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.
Raven is woken up in the middle of the night by the sound of running water coming from the main bathroom. She grabs her handgun and makes her way toward the main hall, and spots the light from the bathroom shining into the hallway. She could hear the water still running as she got closer and peeks into the bathroom.
She spots her younger sister naked in the bathroom. She looked like she had been seriously shot and beaten up.
“Eddie, are you okay?” Raven rushes into the bathroom once she realizes who is in the house. She starts helping her younger sister.
Eddie looks towards her older sister, “I’m okay, but you should see the other guy.” Eddie winces as she cleans a cut.
“Here, let me help you, sis.” Raven walks back into her father’s old bedroom and grabs the paramedic bag she bought when she came back.
She goes back into the bathroom and uses the contents to help her younger sister. Her sister, Eddie, had been recruited right out of high school to join the Marshal service. She had helped them while in high school on a child trafficking case. She was also the one who knew how she really felt and why she joined the military.
“So, who did you go after?” Raven cleans the wounds and pulls a few bullets out of her little sister’s body.
“My partner, the local SWAT team, and I got ambushed by members of the Scorpion gang. They set a trap for us and the SWAT team. As we approached the stash house they were using to operate out of. They triggered the explosives outside the stash house and started shooting armor-piercing rounds at us. The SWAT team and my partner were killed, and I barely made it out of there.”
“Someone must have tipped them off that you guys were about to crash their party.” Raven figures that Eddie and the other law enforcement officers were set up.
Eddie looked like a mummy after Raven had finished bandaging her. She looks at her older sister, “What happened to you?”
“I’ll tell you later. You need to rest.” Raven helps her sister off the toilet and to her bedroom.
Eddie winces with every step she takes to her old bedroom. She hasn’t been back to the house since their father died. She walks into the bedroom and notices that their father kept it the way she left it when she went to Washington, D.C., to become a US Marshal.
“Easy does it, sis.” Raven moves the covers aside and lowers her sister down onto the bed.
Raven lifts her sister’s feet and removes her bloody shoes. This wasn’t the first time she had to help her sister to bed. When they had been younger, they had gotten drunk and high as a kite with some friends.
Raven tucks the blanket around her sister, “rest and we’ll talk when you’re feeling better. Do I need to contact anyone?”
“Not right now.” Eddie’s eyes slowly close as she passes out from the pain medicine.
Raven tucks the blanket around her little sister and heads back to the bathroom to clean it up. She carefully put the bullets she pulled out of her sister's body into a sandwich bag. She takes her sister’s bloody clothes, which were beyond cleaning and repairing, out to the burn barrel in the backyard.
Most of her clothes will fit her sister, except her bras. She wore a D-cup bra, but her sister wore an F-cup bra. Her sister was also a natural redhead like her birth mother.
Raven looks at the clothes she was wearing and changes into something else. She takes them out to the burn barrel and tosses them into it. She looks outside and notices her sister has stolen someone’s futuristic-looking motorcycle. She steps outside, puts the motorcycle in the garage, and locks the garage door.
Raven heads back inside and brews some coffee. She was going to keep an eye on her little sister and make sure she didn’t die. Most of the bullets she pulled out of her sister had hit non-threatening areas. But she knew from experience that sometimes, those wounds could become infected. She was also concerned that maybe someone might have followed her sister.
Raven makes herself comfortable on the sofa and watches the front door. The back door had an alarm that would go off if someone opened it or forced their way in. She enjoys her coffee and sits in the dark, watching and listening.
Throughout the early morning, Raven checks on her sister. She takes her sister’s temperature, and sees it's slightly elevated. She puts a cold, wet rag on her sister’s forehead. Her blood pressure was low, but within normal range.
Raven was glad she took medic training when she was in the Marines. Not only did it come in handy when she was badly injured, but it also came in handy when the villager found her and removed the fragments and bullets from her. Hopefully, what she did to help her sister will be okay.
When the sun starts to rise, she checks on her sister again and notices she is still the same. She places another cold washcloth on her sister’s forehead. Her blood pressure was still the same. She goes about fixing herself some breakfast and more coffee. She knew she needed to explain to her sister why she went ahead and had the surgery to become a woman.
Raven eats her breakfast and afterwards checks on her little sister. Everything was still the same with her sister. She logs onto her laptop to see if anything about what happened last night made the news. There was no way any of this could be swept under the rug.
