The Life of Nikki Winston

Lyla Again - Chibs!

A few days later, I woke up to loud banging on the door. Without really caring about who saw me in my night clothes (which really only consisted of one of the shirts from a pajama set and underwear) I opened the door to find Jas with blotchy eyes and tear stains. "Tara left, didn't she?" I asked. All he managed was a nod and a strangled choking noise before I pulled him into the room and sat him down on the edge of the bed. While Jax buried his head in his hands, I pulled on the matching shorts to my pajamas and went to wet down a wash cloth. "Jax..." I trailed off, catching his attention. "I'm gonna wash your face now, okay?" He nodded again and I sat beside him on the bed, turning his face towards me. I washed the tear stains away with gentle strokes, putting as little pressure as possible on his skin.

"I'm sorry, Nikki. I should have listened to you to begin with."

"Don't start that right now, Jax. Please. Just let me clean you up. You have to try to be whole so you can take care of your son right now. I don't want to gloat, I know you're hurting over this."

"God, all this shit with Zobelle, the shit between me and Clay, Otto getting jumped, now Tara. I don't know what to do anymore, Nikki."

"Wait, back up. Otto got jumped? Why didn't anyone tell me? When did it happen?" I demanded, flinching when Jax hissed as I applied too much pressure to his still healing split lip.

"Zobelle had Otto jumped the day after we got back from the run. Otto's mostly blind now. Clay wants to retaliate immediately, and I wanna know what we're up against." Jax answered.

"Damn it. Why do you all insist on keeping me out of the loop like this? I can actually help, you know. Whatever. Look, Jax, you're cleaned up. Go get a change of clothes and get ready for Church. We can talk our shit out when this is taken care of. That work for you?" I suggested.

"Yeah." Jax stood from the bed and made to leave the room, but stopped halfway through the door to turn his head back to me. "Nikki, I really am sorry for everything that happened between us. You were right from the very beginning and I was too caught up in Tara to even think about what you were telling me. I want us to work, I really do." He left, closing the door behind him, before I could even get a word in.

As soon as my dad and brother came out of Chapel, I rushed to my dad to find out what they'd decided. "Daddy, what was the decision?" I asked quietly.

"Nay. We're gonna wait to deal with them until we know more." He answered.

"Good. I don't want you guys going in blind. There's no telling what could happen to you. I got to catch up with Ope before Lyla picks up her car. Can you call Donna and ask her if she'll pick me up tomorrow morning? There's somewhere I want the two of us to go." I requested, giving my father a quick hug before I chased after Opie. "Ope, wait up. I want to talk to Lyla before she leaves." When I caught up with Opie, Lyla was already signing papers for Chibs and Opie went to go pull her car out of the shop. "Lyla, you got a minute?" I asked, stepping up to her side.

"Sure, what's up?"

"I saw the drugs in your car. I really think you should see about some kind of rehab. Your little boy needs you, and even though I was angry you were flirting with my brother, I can let it go. But that little boy can't grow up with his mom being a junkie. How would you feel if he started doing drugs before he even hit eighteen?" I questioned.

"I'd feel like I failed him."

"That's my point. Look, I know a really good program you can basically do at home. The only time you have to go to a center is for bi-weekly meetings and checkups. They wont' have you arrested and they'll help you get and stay clean." I offered.

"That would be wonderful."

"Give me your number and I'll call you with the info when I find their card, okay? Once you've started the program, I'll introduce you to the brother I think you'd like." I requested. Lyla quickly wrote down her phone number on a scrap piece of paper and got the keys from Opie when he got out of her car. "Don't forget what I said, Lyla." I waved her off with a half forced smile before turning to my brother's curious gaze. "What?"

"What was all that about?"

"I was suggesting a program to help her get clean. Don't give me that look, I saw the leftover stuff in the car floorboard."

"Alright. Fine. Think she's actually gonna do it?"

"She will. For her son. She's a single mom and all he has. I reminded her that he could very well end up a junkie if he keeps seeing her get high. She'll do the program, and she'll get clean." I asserted.

"If you say so. You always were a pretty good judge of character." Opie relented. I got a glance of Gemma when she went into the clubhouse to find Clay, then turned my attention to the minivan that had been left abandoned by the girl who'd helped our rapists. When Chibs started running away from it, I knew something was wrong. He'd barely gotten a few feet away when the van blew up.

"Chibs!!" Gemma and I started pulling his shirt open enough so that I could give him CPR. I knew from the amount of blood leaking out of his head that CPR was probably gonna be the only thing I could do until an ambulance got to us.

When the police and ambulance finally got to use, two of the guys had to pull me away from Chibs. I turned into one of their chests, trying in vain to hid my loud sobs. I heard someone walk up to us from behind me and immediately stepped away to see Hale come up to Jax (who had apparently been the one to let me cry on him). I left them to talk in private and made my way to Gemma. "Gem, we're not gonna have a choice but to tell them soon. If this keeps up, they're gonna have to know. I don't want to tell them Gem, but we may end up with no options. If they don't know what he's capable of, they're gonna get hurt, or dead." I whispered, terrified of losing my family.

"I know baby. We'll deal with it if it comes down to that. Let's hope it doesn't." She spoke lowly even though we were alone.

"Gemma... I - I don't want to talk about it because if I don't talk about it then it didn't happen. But it did happen. So, if neither of us are gonna talk to a shrink, we may as well be there for each other. I can't - I can't help but think that if I hadn't gotten your attention that night that we would have been gone before that bitch could knock us out. It was all my fault, because I couldn't just let you make the turn and get home." I lamented.

"Nikki, if it wasn't that night, they would have tried another night. It would have happened either way because they wanted to do that to us. They thought they could use us to make the club weak. We won't let them. We'll keep our boys sane and together, do you understand?" I nodded, too far stuck in my own head to voice my worries about what would happen to the guys if they rushed into their revenge. "Let's get inside. Clay's gonna get worried if we stay out here too much longer."