5246 Vance Ave, Phoenix, Arizona
Raven walks back and forth pushing the old-style lawn mower in her yard. The thing dated back to when her adopted father first moved into the place. She had put on her favorite sports bra and a pair of shorts that showed the curve of her firm buttocks. You could see how tone her tanned legs are. Her black raven hair was tied back into a high ponytail, which bounced every time she took a step.

A full-sized raven with red eyes with its wings spread out that touch both her shoulders looked like it was ready to jump off her back could be seen. There were several scars that covered parts of her upper and lower back, showing the wounds, she had received. Some of them looked like they had been made by bullets.

A Marine Corp tattoo could be seen on her upper right shoulder, along with a bulldog further down her arm. On her left forearm was a tattoo of a white playing card with the head of the grim reaper in the center of it. The number six could be seen in the upper and lower corners of the card.
Above on her left shoulder was a Grim Reaper tattoo. Both her legs had scars scattered on them. Some were faded, while others stood out.

She was wearing a pair of dark colored tennis shoes. No name brand, just some off the shelf no name brand. A pair of dark sunglasses covered her eyes. Parked over in the driveway was a custom-built Harley Davidson Fat boy. Its chrome was blacked out and looked like it was built for someone a lot bigger than the woman pushing the lawnmower back and forth on the lawn. It had custom made leather saddle bags draping it.

Raven finishes the front yard and stops to survey what she still had left to do. She takes a rag that had been hanging out of the back of her shorts waistband and wipes her forehead. She looks over towards her motorcycle and couldn’t wait to go for a ride.

She was thinking about going for a long ride later this evening when it wasn’t so damn hot and humid. The lawn had to be cut, and she still had to edge the sidewalk and driveway. The flower bed in front of her house has already been weeded and trimed. She could feel her exposed
shoulders being burned. She didn’t care it was nothing compared to what she survived in Afghanistan.

Raven pushed the lawnmower towards the open garage and grabbed a cold flavored water bottle from the refrigerator her adopted father put in the garage. It was an old model from the fifties that he refurbished himself. She looked around the garage as her sight lands on her father’s old motorcycle. She was reminded of him and the good times they uses to have before she joined the Marines.

He had died from cancer while she was serving in Afghanistan and surviving. He had survived some of the worse battles while serving in the Marines and the battles he got into defending the motorcycle club he belonged to and protecting his brothers. Only to be taken down by cancer. No matter what the doctors did to treat him, the cancer won out.

She didn’t know he had passed until a message was sent to her secretly by Wire, her father’s best friend and a member of the MC he belonged to. She had received the message just before going out on a mission that would change her life forever.

Raven continued to stare at her adopted father’s motorcycle. She was afraid to ride it, even though it was the first motorcycle she ever rode on. It reminded her too much of all the times she would ride behind her father when they went out with the club.

Raven finishes her drink and tosses the empty bottle into the recycling bin. She grabs the edger and walks back outside to finish the yard work. She wanted to go for a ride, before she turned in for the night. Not that she needs to get up early or go to work in the morning.

She walks towards the front yard to finish up the yard work. She starts edging the sidewalk and along the driveway. She could feel the familiar ache in her back where a piece of shrapnel had almost severed her spinal cord. The doctor who worked on her said it missed her spinal cord by a few millimeters. Any closer and she wouldn’t be walking right now.

Raven finishes the edging, just as the sun was going down. She puts everything away and grabs her helmet. Her helmet had a bunch of ravens in flight painted on it. She mounts her motorcycle and starts it. She rides further up the driveway and turn around, instead of backing out of the driveway.

Once the coast was clear, she turned onto the street and leaves her neighborhood. She knew her neighbors were used to the sound of motorcycles in the neighborhood. Her father always had the guys over for either cookouts or Friday night poker games.

During the football playoff’s the whole club would gather at the club house and watch the game on a huge blow up screen out back. That way they could make all the noise they wanted without their neighbors being bothered. A smile appears on her face when they learn what she did to her body. Only a few members in the MC knew about her secret.

Raven heads for the interstate, and then for the open highway. She knew this route very well, because she used to ride it with members of the MC. She wasn’t a patched in member, but she was under their protection and she considers all of the members in it to be her uncles and aunts.

She follows the familiar route for a while, until her stomach reminds her that she hasn’t eaten anything since this morning. She stops at Rosie’s Diner to grab something to eat. She notices there were several other motorcycles parked in the parking lot. She doesn’t recognize any of them, but then again she has been gone for almost six years.