US Marshal Van B. Duncan’s House, Phoenix Arizona:
Marshal Van B. Duncan was woken up in the middle of the night by his cell phone ringing. When he looks at the caller id, he saw it was Commander Hicks from Phoenix Police Department. He reaches over and picks up his cellphone and presses accept on it.
“Hello, Hicks. What’s the problem?” Duncan knew Hicks would only call him if there is a problem.
“We have a situation, Duncan. Your assault team was ambushed and killed.” Hicks couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The carnage was nothing he has ever seen in his twenty-five years of being on the force.
Duncan grabs his glasses and puts them on “what happened, Hicks?”
“The Scorpion gang ambushed the assault team and took out everyone, except for one person.” None of the officers on site haven’t been able to locate Deputy Marshal Eddie Morrison’s body.
“Who’s missing, Hicks?” Duncan couldn’t believe the assault force had been killed.
“Deputy Marshal Morrison. We haven’t been able to find her body.” Commander fears that Eddie Morrison might be in trouble.
“Let me make some calls, because if the Scorpion gang has her body, and The Iron Vagabonds find out. We’ll be looking at a gang war.” Marshal Duncan knew Eddie and her older brother were children of one of the founding members of the MC and were under their protection.
“Sit!” Hicks knew what The Iron Vagabonds were capable of.
Their MC were made up of former military personnel, police officers, construction experts, lawyers, medical personnel, and tech experts that were well known in their fields. Eddie’s father was an army gulf veteran and her older brother is a highly trained special forces operator. Not only was their MC made up of highly trained people, but they had connections with other MC’s that had chapters across the US and overseas.
“I’ll make my own calls and see if some of her father’s people have heard from her. I have a few contacts in their MC.” Hicks had a few people he could trust in their MC.
“I’ll do the same.” Duncan ends the call and was about to dial a few contacts of his when he notices a text form an unlisted number.
“Seriously injured, going to a safe place to get patched up. Will call later.” Ed.
Duncan looks at the message and tries to figure out where Ed would head. She knew this city better then anyone in the Marshal or Federal service. Duncan gets out of bed and heads towards the kitchen to brew some coffee, while thinking about where she could be.
The Morrison resident:
Raven had dozed off for a few minutes, but when she hears movement. She gets up with her gun in her hand and head towards the front door. When it opens slightly, she pulls on the door handle as quickly as she can and caused the person on the other side to stumble inward. She brings her gun up and points it at the person.
Amber had heard that Eddie was in town and that she had been involved in the firefight over on Hedge Grow Street. According to what she heard, the Scorpion gang had ambushed a federal task force and killed everyone. She had managed to get close to the site and overhead the SWAT Commander talking to someone on his cellphone. When she heard that Eddie hadn’t been found yet. She knew of three places Eddie would go. She was the only one, other than Raven who knew of these places.
She hopes Eddie will be at one of these places. She makes her way back to her motorcycle and mounts it. Amber knew if Eddie could find a motorcycle, she would head to these places.
She checks the first two places, but doesn’t find her. That left Eddie’s father’s house. No one was living there currently and Mr. Morrison always kept it stocked for whatever the MC needed. She heads there next.
Raven looks at the young woman and notices it was her and Eddie’s old friend Amber. She knew Amber was one of Hammer’s daughters.
“Amber, what are you doing here?”
Amber looks at the woman who had a gun pointed at her. She didn’t recognize the woman at all, but this woman knew her. “Do I know you?”
“We grew up together, Amber.” Raven lowers her gun and shuts the front door.
Amber looks closely at the woman and notices several of her arm tattoos. She looks at her eyes and all of suddenly it clicked. “Raven?”
“Yes, it’s me. Amber.” Raven walks forward and hug her childhood friend.
Amber returns Raven’s hug. She had heard that Raven was dead. “I thought you were dead.” Tears were leaking from her eyes.
“I would have been, if it hadn’t been for a kind Afghan father and son.” Raven hugs her childhood friend close.
“Your father died thinking you were dead. The MC even had a burial for you.” Amber lets the tears come out.
“Didn’t Wire tell you guys I was still alive?”
“No!” Amber knew her uncle Wire was the only one who could find out about anyone, but he was too broken up over the death of his best friend. He left after the burial of Mr. Morrison.
