Chapter 14- "Scars"
A/N: This one is for Sammie, who wanted more M/L, which I've been neglecting in trying to focus more on a deeper plot. But now I realize that a good Dark Angel story has a mixture of both. And also for Tab, who never fails to review my work.
FOGGLE TOWERS
"Here." Max held out a set of jeans and red sweater for Maria, who was still wearing pajamas. Cree had gotten a ride with Ty back to her hotel room, or at least that was the story she was telling everyone.
Maria took the clothes hesitantly. "Gracias." She fingered them for a moment, almost as if she was unsure as to what to do with them. Zack had stormed out of the penthouse two hours ago and his absence left an awkward feeling inside of her. Not exactly like she missed him and was ready to forgive his betrayal, but a sense of something unfinished. (In Spanish): "You're his sister?"
"Si." Max answered her in Spanish.
"You don't look anything alike." Maria concluded. Zack was a blonde, well built, but a pale white man and Max was totally the opposite of that with long brown hair and dark skin. Max mentioned nothing of them being adopted siblings, leaving Maria to believe that they were related by blood.
(In Spanish:) "Similarities are sometimes hidden below the surface." Max returned softly.
Logan approached the two women, looking towards Maria, and then - in an action that surprised Max - he spoke in Spanish to Maria: "You can stay here as long as you need too."
Maria's eyes showed gratitude. (In Spanish:) "Thank you Sir, but I can't put you and your wife in danger anymore." Maria had automatically jumped the gun and assumed that Max and Logan were married.
"We want to help you." Logan responded back, not correcting Maria on her mistake about his marital status. "You're not imposing at all."
Maria's eyes betrayed the fact she didn't really believe Logan's statement to be true, but she didn't say anything to that effect. "May I please use your bathroom?"
Logan nodded at her, a gentle expression on his face. "It's down the hall, second door on the left."
"Thank you." Maria said again politely, moving past the two other people and out of the living room.
Max turned to Logan after Maria had left, a surprised expression on her face. "I didn't know you could speak Spanish."
"I didn't know you could either." Logan returned, reminding her that she had been speaking Spanish to Maria all morning.
"It wouldn't be good for an advanced killing machine to stick out in a location by not knowing the local dialect." Max stated the blatant facts of exactly why she knew a vast amount of different languages. "What about you?" Max questioned Logan's reason for knowing Spanish.
"I studied it in college." Logan confessed. "It was an elective."
"I can see how Spanish comes in handy in the covert man-on-a-mission occupation. You might have to negotiate the release of the Ambassador from Spain by local terrorist cells one day, or maybe get an order at a Spanish restaurant."
Logan laughed quietly despite himself. "I could see how it could come in handy for you. I mean the prospects of you being able to talk dirty in another language is something of a turn on." He said all of this with a completely straight face.
Max turned to him with a shocked expression. "Did Logan Cale, defender of truth, justice resurrecting the American way just admit that he enjoys a little verbal scankiness?"
"I don't have an appreciation for it Max, no. But then again you could say 'zygomatic embryos' and I still would find it incredibly sexy. It's not the nine hundred call girl voice I'm attracted to anyway, you just have certain charisma in your voice."
"First of all zygotes aren't embryos," Max corrected him. "Zygotes are the one celled organisms formed immediately after conception. Embryos are formed between three to six weeks after the zygote phase. " She paused for a moment after her biology lesson was finished. "Define what you mean by a 'nine hundred voice.'" She was eyeing him with a look that told him he'd better come up with an answer that didn't involve adult spanking.
"At the risk of a verbal ass kicking I'm going to have to deny that request." Logan answered her in the safest way he knew how, not knowing exactly how they had gotten on their current line of conversation.
"If I'd a found out you were connecting with Silicon Valley there'd be more of physical ass kicking involved."
"Freudian Slip." Logan stated matter-of-factly. "It's what accidents are made of."
"If accidents are accidents why do they feel so contrived?" Max returned. She rested one hand against her hip that was jutting out from her posture, shooting him a raised eyebrow look.
"That's something you'll have to ask those in authority who write the rule books, not us lowly mortals who just read from their pages."
"Zeus and Hera are on a break so I can't," Max stepped closer to him. "And I don't consider you a 'lowly mortal.' More like a member of the nobility who gave up his fortune and ivory tower to join the rest of us out in the real world and better humanity at the same time." She slinked one arm his neck in a slow seduction, then added the other one.
