A/N: This is my second SoA story, but it differs from my preffered style of writing (first person) and follows the paths of both Hellhound and Hell is Where We've Been by being a third person story. As always, this is OC-centric. I really like to try and create a good, unique story, that could survive outside of the SoA realm.
Anyway, this is chapter 1. Story is already fully thought through. Chapter 2 is already complete but will not be posted unless reviews are given, or there are enough reads to warrant me continuing this story. So please, please, please, let me know what you think. Constructive criticism always welcomed.
Title comes from a Rise Against song. A lot of insipiration came to me from listening to this song (on repeat more times than I'd care to admit too, lol). Perhaps gives a hint of what's to come?
There comes a time in every persons life where they must make a drastic decision. An overwhelming decision with no seemingly right or wrong answer. A decision that will forever change their life.
And tonight, crouched behind a crumbling wall stained with too many graffiti tags to count, 23-year-old Frankie Lutz, must make such a decision.
She hides behind the wall, plastering her back to the painted stone, clamping one hand over her mouth to avoid making any noise and gripping the handgun that the mysterious stranger has given her with the other.
"Do you know how to use one of these?"
"…Yes."
There were no other words before the man cloaked in a dark shadow darted inside the warehouse and left her here, holding a gun that feels comfortable in her hand. It was only when she heard the bangs that are regrettably familiar to her ears that she hid behind the wall, among the slowly falling snow.
The squeaky iron door of the long since abandoned warehouse flies open with force, hard enough to ricochet off the exterior wall.
"GET HIM!" A voice, an unfamiliar male voice yells.
Frankie inches herself up carefully and peers over the corner of the wall. Her stranger, the one who gave her the gun, runs from the building – still mysteriously covert with his sweatshirt hood pulled up over his face as he bounds across the expansive parking lot.
He quickly looks around the parking lot, presumably looking for her, before quickening his pace.
Six people rush out of the warehouse, each of them toting firepower. And not the type of power either her or her stranger has, no. These people are carrying weapons of the automatic variety.
So here is where Frankie finds herself in the thick of her decision. Left or right?
Help the stranger who is in the middle a very dangerous 6-to-1 chase, or run?
Left or right?
You see, there really is no left or right. There is no wrong nor just. The stranger, her stranger, could be as much of a bad guy as the ones chasing him.
There is no correct answer.
So the clear option must be to run. Clearly, it is in Frankie's best interest to slink away and forget about her stranger, save herself and not her stranger.
Unfortunately, Frankie's never been much of a clear thinker and has always been one to listen to her gut. And right now her gut is clearly telling her only one thing.
Her stranger is in trouble, and she's the only one around.
"I fucking thought this part of my life was over. God damn it." Frankie cusses silently to herself, mentally damning her intestines and how they all too often override her head and survival instincts.
She thinks quick and in a nanosecond a resolution becomes clear.
McGuyver best be jealous.
She looks over the corner again. Her stranger runs in a whip-like zig-zag pattern to avoid the bullets nipping at his heels, only occasionally firing off a blind shot over his shoulder as he flees.
He's fast, sprinting through the parking lot and jumping over any hurdle or piece of debris in his way. But no matter how fast one is, six guns can usually get one target – quick maneuvers or not.
It's only a matter of time.
Frankie bolts up from her clandestine position and springs to the side of the warehouse, where the old oxygen tanks are stored. The warehouse used to be a medical equipment facility and since abandoned in 2007 it has served a much sinister purpose – a purpose that had originally brought Frankie to this very place.
Gripping each thick tank by its top, she lifts each one up with ease until she at last finds a tank with substantial weight to it – a tank that is thankfully full.
She grabs the tank and takes off, running towards the near-stampede.
All the running bodies have their backs turned to the brunette and she uses this as an opportunity to silently run up behind them. When she's close enough she hurls the tank, creating a downward spiral, so it rolls up to the group of six. When the two men creating the caboose of the running pack hear the steel tank clinking against the broken pavement, they look back.
They see the tank.
And under the pale full moon, they see Frankie. One of the disguised men take aim at Frankie, firing off a few shots while Frankie takes aim.
