Lena sat her uncle at the kitchen table and poured water into a cracked basin. Wiping his face down, she waited until the blood started to dry to apply pressure to his face. “You said that you would stop,” she reminded him. “What happened to that?”
Sully shuffled his feet and sat on his hands as he tried to turn his eyes from hers.
“Look at me,” Lena asked. “I am right here. And I’m not going anywhere.”
“Sure you are,” he said sadly. “Took you all this time to…” His voice caught in his throat, and Lena’s lips started to quiver when he finally met her eyes again. “And…and as well you should,” he said sadly. “But you know…”
“No I don’t,” she challenged. “Why do you keep taking chances?”
As she watched his lips and waited for an answer, she expected the customary excuse. Call it a sickness. He just couldn’t control himself. But when his eyes finally locked on hers again, the explanation was far sadder.
“Just one clean haul, Lena, and I’ll amount to something, finally give you a closet full of pretty new clothes.
“Jesus,” she muttered. “I…I’m doing okay now. You didn’t have to….”
“Lena.” Taking her cheeks in his hands, he kissed her brow and honed in on her eyes.
“But I still want to,” he whispered. “Is that so wrong?”
Wrong? Maybe not. How could she truly be cross when his heart was in a kind place? But, then again, how many times did a man need to be kicked in the teeth before he stayed down or at least got up and shifted his stance?
“Just…just hold still,” she whispered. “Let me patch you up.”
Sully did as he was told as she cut a piece of slim gauze and started to tape it to his cheek. She hesitated for all of a second. Should she make him bite the bullet and head for the hospital? Even though her uncle detested doctors, stitches might be in order…
“I see what you’re thinking,” he accused in a gentle voice. “Just plaster me up, and I’ll be as good as new in no time.”
Suddenly too tired to fight with him and knowing it would do little to no good, Lena fixed him up as best she could and moved to the sink to get him a glass of water.
“No, little girl,” he said. “Gonna need something a hell of a lot stronger than that.”
Lena glared at him over her shoulder. “At this hour?” she challenged. “It’s barely lunch--”
“This counts,” he said. “Nothing wrong with a liquid lunch.”
Sighing heavily, Lena pulled a dusty glass from the cupboard and quickly rinsed it out. Sitting on the counter was a half-empty bottle of scotch. She grabbed a handful of ice cubes from the freezer, and splashed the golden liquor on top. Sully eagerly outstretched his hand. As Lena started to hand the drink over, she held it close to her chest and arched her eyebrow. “You only get if you promise to give up the other stuff,” she said in the firmest voice that she could muster.
“Lena, come on. I only want to---”
“Stop chasing a ship that’s never going to come in,” she continued. “And don’t insult me by saying that you’re doing it for me.”
A stern look crossed his face, and Sully pounded a weak fist to the table as he hung his head. “Like I never did anything for you,” he said. “Kept a roof over your head, didn’t I?”
Lena took a step forward and gently slipped to her knees. “Of course you did,” she whispered. “And I’d like to see you under it the next time that I come back.”
“Will there even be a next time?” he asked as a tear glinted in the corner of his eye.
“Don’t be like that,” Lena said. “You know I missed you.”
“Same here, little girl.”
She set the glass aside and expected him to snatch it up in one second flat. But to her surprise, he pulled her into her arms and held her close. The greasy smell of his hair took her back to days when he sat at her bedside and brought his head to hers as he spun stories of the girl, her twin who lived in the space of her mirror. Dwelling on a parallel terrain, the reflection was a being that possessed magical powers. All she had to do was walk across a freshly cut lawn to change it into fields of mint. Pick a rose, and it became a cone overloaded with strawberry ice cream. She could turn back time with a wish. And because she was so special, because she used her magic to share with all the other little boys and girls in the other Deerfield, she had more friends than she could count, and everyone loved her. Sometimes Lena tried to bring the story to the real world, offering to split a soggy sandwich or burnt brownies from her lunch box. But that only resulted in upturned noses and cruel remarks. And yet, more often than not, her lunch was still stolen anyway. That changed when Jax made a point of always sitting at her side.
“Okay,” Lena said as she pushed away and pulled a chair closer to his side. “Here.”
She handed him the glass, and Sully was about to take a quick swig when he suddenly held back and tilted his head.
“So why the endless days with no house call?” he asked. “I mean…if you really are glad to see me.”
“It’s…there were other reasons.” Vague as her words were, she prayed he would simply let it drop and ask her about her classes, or if she finally had friends she could trust – anything but the rest of the story.
“Thought so,” Sully said. Lena felt as if her heart came to a stop, and she clutched the edge of the table as she watched him drink and wipe his mouth with the back of his hand.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“You said no more lying,” he started. “You really gonna sit there with a straight face and tell me that this don’t have something to do with the Munroe boy?”
