I See Fire

Ten years ago his face was plastered over every newspaper in California.

I was fifteen when my family home burnt to the ground, killing both my parents. At least that's what they tell me. I don't remember any of it. Doctors called it some type of post traumatic stress disorder that caused me to repress my memories. They've even gone so far as to hypnotize me to try and get information out of me. It didn't work.

That was one theory.

Other theories were that I wasn't even there when the house was set on fire, or that I had set the fire myself. None of it was true. None of those theories were plausible. The only one people accepted were that I had it so repressed I had no knowledge of it ever being there.

After the fire and my parents' death I was sent to live with my maternal aunt, Linda. I never really knew her. Her and my mother weren't very close but she made an effort to let me know she existed. She sent me a birthday card every year and sent some presents for Christmas. She wasn't as bad as my mother made her out to be. She was a very lenient person and let me do basically whatever I wanted when I was in high school, as long as all my homework was done.

Two years after the fire, a seventeen-year-old boy turned himself into the police saying that he was the arsonist who set my home on fire. He was arrested and sentenced to ten years. His face was plastered over every newspaper in California Every news station had him broadcast. I remember that much.

That's why I'm sitting here in a coffee shop on my University's campus staring at the man in front of me. I first noticed him when he walked in. I got the sudden feeling of Deja Vu. It was then when every memory I had been suppressing for years hit me like a ton of bricks.

Jackson Teller.

I awoke to a noise coming from my bedroom window. I yawned and got up from my bed, adjusting my pajamas before going to the window. I peered down and didn't see anything. Without another thought I returned to my bed. I was just about to fall back asleep when a hand clasped over my mouth.

I sat up straight, trying to scream but the hand muffled my voice.

“Shh!” Someone hushed. It was a male voice.

It was dark in my bedroom and I couldn't see a thing, not even the arm attached the hand that covered my mouth. I felt tears slip down my cheeks and I started to sob.

“Seriously be quiet!” The voice quietly scolded me. He sounded weird… almost like he wasn't from around here. A Spanish accent, maybe? The man dragged me to my closet and shut the door. I could hear the latch of the lock close. “Stay here and if you make a noise I'll kill you right now.”

I sat in my closet for what seemed like ages until I smelled smoke. I jumped up on to my feet as I saw the lick of a flame from under the door. Just as fast as I had been shoved into the closet I was extracted by a group of arms. It was more than one person, I knew by their voices.

“We gotta get her out of here.” A different man said. He didn't have an accent like the other man did.

“Where are we going to take her?” Another added.

“I-I won't t-tell I p-promise.” I sobbed.

The men didn't say another word as they carried me out of my home. I opened my eyes to see the house fully engulfed in flames. “M-My parents!” I started squirming in the man's arms. “We have to get them out of there! Help!”

One of the men cupped their hand over my mouth and my pleas were muffled.

“Take her to Gemma's.” A man ordered.

I whimpered and cried as I was thrown into the backseat of a dark colored car and forced to lie down. I was ordered to keep my eyes closed but when the driver wasn't looking I saw the back of his jacket. It was a leather jacket with a giant grim reaper that covered the majority of the back. 'Sons of Anarchy' was printed above it in a white Gothic font.

I closed my eyes as the car came to a stop. I heard the driver get out and open the back door. He collected me from the back, ordering me to keep my eyes shut as he carried me inside. I knew we were inside a house. I could feel the heat and the door shut.

“What the fuck?” A woman's voice came from across the room.

“Club business. Keep an eye on her.” Was all the man said before setting me down on a piece of leather furniture. “Don't let her open her eyes until I leave.”

I heard the door shut.

“Open your eyes–”

“Zoey?”

I was snapped out of whatever trance I was in. This flood of information had just knocked me down like a sack of potatoes. Startled, I jumped out of my chair and fell over. A person helped me back to the floor. I looked over to see Jackson.

“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you.”

His blonde hair had grown out quite a bit from the last time I saw him, but then again, the last time I saw him he was seventeen. His eyes were still just as blue, and just as easy to get lost in. He hadn't changed a bit since he was seventeen. It's like he was frozen in time. The only thing that separated him now as a twenty-seven-year-old was his facial hair and a few scars and tattoos I could see poking out from under his white cotton shirt.

“Get away from me.” I drew my arm out of his grip and bolted for the door. I rushed outside into the warm California air and started running. How could he be here? He was supposed to be in prison for ten years ̶ oh.

“Zoey!” Jackson called after me. I heard him running to catch up with me. I ran faster until my legs hurt. It didn't do me much good because he caught up with me and tackled me to the ground. I landed in the grass with him on top of me. “Will you just hear me out?”

“No! Go away, Jax!” He held onto me as I tried to wiggle out of his grip. I knew we were drawing attention. I'm sure half of the University's student body was watching us right now and I didn't care. I didn't want to be anywhere near him.

“Just listen!”

I freed myself from his grip and stood up. He got up to his feet and I pushed him hard. He staggered back but caught himself. “I told you I was done with the club!” I shoved him again. “How dare you show your face!”

Jax hardened his face as I kept pushing him. He stood as still as a statue. “Zoey, don't make me do this.”

“I told you I was done, Jax! I fucking meant it!”