Pure oxygen is extremely flammable. One little spark and a tank of oxygen can essentially become a bomb.
So, with lack of a better idea, Frankie fires at the tank that rolls underneath the feet of the chasing group.
The men realize what's happen far too late to get out of the way, and as the third shot Frankie fires breeches the thick shell of the tank, it erupts into a ball of flames that engulfs the three closed to it and sends the others flying onto their backs.
With pale hazel eyes that should be wider than they are, Frankie stares at the burning bodies near the epicenter of the mild explosion. Oblivious to everything else, even the surprising lack of negative feelings after murder, she is only aware of the horrible smell.
Burnt flesh and cloth smells exactly like she remembers it from all those years ago.
In the oddest of ways, the acrid smell is comforting. It brings her back to before everything… before everything turned to shit, back when she was still content with being ignorant about how deep evil seeps in this world.
The sickeningly crackle of blistering flesh that quickly follows, however, is one thing Frankie could never get used to. It still makes her stomach churn like it used to.
Frankie tears her eyes away from the six men incapacitated by her actions and finds her stranger across the parking lot. He clutches his left arm close to his body and stares with muted wonder at the olive skinned woman who just saved his life.
"Are you okay?" She shouts.
"I got shot." He shouts back in a gruff voice weighed down by regret.
Frankie wipes the gun down with the bottom of her tank top then tosses it off into the distance, away from the burning bodies and closer to the edge of the fence that divides the warehouse from the nearby overgrown, barren lot next door.
She approaches her injured stranger cautiously out of some unknown fear. Irony to the epitome. Here she is, just having taken the lives of at least three people – maybe more, and she's afraid.
If anything, this poor stranger should keep running.
But he doesn't. He stays still in that one spot under a broken street lamp, clutching his arm and shifting his weight from foot to foot.
"That was smart." He says when Frankie reaches him.
Frankie does not respond to the stranger, instead she silently and gently takes a hold of his injured left arm.
Her stranger wears a thick black sweatshirt, but it is evident that a large portion around his upper arm is slickly wet. Frankie inspects his arm closely, ignoring the stares from her stranger that burn her skin.
"You a doctor or somethin'?" He asks, suspicion clear.
"No, I'm a nurse. I work over at-" Frankie snaps her mouth shut and swallows the rest of her sentence.
Her stranger smirks, almost laughing.
"I wouldn't trust me either. Then again, I just didn't take out six guys twice my size."
"Well, I didn't have much of a choice, now did I? It was either help you or let them get you and probably kill you." Frankie snaps as heat rises in her sculpted cheeks.
"Oh, you had a choice."
Their eyes meet for the briefest of moments, barely long enough to count. But still the stranger's dark brown eyes send a shiver through Frankie's spine that tingles all the way to her toes. His eyes are so dark they're almost black, as if he has no iris – just an amazingly large pupil. Like a character from a macabre novel, her stranger stares at her with black eyes.
Frankie sticks two fingers into the bloody hole torn through the thick cotton of his sweatshirt and pulls the sleeve apart in opposite directions. The sleeve rips in two and the lower half floats down to the ground with no concern in the world. Frankie gets up close to the fully exposed wound, inspecting every little thing about it as she rotates his arm around.
"It's got a clean exit, but you still need stitches - I've got an emergency bag in my car, should have a suture kit in it." Frankie says, mostly just muttering to herself, upon completing her inspection.
Her stranger wretches his arm free and takes back control of his limb.
"I'll be sure to take care of it. Thanks, Doc." He gives a curt gesture of farewell then takes back to holding his limp arm.
"You can't wait to have that stitched up." Frankie says firmly.
"I've got someone who can do it when I'm safe."
"At least let me bandage it, you can't just go walking around with an open hole in your arm." Frankie pleas, as her stranger moves to make an exit.
The stranger looks at her for a long, suspenseful second, before begrudgingly agreeing.
