(Song for this scene Flora Cash - You're Somebody Else)
"Why would you want Veronica to investigate this for you?" Wallace queried the group of PCHers who had decided to crowd around their lockers. Some guy with spiky hair and a black leather jacket whispered something into Weevils ear and he just nodded, handing over a set of keys before the guy turned and walked towards the exit to the car parks.
"Because when it comes to this shit she has five times the brain capacity of every other human being on the planet?" Hector snorted while he looked the petite blond up and down.
"The mind is a tricky little devil at the best of times… and her doctor told her to avoid stressful situations" Logan said, shaking his head.
No way was he allowing Veronica to get involved in this… Daisy had gotten herself killed pulling on that thread…
"Don't think you get any kind of say in this Surfer Boy, because you will lose… Every. Single. Fucking. Time" Hector threatened, Veronica gave Weevil eyes. Fuck. She wasn't sure what their relationship had been like in recent months…
09ers and PCHers facing off was like Worlds colliding…
The last thing she needed was for someone like Dick or Casey Gant to come along at any moment thinking that Logan needed back up.
"Daisy was Family… I need to know what happened to her" Felix growled forcefully at her boyfriend, but Veronica could feel his eyes on her. "She considered you Blood… you can't say no to this" he added firmly but Veronica could see the redness in his eyes, the silent pleading behind those dark pools, it was the same emotion that was threatening to swallow her up as well.
Grief and love were conjoined. You didn't get one without the other.
"My dad's working on it" she replied quietly, even though her posture had already ceded her defeat. She'd already started on the case.
"Now you are too" Weevil answered, unnecessarily, she looked at him but didn't see any malice in his eyes, instead he looked… lost. He was firm, but he wasn't cruel about requesting her assistance. She knew that Felix and Weevil had grown up in the same neighbourhood, they were practically like brothers but she kept that sentiment to herself.
"I'll see what I can find out" Veronica told him. She was used to a solitary life, taking down targets that no one else would touch. She could already feel Logan's disapproval radiating from his skin. He was acting like she had disobeyed him. She wasn't used to having to consider his feelings when taking on a case… he was moving out of the spaces in her life he used to inhabit and was now parking his tight behind in other spaces… although… not all of this invasive side of him was entirely unwelcome. A few fleeting slivers of her memory brought back the feel of being in those possessive arms on Homecoming night.
Being owned by someone had never felt so fucking good.
Seeming content with her promise, the others turned with Hector and slithered away from them like a collection of serpents, moving fluidly down the hallway from them. Felix lingered behind a moment and Weevil stayed with him.
"You can reach us here" he said, handing over the card of a local laundromat.
The Dirty Nickel
"I know this place… that Hernandez guys owns it right?" Veronica asked, she felt Logan shift beside her at the less than mean-spirited gesture. He was in her periphery, she watched him fold his arms defensively, he wasn't pleased, but she could tell he was worried, she had been withdrawn from him since finding out about Daisy… but she wasn't used to having a sounding board, a partner who saw all the pieces in her investigations. Her mind flickered to the parcel that had arrived his morning, news report tapes from the first few weeks of the Abel Koontz arrest and the transcripts from the court house that she had applied for before homecoming. She still had the recordings to listen to from the Homecoming Pins and the Bugs that she had planted in the girls locker room but she'd been so busy helping her father in the Mars Investigations Office after that Neptune Grand thief case for Mr Quesnelle that she hadn't looked at any of it yet.
The red tape of the public administration system… I wonder if Dad's got that CCTV footage from the crime scene yet?
"Frankie" Weevil nodded.
"Te ves preciosa cuando estas nerviosa" Felix muttered at her.
"What, you couldn't find a hide out with a cuter name like Squeakies?" Logan grumbled as he read the name on the card he took from her hand. He knew enough Spanish to know that Felix was telling his girlfriend that she was cute when she was nervous. He felt himself gritting his teeth and digging his nails into his palms.
"You mean the kind with a cute little café inside and where you get to cuddle puppies in the corner?" Weevil asked sarcastically.
Rolling her eyes at the testosterone pissing contest Veronica ran through the mental list of local business owners… Francis Hernandez, the more public friendly face of the Latino Blood operation in Neptune… her father had warned her once that he was the kind of guy who cleaned a lot more than clothes at his little slice of Neptune Hell for all sorts of unsavoury characters. Francis was a fence… the kind of middle man who could get you what you needed, drugs, illegal documents, information and the occasional custom order for stolen car parts. The Dirty Nickel was right in the heart of Weevil's neighbourhood, she knew from a case last year involving some pricey 09er hubcaps that part of the deal for keeping the area clean of the heavier drugs was the PCHers doing the odd job and targeting certain wealthy vehicles on demand. A mutually beneficial arrangement when the Latino Blood's didn't want to risk having their members do hard time.
"It's not the smartest idea to go discussing things like this at school" she told him pointedly, knowing that Logan and Wallace would interpret that firmly as her desire not to discuss the matter further when they were alone again.
"Hence the card" Felix retorted. "Becca will be there tonight about 7pm" he explained.
Becca… the roommate from Daisy's apartment? Why would she want to meet up with me? I already know what happened to her… I got her killed because I was fucking stupid… because I didn't think things through properly.
"This still doesn't explain why you aren't just going to her father about all of this" Wallace sighed, his tone told her he was as stressed as Logan was about this little predicament… how stressed out would he be if he knew the full extent of her investigations into Lilly Kane's murder as well?