She grabs a muscle shirt from her saddle bag and put it on to cover up her sports bra. She isn’t bothered by the shorts she was wearing. They were modest and showed off her long tone legs. She makes sure she has money in her pocket before walking into the diner.

Raven notices that the owners of the six motorcycles outside were all sitting in the back corner like her father’s MC uses to do when they traveled out this way. She doesn’t recognizes the symbol on the back of their cuts, but she does notice that the name of their club. It was at the top of their symbol. It said Iron Skulls MC, and just below it Phoenix.

Raven makes a mental note of the bikers and wonder if the MC her father uses to belong too knew about these guys. She seats herself and waits for the waitress to appear.

“What can I get you sugar?” Flo had spotted the black hair young woman who came in and sat in her section.

“A lime aide to drink and your house burger with onion rings on the side, please.” Raven noticed the name tag on the waitress said Flo.

“How you like your burger cooked dear?” Flo spotted all the tattoos Raven had on her body.

“Well done, please. As for everything else, lettuce, tomato, onions, cheese, and pickle please.” It’s been a while since Raven has had a decent burger since she has been back from Thailand.

“Coming up.” Flo turns and leaves Raven.

Raven turns her attention to the motorcycles outside. All of them were Harley Davidson’s of various models. Two of them were stock, while the others had been customized. She turns her attention to the bikers sitting in the back corner. Only two of them looked old enough to be around her father’s age. The other four looked to be six or ten years older than her.

She noticed that they were being very polite to their young waitress, who had to be at least eighteen years old or so. Raven noticed that one of the older bikers noticed her checking them out. He winks at her as he drinks his coffee. She tries to recall if she knows him, but nothing surfaces.

Also, there is no way he would recognize her anyway. She had a bunch of surgery done to her face while she was in Thailand getting her plumbing corrected.

One of the younger bikers get up to go to the bathroom and walks by her booth. She notices that he looked directly at her and smiled. She feels her cheeks blushed when he did that.

She spots the other bikers looking towards her with a smirk on their faces. She ignores them and waits for her lime aide and food to arrive. She wonders why they were taking an interest in her.

Greg had used the excuse to use the bathroom to get a look at the woman who was looking at them. When he walked towards her, he noticed how cute her face looked. It was her eyes that drew his attention to her. She had dark blue almond shape eyes and a small nose. It was also the way she was aware of her surroundings that caught his attention. It was like she was aware of everything going on around her. He also noticed the Marine corp. symbols on her upper right arm and the bull dog on her lower forearm.

He spotted the playing card tattooed on her lower forearm on her left arm. He noticed that it had the grim reaper with the number six in the upper and lower corner of the white background. He remembers hearing something about a Special Forces unit in Afghanistan that had gotten ambushed and their sniper and several others members of the unit had been killed from the ambush.

The thing was, he knew Special Forces unit wouldn’t have allowed a woman to serve with them. As for the unit itself, he couldn’t remember the name of the unit. The only thing he could remember was that there were only two survivors and they were seriously injured.

When he comes back from going to the bathroom, he notices the woman’s food had arrived and she was eating the burger first. He notices how pleased she looked eating the burger. He didn’t want to bother her while she was eating, so instead he drops a folded piece of paper on her table as he passed her.

Raven notices the guy who walked by her earlier drop a piece of folded paper on her table as he walked by. She puts the burger down and looks at the paper. Inside the paper were his name and a number. She looks up at him as he sits back down at the table with his buddies.

A smile appears on her face as she folds the piece of paper and tucks it into a pocket on her shorts. She had to give him credit for not interrupting her while she was eating. She picks the burger back up and bites into it.

She has always loved the burgers at Rosie’s Diner. It was one of the things she missed while she was overseas. After Raven finishes with the burger, she starts eating the onion rings. Raven watches as the bikers get up after paying their bill and walk outside. A few of them walk by her motorcycle and look at it. She could tell a few of them didn’t like that she blacked out the chrome on her motorcycle. She loved her motorcycle, but she wasn’t the type of biker that went into making her bike standout. She liked it to be quiet and stealthful like her. It was the sniper in her that didn’t like attention drawn to her.

Raven continues to eat her onion rings and finish off her lime aide. Afterwards, she pays her bill, leaving a nice tip. She walks outside and mounts her motorcycle. She inhales the night air before putting on her helmet and head back home.