"You sure this is all the guns you have?" Ophelia asked. "You don't have any hidden under floorboards or in mattresses?"

The club had brought together all of their guns in preparations for the impending war and had laid them all out on one of the pool tables in the clubhouse. There was mostly hunting rifles and shotguns; nothing that would be useful in their situation. With that aside, they did not have enough. They barely had enough to put in the hand of every club member.

"This is all we have," Jax said from beside her.

"It's gets even better," Bobby piped up from his spot at the bar. "We only have enough ammo for about half of 'em."

She looked at Jax in disbelief. "You serious? You are a sad excuse for a motorcycle club."

"Thanks," Jax muttered.

Ophelia chewed on her bottom lip as she tried to come up with a solution. "If I get you money, how quickly could you get an order from the Irish?"

"A week maybe."

She shook her head. "That's not fast enough. The Horsemen will be here before then."

"What do you suggest then?" Jax asked, folding his arms.

She hesitated for a moment. "I have a safe house in Arizona. I have enough guns and ammo that would tide us over til the Irish shipment gets here. I can get there and back within a day."

"Are you sure?" Jax asked.

"You need the protection, and I got the guns."

Jax shifted. They needed guns, but he didn't want to rely on Leela to fix his problems. "I don't want to be your charity case."

"What you talking about? You've been a charity case since we were kids," she retorted, playfully but then turned serious. "I have plenty of guns and more than enough money to last me the rest of my life. I want to help SAMCRO. It's the least I can do."

Jax licked his lips. "Okay, but I don't want you to go alone."

She rolled her eyes. "Really? We have to do this again? I don't need a goddamn babysitter."

"You will be going right towards the Horsemen," he argued.

"Who don't know who I am!"

"It doesn't matter. I'm not letting you go alone!"

She got right up in his face. "I have traveled all over the world by myself. I have gone face to face with people a hell of a lot scarier than the Horsemen, and I have more blood on my hands than you could ever imagine," she said menacingly. "I can handle it by myself."

"I'm the goddamn president, and you will listen to me!" he yelled.

She narrowed her eyes at him. She was tempted to punch him. No one ever yelled at her like that. She thought better of it though. She turned on heel, and then she stormed out of the clubhouse. She went over to the punching bag and hit a few times as hard as she could.

"Shit, I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of that," Opie said from behind her.

She took a hold of the bag to stop it from swinging. She took a deep breath and turned around. "Hey, Op," she said sheepishly. She was better at controlling her temper than this, but being in Charming was stirring up a lot of shit.

"Hey, kid," he said as he sat down on one of the picnic tables. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered her one.

She happily took one and sat down beside him. "I don't get why you call me kid. I'm older than you."

"You want me to call you shorty instead?"

Her smile faded. "You're a freaking giant. Everyone is shorter than you." He chuckled and then they both fell into an awkward silence. "Where you at with all this?" she asked finally. Since everyone had found out who she really was, she hadn't gotten a chance to talk to him.

He stared down at the ground and rubbed his hands together. "Things were finally settling down around here. Donna was accepting my role with the club. Everything was better, but that doesn't ever last around here." He looked up at her. "I'm glad you're here. The club needs your expertise. God knows Jax needs you. But you've been gone a long time. A lot has changed for everyone."

She took her cigarette from her mouth and exhaled. "I know things are different. I know I've come out of nowhere. But I'm not the same girl I was. I've had things happen to me that no one should have to experience. I've done things that no one should have to do." She looked down at her hands. "I'm not going to disappear again. I can't now that I'm back. I can't just pretend you don't exist."

Opie watched her for a minute before slinging his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. "You ever gonna tell us why you left in the first place?"

"I don't know," she said, shrugging her shoulders. "It was hard enough just telling you who I was."

He sat back so he could look her in the eyes. "Did someone in the club do something to you?" She shifted away from him. "Shit, Leela. What happened? Was it Clay?"

"It would tear the club apart, and we can't have that right now."

