Page 9 of Rough Trip

“Okay, we’ll need some time to go over things. We can respect that you tried to make things right with us, but it still doesn’t change the fact that you betrayed us.” Grier said as Sage nodded in agreement with him. “We haven’t seen or heard anything about the Omens recently, but that doesn’t mean they’re gone. They will still be looking for you. You need to lay low for now,” Grier said.

Once Mia had explained everything to Grier and Fiona, Sage could tell she was a bit shaken up.

“Here,” he said as he helped her into one of the rooms at the clubhouse. “Let’s get you fixed.”

Sage could tell that Mia was frustrated about her current arrangement. It was understandable that Fiona wanted her to lay low. The Demons didn’t know how many Omens were still out there and if they would want blood for killing their leader Sedotal. Mia was their only contact in the Demons until she betrayed them and no one in the biker world would forgive a traitor. And even though Fiona may not trust Mia completely, she didn’t want Mia to be in danger, especially after what she’d just been through.

For the last few months, Mia did exactly what Fiona told her. She stayed at one of the Demons’ properties, which she later learned was Eliana’s old house. She hadn’t been seen by anyone, not even the neighbors. Sage would run errands and get whatever she needed for her. The doctor would come in every few weeks to check on her. Her last appointment was rather promising, and Mia couldn’t wait until she could finally go out in the open and take in some fresh air.

“Let’s go for a ride,” Sage said with a big grin on his face.

“What…?” Mia said, puzzled. Her wide eyes looking at Sage as if he’d just told a lie.

“You mean… out of the house?” She just needed to make sure she had heard it right.

“Yes, silly, the doc said you’re fine to go out and Fiona has agreed to discuss your return to the bar.”

Mia screamed at the top of her lungs, sprinted across the living room and hugged Sage.

“Ready?” He passed her a helmet.

Mia took the helmet and gladly put it on. Once Sage had taken his place on the bike, she got on behind him and wrapped herself around him, holding on tight. All the time she’d been working for the bikers, the funny thing was, Mia had never actually been on the back of a bike before and although she was terrified she trusted Sage with her life. Literally.

As they drove off, Mia took in the feeling she got while she was on the bike. Although the initial take-off had been rather frightening, she enjoyed the feeling she got in the pit of her stomach. She could compare it to when a flight takes off or when you leave the platform on a roller coaster ride. She felt free in more ways than one. She could feel the knot that had been in her stomach for a while finally give way and she began to breathe easily.

She had come clean to Fiona and Grier and although her future with the Hell Kats hung in the balance, she was relieved she could now be honest with those around her.

Sage decided to take her out of the city so she could get her head cleared. After the night she had had, he could only imagine what she was going through. Mia took in the scenery as they drove through the city. She watched as the night enveloped the city in darkness and buildings started to light up in every direction. The more Sage drove and the further out they got, the less she could see of the buildings.

He drove alongside a mountain, weaving higher and higher, and he continued to drive until he reached the top where they arrived at a dead end. This was the perfect place to come and look out over the city. It was beautiful at night, when the lights from buildings were lit up and it looked like something out of a movie.

“I don’t know what I would’ve done if it weren’t for you,” she said to Sage again once they had hopped off the bike and walked over to the side railing that ran along the side of the mountain.

She looked over the city, completely captivated by the beauty of it all. She felt freer now that she was out of the city.

Mia started to open up to Sage about her life. The stress of everything had been building up for so long that she had just needed someone to listen to her. She had never told her story to anyone before but she trusted Sage and she knew that he would not judge her because of her past.

“My parents believed that worshipping God was the only important thing in life, that and getting married to someone who had the same beliefs,” she began.

“I’d never really been able to love God, it's not that I didn't try because I did. I really tried to please my parents for a while by going to a Catholic church and meeting boys who they would approve of. It’s just after a while, I couldn’t help who I really was anymore. I couldn't be boxed in and I couldn’t be tied down to anything or anyone that couldn’t see me for who I really was. My one release had always been art. I loved art, I loved it so much it often consumed me. I would go days on end locked up in my room just painting, living off of basically nothing. I couldn’t deny myself of something I really wanted to do but my parents did. They denied me over and over again because they couldn’t understand why I would waste my life on something that wasn’t productive, something that didn’t include God. I just couldn’t take it anymore. I mean, who wants to be with a family that doesn’t accept you? I know I didn’t and I know most people would agree with me. And so I took it upon myself to leave, I had to get out! I couldn’t stay there any longer or who knows what I would’ve done. But I guess leaving didn’t turn out that great,” she said sounding overwhelmed with emotions. She let out a small laugh when she mentioned how her life had turned out.

Sage hadn’t said anything, he didn’t need to go into his story. His life story was his own and he couldn’t bring himself to share it with anyone, especially Afghanistan. That had been the worst time of his life. So he stood next to her staring out into the city and continued to listen.

“When you’re 16 and a runaway, it is extremely easy to fall into the wrong crowd like I did. It seems to be a pattern in my life,” she said with sadness in her eyes.

Sage just wanted to hold her and make her feel safe. She had been damaged for so long he could see her emotional scars starting to show on her face as if they were physical wounds. He could never fully understand her pain but he wished he could take it away.

“I was so desperate to make it on my own, to prove my parents wrong, to show them that I could be an artist that I had to take anything I could get. Whatever job opportunity popped up, I had to take it. That’s when I got into drugs. At first, I was only selling them but after hanging with the wrong crowd for so long it was hard not to join in and eventually I did. The first drug I ever used was cocaine. I wouldn’t say I got addicted to it as fast as most people. For some reason, I had to take a lot of it to get high and so I switched it up. I started taking the harder drugs because go big or go home, right? Looking back now, I should’ve just gone home after all. But I was young and naive, convinced that I could do just about anything and still make it out alive.” She took a moment to catch her breath, the memory of her past weighing heavily on her chest.

She had been looking out into the city, watching her life on repeat as if someone had put it on as a movie.

“I remember the day I almost died like it was yesterday. It had been a couple of years since I left home, still not an artist and constantly in a state of self-hatred. Why had I left home? What was the point of it when I still hadn’t done what I had set out to do? I didn’t even try hard to get into the art world which I obviously know was my fault. I had disappointed myself more than I could have disappointed my family. I’d become so heavily addicted to drugs, I had become a low life, the lowest of the low. I was fortunate enough to have never had to beg for food, I had always made it by but I was homeless, living on the streets with other kids just like me. And I say kids because back then I was just a kid. I remember I had taken a mixture of different things, trying to get as high as possible so I could forget about the life I always dreamed of having that had begun to feel so far out of reach. I closed my eyes for what felt like a second so I could let the drugs take over my mind and my senses and the next thing I knew I woke up in a hospital bed. My parents were never notified and I’m sure they think I’m dead. I still can’t remember many of the details of that day, I had been so out of it, but it was ever since then that I decided I had to stop using drugs. My life was still never easy, it took me a while to get off of the streets and I suppose my life got a different kind of messy after that,” she said.

“You’re a survivor,” he said once she had fallen silent.

She looked up at him with her beautiful brown eyes and smiled.

Sage couldn’t help thinking that even now, with her life story before him, she was still so beautiful. She had shown so much perseverance and strength that he knew that she could get through whatever life threw at her even if she didn’t believe it herself.