Fic: "In a Heartbeat" (R) Veronica/Logan
Title: In a Heartbeat
Author: Truemyth
Pairing / Character: Veronica/Logan
Rating: R
Word Count: 5,462
Summary: Things go horribly wrong. Also, Mexico. AU after "Ahoy Mateys" (2x08)
Spoilers / Warnings: Through "Ahoy Mateys" (2x08) / Angst, Sex, Violence, Language. It’s got ‘em all.
Author’s Note: Written for loveathons Caught-in-the-Act Challenge. Thank you to the magnificent mutinousmuse for her awesome speedbetablity. X-posted to loveathons and veronicamarsfic.
In a Heartbeat
Veronica’s heart muscles contracted, sending thousands of blood cells racing through her arteries, an upward surge of vitality, only to be dammed in by the press of strong, merciless fingers. The florescent lights turned to starbursts in the smoke filled air as a dark shape loomed overhead and chirped on about breakfast cereals. Her panicked whimpers seemed to reach her ears full seconds after they left her mouth as she strained to push her head through the green felt of the pool table and away from the wicked buzz of the tattoo gun. Time was slowing down as her heart fluttered against her ribcage and her breath rattled in her throat.
The pressure eased and her heart surged in triumph as the blood rushed past the cruel fingers. The sounds were still murky, and she heard another voice talking through the liquid rush of the blood in her veins and the loud music and the hiss of the needle. The heat and friction of the metal instrument turned the air to ozone and she wrinkled her nose as she tried to inch away.
The pressure returned as Fitzpatrick crowed to his men about, ‘two minutes.’ And… God. A click sliced - razor-sharp - through the drumming rhythm of her heartbeat and the base line of the song. Time was no longer slowing; it was standing still as the sound of metal grating on metal, a high pitched whine of a catch being released, made her world tilt on its axis.
“I’ve had a very bad year.”
I’ve had a very bad year.
The words resonated through her heartstrings. Her heart pounded out their rhythm and she moaned. And she realized she could moan again. The hand was gone.
Veronica bounded from the table. Logan. Fucking Logan with a gun pointed at the Fitzpatrick patriarch like a psychotic Galahad with fear in his eyes and resolve in the set of his jaw. The safety catch: that was what she’d heard. She ducked down, grabbing for her bag, but she kept her eyes on Logan. And she saw his hesitation. The gun wavered as his eyes flickered down to meet hers and she heard a rushing sound behind her.
“It’s not fucking loaded,” Fitzpatrick declared as he lunged past her and onto Logan’s lowering arm.
Again, the sound traveled more slowly than it should. Veronica saw the recoil first, along with the first wash of red on Fitzpatrick’s shirt. She saw the confusion and resignation in Logan’s eyes, still locked with hers. And then she heard the bang.
Fuck.
Logan gripped her arm with one hand and hauled her forward. Together they set into a stumbling run through the maze of rundown alleyways. Footsteps pounded behind them. Who knows what made her think it was a good idea, but Veronica took precious seconds to dart to the post and release the snarling dog. As she suspected, the pitbull ran past her, past Logan as he cursed, and straight for the Fitzpatricks as they poured around the side of the brick building. Howling with rage, the dog set upon the men who had taunted him, abused him, and they fell back holding their arms out to defend their more sensitive parts. Veronica and Logan tore past the hanging walls of drying laundry and towards the yellow beacon of safety that was his X-terra.
It was only after she had settled back into the gray seat, after the squealing tires had faded, after her heartbeat had returned to some semblance of normalcy that Veronica found herself crying out.
“A gun? Logan? A gun? What are you doing with a gun?!”
Logan made sure the safety was locked and reached over Veronica’s lap to deposit it in the glove compartment. He kept his eyes on the road, but he had slowed to a near crawl now that they had put a mile or two between themselves and the River Stix. His hands began to shake and his grip on the steering wheel tightened. He watched his knuckles grow white.
“What was I supposed to do, huh? He wasn’t going to be talked out of it. Dick’s dad, he -.”
“He what? Wanted to get you killed? Was this before or after you started banging his wife? Why do you -” Veronica’s voice spiraled into a whisper as she took in Logan’s death grip on the steering wheel. “Why do you do this?” she breathed as she ignored the stinging sensation at the corner of her eyes and the fact that Logan’s shoulders had seemingly crumpled further in with each word she had spoken.
“Fuck!”
Logan’s fist slammed down on the dashboard and he yanked the steering wheel hard as he pulled a sharp U-turn at the empty intersection and began to pick up speed again on his way to downtown Neptune.
“What are you doing?” Veronica demanded as she grabbed hold of the garment ring over the passenger side door and rode out the mild fishtailing that Logan’s maneuver inspired.
“Well what the fuck does it look like, Veronica? I’m going to turn myself in.” He rubbed against his left eye with his cuff and blinked at the road as he accelerated. Logan’s voice climbed in register, “Why yes, Officer Lamb, I did shoot that nice Irish gangster. Please toss me into a cell again with Daddy dearest and get me out of Veronica’s life for good.”
“Stop it.”
He sniffed back his tears and kept driving.
“Stop it!”
He shook his head.
“Dammit, Logan.” She pulled hard on the emergency break and yanked the wheel towards an empty stretch of curb.
Though they wrestled for control, they both desired the same thing and they managed to ease the X-terra’s skidding to some degree. They couldn’t, however, prevent it from plowing directly into a large power pole. Steam rose from the twisted hood and the smell of burning rubber filled Veronica’s nostrils. She let Logan take a moment to reflect on the destruction of his yellow monstrosity as she got to business. She grabbed her messenger bag and popped open the glove box. The fucking gun was coming with them.
Pulling a long piece of plastic from the bottom of her bag, she jumped out of the wrecked X-terra. It took her 20 seconds scanning the quite street before her eyes lit on a late model Ford sedan that was perfect for their needs. Logan fell sputtering out of his driver’s side door but she held up a hand to him, and he grew silent again as she stalked up to the Ford and inserted the plastic between window and metal frame. Despite the complete absurdity of the situation, Veronica couldn’t hold back a soft smile at the faint internal click.
She opened the door and unlocked the passenger side for Logan, who slid inside still looking rather dazed.
Veronica’s mind was in a place of clarity now. She saw a problem, she found a solution. Simple. Easy. The bigger issues, like the fact she was now aiding and abetting a soon-to-be felon, were not allowed inside the thin bubble of her irrationally rational world. She was reaching under the steering column, beginning to feel for the wires she would need to hotwire the car, when Logan cleared his throat.
