San Andreas was once again being blasted with sun, but that didn't seem to be making much of a difference to Blake's mood. She was becoming frustrated about things, one of the main things being about the people she knew. It wasn't that she was stuck around anyone bad, but that she hadn't managed to find anyone to truly count on like her family.
She'd been walking out in the town to try and clear her head and find some kind of solution to these issues when her distant mind had started her in not walking in a straight line, which eventually knocked her back to her senses a second too late when her foot slipped over the edge of a wall she'd been walking along and her falling over the edge, a loud cracking and ringing noise echoing as she hit the railway tracks below.
"Damn it…" Blake hissed, looking at her now bloodied right knee before her eyes widened as she felt a slight vibration and a quiet ringing from the steel rails. She wasn't much of a railway person but she knew as much as anyone that the tracks would vibrate and hum long before the trains went over them, which now meant that one was coming at some speed. This was the only stretch of rail in the city where the Pacific freightline and the city trams traveled the same line briefly, so there was no way of telling whether it was a tram or a loaded freight engine, or in Blake's mind whether it would stop as soon as it saw her or slam the brakes and still slide on through and a mile beyond before it was able to stop.
"Grr… Come on!" Blake groaned as she painfully straightened up her leg and managed to stand. She was in a deep set stretch of the rails and there was no sign of a ladder anywhere… Then she heard the blasting air horn and looked around.
Soaring along the track towards her, two back-to-back SD40-2 locomotives pulled a load of 40 mixed tanker, boxcar and flatbed cars and on this single line, there was no spot for Blake to shelter in. The best she could do was hug the wall and hope for the best as the train approached…
"Move away from the wall!"
Blake looked up to see the outline of a man stood by the edge of the walls either side of the tracks.
"There's a train coming!" Blake replied.
"So stand in the middle of the tracks, trust me!" The man shouted over the approaching noise in a deep voice with a northern, slightly Canadian accent. Blake reluctantly did so in a quick shift, squealing out in fright as suddenly a length of rope was whipped around her waist. "Hold onto it!" The man shouted before he pulled, Blake being raised off of the ground just in time, so close that she felt the heat of the engine's exhausts as it passed beneath her.
As the train passed rapidly, the man pulled Blake up over the wall and after she was up, held her so she didn't fall as she recovered from the shock rocking through her veins.
"Are you okay?" The man asked as he carefully unwrapped the rope from around Blake's waist.
"Yeah, but… oww…" Blake said looking down at her bleeding right knee.
"We'll get that sorted." The man said, helping Blake over to a nearby pickup and sitting her in the back before picking up a first aid kit in a tin box strapped to one side, a brief glance around telling Blake that she was sat in the back of an old army Jeep.
"Thank you…" Blake said looking down at the man who was fixing her bloody knee.
"That's fine, I wasn't about to walk on while someone got crushed down in that gap. I saw you fall over from down the street. I'm Logan, this here is Bumpy Bessie." The man said, the second name as he patted his hand on the jeep's wheel arch.
Blake laughed. "I'm Blakesleigh, but I go by Blake for short or… my dad calls me… Blakie Bear." She introduced herself, feeling embarrassed of saying her other nickname that her father calls her.
"Ha… I'll stick to Blake. Or Blakey… nah, Blake." Logan said while carefully dabbing cotton wool around Blake's knee to clean away the blood.
"Blakey's alright sometimes, but I feel embarrassed by the way it sounds." Blake explained.
"I can see why. Maybe if you were about 12 I'd call that name but you're not 12 obviously… Unless you're really good with makeup, and heaven knows I was caught out by that once. Or my friend was but I believed this girl's age too." Logan said.
"No, I'm actually seventeen, I look so young cause I'm like my mother, but sometimes my dad a lot." Blake said.
"Yeah. Father's girl, I can tell." Logan said.
"How can you tell?" Blake giggled.
"Well, look at that girl over there." Logan said, pointing to a girl a little older than Blake across the street clearly from a well paid and earning background. "Mommy's girl or daddy's girl?" He asked.
"Hmm… Mom's." Blake answers.
"I'd agree." Logan said before whispering in Blake's ear. "Because that tiny skirt, jacket and heels alone probably cost a good 200 on her. Think about it."
And Blake did think for a moment. Then it struck to her, Tracey was a total mommy's girl and she and Amanda were total fashion heads, just like this girl across the road appeared to be.
"Oh, I get it now. I have a sister who's just like that." Blake said. "And you're right, I'm a daddy's girl for the way I dressed."
Blake looked at herself as she was wearing a black v-neck t-shirt that's showing her arm tattoos and blue skinny jeans.
"And look, speaking of clothes, real ripped jeans." Logan said as he finished clearing the blood from the knee, where the denim was now in white broken strings and thin scuff patches.
"Aww, these were my favorite… but now I have a third pair of ripped jeans now." Blake said, before laughing at the last part.
