by Paula Cox
“Just…just hold still,” she whispered. “Let me patch you up.”
Sully did as he was told as she cut a piece of slim gauze and started to tape it to his cheek. She hesitated for all of a second. Should she make him bite the bullet and head for the hospital? Even though her uncle detested doctors, stitches might be in order…
“I see what you’re thinking,” he accused in a gentle voice. “Just plaster me up, and I’ll be as good as new in no time.”
Suddenly too tired to fight with him and knowing it would do little to no good, Lena fixed him up as best she could and moved to the sink to get him a glass of water.
“No, little girl,” he said. “Gonna need something a hell of a lot stronger than that.”
Lena glared at him over her shoulder. “At this hour?” she challenged. “It’s barely lunch--”
“This counts,” he said. “Nothing wrong with a liquid lunch.”
Sighing heavily, Lena pulled a dusty glass from the cupboard and quickly rinsed it out. Sitting on the counter was a half-empty bottle of scotch. She grabbed a handful of ice cubes from the freezer, and splashed the golden liquor on top. Sully eagerly outstretched his hand. As Lena started to hand the drink over, she held it close to her chest and arched her eyebrow. “You only get if you promise to give up the other stuff,” she said in the firmest voice that she could muster.
“Lena, come on. I only want to---”
“Stop chasing a ship that’s never going to come in,” she continued. “And don’t insult me by saying that you’re doing it for me.”
A stern look crossed his face, and Sully pounded a weak fist to the table as he hung his head. “Like I never did anything for you,” he said. “Kept a roof over your head, didn’t I?”
Lena took a step forward and gently slipped to her knees. “Of course you did,” she whispered. “And I’d like to see you under it the next time that I come back.”
“Will there even be a next time?” he asked as a tear glinted in the corner of his eye.
“Don’t be like that,” Lena said. “You know I missed you.”
“Same here, little girl.”
She set the glass aside and expected him to snatch it up in one second flat. But to her surprise, he pulled her into her arms and held her close. The greasy smell of his hair took her back to days when he sat at her bedside and brought his head to hers as he spun stories of the girl, her twin who lived in the space of her mirror. Dwelling on a parallel terrain, the reflection was a being that possessed magical powers. All she had to do was walk across a freshly cut lawn to change it into fields of mint. Pick a rose, and it became a cone overloaded with strawberry ice cream. She could turn back time with a wish. And because she was so special, because she used her magic to share with all the other little boys and girls in the other Deerfield, she had more friends than she could count, and everyone loved her. Sometimes Lena tried to bring the story to the real world, offering to split a soggy sandwich or burnt brownies from her lunch box. But that only resulted in upturned noses and cruel remarks. And yet, more often than not, her lunch was still stolen anyway. That changed when Jax made a point of always sitting at her side.
“Okay,” Lena said as she pushed away and pulled a chair closer to his side. “Here.”
She handed him the glass, and Sully was about to take a quick swig when he suddenly held back and tilted his head.
“So why the endless days with no house call?” he asked. “I mean…if you really are glad to see me.”
“It’s…there were other reasons.” Vague as her words were, she prayed he would simply let it drop and ask her about her classes, or if she finally had friends she could trust – anything but the rest of the story.
“Thought so,” Sully said. Lena felt as if her heart came to a stop, and she clutched the edge of the table as she watched him drink and wipe his mouth with the back of his hand.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“You said no more lying,” he started. “You really gonna sit there with a straight face and tell me that this don’t have something to do with the Munroe boy?”
Lena’s heart came back to life at a rapid fire pace, and her eyes darted around the room as she swallowed hard. “Jax?” she muttered, unable to say or think anything but his name.
“He was always sort of sweet on you,” Sully said. “And you, little girl, you practically lit up every time he came around to call.”
She recalled the sensation of her head spinning and her skin quivering whenever he pulled up to her door to take her to school or just hang. If it were that easy for her uncle to connect the dots, then she had to have been far less subtle than she ever imagined. But why had Jax never noticed? A boy like him would have made the first move if he wanted to be more than her attack dog, forever lying in wait. Maybe she should have been bolder. But that was before. Before she was damaged goods in every sense of the words.
“I don’t know,” she started. “Guess we just grew apart or whatever. I’m sure he doesn’t even think about me anymore.”
“Not the read I got on him this morning.”
“What…what did he do?” she asked. Her gaze moved back to the bandage attached to Sully’s cheek, and a shiver ran up her spine at the thought that he might have wielded the blade. At the end of the day, the Black Legion was his family, and without her there, if she truly meant nothing to him…
“Not like he was leading the charge or anything,” Sully said.
