I thought what Daemon and I had was love.

I didn't realize that Daemon knew what I didn't—that I didn't know anything about love. That I was just a scared and vulnerable girl over-awed by a powerful man like Daemon and eager to please him. That I had real feelings  for Clayton. There was something growing between us when I hung out with him during all those long days Daemon left me alone to do his deals, run his games, and hang with his homies.

I didn't realize it at all. I also didn't realize that Daemon didn't love me, he only loved making me into the perfect vision of his Trap Queen—a ride-or-die that would do anything for him. I thought I loved him, but in reality I was just a frantic girl that latched onto a powerful man in the middle of a catastrophe.

I loved Daemon like a person loves a life raft after their ship sinks.

I had never even had a boyfriend before Daemon. I didn't know what real feeling was. Not until the night Clayton kissed me in his room all those years ago. So shy and sweet at first, and then it was like...he came into himself as his fingers danced over my shoulders and down my arms, and he found his rhythm where our mouths met. Kissing Clayton was nothing like being with Daemon. It didn't just make me feel safe. I felt more. I felt...him. I felt his thrill and his hope and his optimism and I wanted to give him more...of me... so he could make more of all those good vibes. So we could both feel that.

It was too late, though. I couldn't give him more than a moment, because I belonged to Daemon and Daemon had other horrible plans for me.

Then Clayton took that drug-deal phone call and became Bodie and everything I was feeling came crashing down.

Bodie was the reason Daemon had held me down on the bed the week before and cursed me, holding my jaw so tight I thought he would dislocate it. Bodie was the reason that Daemon's lieutenants had been slow to come around with my "allowance" that week before. Bodie was the reason Daemon hadn't slept at the place I stayed in over a week.

Because Daemon told me that I was going to be a part of Bodie's initiation. He said Bodie was a young punk who was "too smart for his own good." A kid who needed to "learn his place" and Dae had a plan to show it to him.

What Dae demanded from me hurt and horrified me, but he "convinced" me to go through with it with brute force and the threat of kicking me to the curb.

Still, even when I agreed, I didn't know that Clayton and Bodie were one in the same.

Daemon knew all about my friendship with Clayton, and he had already come up with a plan to corrupt it. He developed an ingenious way to kill my friendship with Clayton, shame me, and make sure Bodie hated me.

Still, I can't pretend I was a victim. I was definitely an accessory to the crime, just like I was an accessory to his drug dealing operation.

Dameon may have manipulated me and  extorted my cooperation with physical violence, but I let him. I hurt Bodie and destroyed the friendship we had and the potential for it to be more.

That was not on Daemon. That was on me.

We always have a choice, and I took the path of least resistance.

I did not flee Daemon, like these brave women in this shelter, who have walked away from toxic, controlling, abusive relationships.

No. I walked right down the road with the devil.

I'm thinking all these thoughts as these women share their stories, some with echoes of manipulation and abuse like I suffered. I try to shut my own thoughts down, and focus from a place of detachment, so that I can offer insight and not just empathy. I can't do my job if I return to those feelings of anger and overwhelm and shame. I can only do my job from the place I've climbed after a long and hard struggle.

I have risen above my past in so many ways. I know my self-worth. I would never allow myself to be controlled or manipulated or abused again. I am comfortable with my "white-passing" ethnicity. I don't feel any shame about being a teenage mother or allowing Darius to live with Pat and TJ, because even though it's unconventional, they were his foundation and if that's where he wants to be I won't strip that from him. I'm even managing not to freak out on Daemon and his claims that he's reformed—that he's going to convert the gang he still leads into productive citizens with legitimate business activities. He says wants a chance to know his son.

The mental health counselor believes I have to find a middle ground that protects Darius while I at least evaluate Daemon's "rehabilitation."

Because I do believe people can change. God knows, I have.

I've resolved so much of my trauma and baggage.

I haven't gotten over  Bodie.

He's the one thing in my past I haven't resolved.

Obviously.

As evidenced by the fact that I've been stalking him like Catwoman.

I'm pretty sure that my initial interactions with Adam were some kind of regression to my Jasmine state.

