Up In Flames

Chapter 3

"This was a bad idea." Rory whispered into the empty room. After settling in Charming and airing out her dusty, stale smelling apartment, Rory sat on the couch. She was terrified of Happy's reaction although the prospect of actually seeing him excited her.

Locking and unlocking her phone screen Rory decided on a text. Cowardly, sure, but she couldn't actually speak the words. Typing out a few sentences, she read it over a couple times unsure she should actually send it.

"It's Rory. I'm sorry. If you want to talk I'm back at my apartment, if not I understand."

As soon as she hit the button and the message sent Rory's heart stopped. "Fuck, he's going to kill me."

--

Just finishing the dirty job of burying Miles after Juice had killed him, Happy was not in the greatest of moods. He flipped open his burner, the one he'd kept since the day Rory left in case she wanted to contact him, and almost couldn't believe it when he saw the text.

"Shit." He tossed his shovel and flashlight down and looked at Phil. "I gotta go."

"What?" The prospect looked terrified and dumbfounded. "Jax said to stay here, we gotta do this."

"I'll call Jax, just finish cleaning up."

Happy trudged through the woods, his phone attached to his ear as he hit the clearing. "Brother, I'm heading out. I got some personal shit to deal with."

"Your mom alright?" Jax asked with genuine concern.

"Yeah, she's fine."

Jax nodded to himself, there was only one other personal relationship Happy held that high. "Let me guess, you found her?"

"I'm reachable." That was all he said before hanging up and jumping on his bike.

--

Rory didn't move when she heard his bike rumbling up the block and even if she wanted to she couldn't. Paralyzed with fear she sat and listened to him clomping up the steps, faster than she ever heard before, until he got to the door. Before she arrived back home she wouldn't ever have imagined he'd hurt her but suddenly she wasn't so sure.

Forcing herself to stand she moved toward the door. "Rory?" He called out and she wretched at the sound of his voice.

"Hi, Hap." She said sheepishly when she opened the door.

As soon as he had a full view of her, Happy roughly yanked her to him and kissed her with anger. The force literally took her breath away and Rory pushed him back simply so she could breathe.

"Where the fuck did you go?" He barked, shutting the door with his boot as he walked into the apartment.

"First," she mumbled, "Vegas then back to Oregon, back home."

"Oregon?" He asked, incensed she'd actually go back to those men. "I thought you were dead!" He shouted, letting the sorrow and fury he felt building for twelve months finally leave his body. "And when I found out you weren't, I wished you were."

Rory cowered away, a tiny gasp filling the silence between them. "Jesus, Hap."

"I didn't mean that." He said seeing how petrified she was. "It woulda been easier knowing where you were is all. You should fucking told me, I woulda left you alone if that's what you wanted."

"That's not what I really wanted." Slowly she relaxed, her words holding more weight once she felt the assumed threat had dissipated. "I just... I didn't know what I wanted to do."

"You never said shit." Now he was growing defensive. "If you didn't want to get rid of it you didn't have to. We could have like, talked about it."