“I wonder why?” Raven looks down at Amber.
“He said he needed some time to himself. He left the care of his house to my aunt Elizabeth and left on his motorcycle.” Amber wipes her eyes and step back to look up at Raven.
“My father and Wire were more then best friends. They were blood brothers. Now, what brings you to the house?”
“I’m looking for Eddie. The SWAT Commander said her body was missing and I didn’t believe the Scorpions would be dumb enough to take her. The Vagabonds would tear this city apart looking for one of us.”
Of all the children of the motorcycle clubs member, the Vagabonds would tear the town up looking for the daughters of the founding members. Each of them had a history with the club that went back to its founding members.
Raven had been found by the club when they just had twenty members. She had been abandoned during a severe dust storm by her stepfather. Eddie and Amber had been born on the same night, twenty minutes apart during one of the worst electrical storms in Arizona’s history in the club house.
The power had been knocked out and the backup generator wouldn’t start. Doc Holiday had delivered them by candle light and had to give Eddie’s mom a blood transfusion afterwards, because she had lost a lot of blood during delivery.
The only two members in the club who had Ginger’s blood type were Pauline and Samson. Both of them had volunteered to donate blood to Ginger. Kitty and Ox had acted as nurses when they were born afterwards.
“Eddie’s in her bedroom recovering from her wounds. I patched her up last night when she broke into the house.” Raven had guided Amber towards the kitchen.
“Sit, while I make us some coffee.” Raven knew Amber drunk coffee, instead of tea.
“I bet she used the spare key your father kept hidden outside in the flower bed. So, what happened to you and why are you a woman now?” Amber looks at her friend. She was happy that Raven wasn’t dead.
“After my team was ambushed and killed. I crawled away from my over watched position after being hit by an RPG that hit near my position. I crawled down the side of a rocky mountain. My legs and shooting hand had been injured and I had fragments from the RPG embedded in them and my body. Halfway down, I started to tumble down the side like a sack of potatoes and waited for death to claim me. I woke days later and discovered that a kind Afghan father and son had taken me back to the cave they lived in and patched me up as best as they could. They patched me up enough that I could talk them through removing fragments from my body.”
“Ouch! That must had been hell.” Amber knew several bikers that went through the same thing.
“It was. After I recovered enough to be moved. I made my way back to where I was stationed and gave the father and son some money for saving me. I’m still in their debt and will always honor that debt. After I was discharged because of my injuries and mental problems. I went to Thailand and had the surgery to be turned into how I really felt inside.” Raven pours two cups of coffee.
“I knew you always liked dressing up, but I never knew you wanted to give up your manhood to be a woman. Everyone thought you were just a cross dresser or gay since you never had a girlfriend.”
“Only dad, Eddie, Ox, Wire, Teddy, Pam, and Kitty knew how I felt. I made the decision while I was recovering from my injuries that I wasn’t going to lie to myself any longer. Life is to short, not to live it like you should” Raven takes a sip from her coffee mug.
“Trust me, I know how you feel. Dad and mom were disappointed when they learned what I truly do. But they have accepted the fact that I’m going to do what I feel is right.” Amber knew how the motorcycle family worked. They had unspoken rules that you didn’t cross.
“Well, the three of us have always been the oddballs in the club. So, how did you learn that Eddie had been injured?”
“I managed to sneak past the police officers and the police tape at the scene and I overheard the SWAT Commander at the crime talking to someone on his cellphone that they didn’t find Eddie’s body and was worried about the MC taking revenge. You know how they would react if a member of the family has gone missing.” Amber knew what Big Tony would do.
“So, they don’t know Eddie is here?” Raven takes another sip from her mug.
“No one knows this house is occupied. As far as the club is concerned, its empty.”
“Who is supposed to be watching it?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve been out of town doing a job. After we buried your father and you, I was given an assignment and have been gone until I learned Eddie was coming home. I wanted to see my best friend. As far as the club is concerned, you’re dead. No one other then Wire believed you were still alive.”
“Okay. What type of job do you do?” Raven was curious about Amber’s job.
“I can’t go into detail, but I work for a private organization that works outside of government regulations. It’s something that is needed and I enjoy doing it.”
“Don’t tell me you have become an assassin.” Raven looks at her best friend and couldn’t believe she would do that type of work.
