Hi everyone! After a few hectic weeks with exams, drama and plenty of exciting things I'm back with a new chapter. I really hope you enjoy it!
PS. And I just wanna send big thank-you-hugs to everyone who's encouraging words and support has helped me finish this chapter! This one is for you!

Trouble! - Chapter 21 – We're all human in the end

Even though I was barely conscious I had never been so happy in my life. I heard the deafening sound of at least ten Harleys, felt the rumble under my feet and just knew I was safe.
I was bleeding badly, my arms hurt from being suspended for two days straight, I was so hungry and thirsty I couldn't see straight but despite them being just outside of the building I couldn't call out to them.
The last thing I remember hearing was the door coming off its hinges and hitting the dirty floor with a bang and the sound of familiar faces calling my name before I slipped out of consciousness.

"Holy Shit!" Jax exclaimed when he saw the lifeless girl hanging from the chain in the ceiling.

"Lily! Can you hear me?"
Happy, Tig and Kozik were the first ones to reach her. Kozik ran up to her to check for a pulse while Happy and Tig loosened the chain that was holding her up.
"Is she...?" Half-Sack started but his voice broke before he could finish.

"Alive. But we need to get her to a hospital. Now." Kozik said as Tig took out his K-Bar and carefully cut through the ties around his sister's hands before Kozik took the girl in his arms and carried her out to the car they had waiting.

The LA-guys had finished clearing the rest of the garage, Kyle Hobart was nowhere to be found and Tig didn't know which made him more furious: The fact that the coward had once again ran away or the state Lily was in.
"Tig!" Kip called for him as the other guys left for the hospital with Lily.
"Huh?" Tig tore himself back into reality.
"You comin', man?
"Uh... Why don't you guys go ahead? I'll meet you at the hospital." Tig said as he knelt and picked up his sister's necklace, the one she rarely ever took off. A plain chain with a clean-cut silver cross that used to be their mother's and a silver anarchy-symbol that she had gotten from him soon after he'd been patched in.

Kip looked at him wondering for a few seconds before turning to Flea, Boon, Ray and the Prospect.

"Why don't you guys go ahead? We'll catch up." The guys left and the second they heard the Harleys start up Kip turned back to the older man.
"Okay, what's up?"
"'What's up'? You think you have the right to ask me what's up?" Tig asked in a superior voice as he walked toward the club's newest patched-in member.
"I know you still care about Lil, a lot more than you let on." Kip said, causing the Sergeant at Arms to stop in his tracks. "So why pretend you don't?"
"You think you're so smart, don't you?" Tig asked and this time he sounded genuinely angry. "Figured everything out did you?"

Kip felt his heart beat a little harder but he stood his ground. He knew he was right and he was going to make the Sergeant realize it.
"What are you so afraid of?" Tig looked ready to kill him right then and there with his bare hands but kept his silence as if interested to see if Kip was actually right.
"You're scared she might hate you, aren't you?"

Despite having so many different feelings boiling inside of him Tig had admit that the kid was getting good at reading people and finally gave up on denying that he was right.

"How did you know?" He sighed and ran a hand through his hair while the other was still clutching Lily's necklace.
"At first I didn't." Kip said and smiled a little. "At first I figured you were just a jerk who wanted to keep Lily to himself..."
"But then?" Tig asked, wanting to hear what had given him away.
"Then I, and everyone else around you, started seeing the changes in you. And everyone assumed it was because you were angry but I knew it was because you were lost. You didn't know who you were anymore when you didn't have Lily to live for."

Spot on!

"Why didn't you say anything to her? Why didn't you call her or at least admit to someone that you miss her?" Kip questioned.
"Then I really would have lost her." Tig said and he knew how pathetic he must have looked. "If I admitted that she was gone it would be real and I couldn't handle that."

"Look man, I know I'm crossing a line here but it's Lily so I don't care." Kip took a breath and steadied himself for saying the last thing he'd ever say in this life.
"Get that head out of your ass and put it back to good use. Now get on your bike and go see your little sister, no matter what has happened between the two of you she needs you."

A few months back the prospect probably wouldn't be breathing after that speech, but now, for the first time, Tig saw that the kid might just be ready for that patch.

The sight that greeted the two men at the hospital was mighty and under any other circumstances Tig would have been proud that so many people cared this much about his sister.
The hallway to the OR was filled with patches, grim faces that mostly kept staring out in space and an extremely worried and pacing Jules that was starting to get on everybody's nerves but no one had the heart to tell the girl to sit the fuck down.

They were all waiting for news on Lily and Tig knew how everyone in the hallway felt. Useless.
Unable to do anything to help the girl they all loved.