Basically, I perpetrated a silly, devious teenage move. You know, the one where you really like one guy so much that you would do anything to stay in his sphere—even if it means pushing up on one of his unsuspecting bro's to get up next to him?

Yeah, I'm basically still a school girl when it comes to Bodie Jamison.

I'm fascinated by him. I mean, a lot of girls are fascinated by him. He's by far the hottest stud in the hottest band in the world. In some ways, back behind the walls of his drum kit, he's more mysterious and compelling than Leed. Yet beneath the devil-may-care, reckless jokester rock star, Clayton is there. And Clayton is a little damaged like Trace and yet he's got all Adam's decent impulses. He's both more closed and more open than any of his brothers.

He's imperfect and he's beautiful.

And that's my real professional opinion.

The women are looking at me expectantly.  I see a couple of sets of eyes shift to the clock on the wall or to their watches.

Shit. Group is almost over and I haven't said a damn thing. Which isn't always bad—these women need the space to share their stories and support each other—but I'm in my own head and sucking at my job today. I smile at the new group member sitting beside me, whose emotional story I did process, in my double-track brain.

"Thank you, Alicia. It's very hard, and very brave to share like that. And like you just said, it's easy to get down on yourself for not leaving sooner. But we all have been there, in a place of regret. Regret is like grief. In our society we hear a lot about the stages of grief. It's an emotion that has to be processed, right?" I look around at the group and some of the women murmur agreement. "Well, regret is like that, too. There is no jumping over it. There's only going through it, accepting it, feeling it, but moving forward day by day. The place you are wanting to move to is a place where you can remember the mistakes without the intense feeling of shame. Apply the lessons but not make the same mistakes. It's definitely a place you can move to, if you remember that you are moving forward. The past isn't where you are headed."

"That's so true," Alicia says, wiping tears. "Thank you."

I nod and give her a back pat. "Okay, I hope to see you all Thursday. Thank you for participating."

We end in a mantra that affirms strength and self-forgiveness, and then I'm out the door. Normally I would have patients in the family counseling center nearby, but I have a parent-teacher conference to attend with Darius' teachers this morning. Since Pat went back to work part-time, I always try to adjust my schedule for whatever Darius needs. It wasn't always possible for me to make every school performance or doctor's appointment when I was in college or my graduate program, but I've done my best.

I've always loved him, since the moment he was born.

I didn't expect to.

I was so angry when I was pregnant with Darius. I was angry at being in prison, and angry to be having a baby I didn't choose to conceive.

Daemon not only manipulated me and abused me and got me sent to prison, he pressured me to have his baby. When the gang started to boom and the drug money started to roll, he felt like a king.

Kings always want an heir. At nearly thirty, he was ready for his.

I wasn't. I was sixteen. I might have been messed up in the head in a lot of ways, staying with Daemon, but there was always a part of me that wasn't fully Jasmine. A part of Marley that was thinking that someday I might be able to change my life and get back what I lost.

I did not want to complicate my situation with a baby. Daemon talked about it for months and months, but I always laughed and told him when I was older...maybe twenty-one. He would laugh back and tell me, "Jaz, by the time you're twenty-one, we're gonna be deep in those babies. Maybe a couple like me, a sweet lil boo just like you. I'll take care of you all, you'll be a damn good mama. You'll see. You're a good girl and you hardly ever hit the club, anyway. You're gonna love the baby-mama life."

I wasn't convinced. Daemon got tired of my protests. When he flushed my birth control one day, telling me it was time, I refused to have sex with him. He got really angry, but that was before he started hitting me, and I had no real fear at that time that he would force me.

He didn't. He just cussed me a lot and walked out, and he didn't come around for a few days. I heard he was staying with another girl, and I was devastated. I was most worried that he would get her pregnant, put me out and take up with her for good. But even as desperate and hurt as I was, I couldn't give in and let him get me pregnant. I wasn't ready for a baby and I knew it.

After about a week, he came back with flowers and pink champagne and apologies and a year's worth of birth control pills. "I'm sorry. I was wrong to flush your pills, but that's not all I'm sorry for. I'm sorry for not being around as much as I should, and for stepping out on you like that when I got mad. Let me show you how much I love you. You go back on the pill for a year and I'll prove I can be a stand-up dude. Then we'll talk about a baby? You would be eighteen when it was born. Deal?"

