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
“Okay, so I don’t live by the Girl Scout Law. I’m a thief and a liar –
but, far as I can tell, you beat people up for a living so no lectures, please.”
– Rogue –
Rogue checks the rearview mirror again. It’s been light out for over an hour now, so the police car three lengths behind her stands out against the snowy backdrop. Longest seven minutes of her life, she’s been watching that car. Just waiting.
The cop picks up speed. She wants to do the same – an out and out chase might be kinder to her nervous system. The suspense is hogtying her stomach something awful.
Wait for the sirens, a bell-like voice cautions her. A ghost from the dark. Maybe it’s an omen.
Rogue shudders.
Miraculously, the cop passes her without so much as a sidelong glance. She can almost make out the driver. He or she, hard to tell, is big and blonde. If she sees another police car with a big blonde driving, she’ll know she’s in trouble. For now, she breathes.
“Jesus fucking goddamned Christ,” Rogue can’t help but say aloud, eyes fixed on the road ahead.
Slumped over in the seat beside her, Wolverine snuffles and opens his eyes. For a split-second, she’s sure he doesn’t know who she is. Then a look of pure irritation settles on his features, and Rogue knows he’s remembered.
“Got one helluva mouth on you for a girl,” he says hoarsely, rubbing both hands over his face.
“A cop car just passed us. I might throw up.”
The comical alarm on Wolverine’s face is heightened by his mutton chops, which are sticking out in swirled patches. “Pull over.”
Rogue has an iron stomach, but she stops anyway. It’s been a long, anxious night. She’s sick of driving. Once she has the truck in park, Wolverine looks like he wants to shove her out the driver side door.
“Just an expression,” she assures him, letting the back of her head rest against the seat. She tugs at her purple scarf. “They’ve got to have an APB out on me. I’m shocked I didn’t get pulled over. Shocked. I wanted to get as far on the highway as possible, but I figured I’d have to turn off onto some side road eventually. When I saw hardly any cars…Stupid. Again.”
Rogue lets her chin drop so she can see him past her hood. Wolverine’s head is resting against the seat, too, but he’s looking forward. He finishes smoothing down his beard and rubs his knuckles with his long fingers. For the rough and tumble sort, he’s got enviable eyelashes.
“I should’ve gotten off the highway earlier. Sorry.”
“It’s your blood pressure.”
“No roadblocks, so they probably haven’t thought to consult anyone stateside about me. There’s a bright side for you.”
“Criminal record.”
“Believe it or not, that was my first holdup. Scout’s honor.” Rogue puts down her three fingers at his skeptical bow. “Okay, so I don’t live by the Girl Scout Law. I’m a thief and a liar – but, far as I can tell, you beat people up for a living so no lectures, please.”
Logan snorts, clearly not impressed. “You’re worried about a missing persons.”
“That’s the one.”
“Parents.”
His way of asking questions via presumptive statements does not make her want to open up. “Private party,” she replies, her tone final.
Wolverine turns his head to look at her now and finally asks a real question: “Does this private party use mutant trackers?”
Left field, much? “No way. They hate mutants. That’s the point.”
“So then they wouldn’t have anything against exploitation.”
“They hate us most of all because they can’t control us. Southaven’s a clinic. They…run tests. Try to figure out how we work. ‘Know thine enemy’ bullshit.”
“Mm.” He sits up, apparently finished.
“Why would you ask me that?”
“I’ll drive. Hop out.”
“Can’t. I broke the door to get in. Why would you ask me about a mutant tracker?”
“What d’you mean, broke the door? How’d you get it shut?”
“I pulled real hard.” She unbuckles herself and turns to face him, arms across her chest. “Mutant tracker?”
He sighs. “Something stopped those two cop cars last night. Am I driving or what?”
“Switch me spots.” She waits for him to grudgingly half-stand, knees resting on the seat, so she can scoot down the bench, almost on her back. Right as she’s passing under the arch he’s made with his body, she stops to look up at him through his arms. “You were making a point.”
