Jax watched her cautiously as she drove them down the main drag to the strip club where her mother had worked.

"You sure there's going to be someone at the place right now?" he asked her. "It's still kind of early in the morning."

Austin shook her head. "That place goes twenty-four-seven. Someone will be there, and if they don't have my answers, I'll come back later."

"Did she work during the day?"

"Damn it, Jax. What the fuck is with all the questions?"

"Look, I'm not trying to piss you off any more than you already are. Trust me on that. When was the last time you went questioning people though? Aus, I'm behind you whatever you do, but you have to be logical and practical about this. If Miranda didn't work during the day, no one there is going to know what was going on."

Austin glanced at him, then got into the turn lane. "Fine. We'll go to the house."

Jax reached for her hand, squeezing it. He wanted to tell her this was a bad idea, but even he had to admit that he wasn't entirely sure it was. Eventually Lance and Dougie would have to be dealt with; if Austin was so intent on doing things herself, at least he was there with her.

When they pulled up to the broken-down trailer, Austin turned off the ignition. She sat and stared at it for a few seconds, then turned to Jax.

"In case I forget to say it later, or don't get a chance or whatever … thank you for coming out here. You really didn't have to," Austin told him. "Whatever happened with us at the beginning, Jax, and no matter how we fight now, I know that no one else could tolerate me."

Jax smirked. "You're probably right about that."

She kissed him quickly, and Jax felt the sentiment of the moment disappear. She'd said it then because she was drawing back into herself – detaching so that she could do what she needed to do. Jax recognized it because he had been there so many times himself.

The front door was unlocked. Austin took a deep breath and pushed it open, her breath catching in her throat as she took in the blood spattered over the walls and furniture.

"Good God," she muttered. "He really threw her around."

"You sure he's not here?" Jax asked.

Austin shrugged. "Car's not out there."

"Stay with me, just the same."

"It's not a big place. Not many places to hide."

Jax gave her a look that clearly said the discussion was over. Rolling her eyes, Austin moved to one end of the trailer where the bedrooms were. The door to her mother's room was closed, but the door to her room was open. Holding her breath, Austin walked in.

She expected it to be just as she left it, and in some ways it was. The bed covers were pushed to the side, clothes were laying on the floor from when she had desperately tried to find a pair of jeans to put on after Lance took his hands off of her. The stain of blood was even still on her carpet from when she fought back.

But some things were different. Everything had been knocked off the dresser. Drawers were pulled out of her dresser and nightstand. Papers she had stowed away for safe keeping were piled on the bed.

"He must have tried to find out where you'd go," Jax commented.

Austin nodded. "I guess so."

"This is her room here?"

Austin nodded again. She walked behind Jax as he turned the knob and opened the door. Both of them frowned at the ropes tied to the bedposts.

"Fuck," Austin breathed, reaching out to touch one as though it was a snake. "This explains the marks on her wrists and ankles."

Austin stared at the bed, the blood marked on the pillows and comforter. She could only imagine the abuse her mother must have taken, but she didn't want to.

"I should never have left. This is my fault."

Jax shook his head. "No, Austin. It could have been you instead of her."

"Why would that be such a bad thing?" she argued. "My mother was horrible. She was never there when I needed her, and I more or less raised myself. Do you know how much of a wonder it is that I'm not a doped-up stripper myself?"

"You can't blame yourself for this," Jax insisted. "We can't carry the things our parents did or should have done."

She whipped around to face him. "Tell that to yourself next time you pick up that fucking manuscript that JT wrote, Jax. You know it isn't so easy to just dismiss this. The last time I spoke to my mom, she told me that she loved me for the first time in my whole life. All I'm saying is, someone took away the chance for me to finally have a mom, not just a mother. And I can't just let that go."

She walked back outside, leaving Jax in her wake to wonder exactly what was going to come next.

.:.

"Hey Clay, we got a problem," Tig announced as he walked into the garage. "Unser said that his people got a hold of Lance about Dougie. He's on his way to Charming."

Clay sighed. "That may be better that he's here while Austin isn't. Jax called Gemma this morning, said that Austin's mom died."

"Oh shit," Tig breathed. "Austin okay?"

"I don't know. I would imagine if she knows that Lance is here, she'll come back here right away."

"I'll call Jax."