She closed her eyes and fought to hold onto the calm.
“Please,” she begged.
“I just thought -.” She heard a jingle near her head. “- that you might want to use the spare keys our kind host left in the glove compartment.” She met his dark eyes past key ring dangling from his fingers. “Not that I don’t enjoy watching you work…” His voice trailed off.
Veronica snatched the keys from his hand. She flashed him a tight grin as the engine turned over. “People can be so stupid.”
“Yeah,” Logan sighed as they eased past the X-terra and onto the road again.
“Veronica, what exactly are we doing?” Logan asked she eased the car into a shaded parking spot in downtown Neptune. He watched as her hand patted a slow rhythm against her jean-clad thigh and she surveyed their surroundings with darting eyes. She didn’t react to his words with so much as a blink, and he was drawing breath to speak again when she turned towards him.
“You bank at Union Bank, right?”
Her words were so crisp and her stare was so pointed, Logan could do nothing more than nod in agreement and wait to see what she’d do next.
She held out her hand and demanded, “Wallet.” She counted out six twenties and returned the rest.
“You’re mugging me now?”
Veronica frowned at his interjection and urged him out of the car.
“Here’s the plan: You go into the bank,” she pointed to the glassy edifice across the street, “and withdraw 10,000 cash. Play it cool. Meet me back here in,” she checked her watch, “no more than half an hour. You’re VIP, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Wow, when you mug a guy, you don’t go cheap, do you?” He watched for any smile, any crack in her eerie façade, but she stared at him unblinking. He tried again, “I could get more, you know. I -.”
“No. We don’t want to rouse suspicion. You can play the frivolous son of the wealthy card and they won’t blink much, but don’t press your luck.” She began walking backwards down the street, the messenger bag hanging from one shoulder and pressed to her thigh with one hand while the other continued to pat softly against her side. “Half an hour, Logan. Be here.”
It was surprisingly easy to convince the tellers that he was merely withdrawing the cash for a big run of betting this weekend. Logan flashed a grin and a wink at the older women and shook the manager’s hand with a firm grip and a ‘serious’ nod, and he left the bank with a solid briefcase and four minutes to spare.
Veronica was already sitting in the car when he returned. Her bottom lip was clenched between her teeth and she was staring straight ahead, even as he opened his door and slid inside. Had he imagined her flinching as he set down the briefcase on the backseat next to two new plastic bags stamped with a 7/11 logo?
He tried the sympathetic approach this time, “Veronica…” he began.
“It’s alright. I’m alright. We’re all set now.” It was like she was talking to herself, as if he wasn’t even there and her turmoil was painful to him.
“I meant what I said. I’ll go to the station. I don’t know what you’ve got -”
She hushed him with a sideways wave of her hand and picked up the cell phone that had been lying in her lap.
Veronica spoke like an automaton as she explained their situation to a splattered bug on the windshield, never once turning her head towards him. “If we go to Lamb now, it won’t go well. He’ll use this to get Felix’s case re-opened. He won’t look in the right places. He’d rather see you go down for murder than anything else. If, however,” and now she waved the cell phone in a grand arch at the speck of amber bug guts, “if the Fitzpatricks haven’t reported it… then we won’t have to do this. We can go back to the Grand and have a laugh and…” She sighed and let her fingers dance across the number pad of the phone in a well rehearsed motion. She raised the cell to her ear.
“Hello, Inga?”
Logan held his breath as he listened to the one-sided conversation.
“Oh, I didn’t realize. A shooting? Lamb went to the hospital himself? Um… no. No. No reason. No, I haven’t seen him. Right, well that should make him easy to find.” She finally looked at him, let him look into her eyes, and it was like watching a child who just realized that Santa Clause, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny were all lies, a colossal joke that adults told to keep children under control. Who knew Veronica Mars still had so much innocence to lose?
“No, Inga, I can call back another time. Goodbye.”
With trembling hands, Veronica reached in the back and pulled a pair of gardening shears out of one of the plastic bags. She gestured to his ankle and he propped it up on the side of her seat.
They left the cut ankle monitor and pair of cell phones in a nearby trashcan and neither spoke as Veronica worked to avoid the intersections with traffic-cams until they reached 5-South. And some point, Logan realized that his hand was tapping at his thigh in time with Veronica’s fingers drumming against the steering wheel. He made a fist and settled in to watch the brown hills roll past.
Veronica handled the border checkpoint like a pro, as least as far as Logan could tell from his position jammed into the trunk of the Ford. He could hear her dulcet tones twittering to the Mexican guards as she played the sweet little valley girl on her way to a weekend getaway. He would have shaken his head in disbelief at the indulgent masculine chuckles if his head hadn’t been wedged between a metal strut and the side of the car.
He banged his head on the strut as the car sped away and ended up tasting blood in his effort not to cry out. Small pinpricks of light filled the artificial night in front of his eyes and he tried to press out with his legs and arms to control his movement in the small space. The walls pressed back into him and the air grew hot with the heat of his body.
He struggled to hold onto the sides as the car rounded a wide turn and a line of perspiration trickled into his left eye. The salt stung sharply and more pain-bearing stars sprang to life.
There was no new air. He was breathing this lung full of fear and moist heat for the third fucking time at least, he was sure. He began to choke and holding himself ridged didn’t seem as important as finding fresh air to breath. His head struck metal again as he clawed at his throat and tried to close his eyes against the stars.
Then the stars coalesced into a vision of a young girl with flowing blonde hair and a wide expanse of delicate skin shinning below her face.
“Veronica,” Logan spoke her name on his first exhalant of new air, as if it were a revelation he wished to share.
She shook her head and helped him from the trunk, then claimed the case of money and moved back around the driver’s side of the old Ford.
“I think I’ll keep driving for a bit.” Her voice was weary, devoid of any of the bubbling cheerfulness she had showered on the border guard.
They stopped for the night at a rundown motel a quarter mile from the main highway. Veronica watched Logan shuffle into the small single room without turning on the light and knew that he would face plant on the bed if she let him. She darted around him and stopped him with a hand to his chest. Only the pads of three of her fingers made contact with his breastbone but it brought his dark eyes flying towards hers as surely as a full-body tackle.
“Before we sleep…” she trailed off as she took in his blooded lower lip and dazed expression.
His lip curled into an instinctive sneer and she, reviewing her words, braced herself for the coming barrage of innuendo. It never came as he sighed heavily and moved away from her outstretched hand. In the filtered-neon twilight of the room, he leaned again a wall, letting his temple touch gingerly before he sighed again.