Frankie leads her stranger towards her Charger parked in an adjoining lot, hidden behind a dense wall of overgrown trees and brush. None of the lights in this abandoned part of the industrial area work, haven't in years. But on nights like this, where the moon is full and sparse clouds blend into the black sky, everything is clear as if the lights worked yet again. Even the light snow fall seems to reflect the luminescent qualities of the bright moon.
Frankie steals glances of her stranger as they walk in hurried strides, catching his physical features as he passes in and out of shadows.
He is easily a half foot taller than her, which does not mean she is short – 5'7 is tall in most circles, but he is at least 6'1. His head is shaved, with a subtle stubble of dark brown hair. Each step he takes is heavy, sounded off by the jingling of his wallet chain and the thud of his boots.
"I'm Frankie, by the way." She offers.
"Happy."
Frankie's brow furrows, and she looks away; confused at his response. He's happy?
Stealing another sideways glance, she realizes he must be talking about something else because he does not look happy, not even remotely by any definition of the word.
"What were you doing here tonight?" Frankie asks, unsure of whether or not she truly wants an honest answer.
"What's a pretty little thing like you doing here all alone tonight?" Her stranger quips right back.
Frankie shuts her mouth and forces her eyes to stay focused on her forward momentum.
Her stranger looks satisfied, a little closer to his statement of happiness – or at least on his way.
They finally reach her sleek black car, and Frankie pulls out a lonely ring of keys to open the trunk where her emergency kit is. Her stranger leans against the side of the drivers door, taking the resting period to ignite a cigarette and tenderly poke around his gunshot wound.
"Are you sure you don't want me to close that up? It won't take long, I promise."
There's a long moment of silence. Buried down deep into the depths of her trunk, Frankie bends and turns to see over the edge of her car. Her stranger is still there, unblinkingly staring at a chunk of freed pavement by his feet.
"Hey!" Frankie shouts to get his attention.
"We should both get out of here as quick as we can. Where's that gun I gave you?" Her stranger asks, not bothering to look away from the ground.
"I wiped it down then ditched it. I'm not stupid enough to carry a hot piece." Frankie replies while methodically fishing through her well-organized medical kit to obtain two pressure bandages.
Her stranger looks at her, studying, but Frankie pretends not to notice the uncomfortable stare that again burns her tanned flesh. He even goes as far as to come around to the back of her car and stare at her, directly over her tattooed shoulder.
"Do I know you from somewhere?" Stranger asks with as much skepticism and suspicion as when he asked if she were a doctor.
Frankie freezes solid, but thankfully most of her face is hidden from her stranger's burning looks.
"No. That'd be impossible… I just moved out here six months ago." She says.
Her stranger nods and takes back to leaning against the side of her car, but his nod is overflowing with sarcasm and knowing.
It sends another tingling chill down her spine, but this time it terminates near her stomach. Almost like a gnawing feeling of worry, but not quite.
Frankie physically shakes off the heavy settled feeling of unease before closing the lid of her trunk and attending to her stranger. While trying to be meticulous about cleaning the wound with saline and her placement of the pressure bandages, Frankie's anxious mind gets ahead of herself like a dangerously de-railed rollercoaster.
She doesn't remember this man, her stranger, but that doesn't mean much. She doesn't remember much of her years spent in Boston, so for all she really knows, Frankie could know this man.
And that's not good.
Frankie came to California because it was as far away from Boston she could get without leaving the country; California is as far as she could get without using a passport and being entered into any national databases.
Call it paranoia, but even though Frankie is not the same person she was back in Boston, not only is Frankie thousands of miles away, but she wishes to remain as hidden as possible. As written in the infamous novel Catch-22, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.
Frankie can't think of a better quote that applies to her life.
"There. All done… Actually, wait." Frankie mumbles. She pulls open the drivers door and bends over to the passenger's seat to retrieve a slip of paper and a writing utensil from her purse. Her purse, a sparsely packed leather bag, does not yield what she desires – the best she could do is a stick of black eyeliner and an old receipt for some coffee.
She scribbles her number on the back of the receipt and hands it to her stranger, now patched up the best to be expected after a minutes work.