“Of course not, what type of person do you think I am?”
Raven notices there was a hurt and shocked look on Amber’s face. She felt bad saying those words now.
“Then what do you do, with the people who you go after?” Raven was curious.
“My job is to locate them and report their location back to the people I work for. Then, and only then do they send a hit team or a capture team to either take them out or imprison them at several black sites. These people we go after are the scum of the earth that have used the legal system or their money, connections, and power to escape justice. Sometimes these type of people slip through the cracks like we have seen growing up nothing ever happens to them. This organization I work for make sure they answer for their crimes.” Amber finishes off her coffee.
“Who monitors the people of the organization?” Raven knew Amber was right about certain people falling through the cracks and not answering for their crimes. They saw a bunch of that when the MC would help children, abused women, foster kids, and some men because of the system.
“There’s a board that monitor’s this organization. Each member on the board is handpicked and don’t know each other’s name. Like that Charlie’s Angels movie we saw when we were little. The board answers to the international courts at The Hague.”
“How did they recruit you?” Raven wonders why they recruited Amber as one of their agents.
“That my dear friend is my secret. However, I will tell you this. Old man Dutton shouldn’t have shot one of those agents or at me.” Amber still has the scar of the bullet that hit her.
Both women hear the familiar sound of motorcycles they knew by heart approaching the house. Amber looks at Raven. “I guess we are about to have company.” A smile appears on her face.
Raven wakes up early the next day and checks on her sister. She was sound asleep and still had an IV hooked up to her. Since the Scorpion gang was still active in their town, she knew her sister would still be in danger. She wasn’t being moved from the house. Two bike members were guarding the house, and Amber said she would be back. She had something to do but would be back.
Amber had left with her father on his motorcycle, leaving her motorcycle in the garage. After checking on Eddie, Raven walks into the kitchen and starts a fresh pot of coffee. The two members who stayed to protect them were people she didn’t know, but Jacob said she could trust them.
“Are you guys hungry? Because I’m going to make some breakfast for myself.” Raven looks at the two huge men in her living room.
“If it’s no problem.” Grinder looks at the black-haired woman wearing shorts and a Marine PT shirt.
The other guy nods. Vapor didn’t speak much and had a healed jagged scar that went across his throat. Raven figured the injury must have damaged his vocal cords. She had noticed his slight nod.
She steps back into the kitchen and takes a can of biscuits out of the refrigerator, ground sausage, and a container of flour from the cabinet. She sets the oven temperature and prepares a cookie sheet. Before long, she starts making sausage and gravy. She makes plenty for all of them.
“Thanks.” Grinder accepts the plate of food from Raven.
“Any time.”
Raven hands the other plate to Vapor and notices him nodding his thanks. After serving the guys, Raven sits down at the table to eat. The three of them eat in silence, and afterward, Raven cleans up the kitchen.
She refills Grinder’s and Vapor’s coffee mugs and joins them in the living room. She looks at both men, “So, how long have you guys been with the club?”
Grinder looked at Raven and knew she had been gone when he joined. He had come from another branch of the club in another state.
“For a while. I knew your father and Jacob. You know, your father was very proud of both of you.” Grinder looks at Raven and sees the pictures of her as a male.
From what he noticed in the pictures and how she looked now. She must have had extensive facial surgery to make her look more feminine so that no one would recognize her. He had to admit she looked cute and would turn some heads. He wonders if she had implants to make her chest look so big.
“I know that. I wish I could have been here when he passed away. I feel guilty that he had thought I had died.” Raven was feeling guilty that her father and sister had thought she was dead. She might have been if Qais and his son hadn’t rescued her. But it still weighed on her conscience.
“If you don’t mind me asking. Why did you change your gender, and why didn’t you remove that tattoo on your forearm?” Grinder was curious why someone like Raven would do something like that.
Raven takes a deep breath before speaking. “It’s something that has been inside of me for a long time, Grinder. Off and on, I gave in to it, but felt guilty about how I felt. Boys/males aren’t supposed to feel like that, and how some of the guys in MC felt about people like that. So, I joined the military to help me overcome these feelings.
“Did it help you?” Grinder watches Raven’s body language.
