***
Chapter the seventh, in which we find out who Anne is. Sort of. However, it's the last step before the kind of stuff you guys will probably enjoy, so bear with me. I intend to update again this evening before I crash for the night. I want to do a last edit before it goes out. Sex scenes aren't really my wheelhouse.
I'm going to be ridiculously busy for the next week or two with a new job, so I apologize in advance if things trail off with slower updates. I do promise to get to a point of some resolution before I bail on the daily updates.
-B.
***
They came out of Church to find Tara waiting in the clubhouse. Chibs laughed at the look on Tig's face as he confronted the doctor. Her posture and the look in her eyes was right out of Gemma's book—it said something like I'm keeping my mouth shut, and you'd better be goddamn grateful for that, because I don't trust this at all.. Her medic bag was on the table next to her.
"All right, show me your worst." She said.
Tara looked at Half-Sack first and proclaimed him concussed, dehydrated, and desperately in need of a bath. The young man had so many scrapes, burns and bruises that Tig realized how lucky he'd been. The injuries weren't the limit of it, either. There were all kinds of ways to make a man scream that barely left a mark. Half-Sack had hinted at things in Church, but gone silent when pressed for details. Tara gave Kip a bottle of disinfectant, some pain-killers, and ordered him to shower and see her later. There was a haunted look in her eyes when she turned to Tig.
The wound in Tig's side, where a piece of metal in the accident had left an inch-deep puncture, made Tara wince. He winced more when she cleaned it. She opined that he was unbelievably lucky he was he hadn't died of sepsis.
As she rebandaged it, he asked. "How's Anne?"
Tara's eyes raked his, though her pensive smile was gentle. "She wouldn't let me do a rape kit. All I could do was give her IV hydration and put enough Ativan in her to get her to sleep."
"Where is she?"
"We put her in Jax's old apartment for now." Tara removed her latex gloves. "Tig, who is she?"
He shrugged. "The Nords were keeping her. Like… a pet, I guess. She never said how she got there. Wrong time, wrong place? Wrong friends?"
After Tara released him, he downed his antibiotics with a beer and went to find Anne. He felt responsible for her. Tig let himself into Jax's apartment quietly. The space had become little more than a storage room for Jax and Tara, but he could see Gemma's hand in the scent of clean sheets and the organized kitchen. He found Anne in Jax's bed, asleep and curled on her side. One arm was tethered to an IV. The other was sheltering her face. Her hair was shiny and damp from showering.
He felt, in some way, comforted by the sight of her safe and asleep. The Sons owed her some peace of mind for what she'd done. Getting the cell phone was impressive enough. Holding her shit together in a firefight long enough to free Tig and kill the Nord leader? She was tough, that was for sure.
Tig rubbed his temple with one hand. He hoped she'd be able to stay tough. Clay wanted to talk to her tomorrow, and he wasn't sure how happy she'd be about facing down another assortment of large, tattooed men. She'd be even less happy when she found out they weren't planning to let her walk away.
***
Clay's hand rested on an open box in front of him on the table. It contained Anne's wallet, a broken necklace with a gold charm of a galloping horse on it, and a set of keys. The Nomads had found it in Connor's office, along with the things they'd taken from Tig and Half-Sack. Tig had been somewhat consoled over the wreck of his bike by getting his rings back. Only somewhat—the bike was painful loss.
Anne, however, did not look comforted at all by the sight of her ID in Clay's hands. She was wearing Tara's clothes, with one of Jax's old shirts hanging around her like a jacket. She'd rolled up the sleeves, but her arms were tightly crossed as if she was cold.
In deference to Anne's nervousness, she was only facing Clay, Jax and Bobby rather than the whole chapter. In spite of it, she was terrified. It didn't show in the set of her shoulders or her raised chin, but Tig could see it. Her eyes had the neutral blankness of captivity, and she'd gone very still. She had declined a seat, preferring to stand and face down Clay across the table. He felt guilty standing next to her. He hoped she found it reassuring—and didn't notice that he'd put himself between her and the door.
"So you're the girl who kills Nords. Annika Harris?" Clay set her driver's license on the table in front of him with a click. It was, improbably, an Alberta license. She wasn't even American.
After a moment, she nodded.
"The way our Kip tells it, you're a hero."
