It's been a rough few months. I'm okay, but my hands are still awfully full. Life is hard, sometimes.
As for SoA, anyone else think Season 3 was a bit of a lame duck? I mean, it wasn't terrible, but it really lacked the cohesion, power, and characterization that Season 2 rocked. The finale made up for a lot, but I'm hoping S4 will be better. Or maybe I just hate plots that revolve around babies. Babies are just not that interesting.
The songs for today are "The Devil Won" by Jan Arden and "Safe to Land" by Jars of Clay. (Sure, they're a Christian Rock band which ain't normally my thing, but they make some really powerful music.) The first song is about wanting to run away, and the second song is about desperately wanting to trust. Anne's biggest fears are ending up a victim like her mother, or a monster like her sister. She doesn't trust herself to not become one or the other in Tig's world. Fear can be bigger than love. Often it is.
-B.
Tig was exhausted. He'd been burning up time for days, both in the mornings and late at night. The club and working at Teller-Morrow was a full life for a young man. Tig was on the dark side of forty, and dealing with Anne's shit was keeping him on edge. He felt not only the tug of Anne's gravity on his life, but the weight of responsibility Clay needed him to carry. It wasn't any surprise that he slept deeply. It was, however, a surprise to wake up alone.
He listened for the shower, or any sign that Anne was in the apartment, but it was silent. The clock next to the bed read seven in the morning, which was an ungodly hour to be moving around. Tig groaned and sat up.
A sinking feeling set in. Then he saw the note left where Anne had been lying. The sinking feeling curdled into anger. The note said only, "I'm not ready for this."
He read it over again, disbelieving. Tig crushed the paper in his hand. He closed his eyes and exhaled through clenched teeth.
He was still trying to sort out the storm of fear, anger and rejection when his cell phone rattled against the bedside table. It was the pre-pay phone—not one he'd ever ignore. The call display showed Happy.
"Hey."
"Hey, man. You just wake up?" Happy's low, gravelly voice sounded graver than usual.
"Yeah. What's up?"
"Stahl's sister rabbited off this morning."
Tig rubbed the bridge of his nose and pushed down his rage. "I know."
"I followed her."
"Why didn't you stop her?" He knew his voice betrayed how upset he was, but there wasn't any helping it.
Happy just snorted. It was a stupid question. "She could have been running home to ATF. Or she could have been Nord bait after all. You're not objective when it comes to that chick, Tigger."
The nomad was right. Anne could have been screwing with them, then waiting for a chance to scamper back where she belonged. "And?"
"Looks like she's just a scared little girl trying to run home." Happy sounded almost disappointed. "But Tig, she's in trouble."
Relief and terror battled for supremacy. "What kind of trouble?"
"She got run off the road and picked up by some guys."
Tig's first thought was to say fuck her, she ran, let her deal with the consequences. But then he reached for his clothes. He'd bail the cowardly bitch out, and then he could tell her to fuck off back to her miserable, saintly life.
"White, black, or brown?"
"Righteous white. One of the cars was the same one that Zoebelle fuck showed up in last night. It's like they want us to know it's them."
Happy waited patiently while Tig swore. "So now I'm going to go risk lives for the girl who fucking left me."
"Screw the girl. We're gonna go kill Nazis."
Tig was furious, but Happy's dispassionate logic penetrated. I didn't matter what Anne was thinking; as far as other gangs were concerned, she was property of the Sons. It wasn't about her, it was about the club. Anger kept him warm. It was easier than the cold fear that Anne had just gotten herself killed. Or worse, killed because she was so desperate to get away from him.
"They know you're following?"
"Not yet." Happy made a noise of annoyance. "I took the Ford from the garage. She'd have spotted a bike on her tail."
"Good. Keep on 'em." Tig snarled.
Even as he called Clay, Tig was imagining what he'd do once he had those bastards under his hands. Opie had carved an A in the chest of the dead Mayan he thought had killed his wife. Brutal, but nothing compared to what Tig could do if Anne was hurt. Opie'd turned into a twisted bastard over the last few months. Tig had years more practice.
Clay wasted a good twenty seconds swearing, his voice husky with tiredness and fury. Tig heard Gemma's sleepy query in the background. Finally, Clay pulled himself together.
"I thought you said that bitch was smart, Tig."
"She didn't know about Zoebelle. She was asleep when I crashed last night." Tig didn't know why he was defending her.
"Are we doing this to get her back, or to break Nazi skulls?"
Tig flinched. "Break skulls."
"Good answer. We get the brothers that are sober enough to ride and teach those fuckers not to mess with us. Bobby ain't gonna be fit to shoot a gun straight—I want him and Piney at the clubhouse digging in. Get Juice and Half-Sack to pick up my lady here and grab Tara. Until we figure this out, the real old ladies get protected. The boys can follow us in with the van—we might need it." Clay muttered something to Gemma, then asked. "Who crashed out in the clubhouse last night?"