"Please call me if you need any more help with that… You strike me as the type who avoids hospitals, and I can come to you. Just don't hesitate to call… You see any abnormal bleeding or any signs of infection, just call. Okay?" She says sternly, rambling off advice to her stranger who looks like he does not appreciate it.
"Sure thing, Doc." Her stranger says.
Frankie doesn't bother to correct him again and say she's only a nurse.
Not that she could if she wanted to. He was gone in the blink of an eye, running off into the thick of the trees. Running off into the darkness.
That was a year ago and in many ways that was the beginning of everything. It was the catalyst.
Without a doubt, Frankie's decision to save her stranger changed her life forever. She just didn't realize how drastically it would change her life.
Left or right?
Frankie's still not sure if she chose correctly.
Christmastime is usually filled with joy and family, turkey with stuffing and evergreen trees wrapped in sparkling garlands, lost among a pile of presents wrapped with ornate paper.
For Frankie, Christmas bears none of these things. It brings no jovial feelings. No family calls or visits. Not a single tree is decorated, not a single wreath is hung, not a lonely present wrapped.
For Frankie, Christmas is usually celebrated with a bottle of Jaggermister and her old copy of The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. It may be a lonely ritual, but it is her ritual, and though it does not bring her comfort it supplies the miniscule amount of normality she needs to survive. It's tried and true.
She's been watching The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly every Christmas since she was nine and her father popped the movie into the VCR to keep her occupied and away from the basement – away from his dirty deeds.
Curling up in the corner of her camel coloured leather sofa, Frankie cuddles the chilled bottle of Jaggermister close to her bosom.
Just as the opening theme starts and Frankie begins to hum along, her cell phone buzzes and dances around on her oak coffee table. Frankie leans forward, careful not to spill any liquor, and glances at the caller ID.
She knows that number. Besides the hospital it's the one number that calls her phone on a regular basis.
Heavily sighing to herself, Frankie places the bottle down then answers the phone while stimulatenously pressing pause on the TV's remote.
The gritty credits flicker on her small television screen.
"Where do you need me?" Frankie asks, a little bored. This dance of theirs has become a routine she is well adjusted to. They call her up, any time, any day, regardless of holidays or other important dates, with any medical emergency they need help with. A broken bone here. A stab wound there.
You know, the usual.
"The clubhouse." The voice, her stranger, says on the other end.
"You do know it's Christmas, right? Don't you guys ever take a night off?"
"No."
Another sigh. A longing sideways glance at her mostly full bottle.
"I can be there in ten, what am I dealing with?"
But her stranger is no longer listening; he has hung up the phone.
"Prick." Frankie makes a sour face at her Palm Pixi. By now she should really be used to it, her strangers aloof ways of farewells, but she isn't.
Nevertheless, there is work to be done and wounds to be healed. So Frankie takes one swift gulp of her Jaggermister and turns her television off. She shrugs on her navy blue Pea coat and grabs her purse and medical kit from the kitchen counter near the door then leaves her lonely apartment.
Besides, it's not like she has anything better to do on Christmas. It's not like she has a family to celebrate with. It's not like she has much to be cheerful about.
Might as well go take care of some bloody bikers.
Frankie has been called to the Sons for a wide variety of reasons, and by now has not only become accustomed to being around the large gang of bikers, but she has come to enjoy their company. They may be a rowdy bunch but if you're willing to look past the leather and typical bad-boy attitudes, the Sons are a rather diverse group of men who know how to do one thing well above all else.
They know how to throw a killer party.
So when Frankie rolls into the long parking lot of the SoA compound, she is more surprised that she was surprised to find a party more than anything else. She shouldn't have expected anything less.
Frankie parks her Charger close to the exit because a large sea of people gather near the fire-pit and block any feasible entrance for such a large car. She slings her heavy emergency kit over one shoulder and leans to balance out the dangling weight.
Quickly, Frankie asks the first person she sees where she's needed, a young member by the name of Chad Pembroke, who tells her to report to the Chapel. She asks him what she was called for, but Chad can offer nothing more than a shrug as he's pulled away by a skinny red-head in a revealing Santa Claus costume.