When she didn't react, Clay continued. "Tig wants us to offer you temporary club protection. But for that, I need to know what we're protecting you from. What's their stake in you?"
Anne shook her head. "I don't want your protection. I want to go home."
"I'm sorry, but that's a very bad idea." Clay said.
"So I traded one cage for another?" Anne said, her voice icy. "Fine. Just don't pretend like you're doing me any favours."
Bobby snorted. Clay and Jax wore matching looks of astonishment. Tig, having heard her cursing at Nords, was less surprised. He decided to keep her the hell away from any weapons until they could get her safely out of Charming.
Anne turned to leave the room. Tig reached out and stopped her with a hand on her arm. She stilled, then turned her face away, her forehead against Tig's shoulder. It was the same way she'd stood, just barely touching him, after he'd cut the chain from her neck. He felt like an utter bastard.
"Clay, look at this." Tig gently pulled Anne's shirt up to bare her back. She shuddered unhappily, but didn't resist as he showed Clay the swastika that dominated her upper back. Dark and savage, it stood out on her skin like a brand, overshadowing even the red welts and bruises that surrounded it. "He did this to mark her. They're not going to let her walk away. She's walking evidence of how far the Nords crossed the line."
Bobby inhaled deeply. "If this gets out, the media would go batshit. It'd bring a world of hell down on the Nords. If even one Nord knew about this, she'd be dead before clearing California."
Tig felt Anne flinch at the mention of media.
"That's serious ink." Clay said.
Jax winced and looked away, then back at Anne. "Darlin', you're safest with us."
Jax's puppy-dog charm was lost on Anne. Her hands had tightened on Tig's arms, and now her fingernails were digging into his skin in silent protest.
At a nod from Clay, Tig released her. She slipped past him and out the door.
"I don't buy this." Bobby said. "I mean, the Nords have obviously gone insane, but just grabbing some innocent chick and doing that? Rape her, sure. But keep her around, mark her, make it a game? That's something personal."
Clay tapped Anne's wallet. "She's 33, she's from Calgary—which, I might add, is pretty goddamn strange on its own—and she's got staff tags from a high school. Not much to go on. The only link I can see there is that the Nords have a pretty big following in Calgary."
Tig nodded slowly. "She doesn't seem like the kind of chick who hangs around gangs. She talks like she's educated, and she's got no ink 'cept what they slapped on her back."
Jax shrugged. "Even we've got some clean-looking associates."
"Juice is doing some research." Clay said. "I'm not letting her slip off across the border just yet. She's a loose end I don't like, and anyway, she just murdered a Nord. She needs to lay low for awhile."
"She's going to be pissed."
"Better pissed off than dead." Clay said, leaning back in his chair and shrugging. "Make sure she knows this is for her own good. And in the meantime, if you and Sack can get anything out of her, that's all to the good. If not, at least keep her quiet, okay?"
"Can do."
Anne wasn't in the clubhouse when Tig finished with Clay and Jax. His heart sank for a moment, then he saw Half-Sack leaning in the side doorway. Anne was outside, sitting at the bench less than a stones throw from the door. Her arms were folded tightly against her chest and her face was tilted into the sunlight, eyes closed. Tig exchanged a look with Half-Sack and sauntered over to Anne. He wondered if she'd be angry.
"Hey mystery girl. You okay?"
Her eyes opened at his first footstep towards her. The gaze she turned at him was empty of emotion. She sounded weary. "I've had better days. Better years."
"It'll get easier." He sat on the table, his feet on the bench next to her. He lit a cigarette and tried not to stare at her back, where the tattoo was hidden under Jax's shirt.
Anne looked down at her hands. "I can't leave, can I."
"Nah. Not yet. You're safer here. No leaving the clubhouse 'less someone takes you."
She looked over her shoulder at him, green eyes solemn. She fell silent. After a moment, she leaned back and rested her head against his knee. She did not cling or cry—she just leaned on him, as if to anchor herself.
He realized in that moment that he could fuck her if he decided to. The only people here she wasn't jumpy with were him and Half-Sack. She was isolated and vulnerable, surrounded by things that scared her. Then he remembered that she'd stabbed a man in the back the day before. He smiled and stroked her hair. There was something hard to resist about her balance of tough as hell and terribly vulnerable. If she stuck around Charming for any length of time, he'd have her. And then she'd go back to her old life. No strings, no complication. Perfect.