"Because… Keith Mars used to be Sheriff… he still thinks like a cop… we need someone whose just as motivated as we are… and willing to dig deeper and cross lines to get the truth" Weevil replied finally.
"Besides blondie here is better at blending in than any plainclothes officer" Felix added.
"Your vote of confidence warms my heart" she said, in far too sweet a tone to be sincere, smiling sarcastically. She may have looked like a perky, pretty girl but she wasn't intimidated… this whole encounter felt like a fucking ambush, she was tired, and she still had the mandated counselling session with Ms James that Mr Clemmons had ordered after her return.
"Just don't be late" Weevil told her before nodding at Felix to start heading towards the auto workshop rooms. Most of the PCHers were fanatical about muscle cars, most of them were doing vocational training, so didn't have to attend as many of the higher AP classes as the rest of the student body. It was hard not to look at their tattoos, baggy black clothes, chains and not see other.
"Veronica…" Logan said in a low voice and she watched as Wallace took that as his sign to avoid any potential embarrassment of getting caught up in couple drama to exit stage left.
"I promised May and Nicole I'd help with the banners for the Cheer-off finals against Clint High" she told him, changing the subject.
"We need to talk about this" he pressed as the bell rang and the sophomore classes started to filter out into the halls. His posture rigid with that innate sense of entitlement, her breath left her in a long, cathartic exhale.
"We will… just right now… I gotta go have that meeting with Ms Let's-Be-Besties James" she said in annoyance but at least she wouldn't have had to go back for the yearbook picture layout discussions. The crowd of students moving towards their classes was like a lively organism now, the tension in his body was palpable, but he broke eye contact with her and looked of down into the distance. She studied his face, his major fault lines, beyond that air-brushed façade he used in their stifling privileged school society with its pretty rules and manipulation who regular exercised their schadenfreude muscles.
He wanted to argue with her but thought better of it.
"Hey… I've got my eyes on the prize and my feet on the ground" she promised, trying her best to soothe his frayed nerves, pulling him closer.
And before I know where to go from here I need to finish my digital eavesdropping…
"I don't want to be charging on ahead of you, or trailing behind you… I want to be beside you Veronica. Together. It's what we agreed" Logan sighed, he made it sound like an accusation as he stood looking down into her blue eyes. He wanted to whisk them both away from here, seek solace in his bed, dimly he noted the burble of voices, the tension between them was like a powder keg, all it needed was a match.
He felt like a satellite in orbit around her, when she pulled away from him like this, it drove him crazy. The Universe could offer him a million galaxies but he only wanted one single planet… whichever one allowed him to be with her. She was the epicentre of his existence… and she had a body that sent his hormones into party mode. If it came to it, he knew how to keep her distracted… she shared his bed with wild abandon. He was an expert in detecting a weakness in an opponent, she may have been trying to keep him at arm's length, to play that same old destructive tape again, wanting to fall into old habits. Veronica was Veronica, enigmatic, taciturn, not giving an inch… but Want, Need and Lust swirled between them and he would use it to his advantage if he had to. His dance of seduction could be one of infiltration into that stubborn labyrinth of iron bars she put up against her thoughts.
He'd make her need him the way she needed air… like he needed her… she wanted to instigate boundaries… when it came to her decisions… she kept a very practical filter on everything… he would have to unravel that resolve… even if it meant he'd have to do some very X-rated things to her body.
"I'm trying…" she told him. He didn't understand the struggle past her own barriers… she'd been forged in a cauldron of constant fighting and mistrust. She was finding herself confused and suspicious of everyone… like she was losing her mind and didn't know what to do or who to trust. The closer she was going to get to finding out what happened to Lilly and Daisy, the more danger they would be in... "Someone has purposely choreographed all of this… like a giant game… and if we don't move carefully we could end up as someone's pawn" she told him, and he looked thoughtful as he inched her back against the lockers, fixing her in place in front of him.
"I only want you Veronica… and I want you safe…" he whispered, cupping her face as the tumbling tresses of blond hair fell around her shoulders. A number of instinctive sarcastic responses occurred to her… she didn't believe in fairy tales and white knights but he claimed her mouth in a kiss that plundered her soul earning a feral groan from her as he deepened the erotic dalliance of their mouths and he felt an answering lick of fire across his manhood.
You belong to me… it's been too long since we were close like this… you are mine.. and only mine… all rights reserved.
He hated that Weevil was trying to make claims on Veronica's time…
"Alright you two… break it up… this is a school not Make-Out Point" Mr Sanders warned as he moved through the hallway and shooed them onto their next lessons as she pulled back from Logan almost gasping, looking up into his scalding, hungry gaze.
She excused herself and went into the girls bathroom to catch her breath and to try and calm the rush of colour that had erupted in her cheeks. Her rational thought process had been taken over by something more primitive, her senses went into overload when he clamped her against his whipcord body like that. She may have been struggling a little in recent days with this foundling relationship, but she couldn't deny the electricity that crackled between them. She couldn't decide whether of her recent forgetting and remembering was a blessing or a curse, and whether given all their history it was possible to start over. One minute Logan Echolls had been an absolute douche bag and the next moment she was swooning and completely in love with him. A staple plot line of bad day time soap operas and romantic comedies, it never seems real, even though it happens every day. How does the brain selectively lose chunks of information but retain others?
Even the neurologist Dr Holtz hadn't been able to explain it to her. "The brain is a complicated organ" he had sighed.
Duh. well, it is.