"No, wait," Clay said, stopping him with a hand on his shoulder. "Let's let her do some digging in Carolina until we know exactly what Lance intends to do here."

Tig frowned but agreed. He wasn't always sure of Clay's reasoning or decisions, but he was sure that Clay had Austin's best interests at heart.

.:.

Kip caught up with them later that night before they went to the strip club. They had spent the day at the beach house while Austin collected her thoughts. Jax didn't ask what her plan was, just figured he would go along with this strip club lead and go from there.

"You're sure you want to do this?" Kip asked.

"Fuck!" Austin exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air. "Why does everyone keep asking me that? If this happened to either one of you two, you wouldn't hesitate to take care of it. I'm going to say this one last time: she had no one else but me. I'm going to take care of this, and yes, I'm sure about it."

Jax and Kip shared a concerned glance, then followed Austin into the strip club. The guard stopped to ask them for IDs and cover, but Austin waved him off.

"It's all right, Tony. They're with me. Hey, when's the last time you saw Miranda around here?"

"Miranda? Damn, Austin. It's been a few days, come to think of it."

"No one asked around about her or anything?"

Tony shrugged. "Didn't ask me."

Austin nodded. "All right. Barclay in?"

"Yep, in the office." Tony frowned. "Everything all right?"

Austin considered him for a moment. "Someone beat her and left her in an alley. She died this morning."

"Oh, shit. Austin, I'm sorry …"

"Yeah, me too."

Kip and Jax flanked her as she walked through towards the back of the club. They were just about to a door marked Employees Only when one of the girls reached out and grabbed Jax's arm.

"You look like you mean business, honey," the girl purred.

Austin stepped between them. "Hands off, Daphne."

The more scantily-clad girl looked down at Austin. "Let me guess. Austin Epps finally came back to ask Barclay for a job."

"Yeah, right," Austin snorted. "Wouldn't want to take away any of your whorish income."

Kip tugged at her hand. "Come on, Aus. We're here for a reason and this ain't it."

Austin sneered once more at Daphne, then turned back to Jax and Kip. "Stupid bitch."

"What's up with that?" Jax asked. "I could've said no myself."

Austin rolled her eyes. "That person I told you I'm lucky I'm not earlier? That's Daphne. She was my best friend until we turned sixteen, she lost her virginity and became my mother's favorite. Daphne didn't have a mom, so she took mine. And look where that got her."

"She knows I'm Austin's brother," Kip explained. "She probably figured you two are together and wanted to push Austin's buttons."

"Yeah, well, it worked," Austin called over her shoulder as they approached the door to the manager's office. She pounded on the door until a short, burly man opened it. "They're with me."

He allowed all three of them to enter. Behind the desk sat a late fifties, grey-haired man who was smoking a cigar. His suit was pristine, and several piles of paper were stacked neatly on the desk.

"Not what you'd expect for a strip club, right?" he smiled, coming from around the desk to hug Austin. She stepped just out of his reach, and he feigned sadness. "You don't want to hug your Uncle Barclay?"

"Why didn't anyone go look for Miranda, Barclay? Tony says she's been gone for a few days."

Barclay puffed on the cigar and reclaimed his seat behind the desk. "Miranda was a junkie. If I went chasing after every junkie that didn't show up for a few days, I'd never be at work."

Austin shook her head. "That's not good enough. You know she never missed work. Maybe she was a junkie, but this was her only way of getting the shit. I'm asking you again: why didn't you go looking for her?"

He set the cigar down in an ashtray and scratched the back of his head. "All right. Here's the deal. Your mom was getting old, Austin. The drugs, they weren't helping her any. She wasn't making me any money anymore. That Lance guy she'd been seeing, he offered me ten thousand to fire her. So I did."

"You sold her out for ten fucking thousand dollars?" Austin asked, getting closer to the desk. "He killed her! Maybe she wasn't as good as she was before but she was loyal to you! How many times did she drag your drunk ass home and make sure you didn't die of alcohol poison or choke on your own damn vomit?"

"Many," Barclay answered. "And she was a good lay every time."

Austin jumped over the desk faster than any of them had anticipated, even Barclay's muscle man. He was the one to pull her off, although she managed to get in one more good kick to Barclay's knee, bringing him down to the floor. He sputtered as blood poured from his nose and his mouth.