I agreed, but I'm no fool. I've always been smart—smart enough for my own mind to have a devious bent. I inspected those pills. Those packs didn't look tampered with at all. I even looked up the manufacturer name to make sure it was legit, and they seemed like a real prescription. Illegally obtained, because Daemon had contacts that dealt in pharmaceuticals, but they were real birth control pills.

I should have known, as smart as I was, Daemon was smarter. I don't know how he did it, but the dude had a stash house full of people packaging drugs and contacts for all kinds of fake id's, fake documents, etc. I guess it wasn't that hard for him to sabotage a few packs of birth controls.

He was even smart enough to make sure the first few packs were real, I guess, or maybe it just took a while, because I didn't pregnant for about six months. I guess he felt like that was a good compromise, but I did not.

After everything that had happened with Bodie in the interim, I had no doubts about Daemon anymore. I knew he didn't love me and I didn't really love him.

I had stopped feeling by then, though. I had just succumbed to his brain-washing. Even when I found outI was pregnant, I just...accepted it for a while. I didn't know for sure about the sabotage, so I just told myself it was an accident...or maybe just meant to be. Dae was right. It would be fine. He would take care of me. This was my permanent life now—baby-mama to a drug lord.

Then it all came crashing down, and I was alone and pregnant in prison.

I was scared. My parents told me they wouldn't take my baby to raise while I remained in jail. I decided to give him up for adoption.

That's when Daemon's mother Pat came to see me. She wanted the baby to raise. She wanted him so bad, she was honest with me. She told me that she'd been to see Daemon and he had confessed that he'd gotten me pregnant on purpose by sabotaging my birth control. He told her that so she would see...I was a good girl. A responsible girl. Like her. I wasn't some hoochie he'd taken up with and that was trying to trap him with a baby. He told her he was put away for life, but he could still earn in prison. He said he would always take care of me and his baby, if she would just help me, because I was too young and scared to do it alone.

She only told me about him sabotaging the birth control because she thought it would help me to see that he truly wanted his child. I guess to a woman that had been abandoned by her children's father, the fact that he wanted to take care of his child was an admirable quality.

I didn't exactly feel that way.

What she told me only made me more determined to give the baby up. I was beyond angry at Daemon. I felt...like he had raped me over and over. Even now, I think my feelings on that were very valid. I had been violated in one of the worst ways a woman can be violated. He knew how I felt. How could he take away my most basic right to choose like that?

After learning the truth,I felt nothing but resentment for my pregnancy.

The whole reason I existed at all was because my biological mother was date-raped...roofied by someone thought she could trust. And she couldn't love me. I was the product of that rape, the memory of that man. I was afraid that history would repeat itself. I was afraid if I kept my baby, all I would ever see in him was Daemon's betrayal.

I was so wrong. Even though I had planned to give up Darius, even though a judge had sided with me against Daemon and terminated his parental rights to my baby because of the abuse I had suffered, making it possible for me to give the baby up without his consent, even though I had carefully chosen the birth parents, even though I had met them several times--it didn't turn out like I expected.

The birth--it changed me. I struggled to bring him into the world in a prison hospital ward, and it was a very powerful thing. Just me and my baby, in it together. The minute I saw him for the first time, I wasn't angry anymore.

My baby was not Daemon.

He was love.

It was such a time of clarity for me after so many months of confusion.

Everything happened quickly after that.

And now here I am, twelve years later. The love of my life is a twelve year old boy, who has never met his father and who doesn't even call me Mama.

Traffic is a bitch in Atlanta always, but at midmorning it's eased up, and I make it to Darius' conference in plenty of time. I'm a little surprised to see TJ leaning against a Beamer, waiting on me. He looks like he always does...athletic frame filling in his slacks and button down, cropped hair, clean-shaven, energetic. A friendly smile waiting to happen.

Very handsome. Very preppy. I can hardly remember what he looked like more than a decade ago, with twists in his hair, a practiced sneer on his lips, and a drug haze in his eyes.

