"What got you through that?" Natalya inquired, her eyes scanning across the lawn.
"I needed money, needed to satisfy that…that…need. I've got those times where I need to be alone at some drinkin' joint and punch someone out and make money. Not necessarily in that order, but hell. I wanted to survive. I just…this wasn't just some f***in' animal thing. Let's make that clear." Logan said firmly, his jaw stiffening at the thought.
"It was simply survival, then?"
He shrugged."Yeah. I had to prove I was more than what any scientists or mutant schoolteachers or...aggressive drunks believed I was."
"Spite is a driving force."
He chuckled. "You and your books just feed off of each other, huh?"
She turned to meet his gaze, unsure of whether or not she was being mocked or teased.
"Yeah. Yeah, I guess so," Was the tentative reply.
"What made you ask about my cage-fighting, anyway?"
Natalya glanced again at the brunette in her late teens who was sitting on the grass with her friends, a pair of military dog tags wrapped around her wrist.
"Ah, nothing much."
"You still wanna go with me tomorrow?"
She looked at him and smiled. "Hell yeah! I'd love to see the bike you get the moment you meet it."
Logan raised an eyebrow. "Meet it?"
"It's gonna be your baby, after all. You meet what attracts you, then you bond with it. It's the relationship of Logan with sexy machine."
"Whatever you say."
She winked jokingly. "I thought so."
"Do you like workin' at that bar, N?"
She paused for a second, then nodded. "I won't stay there very long, but...it's a good deal for now."
Logan considered that. Maybe she didn't want to stay still, get settled, turn down traveling---life didn't have to be one extreme or another, after all. Things didn't have to be either bare-bones living or mortgaged, tied, and complicated. How Natalya survived was her choice, not her burden.
Logan suddenly had the urge to put his arm around her and hope she'd press those plush lips to his neck. He shook his head, tugged at his biker jacket, pushed the thought away.
I intended to survive. Just to spite them.
- Eugenia Ginzburg, Journey into the Whirlwind
