A/N: Guess what time it is? Time for me to thank you all for being amazing. I love all you fabulous readers out there, especially those who have followed, favorited, and reviewed this story. I love hearing what you have to say, so please leave me a comment and let me know what you think. And to those of you who have already reviewed, keep 'em coming, I love your feedback! I've spent the day baking, cause, why not, and if I knew who you were in real life, you'd have a whole plate of baked goods just for you!

Ks- Yes, the poor pretty bike. I don't think the bike will survive, but who knows, maybe the guys will fix her up another one sometime.

Ghostwriter- Random a-hole or someone out fir Dani? To be revealed this chapter! Thank you so much, I'm always glad to hear you like the chapter!

Mist17- I'm working as fast as I can to get you an update, I promise! Thank you for your review, Glad you're excited for more!

Hennele-rogue- Thank you! Glad you liked the chapter, I'm always trying to get the new chapters out to you as fast as possible, hope you like the new chapter!

BekaRoo- Thank you! It was a fun moment with Dani learning to ride her bike. Clay was a kind of an ass, partly because he wanted to make sure she didn't say anything that would bring the cops into the mix and partly because… Well we'll see. Did Clay have something to do with Dani's kidnapping? If he didn't, who did? Many revelations coming this chapter!

Khyharah- you know me, if a chapter starts off in a good place, I'm 90% likely to throw a wrench onto things lol. Burt don't worry, I'll tell you what's going on in this chapter. Glad you got your power and internet restored, and you didn't have any major damage to deal with. Glad you liked the chapter, always good to hear from you!

Ok folks, are we ready for some drama? Cause there's gonna be drama. Go, read and enjoy!

Chapter 26

The ride to the hospital was quick, but silent apart from when Dani let out a quiet cry when Gemma hit a rather large pothole, causing the car to lurch.

"Sorry," Gemma had said, cringing in sympathy.

When they got to the hospital, Jax was at her door before Dani even had a chance to remove her seatbelt. He helped her out of the car and wrapped an arm around her guiding her into the emergency room. Dani looked up at her brother. "Don't leave me alone in here," she requested.

Jax looked at her in concern. "No one is going to hurt you here," he assured her.

"I know that, but this place is full of strangers who are going to have to touch me in order to help me. And… well… there was a doctor… before. He was... well, I just don't like doctors, ok?" Dani admitted. She could see the flash of anger in Jax's eyes when she alluded to being hurt in the past but then it was gone.

"I won't leave you alone," he said. He guided her to the registration. The nurse checking patients in took her information, and wanted to bring her back alone at first, but Dani refused. Jax turned on his charm for the nurse who relented after Jax gave her his 'I'm so charming' smile and leaned in to say something she couldn't hear.

Two hours later and some very awkward interactions between Dani and the medical staff and her scrapes had been cleaned and bandaged, her arm x-rayed, and while not broke, was fractured in her wrist and in two places in her elbow. Dani was waiting on someone to come and cast her arm.

Jax was sitting with her making jokes to keep her at ease when his phone rang. "Yeah," he said as he answered it. "Hang on," He said into the phone before looking at Dani. "I gotta take this, find out what's going on. I'll be just in the hallway in case the doc comes back, ok?" he told her.

Dani bit her lip nervously but nodded. Jax ruffled her hair as he left, giving her a smirk. Dani sighed dramatically and rolled her eyes at him. When she was alone, she closed her eyes and tried to ease some of the tension from her body.

It was only a moment later when she heard someone come in. "That was quick," she said opening her eyes and expecting to see Jax, but someone else had come in instead. Oh, Clay. Hi. I didn't know you were still here."

"Yeah, your mother's still here too. How are you doing?" He asked.

"I'm ok. Just waiting on the cast." She told him.

"You sure seem to be a magnet for trouble," he said, not unkindly.

"Maybe I should try a lucky rabbit's foot." Dani attempted at joking.

"You're family, baby girl, and we take care of family when they're in trouble," he started, and Dani gave him a small smile of appreciation. That smile disappeared rather quickly though as he continued. "But there's only so much I'm going to tolerate your mess winding up at my club's front door. This club has enough to deal with without adding the unwanted attention you've been bringing." His words had grown harsher and had a distinctive warning to it.

"I didn't ask for any of this—" Dani started.

"But you brought it here anyway, and there's only so much more I'm going to take before I choose a different action." The implied threat washed over Dani as she sat there in bewilderment. Before she had time to dwell on the threat or the implication that she was somehow to blame for the getting run down by a car, for the ATF being here, for any of the shitstorm that had been her life, Jax was rushing back into the room.

"We got the bastard." He said before he took in the atmosphere of the room. "Everything ok here?" He asked glancing between Dani and Clay.

"Everything's fine." Dani said awkwardly before getting back to what Jax was saying. "They caught the guy?" she asked.

"Yeah." He looked to Clay. "No gang tats, guys not talking." He looked back to Dani. "We want you to see if you recognize him. He might work for someone you know," he told her. "Are you going to be ok to do that?"