"Well hey, favourite ripped jeans, can't moan at that." Logan said, joining her with a chuckle as he applied a couple of band-aids to the knee. "It's not deep, just a large scrape and bruises."
"I'll keep that in mind." Blake said lifting up her knee to have a better look at it. "I just gotta be more careful. Thanks again, Logan."
"That's alright." Logan said, clipping the box shut again and placing it back in its place in the Jeep. "Take care going home… Unless you want a lift, might be a good idea actually with that injured knee."
Blake smiled sweetly at him. "Yeah, of course. I live in Rockford Hills, the big house on West Eclipse Drive."
"I gathered it was the northern part, Vinewood type area." Logan said as he helped Blake out of the back and around to the passenger side of the jeep, Blake surprised by the lack of pretty much any sort of dashboard, just a steering wheel, a manual gear stick, some pedals and switches and some bolts on gauges for the speed, revs and fuel.
"So, this is what Bumpy Bessie's like?" Blake asked.
"Oh, she's got a story." Logan said as he climbed into the driver's seat. "Built in 1941, in service until 1944 when she was abandoned at Dunkirk. Recovered and used for utility in Europe's reconstruction once the war was over, then came back home in 53. Then there's quite a big gap until I found her, a rusting lump of metal in a derelict building in Liberty City. She was painted all rainbow so my guess is she was some sort of circus car, then stolen or something and abandoned, but obviously I've done her up to the war colours." He explained, Blake seeing the old matte greenish brown colour and white star in a circle on the hood just like the jeeps she'd seen in the movies.
"I really do like Bumpy Bessie's colors, and the way you painted her. It's like I seen it in one of my Dad's old movies that we've watched together." Blake said, with excitement before looking at Logan's eyes.
"That's how they were painted back in the day and now this… This is part of why she has her name." Logan said before starting up the old machine, which shook like there was an earthquake for a few moments as the engine cycle quickened until it was at an idling pace, the shaking calming to a vibration.
"Whoa…" Blake said, before giggling at the vibration. "It feels so good…"
"Good old raw engines are hard to come by these days. You wait until we go over a bump." Logan said as he drove off, the shaking strengthening and calming as the revs went higher and lower throughout the journey. And Blake could tell now why the name was Bumpy Bessie, each bump in the road felt like the suspension was made of rubber blocks rather than springs, and the wind blasted through her hair as the canvas roof was folded back behind them.
"This is awesome!" Blake said happily, pulling her hair back as the wind blown through it. "It's better than my motorcycle…"
"I've got a bike, they're alright… When they're old." Logan said with a smile.
"Well, maybe me and you can ride our bikes together around the city, you know go on an adventure." Blake suggested, looking at him with her aquamarine colored eyes and showing him as smile.
"Not a quarrel with that one. Ride across the city and beyond… And yes, the bike is green too." Logan said, reaching into a small shelf in the driver's side door and passing a photo book to Blake. "I do classic shows, the bike is in there somewhere."
Blake started flipping through the pages until she found it. "I found it! Wow, this bike's better than mines. My dad bought me my first bike, not a while ago. And I even love it. The color is a cherry red."
"Good colour is that, similar to the Corvette somewhere in there?" Logan asked, Blake flicking again until she found the pictures of a Corvette C3 of a similar shining dark red, only a couple of shades lighter.
"I wanted something like that, but my dad too overprotective… so, he agreed to the bike." Blake said.
"Better for your age really, trust me. You'd have to do quite a high end job to insure a Corvette at your age." Logan said.
"Well, I work at my other dad's restaurant." Blake explained. "It's called Little Vespucci, and it's near the beach. You should come in for half price milkshakes and french fries, around the afternoon time."
"I'll have to do that on another day off work, though there's a few of them. As for what I do, we'll… you wouldn't believe me if I told you." Logan said, a smile appearing again. "Sometimes I think it's as ridiculous as 'Blakie Bear'."
"How ridiculous is it?" Blake questioned. "I have a friend who works part time as a bartender, and she's the same age as me. She got in by flirting with the boss, who's twice her age."
"Well… I go to golf courses around the state and scuba dive in their lakes and water masses to retrieve lost balls." Logan said, motioning in the back to a folded wetsuit and light dive gear.
"Really, that's your job?" Blake asked. "My friend did that before, but they didn't hired her 'cause she was on private property and she left with fishes stuck in her underwear."
"Good god… Wrong type of fishiness, that is." Logan said, suddenly swerving into a turn he almost drove past.
"Yeah, she's crazy sometimes, even whenever she's high." Blake said, fixing her long curly black hair.
"High?... I never fell into all that. Smoked the baccie when I was younger but that's about it." Logan said.
"She only smokes weed, cause of her soon to be dickhead of a stepfather who has his own TV show called The Underbelly Of Paradise." Blake explained. "But me… just cigarettes, whenever I'm not around my family."
