Lungs

When Juice left the church again, he didn’t even look my way. I could see that his eyes were glassy, as if he were trying not to cry. I watched helplessly as he left the clubhouse. A moment later, I heard the rumble of his bike starting.

“Shit,” I muttered to myself. I felt like I had lost something incredibly important. Juice had been prepared to open up, and after talking to Clay he wouldn’t even glance at me or try and comfort me with a smile. Not knowing what else to do, I knocked on the chapel door.

“Come in,” a gruff voice echoed from beyond the flimsy plywood that had been put up as a temporary fix for the doors that Roosevelt had destroyed.

I slipped inside, facing Clay. He raised his grey eyebrows, carving deep lines in his aging forehead. Wordlessly, he motioned for me to sit in the chair next to him.

“What’s going on with Juice?” I asked, cutting to the chase. I didn’t take his invitation to sit; I wasn’t planning on staying. “He’s been acting weird.”

He shrugged, sitting alone in his president’s chair at the head of the table. “Chibs thinks he’s just been under a lot lately. I helped him out, told him what he does for us means a lot. He’s got his Men of Mayhem patch now. Got all teary eyed and everything. He should man up and be back to normal soon.”

“Man up?” I felt almost insulted by the phrase. “You’re talking about Juice, not Jax. He’s hurt, Clay. And maybe half of the reason he’s not talking to me is because you’re in here convincing him that this is something that is just going to go away if he waits long enough.”

There was a malicious glimmer in my stepfather’s pale blue eyes. His deep voice came out as a growl when he spoke. “Alexis, don’t go sticking your nose where it’ll get you in trouble. I don’t know what he’s told you, but you need to remember that you’re just an old lady. You don’t have sway here. Juice knows what he’s doing, and nothing you say is going to change his dedication to us.” He spoke calmly, though the tension in his jaw told me that he was furious with me for trying to get involved.

“I’m not trying to take him away from the club,” I snapped. “I’m trying to get him to a point where he can breathe. Look, Clay, I get that there’s a bigger issue here right now. But I’m really worried about him.”

He waved me off, treating my concern like nothing more than a child’s scary dream. “I talked to him. He’ll be fine.”

I knew that I wasn’t going to get anything more from him. He was convinced that he could keep me out of the worst of club business. He had no idea what I knew, and I wasn’t about to tell him. If he hadn’t even wanted Mom, the matriarch of SAMCRO, to know about the cartel, he would surely be more than a little pissed off that I had been in on it since before the vote had even passed.

Shaking my head in anger, I left the room. The plywood door didn’t slam in as satisfying a way as I’d hoped.

“Where’s my brother?” I growled to no one in particular. As much as Juice had told me, I knew that there was still too much that I didn’t know. And I was looking for some answers.

“He’s with Opie,” Bobby replied. “Lyla gave V-Lin the slip when he went to escort her here for the lockdown. Jax and Ope are looking for her now.”

“Who the hell is V-Lin?” I snapped irritably.

A young Asian man with a prospect patch on his leather cut offered me a small, timid wave. “That would be me.”

“Say hello to your chaperone until this all blows over,” Bobby added, smiling pleasantly at me.

“Seriously? I get the guy who couldn’t even track a porn star properly? No. Absolutely not. I’d rather be alone, thanks.”

Bobby sighed, the amusement slipping from his tired eyes. “What crawled up your ass?”

I put my face in my hands, grinding the heels of my palms against my closed eyes in a failed attempt to vent some of my frustration. “I’m going to fucking lose it. I’ve got to get out of here. I’m going home. Don’t follow me,” I added, casting an unwarranted, furious look in the prospect’s direction.

“You don’t have a choice!” Bobby called after me.

“The hell I don’t!”

As soon as I was in my car, I pulled out my phone. The ringing on the other end agitated me, but it wasn’t long before an extremely impatient voice answered.

“What is it?”

“Jax, I really need to talk to you,” I couldn’t deny the odd flush of relief that I felt at the sound of my brother’s voice. We were nearly always on the same page; he would help me.

“Lexi, I’m kind of busy right now. Lyla’s gone.”

“Yeah, well, I’m going to be pretty damn quick if you don’t give me a couple minutes,” I grumbled. After a pause, I sighed. “Jesus, I’m sorry. Is Opie okay?”

There was a pause on the other end. “You don’t know what happened, do you?”

“To Lyla? No. I haven’t talked to her since the wedding. Figured they were still in newlywed bliss, to be honest.”

“What do you need to talk to me about?” he asked, switching topics deftly. I was so caught up in my own shit that I didn't bother pressing him for answers about Lyla.