"Clay isn't even in the club anymore," he hissed. "Jax lets him sit in on votes out of respect but he doesn't even deserve that." He looked around to make sure no one could hear them. "Clay almost murdered my wife because he thought I snitched on the club."

She sighed. "I don't even have tangible proof."

"That's bullshit," he chuckled. "You never jumped to conclusions unless you had all the information."

She chewed on her lip. She needed to tell someone. Not even Happy knew what happened. Suddenly, she pushed herself away from Opie and stood up. "I can't. Not right now."

He watched her for a moment before finally accepting it. "Okay, Leela. Whatever you think is best."

Happy came out of the clubhouse and stood next to her. He looked between her and Opie. "Everything good?"

"Yeah, it's good," Ophelia said quickly. "What's up?"

"Jax got off the phone with the Irish. Five days and $75,000."

She nodded. "He tell you you'd get to come with me to Arizona?"

"He mentioned it," Hap said shortly.

She looked back to Opie. "I guess I'm in the doghouse."

"He'll get over it," he shrugged.

She smiled at Op. Jax had always been headstrong, but Opie was his voice of reason. She looked back to Hap. "You good to leave in an hour?"

He gave a short nod. "Do we need a truck?"

"Nah, I figured you could ride bitch with me and then drive my car back with the guns," she said flatly.

Happy glared at her. "Bitch," he muttered before heading inside the clubhouse.

"How the hell did you two end up together?" Opie asked once Hap had disappeared inside.

She laughed. "Do you remember how I use to street fight?" He nodded. "A few guys jumped me one night as I was leaving. Hap came out of nowhere and saved me. He beat the shit out of them," she explained. "He started coming to all my fights. He even started hanging around the clubhouse. I eventually talked him into prospecting."

Opie laughed in disbelief. "I should've known that you're the reason the Tacoma Killer got patched."

"Yeah," she smiled. "You know me. I attract all the deep dark broody men."

He sighed. "Well, you're in the right place for that."

She looked to Chibs who was working on his Harley in the garage. He was one broody man that she needed to talk to. She started walking towards him. She needed to figure out what was bothering him and try to fix it. She silently watched him for a few minutes as he worked.

"I see you're still good with a wrench," she said eventually.

He glanced over his shoulder and then went back to working. "Aye, always have been." He finished tightening a bolt and then started putting his tools away.

"So are you just going to ignore me for the rest of my life?" she asked as he worked with his back to her. "Come on, Chibs. We used to be friends. Can we at least talk about it?"

In a blink of an eye, Chibs was across the garage and in her face. "You wanna talk?" he questioned, his eyes narrowed. "You disappear off the face of the earth without a word. Then you show up pretending you don't know any of us. That you didn't have a past here. And now you expect me to be okay with this." His eyes darted between hers. "Expect me to forget how it felt to lose you."

His eyes pierced hers, She couldn't take the hurt that filled his eyes. Her eyes dropped down to the Vice President patch on his chest. She remember when he had just arrived in the States from Ireland and he was new to the club. A lot had changed since then.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

He stood there staring at her until he couldn't take it anymore. By the time she looked up, Chibs was gone. She hadn't realized how much her disappearance had hurt Chibs. It hadn't been her intention to hurt anyone.

After getting their things together, Hap and Leela found themselves on the road heading towards Bullhead City, Arizona. Her hands sat comfortably on Happy's hips as she sat behind him. As much as she loved riding her own Harley, there was something about hanging on and being able to watch the scenery fly by. It had been one of her favorite things ever since she was a little girl.

They finally pulled up in front of her house after a very long ride. She climbed off the back of his bike. Happy looked around as she took off her helmet and stretched her legs.

"When did you get this place?" Hap asked.

"About a year ago when I started working in Vegas more," she explained as she opened the garage door to allow Happy to push his bike inside. He parked it next to her black BMW. "Do you wanna grab some food before we start loading us? There's a diner a few blocks away that's pretty decent."