Jax put his gun to the guard's head and told him to let go of Austin. He handed her over to Kip who kept a good hold on her – she was still seething and she was ready to finish Barclay off.

Jax put the gun back in his waistband. "Here's the deal. You're not going to tell anyone we were here – especially Lance Stern. If I find out that you talked to anyone, we'll come back and I'll let her finish what she started."

"Come on, Aus," Kip urged, directing her out of the office. The door slammed behind them, and they stood in that back hallway for a few minutes. "Your arm okay?"

Austin nodded. "I just need to stop hitting people with it until the cast is off and it's healed."

"Yeah, I don't see that happening anytime soon," Jax smirked. "Come on, let's get out of here."

They passed Daphne again as they made their exit, but Austin ignored her. As much as she wanted to beat the shit out of that girl, there were bigger things she had to worry about.

"Where would Lance get money like that?" Kip wondered aloud.

"Not hard to figure it out," Austin answered. "He's an informant. They probably paid it for him."

"But why would they want your mom fired from the strip club?"

Austin shook her head. "I don't know, but I'm going to find out. Let's go to the police station."

"You can't just show up on their doorstep asking questions," Jax warned her.

"Why not?" She looked at Kip where he was behind the steering wheel. "Drive."

.:.

Gemma cursed as she put the phone down. Clay looked up from where he was reading the newspaper at the table and raised his brow in the form of a question.

"That was Half-Sack. Jax won't let Austin out of his sight, so he's updating us. She's flippin' shit, Clay. Went in to the club where her mom worked to get answers, and that of course raised more questions. She's going straight to the fed set-up at the police department down there."

"Damn it." Clay took off his glasses. "I told Tig not to tell her that Lance was here. Maybe we need to bring her back before this goes too far."

"It's already gone too far," Gemma replied. "Austin is just as unstable as Jax when it comes to her anger – she's going to get herself in trouble, and Jax is going to go down with her."

Clay stood and put a hand on Gemma's shoulder. "Look, I'll have Tig get a hold of them and let her know that Lance is here. If Austin really is hellbent on retaliation and answers, she'll come right back. Jax will be here and have the rest of us backing him – and we're not going to let Austin go down either."

Gemma nodded. "All right. Well, do it soon. She's already raising hell down there."

.:.

Austin didn't bother stopping at the front desk, just went right back to where the FBI office was. Two officers stood in her way, telling her sternly that she was not allowed any further.

"Then put me in fucking handcuffs so those federal pricks can come visit me in a cell," she snapped back. "I want to talk to them about Lance Stern."

The two officers exchanged glances and looked back at Kip and Jax who were close behind her.

"Fine," the older one finally said. "But these two stay here."

Austin glanced back at them, and Kip nodded. "We'll wait."

She disappeared to the back and the men took chairs in the front lobby. Jax pulled his hat down and shook his head.

"I'm worried about her, man," he admitted. "Has she ever done anything like this before?"

Kip shook his head. "I don't think so. But Austin's tough. With the club backing her, she's going to be fine."

"Yeah."

"The club is backing her, right?"

"Of course," Jax answered. "We're not going to let anything else happen to your sister, Sack. I'm not going to let anything else happen to your sister."

His phone chirped then, so he gave Kip a reassuring glance before walking away to answer it. "What's up?"

"It's me," Clay replied. "Listen, Charming PD called Lance about Dougie. He's on his way here."

"Shit," Jax cursed. "I'll keep Austin here as long as I can."

"No. You guys need to come back here. I want the whole club behind her on this."

Jax sighed but wasn't sure he agreed. "All right. I'll let her know."

"She do much damage at the police station?"

"I don't know yet. She's back talking to the feds right now."

"What do you mean talking to the feds?" Clay demanded.

"I'll call you when we leave here." Jax shut his phone then and went back to Kip. "Lance is on his way to Charming. PD called him about the attack on Dougie. Clay wants us back in Cali so the whole club can go against whatever comes at Austin."

Kip pursed his lips. "I guess it's better to close ranks. I'll call Juice, have him work the tickets."

Jax nodded as Kip stepped outside to call Juice. Austin wasn't going to like the club's involvement in this, but he would just have to convince her it was for the best.

A/N: Going to try and get some more Austin/Jax fluff in the next couple of chapters, so be on the lookout! Thanks for reading.