“Before we sleep, what?”
Veronica blinked and then forced herself to move with brisk efficiency towards the two plastic bags Logan had dropped inside the door. She flicked the light switch and tried to take pleasure in the groan of pain behind her. She dug among the odds and ends she’d purchased at the convenience store until she found two cardboard boxes, which she then waved in Logan’s direction.
“Makeover time!”
Logan peered through the gaps in his fingers at the boxes of hair dye. “This is some time for a girls’ night, Mars.”
Veronica halted the sigh as it welled in her chest and gestured for Logan to follow her to the small bathroom as she explained. “It won’t be long before they realize I’m helping you. The Fitzpatricks recognized me just before you came in. That’s why -,” she gulped a lung full of air before she spun to face him as he lounged in the bathroom doorway. “Anyways, they can figure out pretty easily that Mexico was our best bet. But they’ll be looking for a blonde and a guy with blonde highlights. We’ll have an easier time if we look a bit more native.”
“Okay, I’m game. What do I have to do?” He looked a bit more alert now as he surveyed the boxes sitting on the edge of the sink and Veronica worked to hide her smile of relief. He’d been rather out of it since the border crossing.
“We’ll need to wet your hair first,” she began, only to momentarily lose coherency as Logan pulled his t-shirt over his head.
The light from the bedroom lit a halo in the fine hairs of his arms and torso while the twilight of the bathroom made shadows dance across the definition of his abdomen.
“Don’t want to get our few clothes messy, right? You know, you could take off -”
Veronica flicked on the bathroom light and this time she took great pleasure in Logan’s howl of pain.
“You first, Logan.” She gestured to the sink.
“Wouldn’t it be quicker if I just showered?”
Veronica shook her head. “The dye actually takes better if your hair hasn’t been washed. Come on, boy, bend over.”
“Yeah. I hope that’s the last time I ever hear those words.”
As Logan held his head over the sink in resignation, Veronica poured warm water over his hair. After three cupfuls, she began to use her other hand to help work the moisture through the fine strands. She tried to focus on casually searching his scalp for any goose-eggs he might have gained during the ride in the car trunk and persistently ignore the slide of her fingers through his clinging hair. Although his jaw clenched slightly as she brushed over certain spots, she relaxed as she discovered no serious damage.
Veronica found herself watching as the water rolled off the column of Logan’s neck. She bit her lip as her fingers strayed after the glistening line, her touch becoming a near caress as her fingers neared the top of his spine.
A low groan rumbled from Logan’s chest and she jumped back, spilling her half-full cup of water on the floor.
“Right!” She held out one of the coarse towels. “Just blot off the excess water and you’re ready for the dye.”
Veronica cursed the tight space of the bathroom as she squeezed past Logan’s bare chest to retrieve a small bottle from the plastic bags. Logan was sitting on the toilet with his eyes closed when she returned. His eyes opened as she returned and she grinned as they widen and focused on the blob of Vaseline she was bringing closer to his face. He opened his mouth to protest and she chuckled for the first time since she’d left him in the X-terra outside Danny Boyd’s house.
“You want a black forehead?”
Logan grimaced but allowed her to smear the oily substance along his hairline.
“I get to do this to you too, right?”
“We’ll see,” Veronica murmured as she let her fingers glide along the curl of his ear. He grumbled again and she puffed a small giggle across the damp skin of his cheek.
“Okay, that’s enough,” Logan declared as he grabbed her wrists and smiled up at her.
They froze for a moment at the spontaneous contact, then broke apart, she focusing on mixing the noxious chemicals, he memorizing the pattern of the tiled bathroom floor. She didn’t look at his face again as she worked the inky slime through his hair, but she couldn’t help but notice the rise and fall of his chest. It seemed to pick up speed as she worked, his breath moving in time to his hand, beating against one jean clad thigh. He seemed near to hyperventilating when she could finally step back and declare him done.
He nodded at her explanation that he would have to leave the dye to set for about half an hour and left the room, closing the door behind him.
Logan paced in the newly dark main room as he listened to Veronica moving around beyond the wooden door. Water splashed and she sighed and the walls in this cucaracha motel were too damn thin. His scalp felt electric and he tried to convince himself that it was the burning of the cheap chemicals she had rubbed into his scalp and not the remembered touch of her fingers.
Minutes passed and the noises fell silent. She was going to wait inside until it was time for him to wash.
Fine.
He sat on the edge of a brittle wooden chair and thought back over what had happened. His past stretched behind him like a dark stain. His future lay before him like an empty chasm. The crumbling island of the present failed to cheer him, but at least he had stopped remembering the way Veronica had smelled of raspberry body wash as she had bent over him and -.
Fuck.
Light poured into the room again and he shielded his eyes. When he looked again, he saw Veronica with a plastic 7/11 bag on her head. Now this he could deal with, and he sprang up from his chair. His ready tease died in his throat as he realized that she held her shirts in a bundle, close to her chest, along with the opening of one of the threadbare towels. He could only see an inch of her neck, she held the terrycloth so tight, but she was naked underneath. If her hand fell away from her throat, she’d…
He passed her without a word and consoled himself with the fact that she wouldn’t get to bitch at him for using all the hot water.
Logan watched the morning light creep across the pillow towards Veronica’s exposed neck. Her skin was pale white, with a fine blue tracery of veins webbing beneath. Her newly black hair was a sharp contrast to both her flesh and the white pillow. He watched her in silence as the light broke over the curve of her shoulder. He tried to imagine what she might be dreaming about, thinking about… And then she moved.
There was no hesitation or murmuring to wakefulness. She had been awake all along. Had she slept at all?
She climbed off the bed without looking back, and, retrieving something from her messenger bag, she slipped into the bathroom and closed the door.
He looked at her pillow again, now spotlighted in a ray of pale light, and noticed a faint discoloration. It was too faint to be hair dye, and he reached out a hand to the pillow. Moisture. Where her face had been.
His hand became a fist as his eyes flew to the bathroom door.
Veronica ran her thumb over the glowing keys of the disposable, untraceable cell phone. She only had the one. She hadn’t thought, yesterday morning, that she would need more than that.
She fancied that she could see the florescent blue glow through the flesh of her fingers as she dialed. It was 5 in the morning and the phone was still answered on the first ring.
“Dad.” Her voice broke, and she wasn’t surprised.
“No, I’m fine, fine.”