"One minute I'm a groveling peasant and the next minute I'm a born again defender of the stricken and down trodden?" His hands found a place low on her hips, feeling the hard round bone of the clavicle housed beneath a solid wall of flesh. Her skin was warm beneath his fingertips, even through the fabric of her clothes, and he was fighting to restrain himself from letting his hands wander further.
"Let's not go nuts with the 'born again' solo thing." Max informed, her eyes shifting to a darker, more sensual look. "You do have some help in the leg work department."
Logan removed one of his hands from her waist and moved it to caresses a tendril of her hair. He said: "It's not your legs that I'm interested in right now." He pulled forward and kissed her.
The kiss was warm which turned warmer and then turned red hot when Max felt Logan slid his hands all over her back.
It was this scene that Maria came into after she was done in the bathroom. "Ay." She made this sound to indicate her presence in the room.
Logan broke the kiss, looking over to the other woman. (In Spanish:) "Sorry. We didn't see you."
Maria looked at him with a faint hint of amusement on her face. "That's very obvious Sir. Though I understand how love goes." Her tone dropped down to a sad sound at the mention of the word 'love'. She didn't even really believe she knew real love. She thought she knew love with Zack, and it seemed so simple then. She'd meet a man on the street and if there was physical attraction she'd make it with him. Maria knew the power of a pretty face and a well-sculpted body, and if the man liked what was underneath the flesh he'd stay, maybe long enough to profess vows of love. But Zack was far more complicated then she realized. He didn't wait for her on bended knee; he stood in the middle of a pounding rainstorm and waited for her get up the nerve to find him out there. "But maybe I was wrong." Her last remark was so quiet that it was only barely above simply mouthing the words.
"I wouldn't hold yourself to that remark," Max said, moving away from Logan, but just slightly. "Emotions don't come with manuals on correct procedures to follow. They're just what they are."
"You're his sister," Maria said in reply, turning to face Max completely. "Do you think he loves me?"
This was a question that Max couldn't answer right away. She couldn't explain to Maria the deep meaning of the word 'love' to a man like Zack, and Maria obviously didn't know about his past to understand why Max would answer the way she would. So she went for a safer route, one with less questions. "Can't say, I don't know the nature of your relationship."
Maria chewed on this for a moment like a stale piece of rye bread before she spoke again:"I think he wanted to love me, I could see it in his eyes. But there was always something that held him back. He always seemed so - " she bit her bottom lip while she searched for a moment for the right word that would convey her feelings, but not make Zack look bad. "Scarred." Even after she had said the word she still wondered if was an accurate description. "I see soldiers assigned to our village with the same look Zack has, the face of a man who has seen the cold cruelty of death."
"That's something you're no stranger to yourself." Logan reminded Maria. He spoke to her in soft tones so she wouldn't think he was taking a cruel hit on her.
Maria shifted her gaze to him. Her eyes held wisdom far greater then her years, one that was forced upon her from where she had been. "Everything that's happened to me, things I can't even talk about, all that doesn't even equal the pain I see behind his eyes."
The look in Max's eyes changed after Maria said this; it was something she knew painfully too well. But before Max could say anything Maria started speaking again: "Thank you, for all that you've done. You've been very generous but I can't knowingly put either of you in danger anymore. I have to leave."
"Where are you gonna go?" Max cut in. "Those men already have a hit on you. They're not just gonna let it slid that you slipped through their fingers."
"It's my problem okay?" Maria responded. "I don't expect you to get involved."
"You want a relationship with my brother-" Max said, in a quiet reprimanding tone. "So I am involved. Zack may have hurt you in the past, but that kind of screw job is not give and take, he deserves more then that."
"I don't want a relationship with your brother!" Maria spat back so forcefully she had to take a moment to collect herself before speaking. "I don't want to understand the reasoning behind why I stayed with him, not anymore. I slept with him when I was nineteen, I was young and naive, holding out for some damn gallant American to carry me away to a fairytale! But Zack just watched those men drag me off and then I spent the next two and a half years being screwed by every American man who had fifteen pesos and a hard on." She paused for a moment before continuing: "I don't want to love him, but he loves me, I know he does."
"You're a liar." Max hissed defensively, taking a dominating step in front of Maria. "You threw yourself all over Zack the second you caught sight of him with the entire 'lost love' mantra throw in for free, and now you're in denial about whether or not what you had was real?"
"I was surprised." Maria defended, "I didn't know I would ever see him again."
"I'm not a very patient person Maria, so why don't you cut the crap?" Max growled.
