Reaching for the Moon by ThePekingNoodle
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Chapter Eighty-Three: A Friend in Need
In which our heroine finds out who her friends are in her time of need…
Normal looked up at the young woman who had walked into Jam Pony. "No jobs, no jobs. Sorry. Bye."
With that quick dismissal, he was back to checking over his cash receipts ledger. Until a feminine hand came down over it covering the entries he was looking at. He looked up in annoyance. "I said we aren't hiring. Unless you have a package to drop off, this is an employee only establishment."
The striking young woman looked at him levelly. "I'm looking for one of your employees."
"Personal business is to be done on personal time." He tried to push her hand aside but her other hand came out of her pocket holding a folded bill. Normal reached for it but she pulled it back out of reach.
"Her name's Original Cindy and this not only pays for you telling me where she is, it pays for her break time to talk to me. Got it?"
There was something in the girl's eyes that gave Normal pause. He glanced down at his watch. "She's on a run but she should be back within the half hour." When she continued to stand there holding the money, he nodded his head in the direction of what appeared to be a run down employee lounge. "You can wait for her over there," he said grudgingly.
The girl smiled sweetly and handed him the bill then strolled over to the lounge. Normal quickly pocketed the money and went back to his books.
Twenty minutes later Original Cindy rode her bike into the entrance, disregarding Normal's rule about riding inside, as did all of his employees. As she passed the cage he inhabited he looked up. "You have a visitor. And you have fifteen minutes break to talk to her but then she better be out of here. I don't run a social club."
Cindy glanced over to where Normal had indicated. She walked her bike to a wall and leaned it up against it, ignoring the dirty look Normal shot her, and then she strolled over to where the dark haired girl was seated watching the large screen TV suspended over the break area.
She tapped her on the shoulder and girl turned and then jumped up. "Original Cindy."
"Max. What are you doing here?" Cindy looked her over with concern. Max looked drained. There was no other word for it. The energy that always seemed to be pulsing around her almost visibly, was missing. Her eyes were filled with pain. With a muttered curse, Cindy gathered Max into her arms and hugged her, stroking her back gently. Max stood there unresisting and after a moment Cindy pulled her down onto the battered couch next to her. "Spill it, Boo what happened?"
"I left Logan." A lone tear spilled out of Max's eyes and trailed down her cheek.
"What did he do?" Original Cindy knew about males. "You sure this isn't just a newly weds quarrel? You two stubborn mules'r gonna have a few of them or Original Cindy doesn't play for the all girls team."
"He was going to send me away." Now Max was crying harder. "He said he was going back to…Ashley."
"Who the hell is Ashley?"
"She's his old girlfriend and she wears pink…" Max said forlornly.
"Pink?" Original Cindy was losing the thread of the conversation.
"Lots of pink."
"Dayum girl. This ain't makin' no sense. Your man is crazy about you, least from what I saw last. No way he's gonna be runnin' off to some pink lady. He's crazy in love with you."
"He said he loved me." Max choked out.
"He said he loved you and then told you to leave cause he was hookin' up with his old flame? Boo, you sure you ain't runnin' a fever and hallucinatin?" Original Cindy reached over to feel Max's forehead.
Max shook her head. "He said he loved me when he thought I couldn't hear him. Then when he knew I could, he told me I had to leave and that he was going back to Ashley. That all we had was the sex."
Original Cindy suddenly stood up. "Come on." She strode over to her bike and lifted it up onto one of the overhead storage hooks. "Normal, Original Cindy is takin' some personal time."
"Hey…" Before the protest was out of Normal's mouth, Original Cindy had dragged Max out of Jam Pony.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Max sat on a couch in Original Cindy's apartment. Cindy lived in a building that, had it been completed, would have been a luxury apartment complex in the days before the Pulse had hit. Instead it was half empty, with the floors that had been closed to the outside, occupied by squatters. Jury-rigged electricity and water supplied the needs of the residents, and the local sector cops made regular visits to collect "rent" which only meant that they refrained from throwing the residents out onto the streets.