“I want to know why you’re helping Clay,” I admitted. “What happened? You were always against him and now, when he wants to get involved with a cartel, you’re in? What the fuck?”

I could almost hear the tension in Jax’s jaw as he replied in a terse tone. “Sometimes you have to make questionable decisions because they’re the best option you have. Look, I don’t really want to talk about this over the phone.”

I couldn’t stop myself from yelling at him. “Since when is a drug cartel the best option, Jax? People are dying! Someone wants to kill your wife!”

“You don’t think I know that?” Jax’s voice shot up in volume. “I need the money to get out, okay? I want to get the boys out of Charming.”

I was stunned into silence for a long moment. “What about me?”

“What about you?” his voice bit through the phone line. Clearly, he was so riled up that he wasn’t thinking about anyone else.

I pulled the car up to the curb in front of Juice’s house and sat quietly, even after I’d cut the engine. I saw a bike pull up behind me. I knew without looking that it wasn’t Juice, it was the prospect.

“What about Mom?” I continued. “What’s she going to do without those boys?”

“She’ll survive.”

“Okay, forget Mom, then,” I relented. “I’m not leaving Juice. He was against this whole cartel business, but look what he’s done for the club. He loves you guys; he’s never going to leave Charming. And without you, I’ve got nobody to stand up to Clay with me.”

Jax swallowed. “I’ve got to go, Lexi. We’ve got some stuff to take care of. Let the prospect stay with you tonight, okay? We’ll talk about this later. I just… I’ve got to think about what’s best for my family.”

I stared through the windshield dismally. “Just remember that this move might get your family out of here, but it’s killing mine.”

I hung up without waiting for his reply. I tried not to let the outcome of the conversation get me down, but I could already feel an overwhelming sense of sadness setting in. My own brother had sacrificed his club for his family. Instead of fixing what was wrong with SAMCRO, he was making it worse. For the first time, I felt like my dad would be disappointed in him.

Slowly, I hauled myself out of the car and went inside. I left the door open for V-Lin, who wasted no time following me.

“You armed?” I asked as soon as he joined me in the kitchen.

V-Lin shook his head. I rolled my eyes. What was the point in sending him here if I was just as likely to wind up saving his ass from an intruder as he was mine? I disappeared into the bedroom, opening the closet and pulling out an ornately carved wooden box. I set it on the dresser, lifting the lid and peering inside. There were two handguns in there; both were mine. Juice kept a gun and a knife on him at all times, and honestly I didn’t know where he kept his spares. I had these two tucked away, and always kept one in my purse or in the nightstand. My mother had taught me well. I grabbed one of them, not paying much attention to which, and brought it back out to the kitchen. I set it on the table in front of V-Lin.

“Unless you have to go chasing after someone to ensure my safety, this stays inside the house. Got it?”

He nodded his head in agreement, and I left him. It was early, and I knew that I should have at least been civil and kept him company, but I found that I couldn’t be bothered. After he’d let Lyla slip away, he probably wasn’t going to be around the club long enough to get patched in. I had no reason to be nice and get to know him. I grabbed the book that I’d dropped on the floor the night before and retreated to the bedroom. As I curled up in the middle of the mattress, I dug my gun out of my purse and set it on the nightstand. I wanted to have it nearby, just to be safe.

It was over an hour before I faced any kind of interruption. My cell phone rang, and I grabbed it roughly. Glancing at the caller ID, I felt a wave of relief as I saw that Juice was calling.

“Hey,” I answered.

“Hey.” He sounded off, like he was getting a cold or had a sore throat. “Chibs and Tig just came and got me from the warehouse. I just wanted to let you know that we’re having an emergency vote. We’re stuck at the clubhouse until everyone gets here. I don’t think I’m coming home tonight.”

I drew in a deep breath, trying to force some sort of calm into my racing pulse. “Is everything okay? What’s the vote about?”

“Don’t worry about it. The prospect still with you?” Juice dismissed my concerns. I clenched my jaw, though I knew he couldn’t see it. Maybe it was for the best that we weren’t in the same room. I was getting so frustrated that I wasn’t sure I would be able to stop myself from picking a fight. At least if I got him mad, he would say something honest.

“As far as I know. I’m in the bedroom and I left him in the kitchen.”

“Good. Make sure he stays with you. I want to know you’re safe.”

“Am I really any safer than if I were alone?”

Juice sighed. “Lex, just keep the guy around. Give me some peace of mind, okay?”

“Alright, alright. I’ll follow the rules. But you need to stay safe, too.”

There was a long pause. “Go to sleep, babe,” he said finally. “I love you.”