"Max-" Logan tried to reach for her arm, but she snapped out of his grip and moved closer to Maria.
"Spending two years of your life being humped everyway but sideways by a bunch of biker club rejects gave you enough time to establish a value system for decent men." Max said. She was now right up in the other woman's face. She went on: "And I hate to break this to you but that whole gallant all American boy ideal is a load of B.S. Zack isn't perfect by a ten mile stone throw but he cared for you, and if you took your head out of your own ass for five seconds you would see that you weren't the only one that was tormented when you were taken by those men."
Maria stared long and hard at Max, taking in the verbal lashing she had just received. "I still can't forgive him for what he did. He left me there to die!"
"Yeah well you don't look dead to me." Max hissed.
"He knowingly put me in danger!" Maria snapped back.
"People knowingly put themselves in danger everyday by taking stupid risks like crossing the street at the wrong moment or staying out too late with a guy at the bar. They had a consciousness decision in their own actions, and most people don't want the man on the street feelin' sorry for them. Now I'm not saying that you had a choice in this but explain to me the perks of takin' pity on your sad violin song of a life?"
"Excuse us for a moment." Logan cut in, urging Max to move out of his living room with his eyes.
Max shot him an angry looked but complied, feeling his hand softly on the small of her back guiding her out.
They walked past the living room and into the hallway where Logan's bedroom sat just beyond a closed dark stain wooden door.
"What are you doing?" He turned to face her once they reached the hallway. "It's been my experience if you're trying to coax an escaped victim of sexual trafficking to seek shelter at your apartment you don't have your girlfriend make verbal assaults on her character."
"I don't care Logan," Max growled in a low voice, her eyes dead on him. "Maria doesn't own the whole damn corner on shitty pasts."
"So you decided an appropriate course of action would be to dress her down about the nature of a relationship you know nothing about?"
"I know my brother," Max returned.
"He watched the men drag her off. Forgive me, but that sounds like something where I would favor Maria as the victim in this, not Zack."
"Back there we were taught to never engage in a situation that would put us at risk for exposure, I'm sure that was running through Zack's mind when he witnessed radical government soldiers take Maria hostage."
"So she had to suffer because Zack's still back Manticore?"
"It's not something you can turn off light a light switch." Max's voice was rising now, and she was right up in his face the same way she had been with Maria. "We're all back at Manticore at some point, in that dark room where nothing makes a whole hell of a lot of sense. You of all people should understand that."
"I'm sorry," Logan said in a higher pitch giving an exaggerated shrug. "But I can't understand a situation that warrants treating a former victim like she's a criminal."
"Then you don't understand me." Max brushed past him and stepped into the living room to grab her jacket.
Logan stepped into the hallway, watching her slip on her leather jacket.
"I gotta go to work." Max snapped.
"Max-" Logan said stepping closer to her, but she ignored him and went to the door.
She opened the door, but stopped before she went out it, saying: "Call me if you come up with anything that'll get her to Mexico." Her eyes shifted over to Maria quickly before the door closed behind her.
= = = =
This is my life
Its not what it was before
All these feelings I've shared
and these are my dreams
That I'd never lived before
Somebody shake me
'Cause I
I must be sleeping
= = = =
Logan watched her, sighing in the back of his throat and lowering his chin to his chest. His eyes turned back to Maria who was watching him.
= = = =
Now that we're here,
It's so far away
All the struggle we thought was in vain
All the mistakes,
One life contained
= = = =
They all finally start to go away
Now that we're here its so far away
And I feel like I can face the day I can forgive
And I'm not ashamed to be the person that I am today
= = =
SEATTLE POLICE DEPARTMENT
45TH PRECINCT
"Hey baby," Ming spoke into the black-corded office phone to Jade. She was sitting in one of the mustard green plastic school type chairs in the break room at the police station. Across a long chipped white painted countertop rested an ancient white GE coffee maker. A desk cop had poured a cup of coffee for Ming and it rested beside the appliance - in a green glazed ceramic mug - still untouched beside an opened quart carton of half and half and three blue packets of Equal sugar substitute.
"Mom," Jade's voice was elated. She was sitting on a stool in their living room drinking a soda a working on her Trigonometry homework. "I'm glad you called. I missed you."
"I miss you guys too." Ming admitted. "Is dad around?"
"No dad's at work. Some electrician is coming to wire that wall he's building so he had to get an early start."
"Damn," Ming cursed. "I was hoping to get a chance to talk to him."
"Hey I'm here," Jade reminded.