They sat like that for hours, waiting for something to happen, anything to take their minds off of Lily's condition. Jules had finally gotten so exhausted that she'd fallen asleep and was now resting in Happy's lap, the former Nomad running his fingers through her blonde hair to calm himself down.
Some slept, others stayed awake, some went for coffee and some got food but no one left the hospital that night.

They had finally found her and they weren't going to leave her alone again.
Never again!

"Lily Trager?" A man wearing scrubs walked up to them and in a heartbeat everyone in the hallway was wide awake and up on their feet.
"Yes!" Both Tig and Kozik answered, the volume catching the doctor by surprise.
"You're all family?" He asked and looked over their shoulders, seeing more than 20 people cramped in the hallway.
"Yes." Clay answered and walked up to the man. "How is she, doc?"
"Well, she's got a broken wrist, several fractured ribs, a pretty bad concussion, numerous cuts all over her body, some are shallow but most of them are relatively deep. And I'm sorry to tell you that... tests showed she was raped... Several times"

The doctor seemed to hesitate at his own words but it was his job to let the family know.

"Jesus Christ!" Chibs exclaimed and started pacing while most people's eyes went to Tig and Kozik.
"When can we see her?" Kozik asked, his voice thick with the tears he didn't show.
"She's still sedated from the surgery but you can all wait for her once she gets to her room. I'll have a nurse show you the way." The doctor said and placed a hand on Kozik's shoulder, revealing a reaper-tattoo on his hand.

"I'm really sorry, brother."
"Thanks." Kozik watched as the man walked away before turning to the group in front of him with a tired sigh. "I need some coffee."

Stupid coffee-machine! Wouldn't work even if he beat the shit out of it, not that he hadn't tried it just to be sure. His knuckles hurt and his blood was racing, he wanted to see Lily so bad but at the same time he didn't. It wasn't going to be her and from what he knew about the "after-effects" of... rape, she wouldn't be the same for a long time.

"No coffee?" The blonde looked up and met a pair of blue eyes that he longed to see again, although they belonged to the wrong person.
"Damn machine's broke. Stole my quarter too." Koz mumbled and rested his head in his hands.
"Not surprised, you banged it up pretty good." Tig sat down next to his old enemy, watching the man's hands shake as he tried to hide it by cracking his bruised knuckles.

"I'm sorry, Tigger... This was all my fault..." The blonde felt a cold tear run down his cheek. "If I hadn't come after her in the first place she... She got hurt because of me, Tig. I'm so sorry."
"Hey, you listen to me, brother." Tig grabbed a firm hold of the crying man's shoulders and straightened him up, literally. "This is only gonna happen once so you better listen carefully, and if you dare mention this conversation to Lily I'm gonna chop off your dick and forcefeed it to ya."

Kozik just nodded.

"If anyone should take the blame for this it's me. I forced her out of Charming, I was the selfish one and I abandoned her when she needed me the most. So stop putting yourself down over this, get over there and be the man my sister fell in love with. You'll be the first person she'll want to see."

Kozik just looked at the man next to him without a word. He'd never hated Tig or ever really disliked him but ever since the death of Missy they had been enemies, whether he'd liked it or not but now that hostility was gone. Tig was looking at him like a brother and not as a piece of trash and with a small smile Koz wiped away the final tear.
"Yeah, well you're gonna be second if I know Lil as good as I think I do." He stood up and placed a hand on Tig's shoulder before finally walking away.
"Thanks man."

Kozik's POV

I don't think my heart had ever beaten this hard before, at least not since the first time I saw her.
With one hand on the doorknob I took a deep breath to mentally prepare myself for the sight that was about to meet me. But it didn't matter!
I loved her more than I had ever loved anyone and there was no way this was not going to change that. I took another deep breath and opened the door, stepping into the room and seeing the thing that I never wished to see again.

My angel, the love of my life, laying in a hospitalbed, arm in a cast, her face all bruised up and her dark hair looked colored by the blood, or maybe that was just my imagination, as I walked up to her on shaky legs and sat down next to the bed.
I reached out a hand to stroke her bruised cheek but stopped myself for a second, I didn't want to hurt her but I needed to feel her skin against mine again. I needed to know this wasn't a dream.
The second my fingers traced the outline of her cheekbone the girl snapped her eyes open, I almost jumped at the shock but at the same time I had never been happier to see those bright blue eyes.

"Lil..." I started but she cut me off, looking around the room with wide eyes.
"Where am I?"

She looked as if she'd just woken from a bad dream but when I reached out a hand to calm her down she backed away with fear in her eyes.
"Who the hell are you?"

My heart felt like it would never beat again. Had she really just asked me what I think she had?

"Lily... It's me, Kozik." She just looked at me like I was crazy. "Your fiancee?"

"I... I have no fiancee..."

A/N: Cliffhanger anyone? Yay!
Please let me know what ya'll thought! I really hope you liked the chapter!