“I had to. You know Lamb would’ve -”
“No. No, I can’t.”
“You know I can’t tell you that.”
“Listen! I just wanted to let you know- that I’m okay. And that I’ll come home when I can. And that I love you.”
She listened to his beloved tirade as she watched her fingers drum against the knee of her sleep-wrinkled jeans. On the twentieth beat, she spoke again, cutting through his anguished voice with the finality of her own.
“He needs me, Dad. There’s no one else.”
She turned off the phone and dropped it in the wastebasket with the remnants of last night’s adventure in home styling. She splashed ice cold water on her face until her eyes were no longer red and then rubbed it dry, before leaving the room.
Logan was sitting on the edge of the bed, dressed and ready to go. He met her gaze with a simple nod.
“This time, I’ll drive.”
They moved south, south-east, south again, down the coast, away from the coast, meeting the coast again. They didn’t talk much. There wasn’t much to say. There was too much to say.
They exchanged the Ford for a tan Jeep outside Guadalajara.
Another night, another crappy motel. This time with twin beds, no tears, no shared warmth, no calls home.
When Veronica spoke, her voice was raw from ill use and Logan’s neck cracked as he turned to look at her in the passenger seat before returning his gaze to the road.
“Lamb will think we’re going to Mexico City to get a plane. That’s the obvious choice.”
“But we’re not.” It was a statement of fact.
They shared a slow grin before they returned their mutual gaze to the road.
“No, we’re not. We’ll go further on, and hit one of the smaller airports. Get a charter flight under an assumed name to Columbia or Ecuador.”
“I hear Cuba’s nice.”
They chuckled and Veronica flicked open a map as she began to tease, “Oh yeah, Duncan said …” She let the map drift to her lap as she waited for Logan’s reaction.
After a tense moment, he chuckled again, and if there was a strained edge to his mirth, they both ignored it. “Well, he told me that las chicas son muy bonitas, but I don’t see him talking that up to you. Now, do I want this exit, or not?”
And now they talked. Inconsequential things mostly, but it was easier. They began to pretend that this was a grand road trip and they were old friends, out for a cultural experience, even as they drove doggedly by the Mayan ruins and indigenous villages and spent their money on food and water and not gold trinkets or local crafts.
That night, they slept in a nicer hotel, one that had enough hot water for them both. They didn’t talk about why they had taken the room with a single bed. Veronica told herself it would have called attention to them to clarify to the owner that they were not a couple. Logan told himself he wanted to be nearby if she felt like she needed to cry again.
They were nearing the Gulf Coast when they stopped in a small village to re-stock their water. Logan paused over a local turquoise merchant’s wares, letting his mind wander as his fingers ran across the smooth stones. Veronica pulled him back into the street and clung to his arm.
“Come on, honey, we need to get going if we’re going to meet your friends on time!”
In her hand, she clenched a scrap of paper, the top ragged, as if it had been torn. He met her eyes and she gave him a sharp nod.
Once in the car, she showed him the crude wanted poster. It wasn’t great. They hadn’t worked out the dyed hair. But the fact that it was posted in such a tiny village did not bode well. Either the authorities knew where they were, or the search was much more aggressive than they realized.
They drove long into the night and then longer still, off the main road, until they found an inn that screamed disrepute like a handlebar mustache and a stovepipe hat. They agreed that they would switch cars as soon as possible in the morning as they lay in bed. Logan reached out for Veronica and she turned into his embrace.
Her hand fell onto his throat so that she could feel the leap of his pulse and she breathed deeply, relaxing into the pillows.
He felt her breath on each exhale, fluttering across his collar bone. Her hand was warm on his skin.
And they fell asleep.
Neither knew who kissed whom first. Both would have sworn that the other woke them, with feather light glances of smooth lips, sliding against each other, against the fine skin of cheek, nose, and back to lips again. A tongue emerged, to moisten the plump flesh of an outer lip, and encountered another tongue on a similar quest. The kiss deepened and hands, not to be outdone, roamed over the expanse of lean backs and up and down toned arms.
Logan’s hand tangled in Veronica’s inky locks as his other hand brushed the bare skin of her belly. All semblance of sleep left behind, Veronica straddled Logan’s torso, tracing the living flesh of his upper chest as she thanked god that he insisted on sleeping without a shirt. The kiss broke as Logan stripped Veronica’s t-shirt from her and their mouths fell hungrily upon each other; their hands mirrored each other’s in their fumbling with their jeans.
Veronica’s jeans, tossed aside, collided with a small figurine on the dressing table, but the couple ignored the crashing sound in favor of the harmony of the gasps and moans they pulled from each other. Competitive, they played each other’s bodies like jazz musicians, trading the spotlight momentarily in the favor of one solo only to work to outdo the other when their turn came. They laughed as they wrestled on the thin sheets, seeking for dominance.
And then they fell off the edge of the bed.
For a moment, they lay in a pile of tangled limbs, Logan gazing down at Veronica’s surprised face. A grin broke across her features and found an answer in his own face as she reached up to cup his neck and pull his smiling lips down to hers. She wrapped her legs around his hips, as her hands rested on his neck and her fingers played through his hair.
He pulled his head back and met her gaze as he lowered his hips. She bit her lower lip as she felt the pressure building and his eyes swept her face, gauging her reactions. Slowly, he pressed into her and she opened for him until he could go no deeper. And the twin grins returned.
Tires squealed outside.
Logan drew back and plunged in again as he bent to nibble at the delicate flesh under her ear.
Doors slammed and feet ran, sending gravel skittering across the drive.
Veronica arched into him, away from the rough carpet at her back.
A voice rang out in the crisp dawn air.
“Es la policía! Salgas con manos arriba!”
Logan sat up, looking across the bed at the drape drawn window.
“Esto es su advertencia final!”
He looked down at Veronica, spread out on the floor of a cheap Mexican hotel, their bodies still joined.
A shot rang out from the room next door. They weren’t the only fugitives staying here.
Before Veronica could call a warning, before she could pull him down, before the sound of the blast reached her pulse deadened ears, she saw the blood.
It began as a small hole, round and perfect, two inches from the middle of his beautiful chest.
Logan collapsed on top of her. She rolled him off as a sob split her throat and bullets sang through the air above them. She pressed into his chest with her hands, gathered yards of sheets and pressed harder… begged him to look at her, at her eyes and not the ceiling.
The blood was red against her fingers, gushing with the steady rhythm of a strong heart.
_______________________________
Heartbeats had become the enemy.