Tig finished pulling on his cut without taking the phone from his ear and walked out to the clubhouse to scan the room. Juice was snoring loudly, his head pillowed on the generous thighs of a fake-blond stripper with hollows under her eyes. Tig prodded him sharply with his boot. "Juice, Bobby and Half-Sack are here."
"Good. I'll get Jax up to speed and pull Chibs out of whatever crow-eater he fell into last night. You get Opie and Piney."
Brothers back brothers. Jax, Piney and Chibs were quick to come. Opie had gone silent for a second before grunting an affirmative and hanging up his cell. It was less than an hour before the club was fully roused and on the road.
They rode hard and fast, but it didn't feel fast enough. Tig's hands itched to hurt someone. He hated Anne for this. Not keeping a woman meant you never had to feel this way. Anne twisted him around, screwed with his head, then slipped away like a guilty thief in the night. When they drove past the scene where Anne's Chevy had gone off the road, Tig felt the familiar cold blackness of war chilling the rage and replacing it with something far darker. The car had fully spun around to face the way it had come, leaving wide grooves in the dirt next to the road. The driver's side was smashed in where another car had impacted.
Happy called in when the kidnappers stopped at a nearly deserted, one-story motel an hour out of Bakersfield. A motel wasn't the most secure place to hold someone. If they'd noticed Happy tailing them, they'd never have gone to ground someplace so breachable. Their hubris was infuriating, but convenient.
What would you keep a prisoner alive for? Anne didn't have any information worth torturing out of her. She wasn't good as leverage against the ATF with her sister dead. This was either vengeance for what happened to Connor, or a way to tear at the Sons. Maybe it would have been Tara or Gemma who got jumped if they'd been the ones caught alone. Either way, it came down to pride and money. Almost everything in Tig's world did.
They met with Happy a good distance from the motel. Tig wasn't the only brother looking worse for wear. All of them were tired and angry.
"Who kidnaps someone at six in the morn'?" Chibs growled. "It's uncivilized."
"Only the higher class of criminals." Clay said. "This is a message. We're just lucky as fuck Happy caught her leaving. We can deal with the problem now, 'stead of letting them call the shots later. As long as it's theirs, blood is better than bargaining."
"Too fecking right." Chibs checked the clip in his rifle for the second time.
Plans were made. Jax and Clay argued fiercely over the details while Tig tried not to yell at the both of them. Juice and Half-Sack arrived in the van, pulling up behind the bikes. The extra manpower was comforting. Happy had seen four men in two cars jump Anne, but he wasn't sure if there were others in the motel room.
This was not the first time SAMCRO had gone to war, and definitely not the first time they'd broken down doors to carry out violence. Finally, they moved in. A swift but thorough recon showed that the only guard the kidnappers posted was baked out of his skull and half asleep in the parked car outside the doors. A silenced bullet took care of him before he even knew he had a problem.
Jax and Opie went to intercept any surprises and silence the motel staff. The rest of the brothers took positions around the motel door, guns raised. Once everyone was in place, Clay, Half-Sack and Juice hurled rocks through the front windows to shatter the glass and expose the room. Tig kicked in the door. Bullets flew and for the eternal stretch of a few seconds, Tig felt nothing but adrenaline and the gun in his hands.
It was easy. It usually was when your enemy didn't expect you. Who would expect a bunch of drunken bikers to rouse themselves so early? Three of the kidnappers were dead and bleeding on the orange patterned carpeting. One had been bandaging an injured arm; the gauze now unfurled across the floor, crimson in patches. The fourth man, the one who'd stood at Zoebelle's side when they tried to shake Clay, was backed up in a corner with Anne held tightly against him with one tattooed arm. His other hand leveled at her head. She'd been stripped down to her underwear. Fresh bruises from the crash were blooming on her white skin. She didn't look badly injured, but Anne didn't seem completely aware of what was going on around her. Tig forced his eyes away from her and into the eyes of his enemy.
"Didn't think we'd see you again so soon." Clay said, coolly.
Ignoring Clay, the man turned on Half-Sack and grinned. "You. I know you."
The prospect frowned, but his gun didn't waver. "Dunno what you're talking about. Let the girl go. She's not going to save your ass, man."
"I have video." The man said. Half-Sack turned white. "Annie and I were just watching some of the highlights. You fucking Neanderthals were so eager to torch Connor's warehouse that you didn't even notice that the security cameras sent a feed to another network."
Half-Sack's gun trembled. He steadied his grip and said nothing.
"You should see yourself. So macho, so tough… for a little while. And then when you started screaming, it's like you just couldn't stop." His gaze shifted to Tig. "And oh, the things I've seen this girl do. I was going to get her to show me what Connor taught her. It's good to remind a whore of her place."
