DARK SIDE OF THE MOON
thatcraftykid
track one // “MONEY”
MONEY, IT’S A CRIME / SHARE IT FAIRLY BUT DON’T TAKE A PIECE OF MY PIE
“Don’t’ thank me, kid, I don’t want the fuckin’ hassle. Just take the money
and get the hell outta here. You’re in way over your head.”
– Logan –
Logan thinks he’s seen everything now.
The girl’s skittish and absurdly young, and she’s got her gun pointed two inches from any place useful. Still, her clipped drawl is all business. “Gun to the floor. Slow.”
Bartender does as she says, and Logan turns to coax him back on his feet with his second set of claws. Somewhere to his far right, a door shuts. Guy sweeping the cage has hightailed it out of there, and Logan doesn’t blame him. He keeps his eyes on the girl, the unknown entity.
“What d’you think you’re doing, kid?”
Her chin comes up and her brow moves in. “Saving your life.”
“No, you’re not.”
He’d laugh at the affronted expression on her face, but he’s too annoyed. A flip of his wrist and he would’ve sliced that shotgun in half. He’d have taught them a permanent lesson, maybe, or else he would’ve left, no fuss. Now he has the world’s most fucked up Mexican standoff on his hands, on account of some lunatic little girl who doesn’t know what the hell she’s getting herself into.
Her aim suddenly improves. The gun is pointed directly between his eyes. “Fine. Then I’m not saving your life.”
“What the hell are you doing?” he asks again, this time a lot more loudly and at lot less patiently.
“You could’ve been grateful, then I would’ve been nicer about all this. But…” She shrugs regretfully, daintily. “I want the money.”
Damn the money, he couldn’t give two shits. Logan is beyond annoyed. He’s working his way to angry. “Take a breath and drop the gun, kid. You’re done playin’ around.” He punctuates his order by pointing his left set of claws at her.
She shakes her head. “Mine’s worse.”
It’s probably supposed to be a threat, but her confession only serves to calm him down a fraction. Situation’s controllable, because the girl’s not crazy. Just a stupid-as-hell mutant who picked the wrong guy to identify with.
“All right. Look.” He nods toward the table where the blonde with the wandering hands and her old man are frozen in the act of counting up the night’s profit.
For half a second, she’s obviously thrown. He’d bet his cabin that she hadn’t seen them there before.
Big, brown eyes settle on his like a plea, then she turns the gun on the couple. “Hands where I can see ’em, Beer Belly. I Love the Eighties – money in the bag. All of it.” Blonde doesn’t move until the girl shouts, “Now!”
Her pitch is so high, it takes Logan a beat to hear the bartender diving for the shotgun and react. Bartender brings up two halves. The only sound in the place is the hiss of gun powder falling to the floor and the bartender’s shaky gasps. Then a drawn-out moan and a thud as the big-ass redneck who’d kicked him repeatedly in the balls and then demanded fair retribution topples to the floor in a dead faint.
“Thanks,” the girl breathes, a little shell-shocked. Her gun’s pointed at the fallen redneck. She moves it back to the couple.
“Don’t thank me, kid, I don’t want the fuckin’ hassle. Just take the money and get the hell outta here. You’re in way over your head.”
The girl barks out a laugh. “Been that way for a long time, sugar,” she drawls.
“You’re not doin’ yourself any favors here.”
“Never can seem too.”
She’s got to be older than she looks, he suddenly thinks, because her arch bitterness hits him where he lives. Ain’t it the truth? he could tell her. Instead, he scowls harder. He means what he said – he doesn’t want the hassle.
“Eighties, money,” she prompts.
Blonde looks to Logan. Claws top gun, strange world. He motions her on with a sharp incline of his head. She stands shakily, picking up the fake leather bag. She makes it three wobbly steps on her too-high heels before her knees give out.
“Toss the bag over here,” the girl demands.
Her best effort makes it little more than halfway.
“How much, Big B?”
“Tw-twenty-two hundred,” he stammers.
Her lips twist into something like a smile. “Good.” Gun up, she reaches down and slings what looks to Logan like an army duffel over her shoulder and walks over to pick up the money. She holds the bag up by one handle. “I’ll pay you for a ride,” she offers.
That level of audacity renders him speechless. He settles for his most disgusted stare.
She waves the gun. “I could just take your car.”
Speaking of cars.
Hairs raise on the back of Logan’s neck. He swivels around, and the redneck’s friend stumbles back with his hands stretched out. Logan glares past him, toward the back door. The sound is faint, still pretty far out depending on the wind, but it’s unmistakable.
“What’s he doing? What’s wrong?”
What’s wrong? He turns back to the girl. “Shut up. You’re a stupid kid.”
“I am not – ”
“You hear that yet? Sirens. While you been standin’ around jawin’, janitor called the police. You don’t have five minutes.”
Even in the orange glow, the girl looks sheet white. Her eyes glaze over.
Logan draws his claws back in, earning a wince from the bartender. He rolls his shoulder to loosen it up, and the bartender falls back on his ass. Logan gets a tiny amount of satisfaction out of that, but it doesn’t begin to make up for the world of aggravation one slip of a mutant has brought down around his head.
The gun is pointed at him again, but she can unload the thing for all he cares. He’s out of there. Up close, she looks older again, like a dead woman standing, though he refuses to feel sorry for her.
“Best of luck in juvie,” he says, dismissing her even as he walks by.