Dani nodded. "Yeah. I can do that. I want to do that. I'm over this shit."

Another hour later, Dani was back in Gemma's car, Following Jax and Clay to… well, she wasn't sure where they were going. She didn't think they mentioned where they were going, but her head was a little fuzzy from the painkillers that she had reluctantly accepted from the nurse who had offered them to her to help with the throbbing in her arm as they positioned her arm so it would heal correctly and applied her cast.

Dani glanced over to the driver's seat at Gemma. "You've been quiet today. That's not like you," she commented.

Gemma chuckled. "Figured you'd be more likely to let me help you if I wasn't being a bitch. I wanted to be here to help, to make sure you were ok. After everything, I know you might not believe me, but I do care about you, and I don't want to see anything bad happen to you."

"Thank you for being here," Dani told her. "We need to stop avoiding each other. We have to start talking or things will never get better, and I want things to get better between us."

"Me too, baby." Gemma said.

Dani smiled. It felt like at last there was a step in the right direction with Gemma. She didn't have time to dwell on it though, because the car was slowing down outside what appeared to be an old barn.

Dani undid her seatbelt and reached for the door handle with her left arm when the door was suddenly open, and she was out of the car before she could blink and in Opie's arms. He held her tighter than she had ever been held in her life and she clung to him just as tightly, partly for her comfort, and partly to give him some comfort as well. "I'm ok, Opie," she assured him.

His mouth crushed her own, preventing her from speaking further with a searing kiss. "Like hell you are," he said when he pulled away and gently took hold of her right arm, encased in a black cast from her hand all the way to her upper arm, locking her arm with her elbow bent for the next several weeks at least. "Are you sure you want to see him?" Opie asked her.

"I'm sure. I want answers." Dani replied. Opie took her good hand and started leading her to the barn, Jax following behind. As they were walking past Clay, who was also heading to the barn, Dani leaned over slightly and said in a quiet, icy tone, "You think this is my mess; you can stay back while I deal with it."

"What was that?" Opie asked her.

"It's not important," she said. "When we get in there, stay close, stay pissed, but let me talk to him."

Dani could tell that Opie wasn't a fan of her request, but he nodded. She glanced back at Jax and he nodded as well.

Kip was standing at the barn door and pulled it open for them as they approached. She stepped into the shade of the barn and as her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she took in the Sons, and in the center of the barn a man, tied to a chair was a man. He had dark hair and was unshaven, and he had clearly taken a beating, though his face was mostly untouched, Dani guessed it was for her benefit for an attempted ID of this man. He was watching her as she approached him, Opie on one side of her, Jax on the other, and Dani could see a mixture of anger and fear. She studied his face for several moments before looking to Jax and almost imperceptivity shaking her head. She did not recognize him.

She turned back to this man. "Well, I think it's safe to say we've both had a pretty shitty day," she told him. "I was almost ran over, had my brand new bike destroyed, fractured my arm in three places and got a little banged up from my fall. You had your evil plan to run me down foiled. Got caught by my friends here, I'm guessing you got the shit beat out of you, and now you are tied to a chair in the middle of nowhere.

"You really picked thee wrong girl to mess with." Dani gestured to Jax and then Opie as she continued. "See, my brother and my boyfriend here both seem pretty keen on killing you, since you tried to kill me and all. But I thought we should have a little talk first. See if we can't clear up this little misunderstanding." She leaned down and looked the man in the eyes. "Why did you try and kill me?"

The man stayed silent. Dani sighed. "I would really recommend talking to me." She stood up and slowly started walking in a circle around him. Her tone was low, but confident, and held just the right amount of iciness and danger. "Normally I'm a pretty rational person, and I don't usually condone violence, but again, you tried to kill me. I'm pretty angry about that, and the hospital gave me some pretty strong drugs, so right now, I'm thinking vengeance sounds pretty good right now. I spent twenty years living a nightmare, and while you might not have had anything to do with that, I'm thinking you are connected somehow. If you don't talk to me, I'm going to have to take all twenty years of anger out on you. It will be slow, and it will be painful."

Dani finished circling the man and as she came around, she moved to his right side. "Maybe we should start with evening the score today. I'll be nice and let you choose… which one of my friends would you like to break your ar—arm.." Dani trailed off and let out a gasp as she took a step back. While she had been speaking, she had looked at the mans arm she suggested breaking. On his arm was possibly the dumbest tattoo she had ever seen. It was an cartoonish looking bear that was supposed to look menacing, but instead looked constipated holding a shotgun in one paw and a beer in the other. It wasn't the stupidity of the tattoo that caused her reaction, but the instant recognition. She had forgotten she gad ever seen that image before until that moment. Her mind instantly transported her back to when she first saw the image. She was in a park and suddenly there were arms around her, jerking her into a too tight grip, hurting her, moving away from her family. Before everything went black, she clawed at an arm bearing a tattoo of an ugly cartoon bear holding a gun.

"Dani, are you ok?" Jax's voice brought her back to the present.

Her eyes shot to her brothers. "It's him," she gasped.