"I guess you'll have to do."
"Mom." Jade stated in that tone only an exasperated teenager could pull off.
"Kidding baby relax. So-" Ming paused for a moment as she thought about her next remark. "How's school?"
"If you're calling to check up on me you need a better cover then fussing over my grades."
"Humor me okay?"
"School's fine. Mr. Preston gave me a D on one of my Art History tests, but that's only because he didn't have his glasses on when he graded them. I confronted him about it today after class and he said he would re-grade it."
"So what was the final score?"
"B plus. Not perfect, but getting there."
Ming smiled from her end. "I thought Sam Richardson was your art history teacher?"
"She is." Jade answered. "But Ms. Sam had a family emergency so she took off two weeks, and stuck us with Mr. Ulinmyer Preston. The man is sixty-five years old and keeps telling us how he's only substituting to make ends meet, but he really hates every minute of it."
"That's comforting," Ming responded."I hope Sam's family problem isn't serious. I really like her."
"Me too. I don't think it's that big a deal. She told me she has a large family, eleven brothers and sisters, maybe she was just looking for an excuse to go see them."
"Wow," Ming was in awe of the number. "I'll say that's a large family."
"How's Cree?" Jade asked.
"She's doin' good. She misses you and dad."
"I have that effect on everyone."
"Jadayan Sedeyra Amston, don't make me come through this phone and smack the pretty off you." Ming laughed through her words. Jadayan was Jade's full name, but Cree took to calling her Jade for short when Jade was a baby and the name stuck.
"I guess you're the exception to the rule." Jade kidded her mom. "I miss Cree too." She changed the subject. "It seems like she just came back and now she's gone again."
"Sure she'll be glad to know she's appreciated that much. Listen baby I hate to cut this short but I have to talk some sense into the Seattle Police Department."
"No rest for the anti-corruptor lady huh?"
"Where'd you hear that phrase?"
"Dad."
"Tell him I said 'hi' and hit him upside the head for me?"
"Will do."
"Okay baby, I love you."
"I love you too mom, bye."
"Bye." Ming hung up the phone.
"Excuse me Officer Amston?" A young wet behind the ears cop entered the break room standing in the still opened doorway. "Detective Ruiz is asking for you."
Ming stood up from her chair, checking out this man, boy actually. He was not much older then nineteen, with cropped sandy brown hair and a baby face that only now seemed to be thinning out into a manly look. "Does the lackey position come before or after the training?"
"Its kind of there for the entire duration." The young cop - who's gold plated nametag read 'Margolis' - joked around with Ming, even offering her a light smile.
"Must be a Seattle thing." Ming fell into joking with the fellow police officer. She stretched her long arms over her head like a Siamese Cat, turning to face Margolis when she felt the young man's eyes on her in more then just a casual observance. She said: "Did the Detective say what he wanted?"
"No ma'am." Margolis informed, keeping his distance from Ming, but not hiding the look of pleasure in his eyes at her physique inside her clothes. "I was just asked to come get you, I assume he wants to talk shop. Det. Ruiz is very by the book when it comes to police work."
"Then I better not keep him waiting." Ming said. She grabbed her leather jacket from where it was draped over the back of the chair she had been sitting at. She hung it over her left arm and took just one step towards Margolis prior to speaking to him again: "This isn't the Army or a fancy restaurant Officer Margolis. You can drop the 'ma'am' and call me Ming, or Officer Amston if you want. But I'm telling you right now that I'm married so you're also gonna have to drop the 'pick up' voice if we're gonna be working together, understand?"
"Yes ma'am, er-Ming-Amston. Yes Officer Amston, I understand." Margolis responded around his being tongue-tied. He was mentally letting his collar loose so he could breathe easier.
"Good." Ming responded with a slight nod of her head before she left the break room.
Margolis watched her go out, whistling under his breath at the effects her confrontation had on him.
"You wanted to see me Detective Ruiz?" Ming's voice reached Ruiz's ears and he looked up from the file he was examining.
"Yeah." Ruiz responded in an authoritative voice, pointing at an empty cushioned seat in front of his desk with the tip of a pencil. "Take a seat Amston." He closed the manila folder and placed it to the side on top of a stack of blank traffic violation reports. "You want some coffee or something?"
"No I'm good." Ming responded, sliding into the chair with the ease of butter melting in a pan. "I take it you've managed to find someplace in this dank cess pool to put my girls and you're ready to tell me about it?"
