He Use To Be A Son Of Anarchy

Chapter Twenty Four: Tightrope

I was driving as fast as the car allowed me to at this point.

"Come on, Val. He's right behind us and gaining fast."

"I'm going as fast as I can," I yell back at Jax and glance nervously in my rear-view mirror. Happy was almost right behind us. How he planned on getting us to stop I didn't know, but I didn't want to find out either.

The noise of the motorcycle made me so on edge that I struggled to keep my focus on the road.

"Fuck," I heard Jax say, "He's pulling out his gun. Val, try to keep your head low when he shoots." Jax was fumbling at his feet with the duffle bag he threw there just before we left. He pulled out a pistol.

But he was too late. I heard the bang of the gun and then the loud pop as one of the back tyres got hit. The car jerked to the side and I pulled the steering wheel hard in the opposite direction, trying to balance it out.

The car skidded off the road and onto the desert floor, slamming right into the overhead rocks. My neck was whipped to the side and my head smashed against the driver's window. For a moment all I heard was static as I touched the spot on my head where hot blood was trickling from, just above my ear.

I looked over to Jax and saw blood pouring from his nose. It looked like the impact had broken it. But unlike me Jax wasn't out of it. He bent down again to pick up the pistol that had fallen on the floor.

I didn't even have time to regain consciousness of where I was and what happened. My head felt heavy and my vision was blurry. I wanted to something, anything, to help Jax, but even the simplest action like lifting hand up to touch the wound on my head took so much effort, it left me feeling worse.

Happy tapped Jax's window with the barrel of his gun.

"Out," he said stepping back.

I looked to Jax. He stopped fumbling at his feet. There was no way we were getting out of this one. He gave me a sad nod, telling me to obey Happy's order. We both slowly got out of the car.

"Come over here to the back. Keep your hands where I can see them," he said walking backwards, the gun pointed at us and moving to the back of the car. It was hard to even stand up straight and walking felt like it was being done on a tightrope.

"What the fuck was that?" he asked in Jax's direction. Jax looked at him with a straight face; no emotion displayed.

"You're lucky I didn't kill you," Happy said looking from Jax to me. He placed a hand on the back of his head, almost in an exasperated manner.

We were lucky he didn't kill us? I thought that was the point. Or was causing us to collide with the rocks just a subtle, friendly way of getting us to stop?

Jax still said nothing.

"What are you doing here?" Happy asked.

"Hiding obviously," Jax spoke for the first time.

"Yeah, obviously not very well," Happy replied sarcastically. He looked at Jax as if seeing him for the first time, like two brothers being reunited instead of a hunter trying to kill a target.

"What happened to you, man? You're supposed to be dead" Happy seemed genuinely sincere.

"Look, I'll tell you, but I can't do that while you're pointing a gun at me and certainly not on the side of the road."

Happy lowered his weapon and tucked it back somewhere behind his cut. "You better tell me everything."

"Let's just get back into town, go somewhere quiet and then I'll explain."