Learning 2 Live

Disclaimer I own nothing but my own character Courissa everything else is up to the folks that created the show. Dang it and I wish that it had been me oh well!

Hello everyone I am trying to write another fic here. This is the first Biker Mice fan fic I have started.
It's a bit different but that's why I like writing it so much!
I hope that ya’ll will like it, please read and review .I am trying a new technique in writing and I would really appreciate a little feedback on if I need to go back and change it up some ‘kay?
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I suppose that I should start off my story with who I am so that whoever is reading this will know who I am. My name is Courissa and I am 24 years old. I grew up in a small town in west Texas. My friends would tell you that I live up to the true meaning of hicksville.
Yup that’s me good ole fun loving redneck ‘Rissa ! If it has four wheels and an engine I can fix it for yah. But don’t try to get me on a motorcycle, I think that the term road rash explains it enough. Uggh! That gives me the chills just thinking about it.
I mean there is absolutely nothing wrong with motorcycles I am just too damn scared of getting on one. Now if you want a custom paint job on one then you came to the right chick. I absolutely love to see all of my sweat and hard work drive past me on the road and be able to say that I did that.
I grew up around my dad and his garage, helped him out once he taught me all he knew. I guess you could say the reason I am afraid of getting on a bike is cause my dad was killed in a head on collision with a truck while he was riding his ole Indian.
I remember that day well cause after that everything seemed to go down hill for me. I thought that everything would get better when I met the so-called “love” of my life.
God I was so stupid, but that is a story for later on. Where was I ..Oh yeah so I never really got the nerve to follow in my dad’s footsteps. I sold all his bikes and kept the shop open. At least it was open till life decided to screw me over again and I had to close shop and run.
I really didn’t want to leave everything I knew and loved behind but I wasn’t left with much choice when it was a life or death situation. You see I have never really had much luck with picking out good guys in my relationships. I always ended up with the cheating, no-good lying son of a bitches, who tried to raise their hands to get me to submit.
If there is one thing that you will learn about me is that I am my own person and take shit from no one. I never stayed with any guy if they turned out to be violent. I always showed them the door or left them crawling out if they didn’t listen. So imagine my surprise when the last guy I was in “love” with asked me to marry him after six months of total bliss. I had not seen any of the signs my previous boyfriends had so I agreed. I was only 20 at the time and didn’t know any better. If I could go back in time and do it all over I would have ran away from John the minute I met him.
You see after I married him he changed and not for the good. It all started out with my work taking up too much of “our” time together. So I hired someone else to help run the shop so that I could be home more. John wanted kids and I tried. I really did but it wasn’t meant to be. The doctors ran tests and said everything with me was fine. They suggested that maybe it was John and he should be tested out. I think that because of that he flipped.
He started to yell at me the minute I got home from work all the time. Get drunk and storm out, normally I would have just let him cool off. This went on for a few months and I was tired of it.
Then weird stuff started my fathers belongings went missing our were destroyed. And when I asked John he denied having anything to do with it. Then when customer’s cars at work were being trashed while I was at home. I started to worry; I didn’t know why someone would do that. I filed police reports and claims with the insurance companies. It kept happening for a few weeks leaving me with no customers. I followed John one night after he had one of his drunken fits. I couldn’t believe my eyes my husband was trashing my shop. I realized then who it was that had been destroying my dad’s things and my shop.
I went home and waited for him to come home to confront him. Looking back now I should have called the police and let them deal with it. He came home at about 2am totally wasted and in a rage. When he saw me up he came at me. I don’t remember much just pain then nothing.
I woke up three days later in ICU at the local hospital. The police were waiting for me in my room to question me on what happened. I told them about finding John trashing my shop and how when he got home he attacked me. They told me that I was found by a neighbor the next morning and that my husband couldn’t be found. The doctors told me that I had three broken ribs, a fractured wrist from apparently trying to ward off blows. My face was swollen and black and blue. I also had been whipped with a belt and buckle on my back. The doctor told me there would be scarring from it.