All of the sudden, Jax swept me off my feet and over his shoulder. I kicked and screamed, punching his back and the stupid reaper on the back of his cut. Stupid Sons. Stupid Reaper. Stupid Redwood. Stupid Jax.

Jax carried me to his motorcycle and sat me down on the seat. He put a black helmet on my head and buckled the chin strap. He climbed on the bike and started the engine. “You're still an asshole.” I muttered.

“And you still have that temper.” He commented as he revved the engine before taking off out of the campus parking lot.

We rode in silence to Teller-Morrow where he worked as a mechanic. It was all just for show. The Sons of Anarchy clubhouse was in the same parking lot where they had Church and parties. A place I didn't miss at all.

I stopped coming here when I was sixteen. That's when Jax and I broke up, and he got voted in as Vice President of Sons of Anarchy. Once he was in the club he shut me out completely. The minute he put that stupid cut on he changed. He stayed out all night and wouldn't tell me where he was going. He was in trouble with the law a lot. I just couldn't handle it. I left him.

Three days later he walked into the Charming Sheriff's Department and told them he was the one who set my house on fire.

Jax parked his bike in his usual spot before climbing off. He helped me off the bike and took the helmet off my head. He took my hand and practically dragged me into the clubhouse. I noticed everyone inside, and I could tell they all remembered me. None of them said a thing as Jax dragged me into the room they used for Church and closed the double doors.

“Are you ready to be civil?” He asked.

“Are you ready to go fuck yourself?” I retorted.

He rolled his eyes, “Zoey. Will you please just hear me out?”

“Why?” I walked around to the other side of the huge table that had the Reaper carved into it, trying to put some distance between us. “You basically kidnapped me off campus today, dragged me in here like a fucking rag doll, and not to mention the best of all: you killed my fucking parents!”

“I didn't kill them, Zoey.” He said quietly.

“Bullshit!” I screamed.

“This is exactly why I didn't tell you shit when we were sixteen!” Jax yelled back. “If you really wanted to be an Old Lady you would have kept your fucking mouth shut more often and did what you were fucking told!”

“I never wanted to be an Old Lady, Jackson. You fucking know that!” I was livid. “I wanted to get the hell out of Charming and the fuck away from the Sons!”

“We know who killed your parents, Zoey.”

Jax's comment stopped me dead in my tracks. “H-How?”

He sighed and sat down in his chair at the table. Knowing I couldn't sit at the table I crossed over the room and sat in one of the chairs away from the table. “I turned myself in as the arsonist so it would buy us more time to find the guys who did it. ATF and Charming PD was all over the place, we couldn't get close.”

I was surprised at Jackson telling me this. It was considered club business, and it was practically forbidden for me to know anything. The fact that Jackson was telling me all of this meant whatever happened involved me directly, and that scared the shit out of me.

“You were targeted.”

“Retaliation?”

He nodded.

“Who?”

Jax just looked at me. I knew that expression. When we were fifteen that's all he would ever do when I asked him where he was or what he was doing. It was the “you-don't-need-to-know” look, and I wasn't accepting that as an answer.

“Who Jax?” I asked again, this time more sternly.

“Zoey–“

“No!” I stood up. “No more secrets, no more lies, no more bullshit. I was targeted as a retaliation because the Sons pissed someone off, now who the fuck set my house on fire and who killed my goddamned parents?”

“Monarch's.”

I furrowed my eyebrows, “Like the butterflies?”

Jackson rolled his eyes. “No, as in Monarch's of Mayhem.”

I shrugged. “Never heard of them.”

He once again rolled his eyes. “They're not a motorcycle club. They distribute large amounts of coke and pretend that they're a biker club. It's all for show. They run out of Stockton. They've done a couple deals with the Mayan’s but they got too careless.”

“So what does all this have to do with me?”

Jax raked his fingers through his blonde hair. He pulled out a pack of Marlboro's from his pocket and lit one. “This is where it gets difficult.” I nodded, waiting to hear more. “Zoey, your father was a Prospect with the First Nine. After J.T's death he quit. But he missed the money, tried to go solo and wound up with dealing the Monarch's.”

My mouth dropped.

“Your dad was dealing coke for the Monarch's. When Clay found out he offered him a position here at TM. Your dad quit with the Monarch's and told them why. They were pissed.” Jax explained. “They did some digging and found out about you, and they knew that you were my girlfriend at the time. So they plotted the arson, left a note on my door and then set your house on fire. We got there just in time.”

I let the information sink in. I didn't say a word, and neither did Jax. The room was so quiet my ears were ringing. How could my dad not tell me? I would have understood. Did he not trust me? Did mom know? Why didn't she tell me either? All this time I thought Jax was the one who did it… for ten years I thought that my high school sweetheart was a murderer.

“Are you alright, Zoey?” Jax had moved silently from his place at the table to right in front of me on his knees. His hands held mine and he looked up at me with those sparkling blue eyes. “Do you want me to take you home?”

I shook my head. “No.” I grabbed Jax's cigarette carton from his jacket, pulled one out along with his lighter. I put the cigarette between my lips and lit the end. I sucked in the smoke and blew it out my nose. It was the first time in a long time that I had touched a cigarette, and I missed it. “I want you to kill the bastards.”