“Point is, we got away, ’cause somethin’ stopped those cops from doing their job. Somethin’ that didn’t smell human.”
“What, like a bear?”
“You got a trained bear standin’ by in the woods in case you get into trouble? This isn’t exactly a comfortable position, kid.”
He does look cramped. Also, she’s close enough to bop his belt buckle with the tip of her nose. She refrains – he’s annoyed with her enough as is, excessive goading not required – and slithers the rest of the way down the bench.
As he’s taking his seat, she slides back her hood. “I’m Rogue,” she reminds him.
“You mentioned that.” He opens the ashtray and takes out a cigar.
He leans forward and she sees his dog tag. Familiarity bubbles up again.
“You were in the army?” No response. “Doesn’t that mean you were in the army?”
Wolverine tucks the tag back under his shirts, scowling.
“You are easily upset. It’s a character flaw.”
That elicits a snort, a fleeting hint of a smile. “I got plenty more of those where that one came from,” he tells her, putting the cigar between his teeth. “Good thing I’m dropping you off at the nearest bus station.”
The lighter pops out, and he holds it up to the end of his cigar. A couple of puffs and then a long, satisfied drag. He contemplates it like a favorite lover. She almost tells him to get a room, but a clarification is more pressing.
“I get to keep the money, though, right?”
A flash of anger. “Yes. You get to keep the damn money.” He puts the truck into drive and starts them back down the highway.
Rogue smiles smugly as she buckles her seatbelt. “Don’t mind if I do. How about you drop me off at a really shady used car dealership instead?”
“There ain’t but one dealership where you’re gettin’ off, and it’s not cheap. Welcome to Northern Canada.”
“Never mind. I wouldn’t want to spend all my hard-earned money in one place.”
He grunts around his cigar but doesn’t deny it’s hers.
Glad that’s settled, she looks behind her to gaze fondly at the bag. His tiny, messy camper strikes her again. “Wow.”
“What?”
“Nothing,” she says quickly. “Just, suddenly my life doesn’t look that bad.”
“What’d you tell me? ‘Take a flying leap.’”
Technically speaking, she very well could, but he doesn’t know that.
“It looks great,” she amends. Rogue looks down with a sideways smile. “Looks cozy.” She glances up again.
He blows out a puff of smoke, focus on the road.
Her stomach gargles. Pots and pans…“You wouldn’t have anything to eat back there?”
“Nothin’, unless there’s somethin’ in the glove box.” He leans over and reaches past the gun she stashed in there to pull out a package of beef jerky, which he tosses in her lap.
With her teeth, she pulls off her long, thin gloves so she can open the wrapping. She devours the piece of jerky in under fifteen seconds, barely remembering to chew with her mouth closed. Far from a hearty meal, but better than saliva. Anyway, she’s a rich woman now. Before Wolverine sends her off into the wild blue yonder, maybe she can talk him into lunch, her treat.
Rogue rubs her bare hands for warmth. Character flaws notwithstanding, she likes the King of the Cage. She could take a little part of him with her, of course, but something tells her, of all the indignities she’s put him through, that’s the one he’d consider unforgivable.
“Put your hands on the heater.”
She jerks away just in time, pressing her shoulder against the door.
Wolverine looks truly offended. “Now you think I’m gonna hurt you, kid?”
“It’s nothing personal,” Rogue says as she puts her gloves back on. “When people touch my skin, something happens.”
“What?”
Level stare. “They get hurt.”
“Fair enough.”
She watches his hand come down to rest on the steering wheel. His knuckles look chapped, otherwise unbroken. “When they come out – does it hurt?”
“Every time.”
No mutation is perfect. She likes having that knowledge reinforced. Makes her feel a little less alone.
“So, what kind of a name is ‘Rogue?’”
“I don’t know. What kind of a name is ‘Wolverine?’”
“My name’s Logan.”
“Marie.”
For some reason, this time her sass earns her a half a smirk. But when she tries to give him legitimate advice – “You know, you should really wear your seatbelt” – she gets a cigar pointed in her face.