I wonder briefly why he's here. These student teacher conferences are boring and routine. TJ comes to recitals, school events, basketball games, and the occasional times Darius has gotten in trouble at school, he's come to those meetings, but he doesn't usually play the dad at boring, standard stuff like annual checkups or school conferences. Although most of the teachers here are aware he's Darius uncle.

He smiles at me easily, and I return it.

"You didn't have to come. They are just gonna tell me how brilliant and wonderful D is, and you already know that."

"I know, I was hoping you and I could grab a coffee after," he walks with me side-by-side, his hands in his pockets.

I stop, giving TJ a long look. He's got his player face on. "What? It's not like you and I never had coffee."

"Don't what me. I know you, something is up. Oh! Is Shay pregnant again?"

TJ gives me a quizzical look. "Damn Jaz, how the hell you do that? Yeah, she's four months."

I jump up and down and clap my hands. "I don't know! But I'm so happy for y'all! That's great. Jori's gonna be so happy! He wants a baby so bad!It's all he's been talking about for months. I think he's the one that knows. He keeps saying he's getting a baby brother for his birthday."

"He's also saying he's getting a baby goat and a cotton candy maker in his room, so...the kid's just a straight-up fool." TJ grins.

I slap TJ on the arm. The fool in the family is TJ...he's crazy about his almost three year-old son. But it's not surprising. He's basically been a surrogate dad since he has seventeen, so to see him falling in love with his own family he's building with his girlfriend is both natural and touching.

"How does this affect the wedding?" I ask. They had a venue booked for a few months from now and they were nearly ready to send out invitations.

"We're gonna hold off on that."

I give him a sharp look. He holds up his hands "Hey, don't go Mama Pat on me. I'd put a ring on her today, but Shay wants it perfect. That's why she made me wait this long, tryna lose that last five pounds of baby weight. But with Jori getting bigger... we both got sad. Missing-the-baby-days-crazy so we thought...just go ahead and knock out the sibling, and they can grow up close. The wedding is the trade-off on another baby. Shay ain't about no pregnant wedding pictures. I think she'd look beautiful, but you know her vanity. It knows no bounds," he grins at me.

He's teasing. They'd only been dating a few months when she got pregnant, but he really stepped up and committed to her. Lucky for him, he knocked up the right girl. She's fantastic.

I tuck my arm underneath his. "Shut up, you know you love her."

"Yeah, I guess," he rolls his eyes again.

I shake him a little. "I'm really happy for you, TJ. I know you were kind of freaked when Shay got pregnant so quick, but what you guys have is real, and good. Just because things happen fast sometimes doesn't mean they don't work themselves out perfectly."

"And sometimes shit takes a long, long time to implode on itself," he says, giving me a long look.

Everything in me collapses. Now I understand why TJ is here today. He's here in case I need moral support to talk about tonight.

Darius is seeing Daemon for the first time tonight. Daemon has been out of jail a few weeks, and he's ironically living in the old house he bought for me. We are all meeting for a "family" dinner at TJ's tonight. It's an impressive new build on the edge of the old hood, only blocks from the place Daemon is staying. When Shay got pregnant, TJ bought the place and now he and his family, plus Pat and Darius live there.

"TJ, I hope you aren't like Pat. I hope you don't have some crazy idea that I'm just going to take Daemon at his word that he's reformed and open the door for him."

I'm opening the door to the school as I say that but TJ holds me back. "Well, I do think Daemon wants to try to do things a little differently, but no...Daemon's business isn't exactly what I was talking about when I said implosion. I meant Bodie."

"Oh my god, do not start in on me about Bodie," I hiss and try to stride into the office. He hooks my arm in his and looks at the school secretary. "Excuse us just a minute," he grins at her to cover the awkward, and tugs me back outside.

He turns me to face him and presses his hand together under his chin, like a prayer. "Marley. Jaz. Mother of my most favorite lil D. My sista. You need to be straight with me. You got something going on with Bodie? Because I can't help you get ahead of this with Daemon if I'm not playing the game with all the info."

"I do not have something going on with Bodie. Even if I did, it's not any of Daemon's business."

He smiles at me like I might smile at an elderly patient with dementia when they say something that doesn't square with reality. Something sad and sweet and endearing, but delusional nonetheless.

