The girl stared calmly at him. When the silence had gone on too long she said. "Let's go outside for a moment."

Jax stared back, wary.

"If you're thinking of pulling a gun on me, I suggest you hear me out first."

Jax didn't have a gun. Unable to think what to do he followed the girl out. Half-expecting Stahl or Hale to be standing there with an army waiting to arrest him, he was almost surprised when all that greeted them when she opened the door was darkness and cold air. He followed her as she crossed the unkempt motel lawn towards an outcrop of rock that looked over the hills at Charming. She sat on the rock and looked at him expectantly. When he didn't say anything or make a move to sit down she spoke.

"I would ask you why you didn't just freaking tell me but it would just add to the really long line of stupidest questions in history." She gave him that look that made him squirm. The one that seemed to see right through him. "I know you have no reason to trust me. But for someone who has such major trust issues and who suffers from such extreme paranoia this was just all kinds of very stupid ! What if Stahl and her minions had found the body instead of me?"

Jax could only stand there, his mind trying to digest what the girl was saying. Sara wondered if he had any clue how much she was reading just from the expressions chasing each other across his face. He was nowhere near as good at hiding his emotions as he thought he was.

"So what is this—you're going to try and blackmail me now?"

The girl actually snorted and looked away a moment. When she turned back to him she was shaking her head. "You suffer from an amazing lack of imagination. Blackmail? Seriously? If I were going to go through all the trouble – and risk – of blackmail, I would aim for serious money. Which I know for a fact you don't have."

"There's other currency."

"True. But what would I want with guns? Too much trouble for too little gain, dude."

"So what do you want?"

The girl lifted her hands, her expression bewildered. "Why do I have to want anything?"

"Everyone does."

"Wrong again. I did want information about Kohn, but now I know where he is so …" she trailed off shrugging and then her eyes narrowed. "Or maybe you're right. I do want something."

"What?"

"To thank you. You did me a hell of a favor."

Tara peered into the Irishman's wound, taking note of the bulldog clip that had clamped off the severed artery. "Did you do this?" she asked Juice.

Juice opened his mouth to tell her what happened and then remembered Jax threatening the death penalty to anyone who breathed a word to Tara about the girl looking for Kohn. "It was Chibs," he lied, making a mental note to talk to the Scotsman to get their stories straight.

Tara tilted her head, nodding a little. "Crude, but effective." She brought out gloves, a surgical clamp, gauze, disinfectant. "I'm going to need your help, Juice."

"Sure," he grinned, puffing up a little.

A wad of gauze was handed to him. "I'm going to take the clip off and as soon as I do that you need to stuff this gauze in there. Then I'll clamp it off with this clamp. A proper clamp. It'll make things easier." She took a breath. "Ready?"

Juice nodded, feeling quite the old pro. "Ready , doc."

"So he was stalking you, too?"

Jax had sat down at last and they had gotten into an almost amiable conversation. Well, as amiable as a conversation could get being it was about a dead guy.

The girl nodded.

"Like Tara," he said quietly.

"No. Not like Tara."

Jax turned to her. He was having a little trouble with this very adult tone coming from a girl who looked like she was in high school. "What do you mean?"

"Tara was his girlfriend. They were living together. I never even went out with him."

She saw him flinch. "Touchy subject? Sorry."

Jax shook his head. "So what was his hold on you?"

"He didn't have one. I was doing a temp job for some club he frequents in Chicago, he spotted me and some lightbulb went off in his head telling him I was "The One" for him. Suddenly he was everywhere. All the time."

"So you got a restraining order to stop him from stalking you?"

"Restraining order?," she scoffed. "He's a fed! How lame would that have been?"

"What then?"

"I stalked him back."

Gemma approached Tara as she was gathering her things together, preparing to leave Teller-Morrow. "You did us a great favor saving the Irishman" she said candidly to the young woman. "Thank you. We won't forget it."

Tara glanced at her, tried her best to accept the thanks graciously. "I patched him up. But Juice here deserves credit for keeping the bleeding to a minimum til I got here."

Beside Gemma, Juice grinned ear to ear. He seemed to grow taller, even.

Then Tara added. "Him and Chibs - he clamped the femoral with that bulldog clip."

"Chibs?" Gemma shook her head. "Chibs isn't here, he's been out for hours."

The two women turned on Juice, who immediately began to sweat.

"Did you improvise the clamp?" Tara frowned. "Why'd you tell me it was Chibs?"

Juice wiped his sweaty hands on his jeans and shifted from foot to foot. Sensing something was amiss Gemma closed in on him. "Juice!" she barked sharply, making him jump. "Who helped you with the Irishman?"