Once I was released from the hospital I filed a restraining order and a divorce. The courts ruled in my favor and John was forced out of my life. I thought that I had heard the last of him. But it was not to be so, I started getting letters and threatening messages on my answer machine from John. The police said that they were trying their best to help but unless he attacked me again there was little to be done.
I became scared and didn’t go out much. My friends tried to get me out and help me get over what had happened. I came home from work one night to find my house trashed and a letter from John telling me that if he couldn’t have me then no one would. I called the police and they decided that I needed to close up my shop and go into protective custody.
I had to leave it all behind me and change my name and appearance. I even moved to the West Coast seeing as I had hated the West Coast and always told John that. The police told me I would be safe I was for the first six months then he found me. I was hospitalized once again but from a gun shoot wound and stabbing.
After I was released I took my own life into my own hands. The police tried and failed, so I decided I would have to make sure that John would never catch me again. I stayed moving from state to state. Always leaving each town after three months and making sure to leave no trail for John to find me.
I had become good at hiding but it was very lonely. I ran that way for three years always just working enough to pay the bills, I never made any friends I found it too hard to pack up and leave them when the time came for me to leave. So I just went to work, the grocery store, and home.
I really missed the shop and my old friends but didn’t want to take the chance of John finding me. So I decided to move to a city that was large enough that I would be hard to find. I wanted to start to live again it had been three long and hard years. I was only 23 about to be 24 but I felt older a lot older then I really was.
I decided that I would quit running I was to young and tired of being scared. I had lost who I was and wanted to find myself again. And to me the only way to do that was to finally stop running and stand my ground.
I was driving in Missouri somewhere near St. Louis when I decided this, so I pulled over at the next rest area and took out my map. I saw Chicago and knew that it was there I would make my stand. I got back in and drove all night and into the morning. I had just pulled up to the outskirts of town. It wasn’t a bad area but it wasn’t all that good either. I was driving my ole beat up ford truck when it decided that now would be a good time to break down. I couldn’t believe my luck. Of coarse I started to cuss about how when it rains it just pours. I decided that bitch’n about it wouldn’t help me so I got out to see what went out this time.
I popped the hood and looked around a bit till I found the culprit, and wouldn’t you know that it was that damn water pump again. I was mad cause I couldn’t blame anyone but myself. This would be the third time in three months that I would have to replace this pump. I promised myself that I would get the one with a lifetime warranty or next better up when I bought the new one and not the cheap ass ones I kept replacing it with. I decided that I might as well fix it so I got my tools and started the hassle of getting it out . I was fighting the last bolt that seemed to be welded on to tight when a old wrecker truck pulled up .
A dark haired women got out and came up to me wanting to know if I needed any help. I looked at her and she just had this homely feel to her. We hit it off like old friends when she offered to tow my truck to her shop. She even offered to help me replace the pump , I took her up on the offer to tow my truck but turned down the help on the pump. I told her that I used to own my own shop and knew well enough to get by. She introduced herself as Charlene but went by Charlie.
I offered her my real name , I decided that if I was to make my life here in Chicago I would do it all or nothing. So no more hiding and changing my name it would be me the real me that Charlie would get to know.
We towed the truck to her shop and I replaced the pump. When I was finished Charlie asked me if I had just got into town. I told that I did and wanted to know of any hotels nearby. Of coarse from what I had gathered from her was that she wouldn’t like the thought of me staying in a hotel nearby. And the minute I asked her she offered me a place to stay and a job at her shop. I told that I would like to stay the night but would think about the job.
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I took Charlie up on her offer of a place to stay and ended up staying for a bit longer then I intended to. It being that Charlie girl and me were like two peas in a pod. She was the bread to my butter uggh damn me and my analogy think'n mind! We got along so well in fact that we ended up becoming partners in work. She and I would trade off which vehicles we didn't want to fix, and of coarse I had to open up my paint stall in her shop cause I could no sooner quit painting then I could stop breathing.