He’s held up suddenly by his elbow. Her gloved hand is trembling, but it’s stronger than he thinks possible.
“I’m a mutant,” she says.
Like it matters.
Her eyes shine green, startling him. Tears gather on her bottom lids as her face contorts in bitter anguish. “They don’t have any right to do what they did to me, and I am not going back.”
Logan jerks his arm away. He’d prefer a bullet in his gut to the sickening twist he feels. Ain’t it the truth? he could almost say again, except he’s always thought deep down that whatever his they did to him, he might’ve deserved.
“Help me.”
He clamps his arm around her shoulder, shoving her in front of him. “Move your ass.”
The sirens are louder outside, of course, but they don’t sound like they’re getting any closer. Confusion slows him down. The girl tugs at his jacket, and he grabs her wrist before she can do any damage. Leather’s probably older than she is.
“Come on!” Terror rolls off her.
“There’re two cop cars out there, and they’ve both stopped up the way.”
“Good! Which car is yours?”
He sniffs the air. Something else doesn’t smell right.
“Wolverine!”
“Blue and white pickup, with the camper.”
She slips out of his grasp and runs toward it. If she feels safer standing next to it, she’s welcome to, but she’ll just have to wait. The cop cars have stopped dead, no question, and Logan’s drawing the conclusion that something else did the stopping. He listens hard. Gunfire. A – roar?
He loses the far-fetched notion to an engine turning over. The taillights of his own pickup glow red. His hand goes to the pocket of his jeans to feel his keys. The fuck?
A whiff of something sharp and metallic hits his nose. Blood, not human.
His pickup swings around and skids to halt in front of him. The girl reaches across his seat to push open the passenger door. All he can smell now is gasoline and fear.
“Get in.”
She settles back into driver’s seat, buckling the seatbelt in one fluid motion.
“No way you’re driving my – ”
“Get in already!”
She yanks the shift. Logan hardly has time to step in before she floors the gas, the passenger side door nearly slamming closed on his fingers. His indignation is nothing to his anger when he sees the exposed wires hanging near her knees.
“You hotwired my truck!”
“So bill me!” she retorts, pumping the wheel to the right to keep from sliding into the back of a parked semi.
“Watch my – ” A terrible thought has him sticking his shoulders out of the door. “That’s my damn chopper you unhitched!” he bellows. He just bought the damn thing. 1977 XS 650, all original parts. For christ’s sake, he hasn’t taken it out for more than a test drive.
A tug on his belt sees his head back inside the cab just in time to avoid braining himself against the side of a building.
“It would’ve slowed us down. If you want it that badly, take a flying leap. Otherwise, sit back.”
White lights go off behind his eyelids. He’s actually seeing stars, he’s so fucking furious. He fights against his claws. They slice through his sore knuckles before he can will them back behind his skin.
Logan’s breathing is heavy. The girl’s is shaky.
She seems content to finally shut the fuck up, and it’s a long time before he can bring himself to speak to her.
“You got a plan?”
The girl wets her lips. “Keep down this road, and we can get onto the highway.”
“What makes you say that?” He hasn’t seen any signs.
Her lip quirks, only slightly. “Trucker told me. I’m heading – ” She hesitates, poses her direction as a question to him, “West?”
“West,” he allows roughly. Little under four hundred kilometers that direction, and they’d be in High Level. He’ll let her off there and circle back to his cabin. Peace and solitude. At this point, fucking deserved.
He considers telling her to pull over, despite the fact that he’s bone-tired. From stress, no doubt, as opposed to a solid week of bar hopping and cage fighting.
She beats him to it with a yawn. “If you want to drive now…”
“Nope.” Logan tosses her duffel and the money into the camper behind him and settles into his seat, stretching his cramped legs as far as he can and crossing his arms over his chest. “You can handle it, kid.”
“Sure, of course,” she says quickly. “Not a problem.”
He snorts softly at her sudden change of attitude. Better, he thinks, and closes his eyes. Practically meek.
“It’s Rogue, though. Not ‘kid.’”
Practically.
“No talking.”
“Right,” she whispers.
Logan growls lowly. He thinks he hears a suppressed laugh, but he chooses to ignore it in favor of silence.
Rest is what he needs – how long’s it been? – but there’s no getting that smell out of head.
Not human, but nothing like a dog. Cougar’s closer, but who ever heard of a cougar at this altitude, this close to civilization? More the point, who ever heard of a cougar attacking a couple of cop cars on their way to break up an armed robbery?
Too convenient. Had to be related. “They” and the way she said it sticks in his mind. They’re looking for her, undoubtedly. Had they found her?
Opening his eyes a crack, he studies the girl who calls herself Rogue. Too slim under that coat, he’d wager. Could be why she looks so young. Straight brown hair wisps out past her hood. Her cheekbones suggest she’s older, he thinks. Lips, too, even pressed together tight like that. He could swear her eyes are brown again.
A car whizzes by, and she relaxes her grip on the steering wheel ever so slightly. Her posture remains rigid. He immediately pegged her as skittish, and first impressions don’t lie.
What’d they do to her? Who are they?
It bothers him that he’s curious. He doesn’t give a shit about the details of other people’s pasts. The only past he cares about is his own. If he can survive fifteen damn years with that a mystery, he can certainly let Miss Rogue suffer in blessed silence.
The sting of salt hits his nostrils. Logan shuts his eyes, never expecting to fall asleep.
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