by Paula Cox
“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 abou
t 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---?”
Mitch suddenly pulled him hack and pressed his mouth close to his ear.
“Means that they’re both not worth the free pass,” Mitch said. “So let’s make an example of them and get back to base.”
Without Lena, all he had was Eric’s pride to take some comfort in. The thought of heading back triumphant burned faint against his soul. And when he saw Lena waving him off with a cold gaze, he thought of dealing with the debt right then and there. He would never hurt her. Even now the idea of laying hands on her turned his stomach. But Sully was still fair game. He had a job to do and---
“You’ll have to get through me first,” Lena said.
Mitch egged him on, and Jax almost went for his gun when he remembered the creek and couldn’t bring himself to aim the pistol again. But he had to so do something. Whatever else she thought, he was still a man.
“Two days,” Jax said.
“Kid, what the fuck do you think you’re---”
“I’m giving him two days to make good.”
Jax started to turn on his heel when he looked back and met Lena’s eyes. Part of him wanted to take it back and scoop her up into his arms. But for what? So she could knock him down again and keep playing him for a fool?
“Better pay up,” Jax said. “Next time I won’t be so nice.”
Chapter Six
Jax nursed a beer in the Black Legion clubhouse. Music mingled along with the sound of pool cues smacking into balls. He waited for Eric to show his face as the long day started to turn to night. Would there be a price to pay? Probably. He still didn’t have the bread to show for any efforts, but he had put the fear of god into the loser. And Lena…
She was so close but so far. He reflected on the endless nights at the creek. They used to talk through the shadows, and when Lena’s voice was spent, she snuggled against the grass and pillowed her head under her hands. Jax liked to watch her sleep, to see her dreaming. Was he part of it? Did she picture him at her side behind her soft eyelids? He could only hope and stroke her hair. She always looked like an angel, and he wanted her to stay like that forever so he could just drink in the feel of her, the sight of her. But dreams had a way of breaking, and Lena would always stretch her arms over her head as she awoke.
And she would smile.
You’re still here.
I can’t leave you.
He had held her and dared to bring his lips to her brow and pressed her closer. As much as he wanted her, it was going to be on her say so. The thought of forcing her made him sick. And it was enough to just feel her body in his arms.
“Yo, Jax!”
Turning away from his beer, Jax saw Eric moving closer as a cigarette dangled from his lips.
“You gonna chew me out now or what?” Jax asked as he finished his drink and signaled to Artie’s old lady in a tight yellow halter for a fresh round.
“No way,” Eric said as he assumed the stool at his side. Pushing a bill into the girl’s ample cleavage, he smiled and took another drag.
“Maybe you didn’t get the money,” he said. “But you made a stand. That has to feel kind of good, right?”
Jax tried to nod, but he just waited for his refill and sucked it down as soon as the foam frothed over the edge of the mug. He started chugging his fresh beer, and when he set the glass aside and asked for another Eric ordered the girl back and forced Jax’s face to his.
“Let it feel good,” he said. “Maybe it hurts to see her in the all out. But better to know what you’re up against, right?”
Somehow he nodded, but there was nothing but a rock in his soul as he made the move. He had always told himself that Lena ran because she was scared. Was it of him? Did it have to do with something or someone else? He choked back the bitterness of her departure and started to resign himself to the fact that she was moving on. Jax tried to follow a similar path. But staying in Deerfield meant memories of her around every corner. The creek was precious, but there were the times when she’d been on his bike as they raced away from the traffic, leaving school and every other kind of pain aside. Lena clung to him as he swerved towards a side road and drove his body like an expert over the dirt. Jax would turn his head over his shoulder and tell her that he’d never let her fall.
I get that.
And Lena’s voice would trail off as she pushed her palms to the air and let the wind fall across her form. Jax would slow up and try to find her hand. And their fingers would meet as she stayed perched behind his back.
Make me fly, Jax.
He could never deny her anything. All she had to do was ask. And he brought her hand to his chest as he hit the clutch harder and accelerated his speed. Lena laughed into his hair as he kept rising towards the horizon, and he dared to glance over his shoulder.
I’ve got you. Trust me.
Lena had laughed and said she believed in him. When they finally slowed to a stop, he had been quick to leap off his bike and wind his hands around her waist. He had her. And she could always trust him.
“Maybe…if I’d only kissed her…”
Eric laughed at the comment and slapped Jax on his back. “Even the best piece of tail ain’t worth all this what if,” he said. “And nothing trumps club politics. You know that, right?”
Jax looked into his eyes and swallowed back the bile building in his throat as he narrowed his gaze and licked his lips. “Guess I learned from the best,” Jax grunted.
Eric started to seethe, and Jax made no move to dodge what had to be an impending blow. He just waited with clenched fists and let the beer sour in his empty stomach as the buzz rushed towards his brain and caused the room to spin.
“Something you want to say here?” Eric asked.
Where was his mother? Why had she really left?
“No,” Jax said. “Guess if anyone knows what it is to be let down, you could tell me a thing or two.”
Eric’s jaw fixed in place, and Jax waited for him to spin the story in his favor when his stepfather just playfully punched his cheek.
“Common ground could be good for business,” Eric said. “Hey, Mandy!”
The girl in yellow shot to attention and moved to refill is glass. Jax shuffled in his seat as the froth started to foam, and as soon as she set the glass down, Jax moved to sip when Eric gripped his arm.
“Keep kicking them back,” Eric suggested. “Anything to stop the pain, right?”
Part of him wanted to keep his mind clear. Maybe he could still make his way back to Sully’s house and plead his case. But was there really a point? Lena had made her mind clear, and he retreated into his mug as Eric tousled his hair.
“You’ll get over it,” Eric promised. “One pussy is as good as another.”
To him, Lena was always more than t
hat. But he choked her image down along with the beer. Better to push her down and never think of---
“Oh yeah!” Mitch cried from the other side of the room. “Blondie would have been mine in like two shakes. Now that she’s home, looking forward to getting a fair shot at her cunt.”
Jax tossed his mug aside and ignored the sound of the shatter as he stepped over the shards and hurried toward the pool table. “Don’t you even think about it!” Unleashed, with no one holding him back, Jax grabbed his neck and forced Mitch’s body into the green felt. Crawling up on the table, Jax held him in place and started throwing fists as he spat into Mitch’s yes. “You touch her, and I will fucking kill you!”