"Food would be good," he agreed.

With some disagreement from Happy, they took her BMW down to the diner. Hap started to get out of the car, but she stopped him. Something didn't feel right. All the parking lot lights were out.

"I think you should leave your kutte in the car," she said slowly. If something wasn't right, she didn't want to draw anymore attention to them.

"You see something?" he asked, looking around.

"Not yet."

Trusting her instincts, Hap shrugged off his kutte. It didn't do much good though because he was wearing a SAMCRO t-shirt. Both of them got out of the car and headed into the diner. There was only a few customers in the place. They took a booth in the back corner that gave them a clear view of the whole place. One of the waitresses came over to take their order.

"What can I get you?" she asked.

"Two coffees and two bacon cheeseburger," she said, ordering for Happy as well.

"You got it, hun," the waitress said before disappearing towards the kitchen.

Hap was smiling at her when she looked back to him. "Just like old times."

"Except we're not on a job," she smirked, recalling all the times they spent in small diners after finishing a job.

"Maybe we should find a job," he suggested. "You know death always brings us closer."

She laughed when she realized what was going on. "You're upset that I'm not your little secret anymore." He suddenly became very interested in a spot on the table. "Don't worry. You're still my bestie, Hap."

He glared at her. "Fuck you," he muttered.

"Love you too," she smirked.

Once they finished their food and left a nice sized tip for the waitress, they went back to out to her car. As she opened her door, Ophelia spotted someone standing in the shadows behind Happy. She discreetly looked over her shoulder and saw at least one figure coming towards her. They were being surrounded.

"Hap," she hissed. He looked up at her in question. She jerked her head in the direction of the guy behind him. "We have company."

His eyes went dark. He quickly looked around. There were five of them coming at them from all sides. "What do you wanna do?" he asked Ophelia.

"It's been awhile since I was in a good fight," she shrugged.

"Five against two? That's not very good odds."

She smirked. "Just don't scratch my car." She turned to the two men walking towards her. "Can I help you, boys?"

"We're here to send a message," one of them said. All the men that were circling them were very rough looking. This was clearly not their first time threatening someone.

"A message to who?" Ophelia questioned.

He went toe to toe with her. "All Sons will die," he threatened.

She looked him in the eye. "Good luck with that message." She brought her head back and hit him squarely in the head with her own. He staggered back, holding his head. She took the time to shrug off her leather jacket. She pushed up her sleeves and brought her fists up.

She waited for them to make a move first. She could hear Happy fighting on the other side of the car, but she couldn't worry about him right now. She had two very large problems in front of her.

If someone were to question Ophelia what had happened during the fight, she wouldn't be able to tell them anything. She reacted on pure instinct. The will to survive. She had been in enough fights in her lifetime to know how to bring someone down as quickly as possible. It wasn't until she felt a sharp pain in her shoulder that she was brought back to reality.

He stood in front of her with a wicked smile on his face while his friend laid on the ground. She glanced down to see a knife handle sticking out of her shoulder. She forced the pain out of her mind and focused on the man in front of her.

"You're one tough bitch," he commented.

"You have no idea who I am," she said. In a swift move, she pulled the knife out of her chest. She could feel blood soaking her shirt and the smell of metallic filled her senses. She was going to bleed out if she didn't finish this quickly.

With determination, she advanced on the man in front of her. Time slowed down. His fist threatened to make contact. She blocked it and sidestepped him. She brought the knife up into the soft part of his back. He froze before falling to his knees. Blood dripping from his mouth.

Ophelia fell to ground out of pure exhaustion. She forced herself upright. She leaned back against her car and tried to steady her breathing.

"Hap, you alive over there?" she called out to him.

It was a long minute before he answered. "I'm breathing," he forced out.

"You hit?" She hadn't thought she had heard any gunshots, but that didn't mean anything. She was so focused on her fight that she probably wouldn't have noticed a bomb go off.