Lena’s stomach started to churn, and she stepped away from the table on shaky legs. Knowing that any shift to the dark side was partially her fault, her fault for running when she could have come clean, she had to balance her body on the edge of the sink as she sucked in several ragged breaths through her chattering teeth.
“But did he…was he one of the ones that hurt you?” she asked.
“Far from it,” Sully said.
Clinging to those words like a slick rock in a raging river, Lena flung her head over her shoulder to face him and hugged herself close. “Then what did he do?” she asked.
“Actually, he’s the reason I’m still in one piece. Even gave me a week to make good on my debt.”
That was the Jax she knew, the man who stuck to his own code even if it contradicted the blood oath into which he was born. Her lips curled into a small smile as she managed to move back to her abandoned chair, her hand light against Sully’s shoulder as she spoke. “Same old Jax then,” she said.
“No accounting for bloodlines,” he said. “With that fuck Stiles for a father.”
“Stepfather,” Lena corrected him.
“Same difference,” Sully said as he drained his glass. “And that mother of his was no better.”
“But he stood up for you,” she said.
“And he said that he wasn’t doing it for me.”
Hope started to flood her veins that her absence might have had the reverse effect of everything she ever imagined. They hadn’t parted as friends; after all that they had shared, they barely spoke. And even as Lena assumed a new life and told herself that the past was better off forgotten and buried, a small part of her always wondered if there might be a way back. Night after night, she dreamed of finding him beside the creek and finally savoring the feel of his lips on her neck as she melted into his strong, hard arms. Given the chance, she might even be able to give herself to him and feel like it was…
“Lena? You’re trembling. You okay?”
She noticed her hand shaking at the end of her arm, and she drew away from her uncle as she smoothed her hands through her hair. “Fine,” she lied. “I just need a second.”
Hurrying up the steps, she bypassed her old bedroom and made a beeline for the bathroom. The girl staring back at her from the mirror now possessed no powers. But she was stronger. Far more sure of herself. Could she face him again without fear and hope?
Lena’s thoughts were invaded by the sound of a bike roaring towards the house, and she dashed to the window. Like an answer
to a prayer, there he was, his body long and lean as brushed a lock of his hair from his eyes. Not even grass that might change to mint was ever so green, and she started to smile when she saw him, ready to fling open the window and call down to him. Would he be surprised? Probably stunned was more like it. But she still pictured him smiling as she waved her hand through the air, and he would rush inside as she flew down the stairs wanting nothing more than to simply hold him for a long sweet moment, as she remembered how safe she could feel in his arms.
Her hands were at the windowsill when he drew his gun and barreled to the door. That didn’t fit. It was the last thing in line with Sully’s version of---
“Jax! Back so…what the hell are you---?”
Sully’s voice fell silent at the sound of a scuffle and someone crashing to the floor. Forgetting the perfect picture of Jax that she had so long held in her heart, Lena broke into a run.
“Jax!” Sully screamed again. “Thought we were square! You said I had a---”
“Change of plans. It’s now or never!” Jax hissed. “Quit dicking us around, asshole!”
As Lena returned to the kitchen, she gasped at the sight of Jax holding her uncle by his collar as he lowered his head to the sink. Jax turned the faucet to attention and held Sully under the running water, his arms flailing as he tried to push away from the biker. Lena looked to the phone and thought of calling for help. But in Deerfield, that was better than doing nothing at all.
And she was right here. “Jax!” she screamed in a sharp voice.
Chapter Five
Jax stood stunned at the sight of Lena in the flesh. For a moment, he felt sure that he must be dreaming. No way she could be here. And this was the last way that he wanted her to see him again. “Lena?” he asked. “Is it really you?”
“You know it is, you son of a bitch!”
Sully still sputtered in the sink, but Jax loosened his hold, his eyes fixed on nothing but Lena as she charged forward and pushed him aside.
“It’s okay, Uncle Tom,” she promised. “I’ve got you now.”
Jax watched with wide, unblinking eyes as she led her uncle back to the table and sat him down slowly. Some bandage on his cheek had fallen away, and Lena seized a rag as she fell to his side and applied fresh pressure to the man’s wound.
“Here,” she ordered as curled his fingers around the cloth. “Hold that right there. I’ll take care of it.”
Sully obeyed with a nod, and Jax took a step closer as she turned away from him. As soon as she made the move, they were face to face.
“Lena.”
Now there was no question that she was here, that she were real. Her golden hair was shorter, but he still longed to touch it and peer deeper into the blue pools of her eyes. Jax started to touch her soft cheek when she shied away and pushed past him again.
“What happened to you looking out for him?” she demanded.
“What do you mean?” he asked as her grabbed her arm and turned her back to him. “Lena, I---”
“Get your god damned hands off of me!” she spat. “And put…put that thing away.”