"Who, Dani? Who is he?" Jax asked.

"He's the man from the park. He's the man who kidnapped me."

Silence hung in the air as the weight of Dani's realization sunk in. Suddenly, Jax lunged at the man in the chair, knocking him backwards. He punched him in the face a few times before pressing his forearm into the man's neck, cutting off his oxygen supply. Dani rushed forward, wrapping her good arm around Jax from behind trying to pull him off the man.

"Jax, stop. You have to stop." She pleaded as he refused to budge.

"I'm going to kill him. He deserves to die," Jax seethed.

"Not yet. He has answers that I need." Dani said urgently. "Please, Jax. I have to know."

Jax shoved himself away from the man, taking Dani back a few steps with him as she hugged him from behind. Jax turned around and pulled her into areal hug, crushing her to him for a moment before stepping back and assessing her. "You weren't hurt when I went after him were you?" he asked.

"No, I'm ok," she assured him before she kneeled next to the man in the chair, who was gasping for breath, and looked down at him. "that looked like it hurt, huh?" she asked him. "Look, you're going to die for what you did to me all those years ago, and I gotta be honest, you really deserve it. But there's two ways this can happen. You can tell me what I want to know, and I ask them to put a bullet in your head and end it quickly. Or you can not tell me what I want to know, and there will be beatings and broken bones and torture before you are gutted and let to bleed out slowly and torturously. So, do you want to talk to me or should I get my brother back over here? Or maybe the big guy wants a turn?" Dani looked over at Opie before looking back at the man. She waited but he said nothing. "No? Ok then," she turned to get up and felt Opie take a step closer.

"Wait!" the man said. "I'll talk." He rushed out in a raspy tone that Dani was sure was a result of Jax's attack.

Dani sat back down. "Good. What's your name?"

"Bert," the man rasped.

"Ok Bert. Why did you try and kill me today?" Dani asked.

"I read that article about you in the paper a couple weeks ago. The article said you weren't cooperating with the feds, but I had to make sure, so I started following you. I saw you with them at the courthouse, and then I saw them following you for a while, so I knew you must have told them what you knew."

"When's the last time you saw them following me?" Dani asked

"Few days, maybe a week. Figured they were getting ready to make a move, so I had to do something. I didn't want to go to jail."

Dani started laughing hysterically. "Oh Bert, you really screwed the pock on this one." She laughed some more. "I didn't know who you were. I never knew who kidnapped me. Until I saw that stupid fucking tattoo on your arm today and remembered it from when you snatched me up, I had no idea who you were. If you had stayed away, you could have lived a long and, I'm sure pathetic, life." She sighed. "Ok Bert, now it's time for the real question. Why did you kidnap me?"

"I wanted payback." Dani's eyebrows shot up at that confession.

"Payback for what?" she asked. He shook his head. "Payback for what?" she asked again? "Or would you like him to ask you?" She gestured back towards Opie who took another step forward. "He won't ask as nice as I will."

"They ruined my life," the man blurted out. "I had a good thing going. Had me a girl, figured out a way to take care of her habit and mine. Even had a little extra to sell."

"You were making and dealing inside Charming?" Jax asked.

Bert nodded. "I sold to a mechanic who worked at your garage. He must have ratted me out, cause a couple of your guys showed up at my place, kicked my ass, ruined my stash, burned my fucking house down. Told me if they caught me dealing or cooking in Charming again, they'd kill me. I had nothing. My girl left me. I wanted to make them pay." He told her.

"But why me? Why take me?" Dani demanded.

"A guy I knew, he was a dealer and was into a bunch of other shit, he knew a guy that would pay $10,000 for a kid, offered to split it with me if I could help him. We showed up at the park that day, and all I could see were those fucking kuttes. And then I saw they had kids with them. So we waited until one of you were alone. A grill caught fire and a bunch of people went to help and that's when I saw you. I got to cause them pain and get paid at the same time.

Dani felt like someone was squeezing her lungs. "And you never thought or cared about the fact that you were responsible for putting a kid through absolute hell?" she asked through clenched teeth.

"I was on drugs and fucked up for a long time. When I got clean I didn't want to think about the bad shit I did to get some cash or a fix."

Dani shook her head. "I can't be around apiece of shit like you any longer. You're going to tell my friends here all about your dealer friend and his creepy friend who buys kids. Then you're going to hell, asshole."

She stood up and walked to Opie and Jax joined them. "I have to get out of here. Can you guys find out what else he knows?" They agreed and she gave them both a hug.

As she was walking out, she encountered Clay, who had been watching the interactions from the doorway. She stopped in front of him. "That mess you were talking about before—turns out it landed right where it belongs. Everything that happened to be is your club's fault." Clay looked away, and Dani thought she saw sadness in his face. He looked back at her and started to speak but Dani cut him off. "Save it. Just take care your mess."

With that she exited the barn and found Gemma. "Can you take me home now?" she asked.

Gemma nodded. Sure, baby, let's go." And with that, Dani let Gemma lead her to her car and heled her sur the door before going around to the drivers side and heading back into town.