I didn't open up to her for quite some time about my past. I couldn't with out that fear of what she would think of me. Charlie wouldn't leave it well enough alone when she noticed how I stayed far away from guys. She would always try to corner me about it but I just changed the topic.
It was 4 months after working and living with her that I cracked and spilled it all out. With a little help from a bottle of Jose Cuervo and a push from Charlie to tell her, so I did. After that she became almost like a sister to me always watching out for me. Not once did she let me feel like something the cat dragged in or even beneath her she just held me when I cried and got me laughing when I had a bad day.
If I had a true sister it would have been Charlie .She is the only family to me left and vice versa I'm the only family she has. So we stuck together and helped each other out. She still tries to get me on a bike and I always turn her down. Not even she can change my mind about that. I just sit on one and I imagine what my dad felt in his last moments. It's enough to scare me clear out of the room and away from a bike for the rest of the day. Which when you paint them for a living is kind' a hard to do but I still manage somehow.
We were both sad when the day I decided to open my own shop came. After living there for two years I came to a difficult decision. I couldn't keep stealing Charlie's workspace with my painting business, which was blooming to fast that space was becoming an issue. So I started looking for a building that wasn't too far from Chi-town. I just couldn't find a place any closer with what I needed then in Rockford, which is a good 2-hour drive from the shop. It was a nice sized shop with plenty of room to expand should I need to later on.
So I packed up my stuff and loaded up my ole Ford truck. Had a teary eyed goodbye and a promise to call as soon as I get there from Charlie. Then I left to start my new adventure, scared that life had been too good to me the last few years with no contact from John. I crossed my fingers and upped my self-defense classes just in case they would be tested. I knew that sooner or later I would hear from him but had hoped that he had finally given up. Charlie knew my fears and had assured me that she would kill the sorry s.o.b. the minute she saw him. Gotta love that girl willing to protect her friends so fiercely but I would do the same should I have to.
We kept in touch at first, we would talk everyday, but then business would pick up so it was a few times a week and a letter or two. Then eventually we only talked when we had the time between work and other stuff that happens in life. She started to let it slip to me in phone conversations about this new big shot that moved into Chicago buying up all the businesses and leveling them. How he kept trying to buy her out and she would refuse. It was her Dad's shop after all; I know how she feels having gone through the same thing with mine. She had been having problems with threats and customers shit being messed with. I couldn't have been happier to hear that she made some new friends a few months later with three guys that would help her around the shop.
The guys as Charlie calls them are a Godsend for Charlie. She told me all about them Modo the quiet gentle giant unless you threatened his friends then you better watch out. Throttle the cool levelheaded leader of the group always looking out for his "bros". Then there was Vincent Van Wham or "Vinnie" for short the guy that's head is so big that he has to walk sideways thru a doorway. And from what I detected in Charlie's voice every time she brings up another one of his hair brained schemes (her words not mine) that he is her favorite of the group. They are just what she needs since I couldn't make it up to see her until later. I was so far behind in work orders that I hadn't actually talked to Charlie in months. When I did talk to her I got the feeling that there was something she wanted to tell me but couldn't at least not unless it was in person so I planned to visit her in the next month for a week or so.
I missed the days in the garage working side by side with my adopted sis so to speak. So I asked her how her ride was looking if I could give her a new face for it. She jumped at the chance for me to give it the "Midas" touch her way of saying awesomeness that is me. (I tend to think I'm not that conceited) So she drove it over one weekend in the back of her truck .It being that her guys were out of town for the weekend. I was disappointed to not get to meet them after hearing so much about them. But we caught up on life and had a blast before she left with a promise from me to visit in two weeks time with her baby (being her bike) back in one piece.
I finished up with Charlie's bike a bit earlier then I had expected and planned on surprising her with an early visit. So I loaded Charlie's bike into the back of the truck and went to finish closing up shop. I had already packed my bag earlier and it was in the truck cab ready for the trip. I hadn't thought about John in months so I was beyond scared to hear a familiar voice address me on my way to locking up the door. Flinching I didn't have to turn around to know that my worst fears had come true. My little sanctuary was polluted and condemned the minute he stepped foot on the property.