Jax realized that his gun was still drawn and lazily aimed at her feet. Fearing that it might go off without him wanting it to, Jax stuffed the weapon back in his holster. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know that you were---”
“Save it! Like you wouldn’t have come in with gun’s blazing if you’d even known.”
Her words sliced into his soul. Maybe Eric wound him up, but it was her absence that cut him to the core. Now that she were back, if she were really back… “Lena, please.”
Throwing her hands into the air, she stared him down and stood before him like a waiting target. “So do it,” she challenged. “Take me out so you can show your daddy what a big man you are.”
Balling his hand into a fist, he stepped towards her. Sully screamed at his back, but Jax drowned the man out as he neared Lena’s side. “Don’t you ever say that,” Jax hissed. “You know he’s not my real---”
“I know what I see,” Lena said. “And you look a lot more like him than I ever thought possible.”
Jax struggled to keep his rage in check. As much as it stung when she took off with like on word, Lena knew the score. Did he respect Eric in the confines of the clubhouse? No question about it. Came with the territory. But he was still his own man. And if she couldn’t remember that much… “Lena, come on. You don’t know what you’re saying.”
She came closer to his side, and Jax longed to take her into his arms and just bury his head in her shoulder. Lena’s hold was always soft, and his skin buzzed at the memory of her hand in his when they stole off for secret moments. Every single time, the urge to kiss her bubbled around his lips. But, somehow, he held back. Not because she wasn’t beautiful. No man could ever deny that. Because she was decent, and he never felt good enough to take what he probably had no real right to. “Lena, I---”
Her palm smashed into his cheek, and he fell back with a groan. Stunned by her sudden show of strength, Jax stared at her with wild eyes and twisted his head over his shoulders. “How could you do that?” he asked. “After everything---”
“You came here to beat up an old man who has nothing!” she cried. “Can’t you see how wrong that is?”
Sully took her hand as the blood continued to soak the cloth at his face, but Lena didn’t flinch as she waited for his answer.
“I…don’t know what to...” His voice fell off at the sound of another bike roaring up the path. Jax struggled to his feet and started to move for the door when Lena pressed her arm into the air and held him back.
“No way,” she said. “Not giving you a chance to cover your tracks.”
“I’m not covering for---” He hardly finished his thought when another motor stopped. Jax narrowed his eyes and held his breath as Mitch appeared with a cold smirk and knife in his hand. Sully shuddered at the sight, and Lena looked from one man to the other as he left Jax’s side and barreled towards him with a cold glare.
“It was you!” she cried. “You did this to my uncle.” She moved to slap him, but Mitch did not hesitate to grab her wrist and twist her arm behind her back.
“Let her go!” Jax cried. “She’s not part of this.”
Mitch danced her away from him, but even as Lena struggled in his hold, she shifted her glaring eyes towards Jax. “Yes I am,” she challenged. “My family, my business. How about you put your knife away, jackass?”
Laughing loudly, Mitch kept the blade poised to meet the threat in her voice, and as soon as Jax saw him ready to slash her soft cheek, he forgot their ranks again and pushed forward. As she started to fall, Jax steadied her body with his free arm and pushed Mitch away.
“Don’t you touch her,” Jax demanded. He could feel Lena’s back tensing against his chest, and as he tried to turn her to face him, Lena wheeled away.
“Part of the plan?” she asked. “Trying to show me that you’re still a good guy?”
Jax was speechless as she tended to her uncle and ran her hand down his back. He couldn’t help but want to know her touch, and he felt himself drawn closer to her side when her head shot up and she smirked.
“Then you should have come together,” Lena said. “From what I saw, you would have taken him out one two three if I hadn’t been here.”
What would have been worse? Doing the deed and leaving her to hear about it afterwards? Knowing that she was back? Or trying to reconnect with her only to find that she now had a cruel streak running through her veins?
“Lena, wait---”
“Leave it alone, kid,” Mitch insisted as he took him by the arm. “This is a trash heap.”
Jax shook his head and tried to speak up for her when Lena gritted her teeth.
“So you should feel right at home. Always were white trash in leather.” She had told him that, revealed the whispers behind his back. But when he had her by his side and saw her smile, no one else’s words mattered, because she was on his side.
/> Now he peered into her eyes and clenched his fists. “Was that even true?” he asked. “Or just something you made up to get yourself some protection?”
Even as he spoke the words, he knew they didn’t really make sense. She could have taken things further, and he would have done more than beat up a few boys in the girls’ room. He would have sliced open the throat of any man that dared to even look at her. But they were friends. That’s how it always felt.
“Get out,” she said. “The last thing I need is more trouble with you or your kind.”
Jax was almost on her, his hands ready to seize her shoulders. “What the hell is that supposed to---?”