Hands All Over

Ch. 28 Big Steps

Angela sat on her bed at the funeral home, looking at the empty suitcase in front of her. She'd gotten through her work for the day and had decided to start packing for the move to Juice's place for lack of a better thing to do. There wasn't much to pack anyway since the place had come already furnished. She just had her clothes and some knickknacks. The more things she tucked away into boxes and suitcases, the more real it felt.

It was strange to think she wouldn't have this little hideway to go back to. That if things with Juice took a wrong turn, there was no place she could really runaway to. This was real. She sighed before chuckling to herself. Why was she being such a baby about it? She really cared about Juice, and he apparently cared about her. He wouldn't have asked her to move in if he didn't.

She glanced at her phone, thinking about how Lyla had already moved in with Opie and they'd been dating for a way shorter amount of time. She grimaced when she remembered she was supposed to ask Tara about the abortion clinics for her. Scrolling through her contacts, she found the doctor's number and pressed call.

Tara glanced from the dead caregiver's body on the ground to Gemma, her eyes wide in disbelief; they'd just killed a woman. What was her life coming to? Slowly, she fished her buzzing phone out of her pocket, a little surprised to see the name on the caller i.d. "It's Angie," she said looking to Gemma.

"Well, answer it. Get her over here," Gemma instructed quickly, her voice shaking a bit. "She deals with dead people. She'll know what to do, right?"

"I don't know...I-I guess," Tara said pressing the phone to her ear. "Angie?"

"Hey T! What's up?" Angela greeted, pushing a stray hair behind her ear. She heard Tara sigh and raised an eyebrow. "Everything all right?"

"We...we kind of need your help..."

After going through several hoops to find a safe connection, Angela finally got the address for where Tara and Gemma were. She drove as fast as she could to the location. The doctor hadn't told her exactly what was going on, but it sounded like an emergency and she wasn't about to take any risks. Pulling up to the front of a nice house, she quickly got out of the car and sprinted towards the door. She knocked on it rapidly, surprised by the short amount of time it took for Gemma to answer the door. "Get in here, undertaker," she said gesturing her in with a fast wave of her hand.

She stopped dead in her tracks as soon as she walked in and saw what was on the floor. Lying there was a woman with a knife sticking out of her chest. "Oh shit," Angela said, her eyes wide as she looked from the figure on the floor to Tara who was holding an ice pack to her head. Tara seemed to share her shock while Gemma looked a little more relaxed. "Is this why called me?"

Gemma nodded. "You need to take care of it."

"Take care of it? Gemma, what do you want me to do?" Angela asked, incredulously. She couldn't "take care" of something like this. Not at someone's house. She wasn't trained for that kind of thing. Sure, she could turn on the cremation oven at the funeral home, but she was pretty sure there wasn't an oven big enough for the woman that lay at her feet in that house.

"I don't know. Don't you help out the guys all the time?"

"Yeah, but that's with the huge oven! What am I supposed to do here? Have a funeral pyre?"

Gemma shook her head as if she had already considered it. "Too much smoke."

"Are you crazy?" Angela blurted out before she could stop herself.

"Watch it, Undertaker," she shot back, her tone holding a warning.

Just then Tig walked in, stopping short when he saw Angela. "Oh hey Angie. What are you doin' here, doll?" he asked before his eyes fell on the dead woman on the ground. "Aw shit. This why you're here?"