Chapter 7 - Blood in the Dust
""Don't twitch, Jax,"" a woman's voice cut through the dry heat.
Jax slowly raised his hands, keeping his body positioned between the ridge and the boy. Standing atop the earthen bank was a woman in her late forties, wearing dusty denim, work boots, and holding a double-barreled twelve-gauge leveled directly at Jax’s chest.
""Sarah,"" Jax exhaled, the tension in his shoulders dropping just a fraction.
""I ought to blow your kneecap off just for bringing that club's filth near my property,"" the woman said, though she lowered the barrel an inch. Sarah was Elena's older sister. Years of ranch work under the relentless Nevada sun had lined her face and hardened her hands, but her eyes held the same fiery defiance that Elena had possessed.
She looked past Jax, her gaze landing on Toby huddled beneath the culvert. Sarah's expression broke instantly, the stern mask crumbling into raw grief.
""Toby,"" she breathed, sliding down the dirt bank and dropping to her knees in front of the boy. She pulled him into a tight, desperate embrace. ""My god, Toby. When the social worker called and said you slipped out of the boarding house in Reno, I thought... I thought you were dead in a ditch.""
Toby didn't cry. He just rested his chin on his aunt's shoulder, his eyes remaining locked on Jax. ""I had to find him, Aunt Sarah. Mom told me to.""
Sarah pulled back, her eyes hardening once more as she turned to Jax. ""She told him nonsense. She lived in a fantasy until the day she stopped breathing. You left her with thirty dollars in an envelope and a promise you'd come back when the dust cleared. Ten years, Jax. Ten damn years.""
Jax swallowed hard, unable to meet her gaze. ""The Vipers put a bounty on me back then. If I stayed, Creed would have burned her trailer with her inside it.""
""So you let her die alone in county hospice instead?"" Sarah stood up, her voice rising in venomous fury. ""You think you saved her? You broke her heart, and then you left this boy to raise himself in foster homes while you rode around playing the tragic loner.""
""I didn't know,"" Jax said, his voice cracking, the admission tearing through his pride. ""I swear on my soul, Sarah, I didn't know she was sick.""
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""It doesn't matter now,"" Sarah said, turning her back on him and gripping Toby's hand tightly. ""We're going to my truck. I'm taking Toby out of this state. And you're going to stay right here and let the desert swallow you whole.""
Sarah took two steps toward the culvert exit, pulling Toby along, when a high-powered rifle shot shattered the air, kicking up a shower of dirt right between her feet.