What do you do when you want to kill someone so very badly, but they've got a gun to someone you can't stand to see hurt? Sure, you could take the shot and splatter his brains across the wall behind him, but maybe he'd twitch and then Anne would be just as dead.
Opie, having just entered the room with Jax hot on his heels, made the decision. He shot the nazi's hand. The bullet shredded the man's palm clear to his wrist, and the gun dropped in a mist of red. The bullet penetrated through to his chest. He did not scream, he roared.
Anne, moving with a deftness that made a lie of her seeming disorientation, slipped out of his grip. She crouched, scooped the man's gore-soaked gun from the ground, and almost evaded being caught again. His good hand seized her hair and hauled her back in front of him. The power in the room had shifted, however. Tig launched himself at her attacker, driving his forearm into the man's throat.
Opie's calm, deep voice cut through the snarled threats. "You can let her go, or you can lose your other hand."
The nazi reluctantly released Anne. She wrenched away from him, her bare feet skidding in the growing puddle of blood, then stilled herself and took three calm steps away to get out of reach. She lifted his gun, joining the brothers who encircled him. Tig looked over his shoulder at her. She was breathing too fast, but steady.
A snarl of pained outrage turned into a chuckle through the nazi's gritted teeth. "You fucking race-traitors. Charming's gonna fall to the League. If you'd just let the Nords have their share and stopped catering to niggers and wetbacks, it would never have come to this."
Tig leaned in, resting his weight on the arm that pinned the Nazi to the wall. It would be so easy to crush his throat and watch him flop around like a fish out of water.
Half-Sack's hand landed firmly on Tig's shoulder. He looked at the prospect, cursed, and stepped back. Half-Sack needed this more than he did.
Unsupported, the nazi slid down the wall, his hemorrhaging hand clutched to his chest. Half-Sack crouched next to him in the sea of blood, going to eye to eye with him. "Whatever happens in Charming, you're not going to be around long enough to care."
"I know how weak you are, boy." But the man's words were fainter. He was losing blood too fast, his skin going grey. "You'd be dead if that whore hadn't taken the hits you couldn't."
Half-Sack drew a knife from his belt. His lips twisted in something that wasn't quite a smile, and he slammed the blade into the man's thigh, his hand remaining firm on the hilt. When the scream died away, Half-Sack spoke again. "Anne ain't the only one who learned things in Lodi."
He didn't yank the knife free. He gradually pulled it from the leg, levering it back and forth, eliciting a long and high scream that made Half-Sack smile. He looked over at Anne, who stood like a statue, the gun still raised. Her arms must have been aching, but she was motionless.
"Annie." Half-Sack stood. "He'll bleed out in minutes."
It was an invitation to take her turn. Half-Sack wasn't treating her like a woman—he was treating her like a brother. Tig winced, but kept silent. Anne blinked and lowered the gun. She stared at the bleeding wreck of a man at Half-Sack's feet. When she spoke, her voice was cold and firm.
"He's yours." She threw the gun so that it skidded away to the corner of the room. Even half-naked and with blood on her face, she looked defiant. Her eyes shifted to Tig, and he saw her stoic mask crack for an instant. She spun, hiding her face from him, and snatched her backpack from the floor next to the bed. The washroom door clicked shut behind her. She'd passed her turn by, leaving her attacker to the mercy of the Sons.
Clay rolled his eyes. "End him, or I will. We need to get out of here."
Half-Sack—the former vegetarian prospect—stabbed Weston in the other leg. With his knife sheathed in the Nazi, he drew his gun, took a step back, and shot him in the head.
It would never have been this easy if Happy hadn't moved the way he had. Yeah, it would have been better if Anne hadn't been allowed to leave the clubhouse at all, but now they knew that she wasn't working for the enemy. She was just… not the woman Tig had thought she was.
Tig put his hand on the nomad's shoulder. Sometimes the words "thank you" weren't quite enough. Silence worked better.
"What do you want to do with this?" Juice asked. He held up a set of discs. The security video from Lodi. Part of Tig wanted to watch them, to know what had happened.
Jax shook his head. "Is this behind us now?"
"Up to Tig and Half-Sack." Clay replied. "I don't want to watch that shit."
A glance at Half-Sack's face made up Tig's mind. He pulled the lighter from his back pocket and took one of the discs from Juice's hand. Holding the disc carefully, he bathed the surface of it in flame, melting away the evidence. Half-Sack watched intently as he destroyed both discs.
"Are the files on the computer, too?" Jax asked.
"Not for long." Juice replied. "We should take the laptop, though. It might have other important things on it."
"Fine." Tig said. "Let's get this mess done with."