Frankie makes her way through the crowd, having to forcibly push past more than her fair share of drunken celebrators in order to reach the clubhouse door.
Her stranger is waiting for her on the other side of the door. Happy, she found out rather quickly is his preferred name. What his true name is remains a mystery, but Frankie has quite often thought of it as being 'Dave'. Why? She's not sure - he just really seems like a Dave.
"What's going on?" Frankie shouts over the loud ambient noise of the bar.
"Juice kinda got stabbed and Chibs is too drunk to do anything." Happy says while taking his time ushering her to the Chapel.
"What do you mean he kinda got stabbed?" Frankie asks with a cocked eyebrow.
"I mean the drunk dumbass fell on his own fucking knife when he was trying to impress some chick."
Frankie would like to say she's surprised.
But she isn't.
Happy opens the Chapel doors for her, and when Frankie sees Juice she tries not to laugh but fails miserably.
Juice lays stomach-down on the carved redwood table, his switchblade sticking straight up from his left butt cheek. A visible stream of blood stains through his jeans, but it's far from being an alarming amount.
He twists his neck around and looks up at Frankie as she walks in.
"Hey there, Doc." He smiles crookedly. Even though Frankie is not a doctor, it is how she is known to the Sons and while they sometimes refer to her as Frankie, she is mostly called upon with the simple three-lettered nickname of Doc.
Frankie's still not sure if it's sarcastic, if they're teasing her over not being a full doctor. But she doesn't mind.
Okay, well maybe she does a little, but that's a secret she keeps even from herself.
"Knife in the ass. This is definitely a new low, even for you Juice." Frankie jokes.
"It was an accident, all right! I dropped the knife and forgot about it…"
"Yeah and then you sat down right on top of it." Chibs snickers. The Scotsman sits at the table with an amused look on his scarred face, seemingly ignoring Juice's body laying down right in front of him, as he rolls a joint on the back of Juice's thigh.
"It could've happened to anyone!" Juice yells in his defense.
"Yes. Anyone could've sat down on their own knife hard enough to imbed it in their ass." Frankie says sarcastically as she sets down her kit and prepares.
"I didn't sit down, I fell." Juice mutters, angrily turning his head away from Frankie.
"Of course you did." Frankie coos.
"You shoulda seen it, Doc. It was the funniest damn thing I've seen all year." Chibs smirks.
Frankie places everything she'll need for this particular extraction on the edge of the table, well within reach and arranged by order of use. First a bunch of gauze, second a suture kit, more gauze, some tape….
Before she begins, Frankie turns to Chibs who has not yet finished stuffing his ground pot into the curved wrapping paper.
"You think you can help me out with this?" Frankie asks the Scotsman, gesturing with a thumb to Juice's buttocks.
"What do you need me for?" Chibs asks, grumbling a bit and showing that he is not eager to help his injured brother.
"I don't have any more Lidocaine left - he's going to squirm. I need you to hold his legs down then clear away the blood while I stitch the incision," She turns now to face Happy, "Do you think you could pin his arms down?"
Happy nods.
Chibs begrudgingly accepts.
Juice is not happy about either.
"This gonna hurt, Doc?" He asks.
"No. Not one bit." Frankie says.
"You're a horrible liar."
"I know."
Happy and Chibs take their respectful positions and Frankie gets a firm grip on the knife's handle, pressing deep into the small of Juice's back with the other for leverage.
"Alright, take a deep breath." She orders Juice.
He complies.
Frankie pulls on the knife until it becomes loose, then slowly lifts it out of Juice's thick flesh. When the knife is almost out she motions with a jerk of her head for Chibs to come over and grab some gauze.
Chibs holds the gauze near the stab wound and no sooner than Frankie gets the knife completely loose does Chibs presses gauze into the wound.
Juice is stiff underneath her, contracting all his muscles against the pain of having a knife pulled from his ass.
"Remember to breathe, Juice." Frankie warns.
He relaxes, but only slightly.
"Alright, let's get down to business…."
END! of Chapter 1. Please review, whether it be a one-word comment (IE; Good, Bad), a long review or constructive criticism, they are all appreciated and push me to write better.