"No," he grumbled.

"Good," she sighed in relief. She struggled to her feet, careful to not move her shoulder. She went over to where Happy sat on the other side of the car. He looked pretty worse for wear too, but he was alive. "We need to clean up the bodies before anyone sees them."

He nodded and strained to get to his feet. He looked her over; his eyes lingering on her shoulder. "You hit?"

Ophelia shook her head. "Stabbed," she explained. "We can patch it once we clean them up."

As quickly as they could with their injuries, they put each of the men's bodies in her car. It was a tight fit, but they didn't have far to go. Ophelia gave Hap the keys to the car to allow him to drive home.

Once he pulled into her garage, he came around and opened the door for Ophelia. "What do we do with them?" he asked motioning to the bodies.

"Put them in the backroom. I'll get a clean up crew from the company to come," she said as she struggled to get out of the car.

"You sure that's a good idea?" he questioned. "Death Dealers ask questions."

"Just help stitch me up," she snapped. "We will be long gone before any other Death Dealers are here." He reluctantly followed her into the house. "There's a medical kit on top of the fridge."

"I have to call the club to tell them we were jumped."

She tried to ignore the stabbing pain in her shoulder. "Can you help me from bleeding over the kitchen first?"

He stalked over. He pulled the med kit off the top of the fridge and threw it down on the table next to her before taking out his cell phone and dialing Chibs' number.

Ophelia rolled her eyes. She dug through the bag until she found gauze to help stop the bleeding. She took a better look at the wound. It was going to need stitches, but it definitely wasn't the worse wound she had had.

"Brother, we got problems," Hap explained to Chibs. "We got jumped in a diner parking lot… We'll be okay. Ophelia took a knife to the shoulder… No, I don't know who they were."

"They were Horsemen," Ophelia said suddenly. She stood up and started searching for a bottle of whiskey.

Hap turned to her. "You sure?"

She found a half empty bottle of Jack Daniels. "Yeah," she told him. "Saw one of their tattoos." She took a large gulp straight from the bottle. "The club doesn't need to come. We can take care of this and be back in Charming on schedule." Hap only stared at her. "Are you going to get off the fucking phone and stitch me up anytime soon?" she said impatiently.

He finished his phone call with Chibs. He brought a chair in front of her and sat down. He carefully helped her pull her shirt over her head leaving her in just her bra.

"What's the plan?" he asked as he began to clean the wound. He wasn't very good at putting people back together. It was sloppy, and he knew she was going to have another scar.

"I'm gonna call my contact with the DEA and make an anonymous tip that the Devil's Horsemen are transporting drugs from Texas to California," she told him as she clung onto the bottle. "Even if they don't have anything on them, every patched Horsemen will get stopped and detained for a day or two."

"Giving us more time," he said smirking. He hated cops, but Ophelia knew how to use them to her advantage. "How do you think they found us?"

She sipped from the bottle. "They had to have followed us from Charming." She watched him start stitching her up. It wasn't pretty, but it worked. And it wasn't like she didn't have other scars. "Somehow, one of us always ends up getting stitches when we're together."

Hap avoided eye contact. "You always need stitches." He finished up the last stitch and started cleaning up the mess. "You should get some sleep."

"We need to pack up the guns and head back to Charming," she said stubbornly. She stood up and started for her bedroom.

With her back to him, he tried not to look. He knew what was on her back, but his eyes went there involuntarily. Thick white scars ran across like lines on a map. A memory flashed of finding her on a cement floor; those wounds dripping with fresh blood.

She started to leave. "Hey," Hap called to her. "I'm sorry I dragged you into this."

"It's not your fault," she said forcing a smile before disappearing down the hallway.

Author's Note

So the Horsemen are already in Charming. It's only a matter of when before they hit the club.

Unfortunately, this is probably going to be the last chapter for the next few months. There are other things that I need to focus on. For most of July I won't have access to internet. I will still be writing; so once I can, I will start posting again.