Anne stepped back into the room. At a glance, she looked cool and unconcerned, but Tig recognized the tension in her hands and the whiteness of her face. She had washed the blood off her skin and changed into clean clothes. She looked at Tig without flinching, but he saw the slight tremor pass through her body.
Clay cast a disgusted look in Anne's direction before grabbing Jax and leaving the destroyed room. Opie and Juice also cleared out, muttering something about making sure no one besides the clerk—who was hiding under his desk with a wad of cash that said he hadn't seen anything at all—had heard the cacophony of screaming and gunshots.
Chibs ignored the suddenly icy atmosphere and continued riffling through the goons pockets and making a stack of their weapons, wallets, and drugs. Happy worked with him, but not without giving Anne an appreciative eye-fuck first. Tig stifled a growl and closed the distance between them with angry strides.
"Are you hurt?"
"No."
The relief or knowing she was safe quickly vanished under the crippling weight of fury.
"You ran. You fucking ran away."
Anne shuddered and shrank back from him. Merciless, Tig stepped closer. He felt sick. He knew that frightening Anne would drive her away even faster, but what did he have to lose? She'd already left him.
"I've tossed more women out of my bed than I can count, and the one I ask to stay bails? I thought you were brave, but you're just a scared little girl."
"Tig, c'mon." Chibs said, looking up from the corpse. Tig shrugged off his brother's warning and took another step towards Anne. Her back was against the wall. She couldn't run now. The only way out was though Tig.
"A mechanic isn't good enough for you?"
Anne glared up at him, but she didn't dignify his question with an answer. Being a mechanic would never have been a problem. It was the other side of his life she probably couldn't hack. For the first time in many, many years, being a Son was something other than a source of pride.
"Are you scared of me? Are you scared of what I do?" He growled, pitching his voice low.
"The only time I'm not scared is when I'm with you." She spat back, pushing at him with both hands. It was uncanny how easily she could disarm him.
"Then what the fuck is wrong with you?"
"I can't be a crow eater. I can't be your pet, or your project." Anne looked lost, struggling for words. Her hands tightened on his arms, no longer pushing him away. "I..."
Tig struck the wall behind Anne's head with the palm of his hand. He expected her to flinch, but she just looked away. He almost laughed when he realized that she had no doubt that he wouldn't actually hurt her. He'd hit women before, made others cry by yelling like he was now, but Anne really wasn't afraid of him.
"I know you're not stupid, but if you can't see that you're different than all those bitches then you aren't as smart as I thought. This could be your family—a real one, not whatever sad excuse you grew up with."
Anne glared at him, but behind her anger he could see real fear. He didn't understand it, and it was infuriating. He repeated the question.
"What are you so scared of?"
A tear slid down her cheek. "It'll break. It'll all be good for a while, then one of us will fuck it up, and you'll hate me for being in your way. It always goes bad."
"Oh hell..." He remembered her failed marriage. Anne was silent, but he could see the vulnerability in her eyes. Tig bowed his head so that his forehead just touched hers. "Just cause things can go bad, doesn't mean they will."
He felt her resolve waver. Taking advantage of her hesitation, Tig kissed her. It started out gently, but quickly turned savage as he took ownership of both her and the kiss. He tasted the salt of her tears. Then he felt her pushing to get free.
Her voice was plaintive. "I promised myself I'd never give up my life for a man, ever again."
"What life?" Tig said bitterly. She had quit her job already. She had come to California alone. The way he saw it, she was already adrift. Why couldn't she see Charming as a harbour?
Anne's face went still. She shoved him hard enough to drive him back a step. Eyes lowered, she walked around him as if he didn't exist.
"Slick." Chibs said dryly, though the look on his face was sympathetic.
"What?"
"'What life.'" Chibs quoted, shaking his head. "You just said that you don't respect who she is unless she's with you. I've got a ex wife who can tell you that I don't know shit about shit, but I'm pretty sure that's exactly what she's afraid of."
"Fuck." Tig hit the wall where Anne had stood. "Goddamn, crazy women."
"Give her time, Tigger. She wouldn't be this fucked in the head if she didn't want you. Can't fathom why, but anyone can see she's mad for ye."
Tig didn't want to hear it. He turned to Happy. "Get her to the airport safe. Stick with her as far as you can."
"She ain't gonna like running with me. I make her nervous." Happy's lips twitched. He liked making women nervous.
"Right now, I don't give a shit how she feels. She wants out of Cali, we get her out of Cali. On the first fucking plane North."
Tig looked back towards the mutilated corpse. He had work to do. And by the time he was done, Anne would be far enough out of reach that he wouldn't be able to run after the stupid bitch. There wasn't anyone left to kill, so he savagely kicked one of the corpses.
His girl was gone. Fuck, who was he kidding? Anne hadn't been his girl. She'd just been something warm to fuck for a few days, here and there.