Runaway ✔

089 • Dana

Dana took a few deep breaths before she sat down with Cherry and Lyla again. Her eyes were itching, she had the feeling she could cry any moment. The look in Juice's eyes and his angry face when he grabbed Kozik by the throat... Thinking of it still made her shiver. It was a side of him she'd never seen before. She shouldn't be surprised. Despite his sweet smile, sparkling eyes and sometimes foolish actions, he was a Son, no less than the others. He didn't eschew violence. And even though that caused a safe feeling in the beginning, she'd experienced the opposite now.

Fear.

Fear that he would hurt someone she cared about. 

Just like Maddox. 

Of course Juice wasn't like Maddox, but the glimpse she'd just seen... she couldn't let go of it. The arm he'd squeezed when he dragged her along, still hurt. Again she had a violent boyfriend. She couldn't imagine Juice would really hurt her, but hadn't she thought the same of Maddox? Was she really making the same mistakes all over again? She blinked away a tear, tried to push away the thoughts and to focus on the people around her. 

"What's goin' on?" Cherry asked. "Did Juice fight with someone? I heard Kenny tell something like that to Opie."

Dana shrugged her shoulders and looked at her friend. Not now, she tried to tell her with the look in her eyes. 

Her friend got the hint and stood up. "Let's get my Crow." She offered her hands to Lyla and Dana.

"What?" Dana asked dazed, while Cherry helped her on her feet.

"My tattoo!"

She still didn't understand and gave Kip a questioning look, who was grinning like an idiot. He clearly knew what his girlfriend was talking about. He stood up and walked with them, to a burly woman who was talking to Chibs. Every inch of her arms was covered with ink. 

"Ah, you're ready?" the woman asked.

Chibs pulled up the corner of his mouth. "Ye gonna get yer Crow?"

"Yeah, thought today would be a good day."

Together with the tattoo lady Cherry sat down in the grass. The woman placed a cushion in her lap and Cherry put down her arm, the inside up, where after the tattoo artist started to clean her skin. 

"And yer lookin' for inspiration?" the Scot asked, before he lit a cigarette. 

"To be honest I have no idea what you're talkin' about."

"A crow tattoo," Cherry answered, while the woman in front of her drew the design on her skin, "is an old lady thingy, with which we show the world we belong to a Son."

"Some sort of engagement ring for bikers?" she asked with raised eyebrows. 

"For Sons," Kip answered with a smirk. "Thus if you decide one day ya wanna stay with Juice, he probably wants you to take a crow tattoo too."

Ah. That's what Opie was talking about, earlier today. 

"So this is a big moment for you," she grinned at Kip, even though her smile wasn't truly genuine. "Your Old Lady is immortalizing her love for you."

There was something sweet about it, and it was more subtle than tattooing somebody's name on your body, but it still sounded a bit misogynistic. As if they were a herd of cows that were marked by their owner. But maybe she was too embittered at the moment to feel the romantic gesture.

She nodded to Kip as if his answer got through her, but she didn't hear a word he was saying. Past him she looked at the barbecue, where Juice was standing. He was talking to Kozik, she saw to her surprise, and he didn't look as angry as before, not by a long shot. Kozik seemed to take Juice's words to snap his neck if he ever touched her again much more lightly than she. She however couldn't get rid of that thought. Again and again she saw that look in his eyes, his tensed face, his fingers around Kozik's throat... 

She didn't even dare to go to Kozik to catch up, and the idea that she was not doing something because she was fearing the reaction of her boyfriend... that was something she'd hoped to never go through again. She didn't want a relationship like that anymore, not ever.