Thanks for reading. If you are interested, my other fictions can be found here.
Author: Truemyth
Pairing / Character: Veronica/Logan
Rating: R
Word Count: 5,462
Summary: Things go horribly wrong. Also, Mexico. AU after "Ahoy Mateys" (2x08)
Spoilers / Warnings: Through "Ahoy Mateys" (2x08) / Angst, Sex, Violence, Language. It’s got ‘em all.
Author’s Note: Written for loveathons Caught-in-the-Act Challenge. Thank you to the magnificent mutinousmuse for her awesome speedbetablity. X-posted to loveathons and veronicamarsfic.
In a Heartbeat
Veronica’s heart muscles contracted, sending thousands of blood cells racing through her arteries, an upward surge of vitality, only to be dammed in by the press of strong, merciless fingers. The florescent lights turned to starbursts in the smoke filled air as a dark shape loomed overhead and chirped on about breakfast cereals. Her panicked whimpers seemed to reach her ears full seconds after they left her mouth as she strained to push her head through the green felt of the pool table and away from the wicked buzz of the tattoo gun. Time was slowing down as her heart fluttered against her ribcage and her breath rattled in her throat.
The pressure eased and her heart surged in triumph as the blood rushed past the cruel fingers. The sounds were still murky, and she heard another voice talking through the liquid rush of the blood in her veins and the loud music and the hiss of the needle. The heat and friction of the metal instrument turned the air to ozone and she wrinkled her nose as she tried to inch away.
The pressure returned as Fitzpatrick crowed to his men about, ‘two minutes.’ And… God. A click sliced - razor-sharp - through the drumming rhythm of her heartbeat and the base line of the song. Time was no longer slowing; it was standing still as the sound of metal grating on metal, a high pitched whine of a catch being released, made her world tilt on its axis.
“I’ve had a very bad year.”
I’ve had a very bad year.
The words resonated through her heartstrings. Her heart pounded out their rhythm and she moaned. And she realized she could moan again. The hand was gone.
Veronica bounded from the table. Logan. Fucking Logan with a gun pointed at the Fitzpatrick patriarch like a psychotic Galahad with fear in his eyes and resolve in the set of his jaw. The safety catch: that was what she’d heard. She ducked down, grabbing for her bag, but she kept her eyes on Logan. And she saw his hesitation. The gun wavered as his eyes flickered down to meet hers and she heard a rushing sound behind her.
“It’s not fucking loaded,” Fitzpatrick declared as he lunged past her and onto Logan’s lowering arm.
Again, the sound traveled more slowly than it should. Veronica saw the recoil first, along with the first wash of red on Fitzpatrick’s shirt. She saw the confusion and resignation in Logan’s eyes, still locked with hers. And then she heard the bang.
Fuck.
Logan gripped her arm with one hand and hauled her forward. Together they set into a stumbling run through the maze of rundown alleyways. Footsteps pounded behind them. Who knows what made her think it was a good idea, but Veronica took precious seconds to dart to the post and release the snarling dog. As she suspected, the pitbull ran past her, past Logan as he cursed, and straight for the Fitzpatricks as they poured around the side of the brick building. Howling with rage, the dog set upon the men who had taunted him, abused him, and they fell back holding their arms out to defend their more sensitive parts. Veronica and Logan tore past the hanging walls of drying laundry and towards the yellow beacon of safety that was his X-terra.
It was only after she had settled back into the gray seat, after the squealing tires had faded, after her heartbeat had returned to some semblance of normalcy that Veronica found herself crying out.
“A gun? Logan? A gun? What are you doing with a gun?!”
Logan made sure the safety was locked and reached over Veronica’s lap to deposit it in the glove compartment. He kept his eyes on the road, but he had slowed to a near crawl now that they had put a mile or two between themselves and the River Stix. His hands began to shake and his grip on the steering wheel tightened. He watched his knuckles grow white.
“What was I supposed to do, huh? He wasn’t going to be talked out of it. Dick’s dad, he -.”
“He what? Wanted to get you killed? Was this before or after you started banging his wife? Why do you -” Veronica’s voice spiraled into a whisper as she took in Logan’s death grip on the steering wheel. “Why do you do this?” she breathed as she ignored the stinging sensation at the corner of her eyes and the fact that Logan’s shoulders had seemingly crumpled further in with each word she had spoken.
“Fuck!”
Logan’s fist slammed down on the dashboard and he yanked the steering wheel hard as he pulled a sharp U-turn at the empty intersection and began to pick up speed again on his way to downtown Neptune.
“What are you doing?” Veronica demanded as she grabbed hold of the garment ring over the passenger side door and rode out the mild fishtailing that Logan’s maneuver inspired.
“Well what the fuck does it look like, Veronica? I’m going to turn myself in.” He rubbed against his left eye with his cuff and blinked at the road as he accelerated. Logan’s voice climbed in register, “Why yes, Officer Lamb, I did shoot that nice Irish gangster. Please toss me into a cell again with Daddy dearest and get me out of Veronica’s life for good.”
“Stop it.”
He sniffed back his tears and kept driving.
“Stop it!”
He shook his head.
“Dammit, Logan.” She pulled hard on the emergency break and yanked the wheel towards an empty stretch of curb.
Though they wrestled for control, they both desired the same thing and they managed to ease the X-terra’s skidding to some degree. They couldn’t, however, prevent it from plowing directly into a large power pole. Steam rose from the twisted hood and the smell of burning rubber filled Veronica’s nostrils. She let Logan take a moment to reflect on the destruction of his yellow monstrosity as she got to business. She grabbed her messenger bag and popped open the glove box. The fucking gun was coming with them.
Pulling a long piece of plastic from the bottom of her bag, she jumped out of the wrecked X-terra. It took her 20 seconds scanning the quite street before her eyes lit on a late model Ford sedan that was perfect for their needs. Logan fell sputtering out of his driver’s side door but she held up a hand to him, and he grew silent again as she stalked up to the Ford and inserted the plastic between window and metal frame. Despite the complete absurdity of the situation, Veronica couldn’t hold back a soft smile at the faint internal click.
She opened the door and unlocked the passenger side for Logan, who slid inside still looking rather dazed.
Veronica’s mind was in a place of clarity now. She saw a problem, she found a solution. Simple. Easy. The bigger issues, like the fact she was now aiding and abetting a soon-to-be felon, were not allowed inside the thin bubble of her irrationally rational world. She was reaching under the steering column, beginning to feel for the wires she would need to hotwire the car, when Logan cleared his throat.