I quickly tried to squeeze through the door and lock it before he could reach me. Being that my cell phone was in my bag in the truck and the nearest phone was in the shop. I had set up an alert system with the local police department to let them know of my past with John incase he had shown up. They were well informed of his prior assaults and I had them on speed dial. But a lot of good that did me when he forced his way in after me. I knew that this was about to get a whole lot uglier real quick like. I silently preyed for strength and timidly watched his movements. Reminding myself all that I learned in self-defense so that I could apply it.
He moved quicker then I remembered and clipped my chin, throwing me off balance before I re-gained and countered with a swing of my own. A solid punch to the nose with a crack and blood seconds later pouring out. He only smirked a crazy glint in his eye before he brought his hand to his mouth and licked off the blood. I should of know not to taunt him but I did . Sometimes I don't think clearly and this was one of those times. I should have retreated when he was down but I didn't want to appear weak anymore so I stayed. He grabbed a torch off a nearby bench and lit it. I quickly backed up searching for my knife in my back pocket. As I grabbed the knife he threw the torch at a rack of paint causing an instant fire. I became enraged that he was destroying yet another place that brought me joy. I slashed him on the arm and stomach before he came at me again breaking a rib or two with his punch to the midsection. While I was down he grabbed my knife and stabbed me in the side. I screamed with anguish and shoved him as far from me as I could. I would not let this man kill me, no longer would I submit so I grabbed the nearest thing (a wrench I think) and started to beat him with it. Last thing I remember was him unconscious on the floor and running to the truck.
I was on the out skirts of Elgin on Big Timber Road when I came out of my haze my truck had decided to break down. I was in shock, tired, hurt beyond belief, and stranded. I just sat there for awhile and just laughed hysterically, then I remember my shop on fire and started to cry. I was just glad that I had loaded Charlie's bike in the truck before that all happened. I then remembered my cell phone I quickly grabbed it and shakily dialed her number hoping that she would answer.
"Hello?" Voices in background crashing followed by whooping ..hmm must be the guys..
"Char-Charlie.. clears throat ..I need your help" I sounded weaker then I ought to.
" Rissa' is that you? ..hitch in her voice... What's the matter where are you? all noise in the shop now gone " ..Boy is she gonna flip when she hears this well here goes.
" He came for me Char like I said he would .. catch in breath from sharp pain so not good ...he just walked right in and whipped the floor with me. I got him good though.. but damn he worked me over.. of coarse the shop is gone now bastard but I hope he was still inside when it went up.." ..I notice that I am rambling must be from blood loss damn.
" What pause are you talking about Rissa' who came for you was it John? What went up Charlie starting to sound a bit worried God answer me RISSA' she shouts to catch my attention I was fading in and out
Where are you ? Are you okay!" I hear whispers about what is going on from Charlie to one of the guys.
" Well that would have to be determined from your point of view my voice getting angrier by the minute if slowly bleeding to death stranded on a farm road outside of Elgin takes deep breath versus the normal hospital death trip from my fucking ex I would have to say F-ing fantastic!!!" I hear Charlie ordering the guys to grab the first aid kit and to get her truck filled with fuel.
" Okay Rissa' just hang in there for me I hear a catch from tears Tell me exactly where you are and I'll be there as fast as my truck will allow pauses to see if I am still with her just please stay with me girl don't you get stubborn and leave me sniffling and heavy breathing "
" I had to think am near the 20 merge vision is getting blurry by the old farm house panting hurry Ima words slurring na doin ta good here girl then everything fades to black."
I must of been out for awhile cause the next thing I knew a large dark shape was opening a door murmuring soft assurance of help when I protested being lifted. I remember a soft furry arm and a cold presence on the other arm. He must of heard my intake of breath from him hitting the stab wound cause he gasped and called for someone. I was starting to fade when he picked me up there was pain and then darkness.
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So what do ya'll think so far good huh? Who can guess who helps her in the end? Please remember to review so I know if I am keeping it interesting for ya.
Thanks
lysia