"Okay, I'm with you in sentiment, but you know that's not how it's going to go down, Jaz. Daemon is a serious brother, and you're his baby mama and he wants to know his son. He's tryna go straight, do the right thing. He might do his best to accept your distance, but twelve years of prison don't exactly soften a man's personality. I'm worried you and Daemon are planning a very different night tonight."

"He wants me feelin' him? All he's gonna be feelin' is my hand in his face if he brings the player tonight." I warn. "I'm serious, TJ. I agreed to let him see Darius for dinner. That doesn't mean anything beyond that. The man head-tripped me, hit me—more than once—sabotaged my birth control when I he knew I wasn't ready to have a baby, and made me an unwitting accomplice to his drug empire. I'm never taking him back. We aren't going to work things out."

TJ nods sadly. "I know, Marley. And those are all good reasons. But just because you don't love him, doesn't mean we can't all try to be there in the same place for Darius."

TJ's look is so...filled with something remorseful, my throat feels tight just looking at him. There's something more in his words that he doesn't say. I've heard that weight in his voice before, but I haven't heard in a long, long time, and I never quite understood it anyway. I guess TJ feels really guilty that in some ways, he took Daemon's place as Darius' father.

But Daemon is the one that got himself life, not TJ. TJ has nothing to feel guilty about. Certainly not for being the world's best Uncle.

I hate that Daemon is out of prison, for so many reasons, but I decide to tell TJ one of the main ones, hoping he'll understand better where I'm coming from.  "I'm scared of him, TJ. I was always scared of him. There was just one brief point in time that I was more scared of the world than of him. Now I'm all grown up. I can handle the world, but I am still scared of him. And you would be too, if he weren't your brother, your blood."

TJ groans and looks beyond frustrated. He folds me into a hug. "You don't have to be scared, Jaz. You're the mother of his son. You're a part of this family. I know you don't feel that way about him, but we feel that way about you. He's not gonna hurt you, I swear. He might come on strong, but it's only because...he wants to try to be a family with you and Darius. Prison does change people. Lot of time to think in there, you know that. I believe him when he says he's got new goals, and they don't include guns and drugs."

"TJ," I whisper. "I'm not taking him back. You need to hear that, and believe it."

He nods. "I hear you and I'm cool with that. I know he did some shit to you he can never take back and I...well, even if he's changed, I don't blame you for not being able to get past it. You know I love you, girl. I want you to be happy, not scared. I'm just saying...I don't know how he's going to feel about Bodie."

"There is no Bodie. I mean, there is no me and Bodie."

TJ gives me a hard look and then he juts his chin out as he scrapes mortar from between the bricks of the school building.

"Jaz, I'm having a real hard time believing there's not something. Nine years Bodie's been out, and we heard nothing from him in the hood. Now, I find out you've suddenly taken up with his band family, and he's calling me wanting back in mine?"

"He wants back in what family?!?!"I screech. "Back in Sixmob?!?!"

TJ's eyes goes round and he puts up a quelling hand, looking nervously at the white couple hustling into the door and giving us a look at hearing the name of the infamous local street gang that operates just Southeast of this more upscale neighborhood. "Lower your damn voice, Jaz. You want Darius to stay in school here? You don't need to be shouting his daddy's gang name out front, okay? It ain't just him, either. Shay and I are trying get Jori into the pre-school program. They definitely don't need to be knowing I'm still technically a Sixer." He fiddles with his shirt collar, making sure the old gang tat is covered.

"Sorry," I put a hand over my mouth. "You're right. I'm sorry. But what do you mean, Bodie wants back in?"

"He called me today. He's asking for some boys to have his back on something."

"That's insane. He's not involved in anything that he would need...back-up for. And if he did, it wouldn't be illegal shit, and he would go to Trace or Leed or even Adam."

TJ shrugs. "Yeah, I think you are probably right. So that's why I'm thinking this sudden request has a lot more to do with you, than getting up in some old guy's face over some phone calls to his Disney Princess girlfriend."

I point at TJ's chest. "You listen to me, TJ Turner. Bodie got out of this hood and he got out for good. I don't know what insanity he's thinking, but you are just gonna kill that deal right now. Call him back and tell him no. Tell him they said no."