She closed her eyes and fought to hold onto the calm.
“Please,” she begged.
“I just thought -.” She heard a jingle near her head. “- that you might want to use the spare keys our kind host left in the glove compartment.” She met his dark eyes past key ring dangling from his fingers. “Not that I don’t enjoy watching you work…” His voice trailed off.
Veronica snatched the keys from his hand. She flashed him a tight grin as the engine turned over. “People can be so stupid.”
“Yeah,” Logan sighed as they eased past the X-terra and onto the road again.
“Veronica, what exactly are we doing?” Logan asked she eased the car into a shaded parking spot in downtown Neptune. He watched as her hand patted a slow rhythm against her jean-clad thigh and she surveyed their surroundings with darting eyes. She didn’t react to his words with so much as a blink, and he was drawing breath to speak again when she turned towards him.
“You bank at Union Bank, right?”
Her words were so crisp and her stare was so pointed, Logan could do nothing more than nod in agreement and wait to see what she’d do next.
She held out her hand and demanded, “Wallet.” She counted out six twenties and returned the rest.
“You’re mugging me now?”
Veronica frowned at his interjection and urged him out of the car.
“Here’s the plan: You go into the bank,” she pointed to the glassy edifice across the street, “and withdraw 10,000 cash. Play it cool. Meet me back here in,” she checked her watch, “no more than half an hour. You’re VIP, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Wow, when you mug a guy, you don’t go cheap, do you?” He watched for any smile, any crack in her eerie façade, but she stared at him unblinking. He tried again, “I could get more, you know. I -.”
“No. We don’t want to rouse suspicion. You can play the frivolous son of the wealthy card and they won’t blink much, but don’t press your luck.” She began walking backwards down the street, the messenger bag hanging from one shoulder and pressed to her thigh with one hand while the other continued to pat softly against her side. “Half an hour, Logan. Be here.”
It was surprisingly easy to convince the tellers that he was merely withdrawing the cash for a big run of betting this weekend. Logan flashed a grin and a wink at the older women and shook the manager’s hand with a firm grip and a ‘serious’ nod, and he left the bank with a solid briefcase and four minutes to spare.
Veronica was already sitting in the car when he returned. Her bottom lip was clenched between her teeth and she was staring straight ahead, even as he opened his door and slid inside. Had he imagined her flinching as he set down the briefcase on the backseat next to two new plastic bags stamped with a 7/11 logo?
He tried the sympathetic approach this time, “Veronica…” he began.
“It’s alright. I’m alright. We’re all set now.” It was like she was talking to herself, as if he wasn’t even there and her turmoil was painful to him.
“I meant what I said. I’ll go to the station. I don’t know what you’ve got -”
She hushed him with a sideways wave of her hand and picked up the cell phone that had been lying in her lap.
Veronica spoke like an automaton as she explained their situation to a splattered bug on the windshield, never once turning her head towards him. “If we go to Lamb now, it won’t go well. He’ll use this to get Felix’s case re-opened. He won’t look in the right places. He’d rather see you go down for murder than anything else. If, however,” and now she waved the cell phone in a grand arch at the speck of amber bug guts, “if the Fitzpatricks haven’t reported it… then we won’t have to do this. We can go back to the Grand and have a laugh and…” She sighed and let her fingers dance across the number pad of the phone in a well rehearsed motion. She raised the cell to her ear.
“Hello, Inga?”
Logan held his breath as he listened to the one-sided conversation.
“Oh, I didn’t realize. A shooting? Lamb went to the hospital himself? Um… no. No. No reason. No, I haven’t seen him. Right, well that should make him easy to find.” She finally looked at him, let him look into her eyes, and it was like watching a child who just realized that Santa Clause, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny were all lies, a colossal joke that adults told to keep children under control. Who knew Veronica Mars still had so much innocence to lose?
“No, Inga, I can call back another time. Goodbye.”
With trembling hands, Veronica reached in the back and pulled a pair of gardening shears out of one of the plastic bags. She gestured to his ankle and he propped it up on the side of her seat.
They left the cut ankle monitor and pair of cell phones in a nearby trashcan and neither spoke as Veronica worked to avoid the intersections with traffic-cams until they reached 5-South. And some point, Logan realized that his hand was tapping at his thigh in time with Veronica’s fingers drumming against the steering wheel. He made a fist and settled in to watch the brown hills roll past.
Veronica handled the border checkpoint like a pro, as least as far as Logan could tell from his position jammed into the trunk of the Ford. He could hear her dulcet tones twittering to the Mexican guards as she played the sweet little valley girl on her way to a weekend getaway. He would have shaken his head in disbelief at the indulgent masculine chuckles if his head hadn’t been wedged between a metal strut and the side of the car.
He banged his head on the strut as the car sped away and ended up tasting blood in his effort not to cry out. Small pinpricks of light filled the artificial night in front of his eyes and he tried to press out with his legs and arms to control his movement in the small space. The walls pressed back into him and the air grew hot with the heat of his body.
He struggled to hold onto the sides as the car rounded a wide turn and a line of perspiration trickled into his left eye. The salt stung sharply and more pain-bearing stars sprang to life.
There was no new air. He was breathing this lung full of fear and moist heat for the third fucking time at least, he was sure. He began to choke and holding himself ridged didn’t seem as important as finding fresh air to breath. His head struck metal again as he clawed at his throat and tried to close his eyes against the stars.
Then the stars coalesced into a vision of a young girl with flowing blonde hair and a wide expanse of delicate skin shinning below her face.
“Veronica,” Logan spoke her name on his first exhalant of new air, as if it were a revelation he wished to share.
She shook her head and helped him from the trunk, then claimed the case of money and moved back around the driver’s side of the old Ford.
“I think I’ll keep driving for a bit.” Her voice was weary, devoid of any of the bubbling cheerfulness she had showered on the border guard.
They stopped for the night at a rundown motel a quarter mile from the main highway. Veronica watched Logan shuffle into the small single room without turning on the light and knew that he would face plant on the bed if she let him. She darted around him and stopped him with a hand to his chest. Only the pads of three of her fingers made contact with his breastbone but it brought his dark eyes flying towards hers as surely as a full-body tackle.
“Before we sleep…” she trailed off as she took in his blooded lower lip and dazed expression.
His lip curled into an instinctive sneer and she, reviewing her words, braced herself for the coming barrage of innuendo. It never came as he sighed heavily and moved away from her outstretched hand. In the filtered-neon twilight of the room, he leaned again a wall, letting his temple touch gingerly before he sighed again.