“At first, yes. Boot camp, and then my specialized training afterward, helped me not feel the way I did. Sure, there were times when I went out with my fellow recruits to enjoy ourselves. I just wasn’t into the spirit of the enjoyment. It just didn’t feel right to me at all. Some of the feelings I buried surfaced, making me question myself. It wasn’t until I was near death that I finally decided to change my life and accept how I felt. As for my tattoo, it reminds me of the men that I served with, bled for, and killed for. I don’t want to forget who they were or what we did.”
“You know people are going to ask you about that tat and your Grim Reaper tat as well.”
“I know, and I’ll be honest with them. If they accept me, that is fine. If they don’t, so be it. I really don’t care. All I know is I’m being honest to myself and the hell with how others feel about it.”
Vapor gives Raven a thumbs-up in response to her statement. He had been listening to her story and could understand how being close to death could make things clearer. He didn’t care because he had a niece who was a female-to-male, and a nephew who was a femboy who enjoyed wearing leather. Not leather for a male, but made for a woman.
“What are your plans now that you’re out of the service and back home?” Grinder wonders what Raven’s plans are.
“I don’t know. I’m still suffering from PTSD and nerve damage to my gun hand. I can still work, but I don’t need to. For now, I’ll help protect my sister and members of the MC.” Raven knew she would never turn her back on her little sister.
“There’s always the open road.” Grinder knew some vets had wandered from place to place.
“I’ve done enough travel for a lifetime, Grinder. I’m going to stick around and try to rebuild my life.”
When Eddie wakes up, Raven tends to her. She makes sure Eddie moves around and steps outside. Crazy Horse and Beater replaced Grinder and Vapor. Crazy Horse was an old Native American cowboy, and Beater was a middle-aged body shop guy. He could take a wreck and return it to its original shape.
Around noon time, Amber returns to the house with four extra-large pizzas, several cases of beer, and specialty drinks. Instead of coming back on her motorcycle, she arrived in a satin black, tricked-out SUV that looked like it could have come off the Count Kustom show.
“Where did you get the fancy SUV?” Raven had seen it pull up in the driveway.
“Oh, that thing?” Amber puts the drinks and pizzas down on the table.
“Yes, that thing.” Raven looks at Amber with a puzzled look on her face.
“That’s a donation from the Scorpion gang. Don’t worry, I’ve already cleared it of the hidden trackers it had inside. They also donated some nice weapons as well.” Amber took a drink and opened it.
“When did you run into them?” Crazy Horse looks at Amber. He knew she was Hammer’s youngest daughter.
“I ran into them on my way to my hotel room.” Amber takes a slice of pizza and starts eating it.
“How did they even know where to look for you?” Beater gives Amber a strange look.
“Oh, I let it be known I was hunting them. You see, my boss said I can take as much time as I need off to help protect Eddie. Now, if for some
reason the Scorpion gang learned that a certain agency was out looking for them. I have permission to use whatever method I wish against them. In other words, I have permission to hunt them down and eliminate them.”
“But, doesn’t that put your family in the crosshairs?” Raven was concerned about her uncle and aunt.
“Nay! If the Scorpion gang moves against my family. They will encounter a major problem. The person that I’m employed by has sent people to watch over them, who I don’t even want to cross.” Amber shivers just thinking about who was coming to protect her family.
“Does your father know?” Raven knew Hammer would want to know.
“No, and I’m keeping it that way. Dad doesn’t need to know that the family is being protected or by whom.” Amber knew her father was proud.
Amber takes another sip from her drink. She looks at Raven, Eddie, and the two MC club members. An evil smile appears on her face. “I told you I work for a dangerous person.”
“But you said your job was just to find people.” Raven couldn’t believe what her friend/sister was now.
“I do. But it doesn’t mean I don’t know how to defend myself or protect someone. It’s not something I’m proud of, but I know it's necessary.” Amber takes another slice of pizza from the box.
Raven jut shakes her head as she retrieves a stack of paper plates and set them on the table. She takes a few slices of pizza and a drink. She takes them over to her sister.
“Eat, sis.”
Eddie accepts the plate and drink. She looks back at her sister “sorry for bring this mess to your doorstep.”
“You didn’t know I was here, so it’s not a problem. Your family and my baby sister. My job is to protect you.” Raven made a promise to always protect her little sister.
Everyone grabs pizza and a drink or two and enjoy lunch.