TJ sighs and scrapes more mortar. "Can't do that. Bodie's still as much a part of things as I am. He's never been jumped out or stripped of his colors. In fact, he did his time for the crew with no blowback...that's a member in good standing, even if he ain't been around since. I gotta take his request to the crew. To Daemon. Tonight, after dinner. Up at the pool hall."

I gape at him. "You can't be serious. You're going to the..." I lower my voice. "To the Sixmob nightly meeting? You haven't done that in years."

He rubs his head. "I know. But things are different now. Daemon's out of prison, and he's still in charge. He's my brother, and he's reorgnaizing. He's trying to set his new plans in motion—to get out of bad business and get into legit business. I'm the only one in the crew that's ever done that, you know what I'm saying? He needs my help. I bring the legit business cred...to show it can be done."

"TJ—"

TJ stops fiddling with the brick and gives me a direct look. "Look, there's one more thing I need to know before I take Bodie's request up there tonight. Before I call Bodie back with the answer. Does Bodie know about Darius?"

"What?"

"Have you told him you kept your kid?"

"No. Why would I even tell him that?"

TJ's face crinkles in confused irritation. "I think the better question is why wouldn't you tell him? If you've been catching up, how could you not? Darius is the main event in your life."

I just stare at TJ. I know he's partly right, and I also know I can't really answer his question.

I don't know why I didn't tell Bodie that I have a son with Daemon. I guess I just don't want him to worry. I guess I didn't want exactly what seems to be happening—for Bodie to wander back into his old life...out of curiosity, out of concern, out of a lingering question in his mind over a twelve year old boy.

"You should tell him, Marley. You should him as soon as possible, because if you don't, he might wonder why. You know what I'm saying?"

"Darius is Daemon's son, and there is a paternity test to prove it," I say evenly.

TJ gives me a sympathetic smile. "I know that. You know that. Daemon knows that. Bodie doesn't know shit. Jaz...the last time I talked to Bodie in juvi, I told him you were pregnant but you were  giving up your baby. I asked him what he thought about that. He said he didn't think anything. He said it was nothing to him--but what else would he say to me? I am Daemon's brother.

"I told him the kid was going to a home with a mom and a dad. Don't make it hard on the dude, letting him hear about you keeping Darius some other way than from you. You know, if it goes down like that...he'll wonder. Bodie never knew his father, and it's a sore point. Last thing that dude would want is to think he didn't do right by a kid of his. Or that he had a sketch baby-mama that didn't tell him. You need to get ahead of that. You need to make sure Bodie knows that you saw the paternity results and you know Darius is Daemon's."

"TJ..."

"Marley..." he says, "Please. I don't want Bodie angry at you for any reason, pulling up in this hood, poppin' off accusations at you. Daemon might not like that. Bodie was my boy. I don't want him on the wrong side of Daemon, or the crew. I'm trying to keep this situation...managed, okay?"

What TJ says makes sense. Bodie does have a bit of a temper and propensity to run his mouth. In a normal world, that doesn't usually get somebody a bullet in the brain, but this is Sixmob's universe we are talking about.

"Okay...I'll figure out how to tell him about Darius."

"Soon. It should be pretty simple. Facts are facts." TJ looks past me as he says it.

"Excuse me, Marley?" The school secretary's voice asks brightly from where her head is poked out of the door. "Mrs. Taylors called up to see if you'd signed in? She needs to stay on schedule. She has a lot conferences today..."

"Of course. We're sorry to hold her up."

"My bad, Miss Beech. We were just discussing big family dinner plans tonight. How 'bout you? You got nice plans for tonight?" He gives the twenty-something secretary his best player smile. She blushes at his charm. I roll my eyes.

TJ is faithful, but he's still a flirt.

The Turner men are very charming. All of them. So charming that the truth is a fluid stream. It's a thing I can forgive TJ, but not Daemon.

So...every chapter we are learning a little more from Bodie and Marley's perspectives about their past and Bodie's initiation. It appears that, in the past, Jasmine had some question as to who her baby daddy actually was, but inevitably, paternity results proved it was Daemon. Next chapter...we see what happened at Bodie's initiation--from his perspective.