“Before we sleep, what?”
Veronica blinked and then forced herself to move with brisk efficiency towards the two plastic bags Logan had dropped inside the door. She flicked the light switch and tried to take pleasure in the groan of pain behind her. She dug among the odds and ends she’d purchased at the convenience store until she found two cardboard boxes, which she then waved in Logan’s direction.
“Makeover time!”
Logan peered through the gaps in his fingers at the boxes of hair dye. “This is some time for a girls’ night, Mars.”
Veronica halted the sigh as it welled in her chest and gestured for Logan to follow her to the small bathroom as she explained. “It won’t be long before they realize I’m helping you. The Fitzpatricks recognized me just before you came in. That’s why -,” she gulped a lung full of air before she spun to face him as he lounged in the bathroom doorway. “Anyways, they can figure out pretty easily that Mexico was our best bet. But they’ll be looking for a blonde and a guy with blonde highlights. We’ll have an easier time if we look a bit more native.”
“Okay, I’m game. What do I have to do?” He looked a bit more alert now as he surveyed the boxes sitting on the edge of the sink and Veronica worked to hide her smile of relief. He’d been rather out of it since the border crossing.
“We’ll need to wet your hair first,” she began, only to momentarily lose coherency as Logan pulled his t-shirt over his head.
The light from the bedroom lit a halo in the fine hairs of his arms and torso while the twilight of the bathroom made shadows dance across the definition of his abdomen.
“Don’t want to get our few clothes messy, right? You know, you could take off -”
Veronica flicked on the bathroom light and this time she took great pleasure in Logan’s howl of pain.
“You first, Logan.” She gestured to the sink.
“Wouldn’t it be quicker if I just showered?”
Veronica shook her head. “The dye actually takes better if your hair hasn’t been washed. Come on, boy, bend over.”
“Yeah. I hope that’s the last time I ever hear those words.”
As Logan held his head over the sink in resignation, Veronica poured warm water over his hair. After three cupfuls, she began to use her other hand to help work the moisture through the fine strands. She tried to focus on casually searching his scalp for any goose-eggs he might have gained during the ride in the car trunk and persistently ignore the slide of her fingers through his clinging hair. Although his jaw clenched slightly as she brushed over certain spots, she relaxed as she discovered no serious damage.
Veronica found herself watching as the water rolled off the column of Logan’s neck. She bit her lip as her fingers strayed after the glistening line, her touch becoming a near caress as her fingers neared the top of his spine.
A low groan rumbled from Logan’s chest and she jumped back, spilling her half-full cup of water on the floor.
“Right!” She held out one of the coarse towels. “Just blot off the excess water and you’re ready for the dye.”
Veronica cursed the tight space of the bathroom as she squeezed past Logan’s bare chest to retrieve a small bottle from the plastic bags. Logan was sitting on the toilet with his eyes closed when she returned. His eyes opened as she returned and she grinned as they widen and focused on the blob of Vaseline she was bringing closer to his face. He opened his mouth to protest and she chuckled for the first time since she’d left him in the X-terra outside Danny Boyd’s house.
“You want a black forehead?”
Logan grimaced but allowed her to smear the oily substance along his hairline.
“I get to do this to you too, right?”
“We’ll see,” Veronica murmured as she let her fingers glide along the curl of his ear. He grumbled again and she puffed a small giggle across the damp skin of his cheek.
“Okay, that’s enough,” Logan declared as he grabbed her wrists and smiled up at her.
They froze for a moment at the spontaneous contact, then broke apart, she focusing on mixing the noxious chemicals, he memorizing the pattern of the tiled bathroom floor. She didn’t look at his face again as she worked the inky slime through his hair, but she couldn’t help but notice the rise and fall of his chest. It seemed to pick up speed as she worked, his breath moving in time to his hand, beating against one jean clad thigh. He seemed near to hyperventilating when she could finally step back and declare him done.
He nodded at her explanation that he would have to leave the dye to set for about half an hour and left the room, closing the door behind him.
Logan paced in the newly dark main room as he listened to Veronica moving around beyond the wooden door. Water splashed and she sighed and the walls in this cucaracha motel were too damn thin. His scalp felt electric and he tried to convince himself that it was the burning of the cheap chemicals she had rubbed into his scalp and not the remembered touch of her fingers.
Minutes passed and the noises fell silent. She was going to wait inside until it was time for him to wash.
Fine.
He sat on the edge of a brittle wooden chair and thought back over what had happened. His past stretched behind him like a dark stain. His future lay before him like an empty chasm. The crumbling island of the present failed to cheer him, but at least he had stopped remembering the way Veronica had smelled of raspberry body wash as she had bent over him and -.
Fuck.
Light poured into the room again and he shielded his eyes. When he looked again, he saw Veronica with a plastic 7/11 bag on her head. Now this he could deal with, and he sprang up from his chair. His ready tease died in his throat as he realized that she held her shirts in a bundle, close to her chest, along with the opening of one of the threadbare towels. He could only see an inch of her neck, she held the terrycloth so tight, but she was naked underneath. If her hand fell away from her throat, she’d…
He passed her without a word and consoled himself with the fact that she wouldn’t get to bitch at him for using all the hot water.
Logan watched the morning light creep across the pillow towards Veronica’s exposed neck. Her skin was pale white, with a fine blue tracery of veins webbing beneath. Her newly black hair was a sharp contrast to both her flesh and the white pillow. He watched her in silence as the light broke over the curve of her shoulder. He tried to imagine what she might be dreaming about, thinking about… And then she moved.
There was no hesitation or murmuring to wakefulness. She had been awake all along. Had she slept at all?
She climbed off the bed without looking back, and, retrieving something from her messenger bag, she slipped into the bathroom and closed the door.
He looked at her pillow again, now spotlighted in a ray of pale light, and noticed a faint discoloration. It was too faint to be hair dye, and he reached out a hand to the pillow. Moisture. Where her face had been.
His hand became a fist as his eyes flew to the bathroom door.
Veronica ran her thumb over the glowing keys of the disposable, untraceable cell phone. She only had the one. She hadn’t thought, yesterday morning, that she would need more than that.
She fancied that she could see the florescent blue glow through the flesh of her fingers as she dialed. It was 5 in the morning and the phone was still answered on the first ring.
“Dad.” Her voice broke, and she wasn’t surprised.
“No, I’m fine, fine.”
“I had to. You know Lamb would’ve -”
“No. No, I can’t.”