Lena’s heart came back to life at a rapid fire pace, and her eyes darted around the room as she swallowed hard. “Jax?” she muttered, unable to say or think anything but his name.
“He was always sort of sweet on you,” Sully said. “And you, little girl, you practically lit up every time he came around to call.”
She recalled the sensation of her head spinning and her skin quivering whenever he pulled up to her door to take her to school or just hang. If it were that easy for her uncle to connect the dots, then she had to have been far less subtle than she ever imagined. But why had Jax never noticed? A boy like him would have made the first move if he wanted to be more than her attack dog, forever lying in wait. Maybe she should have been bolder. But that was before. Before she was damaged goods in every sense of the words.
“I don’t know,” she started. “Guess we just grew apart or whatever. I’m sure he doesn’t even think about me anymore.”
“Not the read I got on him this morning.”
“What…what did he do?” she asked. Her gaze moved back to the bandage attached to Sully’s cheek, and a shiver ran up her spine at the thought that he might have wielded the blade. At the end of the day, the Black Legion was his family, and without her there, if she truly meant nothing to him…
“Not like he was leading the charge or anything,” Sully said.
Lena’s stomach started to churn, and she stepped away from the table on shaky legs. Knowing that any shift to the dark side was partially her fault, her fault for running when she could have come clean, she had to balance her body on the edge of the sink as she sucked in several ragged breaths through her chattering teeth.
“But did he…was he one of the ones that hurt you?” she asked.
“Far from it,” Sully said.
Clinging to those words like a slick rock in a raging river, Lena flung her head over her shoulder to face him and hugged herself close. “Then what did he do?” she asked.
“Actually, he’s the reason I’m still in one piece. Even gave me a week to make good on my debt.”
That was the Jax she knew, the man who stuck to his own code even if it contradicted the blood oath into which he was born. Her lips curled into a small smile as she managed to move back to her abandoned chair, her hand light against Sully’s shoulder as she spoke. “Same old Jax then,” she said.
“No accounting for bloodlines,” he said. “With that fuck Stiles for a father.”
“Stepfather,” Lena corrected him.
“Same difference,” Sully said as he drained his glass. “And that mother of his was no better.”
“But he stood up for you,” she said.
“And he said that he wasn’t doing it for me.”
Hope started to flood her veins that her absence might have had the reverse effect of everything she ever imagined. They hadn’t parted as friends; after all that they had shared, they barely spoke. And even as Lena assumed a new life and told herself that the past was better off forgotten and buried, a small part of her always wondered if there might be a way back. Night after night, she dreamed of finding him beside the creek and finally savoring the feel of his lips on her neck as she melted into his strong, hard arms. Given the chance, she might even be able to give herself to him and feel like it was…
“Lena? You’re trembling. You okay?”
She noticed her hand shaking at the end of her arm, and she drew away from her uncle as she smoothed her hands through her hair. “Fine,” she lied. “I just need a second.”
Hurrying up the steps, she bypassed her old bedroom and made a beeline for the bathroom. The girl staring back at her from the mirror now possessed no powers. But she was stronger. Far more sure of herself. Could she face him again without fear and hope?
Lena’s thoughts were invaded by the sound of a bike roaring towards the house, and she dashed to the window. Like an answer to a prayer, there he was, his body long and lean as brushed a lock of his hair from his eyes. Not even grass that might change to mint was ever so green, and she started to smile when she saw him, ready to fling open the window and call down to him. Would he be surprised? Probably stunned was more like it. But she still pictured him smiling as she waved her hand through the air, and he would rush inside as she flew down the stairs wanting nothing more than to simply hold him for a long sweet moment, as she remembered how safe she could feel in his arms.
Her hands were at the windowsill when he drew his gun and barreled to the door. That didn’t fit. It was the last thing in line with Sully’s version of---
“Jax! Back so…what the hell are you---?”
Sully’s voice fell silent at the sound of a scuffle and someone crashing to the floor. Forgetting the perfect picture of Jax that she had so long held in her heart, Lena broke into a run.
“Jax!” Sully screamed again. “Thought we were square! You said I had a---”
“Change of plans. It’s now or never!” Jax hissed. “Quit dicking us around, asshole!”
As Lena returned to the kitchen, she gasped at the sight of Jax holding her uncle by his collar as he lowered his head to the sink. Jax turned the faucet to attention and held Sully under the running water, his arms flailing as he tried to push away from the biker. Lena looked to the phone and thought of calling for help. But in Deerfield, that was better than doing nothing at all.
And she was right here. “Jax!” she screamed in a sharp voice.