“Look, I’m not about to take advice on auto safety from some girl – ”
An alarming crunch, a sudden stop. She’s wrenched forward. Glass shatters.
Through her hair, she can see her legs. She tugs at them. Stuck, not crushed. Her neck hurts, her stomach where the lapbelt is pulled tight. Her heart beats in her ears. Most of the windshield is blown out.
Logan is out in the snow, staggering sideways like a miracle drunk. He stops a few feet from her to catch his balance. “You all right?”
There’s a huge gash on his forehead, revealing steel-gray instead of bone-white. She watches with jealous fascination as it disappears. Her skin feels like it’s reaching out.
“Kid, are you all right?”
Coming to herself again, she breaks the seatbelt from its metal clamp and holds it up as proof of her last remark. “I’m fine.”
With his arm, Logan wipes the blood from his wound-free face and comes toward her again as she’s opening the passenger side door. She’s halfway out when he stills. Looks around. Sniffs. Rogue sniffs, too.
She’s about to ask him if he smells smoke when a great big something jumps out at Logan from above and behind, knocking him back into the snow. The mammoth creature has to be over seven feet tall. Loose blonde hair and animal pelts hang over his back. When he opens his mouth to roar, he has fangs.
Smoke blurs her view. Inside the cab, she sees flames licking the back of her seat. “Um, fire!” Fire attacking her money, more importantly. She’s about to rescue it when Logan hurtling toward the tree-line catches her attention.
Her adrenaline spikes.
Rogue peels off her gloves. Then she peels the passenger side door off its hinges.
On his way to where Logan is trying to will himself upright, Fangs hefts a thick log like it’s a baseball bat. Rogue gives it her best guess and shot-puts the door. Fangs sees it coming soon enough to turn his back. By the time it hits him, the door isn’t going very fast but it has enough bulk to knock him to his knees.
Logan lumbers up from all fours. Gapes at her.
“He’s getting up!”
Rogue skitters forward onto the hood. Fangs has the door now, and Logan looks back just in time to see him swinging for the fences.
Takeoff!
Her legs propel her body into the air, pointed directly at projectile Logan. There’s nothing she can do to brace herself against his surprising mass meeting hers. His stomach hits her shoulder, and he grunts in pain. She balances him on her back, but they’re spinning out of control.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!” he yells in her ear. Rogue has no energy to scream out loud. It’s all focused inward: Carol, Carol, Carol, Carol, Carol!
The wind has picked up abruptly, swirling them in falling snow. A flash of red.
Fangs’ roar reconnects her brain to her spinal cord. Rogue pushes up and out. Her body responds fast enough that they’re well over the trees when an explosion sounds. Logan’s unintelligible howl echoes off the low cliffs they’re heading for.
She doesn’t have to see it to know what the blasted remnants of his truck look like. The memory of a car bomb sinking shrapnel eight inches deep into a palm tree comes to the forefront of her mind. Her next thought is more personal – Bye-bye twenty-two hundred dollars. Later, she’ll let herself get upset over the loss. Now, she needs to concentrate.
Before she could do it herself, she used to think the trick to flying was weightlessness. That’s how it looks in cartoons, anyway. However, real world physics requires force to overcome gravity. Flying takes muscle, mental as well as physical.
Mental is harder for Rogue to maintain. The dark gathers around the edges of her eyelids. Carol, she thinks, but she’s been swallowed up again. The dark is an abyss. It’s only a matter of time before Rogue falls in with her.
“Hey, hey – Kid! Hey!”
The back of her thigh stings.
“Marie!”
Physics again. She’s losing momentum. What goes up must come down; a slow decent becomes a freefall. Logan’s weight tips her over, so that he bares the full burden of her body in absorbing their impact on the icy, uneven ground.
Two final thoughts cross Rogue’s mind – she can feel Logan’s arms wrapped tight around her waist, she recognizes the sound of a receding jet overhead – before an uncertain dark claims her.
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