Always in My Head - An SOA Fan Fiction

Chapter 23

One tow turned into another and another and another. Opie and Sack finally returned to the lot for good and they were looking forward to a beer or two. It was one thing if they didn't have to drop each car off and then head back out for the next, but that was exactly what they had to do and it made the jobs twice as long.

His cut was draped haphazardly over the tool chest in the garage but Ope didn't think anything of it. He searched its pockets and grabbed his phone. His heart stopped as he stared at the four missed calls from school, one from Mae and a few from Jax. There was no way that could be good.

"Shit."

He fumbled trying to return the call as quickly as possible. The principal answered his first question, and thankfully, the kids were okay. He felt his heart rate start to slow again but the news he received next only served to send him into a terrified panic. They had Kenny and Ellie in the main office after they had been waiting outside for Mae but she never arrived to pick them up. Trying to sound calm Opie thanked him and bolted into the clubhouse, he'd been so quick to return the school's call and to then try to call her that he hadn't even noticed she had text him. Jax was huddled in the corner with Juice as his hands flew across the keys on his laptop in a hurry.

"Jax, Mae's missing." He was still frantically trying to call her as he spoke.

Juice looked up from his screen and Tig watched, in the middle of a call to Darby, with sympathetic eyes. "I know, brother. We tried to get a hold of you." Jax said mournfully, his face drawn as he looked back at him. "She called me about twenty minutes ago but we got cut off. I think she's in trouble, Juice is trying to use her phone's GPS to find out where she is."

"We'll find her," Bobby said sagely. "Piney's coming down now."

Opie didn't really hear anything they'd said, he stood planted in his spot trying to figure out what he was supposed to do. He was too emotionally compromised to think clearly. "My kids," he said distractedly. "I gotta get my kids; she never picked them up from school."

"Nah man, I'll send Gem." Jax assured him, already typing out the text for his mom. "I need to know what you know, Ope. Did she say where she was going?"

"No," Opie shook his head. "She just said errands. I gotta check her place, mine too."

Clay clamped a supportive hand on Opie's shoulder and shook his head. A missing old lady was bad enough, they all understood that fear but none of them understood Opie's complete panic. Everything they'd worked through; most notably Darby's mess, Lyla and Dave, had ended and they were finally happy but this put what they'd accomplished and the new baby at risk. All of that coupled with his overall fragile state of mind and emotional dependence on her made it an utterly nightmarish position. The thought that Mae could end up the way Donna did sat forefront in his mind, and everyone else's.

"We sent Happ and Chibs out first. They're on their way back now but she wasn't at yours or hers, nothing look disturbed either."

"Goddamn it!" He roared and pulling at his hair, as if that would help him think, sent a bar stool flying across the room. "We have to find her," he said beseechingly to his brothers.

"We will." Clay tried to assure Opie in as fatherly a manner as he could but he knew how their relationship had changed after the fundraiser revelation.

"She's pregnant," Opie wished he could have announced that with happiness instead of such dread. "We have to find her and whoever did this." With a dark and disturbing look in his eyes he suddenly became less frazzled. A switch had flipped and he was now more intent on getting to business and finding those responsible. "I'm going to kill those motherfuckers."