"It was the kid!" he blurted, unable to help himself. Gemma was way scarier than Clay, especially when she got that look on her face.

"What kid?"

"The one you let in to wait for Jax!"

Gemma put her face up right next to Juice's. Her expression was now pure thunder. "What kid?"

"You read the manuscript?"

"Of course not! I may be a stalker but I'm not nosey." The girl seemed positively indignant as she fixed him with that disturbing gaze. "So. Who pulled the trigger, you or Tara?"

Jax remained silent, caught off guard by her direct attack.

After a moment Sara sighed. " It was a rhetorical question so you can stop agonizing. I already know she made you do it. And don't look at me like that. No, Tara didn't tell me. When I was stalking Kohn I had to dig stuff up on her as well. It doesn't take much to figure it out. Why do you think she came back here? Kohn was stalking her, she couldn't handle it, she came back to the person she knew could do the dirty work if it came down to it."

God, was that what everyone thought? Even Stahl had brought that up. It had always been in the back of Jax's mind but it didn't make it any less painful to hear it spoken out loud.

The girl saw the look in his eyes and frowned. "Dude, I didn't mean that as an insult," she said. " Obviously she trusts you with her life. Believe me, that's big."

When he didn't say anything she kept looking at him with those disturbing eyes. "Shit. I offended you, didn't I? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. Or maybe it was something you were already thinking? Look at it this way. She's all kinds of lucky to have someone who'll pull the trigger for her. I mean that "

Jax nodded, comforted just a bit. "So who'll pull the trigger for you?" he asked for no particular reason.

"I don't need anyone to pull the trigger for me. I do my own dirty work."

"Yeah tell me another story." he blurted without thinking. "Women are all the same."

"Are we?" she looked at him thoughtfully. "I have nothing to prove to you but if it'll make you feel better have your friend Juice find my name under Oregon juvie justice records. You'll see I shot my stepfather when I was twelve."

Jax stared at her. Noone could be that straightforward and lie at the same time. "Jesus Christ," he said without thinking.

"Jesus had nothing to do with it," she replied smoothly. "Except for blessing me with clear eyes and a steady hand."

"And balls."

"Those, too," she agreed.

"Why?" he asked softly.

"Rape," she replied simply, with no drama.

Jax had to look away for a moment. "I don't blame you for killing him."

"He didn't die. Unfortunately. But he was considerate enough to get himself shot again a year later. Fatally this time."

"And Kohn ?" Her gaze did not waver and understanding came in a rush. "Ah Jesus."

"Kohn tried," the girl corrected what he was obviously thinking. "Let's just say he never quite got around to it." She looked at him. "He tried the same with Tara, didn't he? That what led to this?"

He didn't answer. He didn't have to. "What does it matter?" he said at last. "It's done."

"So it is. But you're not out of the woods, you know. Stahl is on to you. And she thinks she's on to me."

"You ? But you had nothing to do with it."

"Three people know that, you, me and Tara. And Kohn, but he's dead so he doesn't count. As for everybody else - it's up to their imagination. And in case you haven't figured it out yet, let me tell you that Stahl is a very very creative little whackjob. She will make this out to be whatever she wants in order to get you and/or SAMCRO. And she's convinced I'm involved."

"I burned the body, there's no way she can link any of us."

Sara shook her head. "That little fire you set, the lighter fluid, - it wasn't hot enough. Probably fried the outside of the body, but I don't think it destroyed enough to rule out DNA evidence. I'm guessing good forensics will still be able to identify him."

Jax frowned. "What then?"

"We need to get him to a real crematorium. Burn him for real, get rid of the teeth."

"We?"

"Stahl has thrown me into the pot with you guys. It will also do me some good if Kohn's forever listed as AWOL instead of dead. If we get rid of the body for real, I can get someone to plant a couple of things on the net, fake transactions, that sort of thing, keep them thinking he's alive somewhere, hiding out."

"And why would you do that? Help me out?"

The girl shrugged. "Least I can do seeing as you got rid of my problem for me. Protects me, too."

"And what will I owe you if you help me out?"

She frowned, looking even more bewildered. "I'm not keeping a scorecard. Are you?"

Jax found he couldn't answer. Life at SAMCRO was exactly about that: keeping a scorecard. An eternal scorecard of faults and retaliations that had to be paid back and forth.

And he was so so tired of it.

"I wish I wasn't," he said at last, very softly.

"So don't," she shrugged.

author's note: thanks for reading and apologies for letting this go so long without updating. I'm introducing the OC slowly and a couple more mysteries/questionables will be cleared up in the next chapters. i hope you stay with the story and please let me know what you think !