Cindy walked over and handed Max a cup of hot tea liberally laced with brandy. Max sniffed the aroma and took a sip.
Cindy sat across from her and studied her intently. "So now that's it just us girls, how about you tell me the real dealio with you and Logan. 'Cause what you told me so far makes no sense."
"It could be dangerous for you to know." Max hesitated.
"Girl, I can take care of myself. You are lookin' at a former special ops agent sittin' in front of you. So spill."
"Logan's involved in something that's dangerous. He thinks if I'm around him I'm in danger as well. That's why he wanted me to leave." Max tried to keep the details vague.
"Well that don't sound like no three party tango goin' on then."
"I can help him. He didn't have to make me leave. Anyway what he's involved in is partly because of me and my family."
"Ah. One of those kidnappin' and extortin' the richies kind of things?" Cindy said.
"Yeah sort of. The bad guys are after one of my brothers. Only they don't know he's my brother. They're blackmailing Logan into helping them find him so they can kidnap him." That was close enough to the truth to work, Max decided. No need to clue OC into secret government black operations.
Cindy nodded wisely, "It's all about the cheddah. So your boo decided you oughta be out of the line of fire, and instead of just tellin' you that, he came up with his cockamamie story 'bout his old squeeze. Sugah, it's a fact of life that men can't think with their brains. Takes a female to do that."
"So what do I do? I left because if I stayed he would have tried to send me off somewhere. And I'm not going." Max's determination was clear in her voice.
"Sugah, you sure you don't wanna leave this to your man? He seemed like the type who can take care of things to this girl."
"No. I have some training of my own that could help him. He's just being stubborn. Anyway he doesn't know how dangerous these people are. If they catch him turning on them, they'll kill him. Or worse."
"So what you needin' from Original Cindy? 'Cause it seems like your mind's made up." Cindy asked curiosly.
"I need a place to crash. Logan can't know I'm still around Seattle."
"Girl you welcome to stay here with Original Cindy. But it ain't the penthouse at the Steinlitz."
Max reached over and hugged OC. "I was hopin' you'd say that."
"So what's your game plan?"
"I'm makin' it up as I go."
Original Cindy laughed. "Boo I got your back. Somethin' tells me this is gonna be interesting. Not to mention what's gonna happen when your man finds out what you up to."
Max looked stubborn. "All I gotta say is that if I catch him with Miss Pretty in Pink I'm going to kick his ass. Not to mention hers."
"Come on let's get you settled. You got any rags with you?"
"In my pack on my bike." Max hesitated, "One more thing…my Ninja…would it be okay if I brought it up here? I'm kinda worried keepin' it down on the street."
"Original Cindy can live with a hot rice burner parked in her place. You might even say it makes for an interestin' conversation piece."
"Cool."
"You ate anything today, boo?"
"No."
"Let's go then. Original Cindy knows a place where the food is cheap but plentiful and the drinks are always flowin'. What you need now is a good ole girls night out. We gonna go bitch about the three legged gender and what fools they all be, and when we done you gonna feel a lot better. Than tomorrow you gonna get started on whatevah you plannin' on doin' to set your boy's head straight."
Max grinned. "Sounds like a plan."
"Get that ass of yours in gear then and lets make tracks."
The two girls left the apartment hand in hand, as OC began to tell Max a funny story about the male gender.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Logan sat at his desk in Fogle Towers. His day had been spent in tracking down the information Lydecker had sent to him and sending it over to Sebastian for a double check on the results. Now all he could do was wait. He pulled open his top desk drawer and stared down into it. Looking up at him was the newspaper front page screaming out the news of his wedding to Max. She stared at him from the page. He reached out and ran a finger over her face, imagining that she was still there with him and he was doing it in reality. But all he felt was the slightly crumpled roughness of the newspaper. He sighed and closed the drawer with a snap, and then went to his kitchen to fix himself a light meal.
End of Chapter Eighty-Three…TBC…