I wasn’t satisfied, but I knew that he was with everyone else. I wasn’t going to get a straight answer from him if we wasn’t alone. “I love you, sunshine.”

I didn’t sleep at all that night. I finished my book, then spent the remaining hours staring up at the ceiling and desperately wishing for the peace of slumber. It wasn’t until the first rays of sunlight were peeking through the blinds that I managed to drift off.

“Uh, ma’am?”

I groaned as I was woken up all too soon. I rolled over, looking at the clock. It was nearly noon. V-Lin was standing in the doorway of the bedroom, looking uncertain.

“You call me ma’am one more time, and I’ll hurt you. It’s Lexi.”

“Okay,” he shifted his weight between his feet uncertainly. “Lexi, are we leaving anytime soon?”

I was about to tell him to go on without me, but I remembered the promise I’d made to Juice. “Make some coffee. I need a shower.”

It was about half an hour later that I made my way to the garage. My ever-present prospect shadow followed close behind. Yet again, I was greeted by the sight of police vehicles. I groaned dismally. What could possibly have happened now?

I headed into the garage, knowing that Mom would be in there if the cops were in the clubhouse. She greeted me with a grim smile.

“No offence, baby, but you look like shit.”

“Couldn’t sleep. What happened here?” It seemed like lately, nearly every conversation I had started with the words what happened. I had never seen things this bad in all my life, and from where I stood it looked like they were only going to get worse.

Mom glanced out through the open doorway and toward the clubhouse. “I don’t know very much. Gunshots, severed heads, we’re probably better off without the details. Are you coming to the fundraiser today?”

“Fundraiser?”

“Yeah, to save the gardens. Clay’s going to make a big donation to the cause. Tara’s coming, you should too.”

“I don’t know, Mom. It’s not really my thing. Besides, I’ve got other shit to deal with.” I shook my head, trying to get a bearing on my thoughts. I wanted to ask more about what had happened here today, but I was so out of the loop on everything lately that I found that I just wanted to focus on the things that I was already involved in.

She looked me up and down. “What kind of shit?”

I sunk down onto the sofa, feeling dismayed. “Juice, mostly. Something’s up, and I just can’t figure it out. He’s not talking, he’s quiet, and I feel like he’s avoiding me. I’m probably overreacting, but it feels like I’ve hardly seen him since he got out of prison.”

“Oh, Lexi, it’s nothing to worry about,” she assured me, reaching over and giving my knee a squeeze. “You know he’s just a little more sensitive than the rest of them. He’ll come around. He just needs some time to adjust. By the sounds of it, it’s hard to get back into a normal routine after being on the inside.”

I stared down at the floor. “It was so good for, like, a day. Then it all went to shit. Maybe I’m not built for this, after all.”

“Honey, you’ve lived with him for damn near two years. You’ve survived a lot more with Juice in that time than most girls will in their lifetime. If you got through that, you can get through anything.”

“How have you done this for thirty years?” I whispered. “If it wasn’t for Juice, I wouldn’t be here. I would have given up again and got the hell out. Now that he’s being like this, I find myself wondering if I should go ahead and do that anyways.”

Mom looked troubled by my confession. “He’ll smarten up. Don’t worry. I know he will. He loves you too much to let you go.”

“I really hope you’re right.”

I knew that I couldn’t tell Mom about my discussion with Jax. It would probably give her a very literal broken heart, and the last thing that we needed just then was for someone to wind up in the hospital.

I managed to get out of going with her to the fundraiser. I was in a bad enough mood that I wasn’t going to do much to make the family look good. Instead, I headed home to wait for Juice.

When I got inside the house, I saw that V-Lin had left the gun I’d given him in the middle of the table. The guy probably wasn’t going to cut it if he was this neglectful of details. I grabbed the weapon and returned it to the box in the closet.

I took a long, hot shower. I wished that I could just turn my brain off and forget about everything. The only thoughts that I could manage to focus on were Juice and my own pathetic fear. This wasn’t like me. I was used to being the girl that really didn’t give a shit about anyone or anything. Juice had broken through those barriers, and try as I might, I couldn’t rebuild them now that he was behaving this way.

And then I wondered if, just as I’d told my mother, I was overreacting. It was perfectly acceptable to want to just shut down after doing something that went against your morals. Perhaps that was just what was happening with Juice. He wasn’t shutting me out, he was just shutting down altogether.

But that didn’t quite seem right, either. If that had been the case, Jax wouldn’t have been able to stop himself from bitching to me about Juice’s dedication to the club and what was happening. It was clear to me that Juice was still doing whatever the guys asked of him.

I was desperate for him to come home. We needed to talk, and I wasn’t going to let him get away with silence any longer.