“You know I can’t tell you that.”
“Listen! I just wanted to let you know- that I’m okay. And that I’ll come home when I can. And that I love you.”
She listened to his beloved tirade as she watched her fingers drum against the knee of her sleep-wrinkled jeans. On the twentieth beat, she spoke again, cutting through his anguished voice with the finality of her own.
“He needs me, Dad. There’s no one else.”
She turned off the phone and dropped it in the wastebasket with the remnants of last night’s adventure in home styling. She splashed ice cold water on her face until her eyes were no longer red and then rubbed it dry, before leaving the room.
Logan was sitting on the edge of the bed, dressed and ready to go. He met her gaze with a simple nod.
“This time, I’ll drive.”
They moved south, south-east, south again, down the coast, away from the coast, meeting the coast again. They didn’t talk much. There wasn’t much to say. There was too much to say.
They exchanged the Ford for a tan Jeep outside Guadalajara.
Another night, another crappy motel. This time with twin beds, no tears, no shared warmth, no calls home.
When Veronica spoke, her voice was raw from ill use and Logan’s neck cracked as he turned to look at her in the passenger seat before returning his gaze to the road.
“Lamb will think we’re going to Mexico City to get a plane. That’s the obvious choice.”
“But we’re not.” It was a statement of fact.
They shared a slow grin before they returned their mutual gaze to the road.
“No, we’re not. We’ll go further on, and hit one of the smaller airports. Get a charter flight under an assumed name to Columbia or Ecuador.”
“I hear Cuba’s nice.”
They chuckled and Veronica flicked open a map as she began to tease, “Oh yeah, Duncan said …” She let the map drift to her lap as she waited for Logan’s reaction.
After a tense moment, he chuckled again, and if there was a strained edge to his mirth, they both ignored it. “Well, he told me that las chicas son muy bonitas, but I don’t see him talking that up to you. Now, do I want this exit, or not?”
And now they talked. Inconsequential things mostly, but it was easier. They began to pretend that this was a grand road trip and they were old friends, out for a cultural experience, even as they drove doggedly by the Mayan ruins and indigenous villages and spent their money on food and water and not gold trinkets or local crafts.
That night, they slept in a nicer hotel, one that had enough hot water for them both. They didn’t talk about why they had taken the room with a single bed. Veronica told herself it would have called attention to them to clarify to the owner that they were not a couple. Logan told himself he wanted to be nearby if she felt like she needed to cry again.
They were nearing the Gulf Coast when they stopped in a small village to re-stock their water. Logan paused over a local turquoise merchant’s wares, letting his mind wander as his fingers ran across the smooth stones. Veronica pulled him back into the street and clung to his arm.
“Come on, honey, we need to get going if we’re going to meet your friends on time!”
In her hand, she clenched a scrap of paper, the top ragged, as if it had been torn. He met her eyes and she gave him a sharp nod.
Once in the car, she showed him the crude wanted poster. It wasn’t great. They hadn’t worked out the dyed hair. But the fact that it was posted in such a tiny village did not bode well. Either the authorities knew where they were, or the search was much more aggressive than they realized.
They drove long into the night and then longer still, off the main road, until they found an inn that screamed disrepute like a handlebar mustache and a stovepipe hat. They agreed that they would switch cars as soon as possible in the morning as they lay in bed. Logan reached out for Veronica and she turned into his embrace.
Her hand fell onto his throat so that she could feel the leap of his pulse and she breathed deeply, relaxing into the pillows.
He felt her breath on each exhale, fluttering across his collar bone. Her hand was warm on his skin.
And they fell asleep.
Neither knew who kissed whom first. Both would have sworn that the other woke them, with feather light glances of smooth lips, sliding against each other, against the fine skin of cheek, nose, and back to lips again. A tongue emerged, to moisten the plump flesh of an outer lip, and encountered another tongue on a similar quest. The kiss deepened and hands, not to be outdone, roamed over the expanse of lean backs and up and down toned arms.
Logan’s hand tangled in Veronica’s inky locks as his other hand brushed the bare skin of her belly. All semblance of sleep left behind, Veronica straddled Logan’s torso, tracing the living flesh of his upper chest as she thanked god that he insisted on sleeping without a shirt. The kiss broke as Logan stripped Veronica’s t-shirt from her and their mouths fell hungrily upon each other; their hands mirrored each other’s in their fumbling with their jeans.
Veronica’s jeans, tossed aside, collided with a small figurine on the dressing table, but the couple ignored the crashing sound in favor of the harmony of the gasps and moans they pulled from each other. Competitive, they played each other’s bodies like jazz musicians, trading the spotlight momentarily in the favor of one solo only to work to outdo the other when their turn came. They laughed as they wrestled on the thin sheets, seeking for dominance.
And then they fell off the edge of the bed.
For a moment, they lay in a pile of tangled limbs, Logan gazing down at Veronica’s surprised face. A grin broke across her features and found an answer in his own face as she reached up to cup his neck and pull his smiling lips down to hers. She wrapped her legs around his hips, as her hands rested on his neck and her fingers played through his hair.
He pulled his head back and met her gaze as he lowered his hips. She bit her lower lip as she felt the pressure building and his eyes swept her face, gauging her reactions. Slowly, he pressed into her and she opened for him until he could go no deeper. And the twin grins returned.
Tires squealed outside.
Logan drew back and plunged in again as he bent to nibble at the delicate flesh under her ear.
Doors slammed and feet ran, sending gravel skittering across the drive.
Veronica arched into him, away from the rough carpet at her back.
A voice rang out in the crisp dawn air.
“Es la policía! Salgas con manos arriba!”
Logan sat up, looking across the bed at the drape drawn window.
“Esto es su advertencia final!”
He looked down at Veronica, spread out on the floor of a cheap Mexican hotel, their bodies still joined.
A shot rang out from the room next door. They weren’t the only fugitives staying here.
Before Veronica could call a warning, before she could pull him down, before the sound of the blast reached her pulse deadened ears, she saw the blood.
It began as a small hole, round and perfect, two inches from the middle of his beautiful chest.
Logan collapsed on top of her. She rolled him off as a sob split her throat and bullets sang through the air above them. She pressed into his chest with her hands, gathered yards of sheets and pressed harder… begged him to look at her, at her eyes and not the ceiling.
The blood was red against her fingers, gushing with the steady rhythm of a strong heart.
_______________________________
Heartbeats had become the enemy.
Thanks for reading. If you are interested, my other fictions can be found here.