"I quickly stopped after a messed up prank someone pulled on me." Logan said, pointing a finger to a faint scar on his cheek, one in no particular line like a stab or bullet mark. "Idiot put a firecracker in my cigarette, blasted up my face. Got home from the hospital and pretty much the first thing I did was grab all my papers, filters and whatever else and just threw them out the window."
Blake touched the scar on his face as it caught Logan's attention. "I'm sorry about that… I have scars too, but… I got them from my past life."
"I've got others too… I think the worst ones are the surgical ones from my whole lower left leg being reconstructed, it was right on the threshold between the decision to fix or remove it. That'll happen when you're in a head on collision with a bus and you're in a 14 grand battery car." Logan said, Blake glancing down at the area of leg not covered by his cargo shorts and seeing the multitude of white lines and smaller dots where support bars had been to hold it all together while it healed.
"Well… mines are worse… they were all caused by…" Blake said before she covered her face, as she began to cry.
"Say no more." Logan said, a hand resting on Blake's shoulder.
"Okay." Blake said wiping her face off, before her hand rested on top of his hand. "You're so nice, Logan."
"When you've been through alot, you can empathise with those going through alot the same… You can support and overall, understand." Logan said, reluctantly having to remove his hand from Blake's shoulder to shift the gears as they entered Rockford Hills and slowed down.
"Well, I'm finally home…" Blake said, seeing her home as Logan pulled up into the driveway.
"Big old iron gate, what are you like?" Logan asked jokingly.
"So many things had happened in the past… And I was brought here to leave my old life." Blake explained. "My dad had protected me, since I arrived here but my new mother and my siblings are like… different. Only me and my dad are not dysfunctional."
"Oh, I understand all that. I ran off from a family where everyone wanted to kill everyone else when I was 12." Logan said.
"Well, me… my dad and my uncles they were huge bank robbers and I was left behind to stay with my mom, but I escaped my prison from her…" Blake explained.
"Well, I never robbed a bank but I've done some pretty illegal stuff… but hey, if I tell you now, A: your family will notice you talking to a big unknown man in the garden and B: we'll have nothing to talk about next time." Logan said.
"But will I see you again?" Blake said placing her hand on his cheek. "I… I sorta like you…"
"Well…" Logan said, placing his hand on hers and pulling it down before enclosing the other hand around it too, between them. "I'll want some french fries sometime in the coming days."
"Well, come by Little Vespucci for half price during the afternoon." Blake said with a smile, before blushing.
"I'll certainly be sure to." Logan said before he released her hand from between his. "Now with how dysfunctional you say those indoors are, I'd get moving before whoever that is in the window gets too suspicious of you." Blake looked around to see the outline of Jimmy in the window looking at them.
"Oh, that's just my fat ass brother, don't mind him." Blake said. "I would be worried if it's my dad."
"Well… family car in the driveway there makes me guess he's in." Logan said, nodding to the Tailgater a few feet from the garage door.
"He's probably drinking, before taking his nap." Blake suggested.
"That kind of father, huh?" Logan asked.
"Not the abusive type." Blake said.
"Well, there's two types of drinking fathers. The abusive…" Logan said as he reached over Blake and pulled on the handle to let the door swing open. "...and the lazy."
"I guess this is goodbye…" Blake said disappointedly.
"For now… Besides, I've got a ball filled lake to be at in a half hour. But I've also got a stomach to fill in the afternoon in the next few days, and a restaurant near the sea." Logan said.
Blake smiled sweetly. "Okay, then… I'll see you soon, Logan." She said before getting out of the Jeep.
"Yep, soon Blake." Logan said, jamming the jeep into reverse and giving her a smile and a wink before the old military car rattled out into the road, Blake staying in the garden as she listened to that unfiltered, raw engine become more and more distant until it was just mixed in with the rest of the noise of the city.
"He's so sweet… but maybe it was too soon… he'll probably like someone else than me." Blake said to herself, before walking into the house.
"Hey, I'm back!" Blake announced throughout the house, and no one respond to her, except for Michael who called her name out.
"Hey, Dad." Blake looked to see him sitting on the white sectional couch, before she sat down next to him.
"So, where were you?" Michael asked.
"Out." Blake simply said.
"What happened to your knee, kiddo?" Michael said noticing her right knee.
"I hurt myself, but someone clean it off." Blake explained.
"Was that the person who Jim saw outside?" Michael questioned, and Blake's eyes widened.
"No… he's just a friend, Dad." Blake said, before getting up and left Michael in the living room area.
"A friend who delicately caresses your hand within his own and politely opens the door for you?" Blake heard as she reached the top of the stairs, seeing Jimmy stood in his doorway.
"Why don't you go fuck off? And mind your damn business!" Blake said before yelling at the last part, entering her bedroom and closing the door.
"Damn… worse than the Call Of Duty trolls." Jimmy muttered before returning to his almost black with darkness room.
Blake open her door and look at Jimmy. "I heard that fat asshole!" Blake yelled, and slammed the door.