Ruiz nodded before he spoke, grimacing internally at Ming calling his precinct a cess pool. "There were a couple of un-used interrogation rooms beside Block D that I set them up in."
"With sufficient luxuries I hope." Ming threw in.
"If by that you mean we gave them showers and a place to piss it's all taken care of."
"So I guess you're work is done now huh?" Ming asked, not meaning it to be a compliment.
"You asked me to find them a place to stay and that's what I did." Ruiz said leaning over his desk before speaking to Ming again: "In case you've forgotten the economy's in a rescission right now so I can't just book them into a suite at the Marriott."
"No it's fine." Ming reassured, dropping her voice down from the 'don't mess with me' cop tone it had been at earlier. "I appreciate everything you've done for us Detective I really do, I just -" She looked down at her hands like a timid little girl telling a police officer where she last saw her puppy. "I don't want these women to fall through the cracks." She finished, looking back up to Ruiz with piercing eyes. "This kind of crime kinda hits home for me."
Ruiz agreed with her silently, giving the moment the quiet reflection it deserved before addressing her again. "Believe me Officer Amston, I understand about having to work on a crime like, there's no black and white way to deal with it, and the fact that you had a daughter in this same situation makes it that much tougher."
Ming snapped her head up when he said this in shock. She silently demanded to know how the hell a Seattle Police Department Detective found out about Cree.
"We were the precinct that busted Jack Warren for forced solicitation." Ruiz gave an explanation to Ming's unspoken question. "Detective Matt Sung and I interrogated him for four hours to get out any names of the girls he sold off. He bragged to no ends about his first score on his girlfriend." Ruiz blinked. "You two have the same last name so it was just a matter of adding two and two. Plus the number of times your daughter came to beat down on Warren's ass outside our holding cell kinda tipped us off."
"Cree doesn't get all the credit for that. I had my part in the ass kicking too." Ming said and leaned back a little in her chair. She picked up a ballpoint pen with a blue lid off of Ruiz desk and twirled it in her fingers. "I want round the clock protection for these girls."
"I can only give you the guys who are on desk work." Ruiz notified "I barely have enough officers to cover the shit that goes on outside as it is without having to keep some off the streets to pull guard duty."
"Just make sure there's someone there at all times." Ming returned, setting the pen back down on the desk. "And see to it that whoever you get for this job understands that these women are not to be treated like street hooker trash." It wasn't a request.
Ruiz was silent for a moment and then stood up from his desk."C'mon." He waited for Ming to do the same. "I show you where they are." He held out his arm and let Ming pass him in an act of politeness towards a woman. "We can hammer out the details on the way."
"Hey, ya know there's a no loiterin' law here." Max had not intended to find Zack. It just sort of happened after she had left Logan's penthouse. She was on her bike, barely pushing it above a cruising speed due to the insurmountable amount of traffic that was clogging up the roads. The sides of the roads were packed with the usual group of stray teenage boys who decided that their home away from was the edge of the pavement so they could gawk at every woman with breasts that walked by.
Max had been looking past these leering teenage boys getting hot in their pants for her when she spotted the lone figure of her brother standing off to the side of a meat packing plant, an obscure figure hidden in the shadows cast from high rise buildings. She hand dismounted the Ninja, ignoring the whistles from every punk within a five-foot radius who thought she wanted to get all in their action, making her way over to Zack, which was where she now stood.
Zack didn't acknowledge her presence, keeping his eyes trained on the hole that rats bore into the wood siding of the adjacent building. His face was expressionless, leaving Max to guess what emotion, if any, he was feeling.
"How come you never told me about Maria?" Max broke the silence, her hair blowing like delicate feathers in the small wind that had just picked up. She didn't expect Zack to answer at all so he surprised her when he spoke:
"I never told anyone about her." He still wasn't looking at her, fixated by something on the wall that was more appealing to look at then Max. His words contained such feeling that if Zack had been an emotional man he would have given a desolate sounding sigh then. But instead he went directly into talking again, not allowing his sudden silence to give away anything. "I bought a piece of fruit from her father's stall in Mexico, and she was there-" A pause. "It was a mistake."
"You honestly believe that?" Max stepped closer to him, leaning the small of her back up against the rotting brick of the factory that had been built thirty years before the Pulse. "Or is that what you hafta tell yourself to keep from remembering that you had finally started to believe in phony sentimentality?" She ended her remark with the words Zack had used on her countless times because she chose to stay in Seattle right under Lydecker's radar for Logan.
"It's not that simple Maxie," Zack turned his head to her like a slow moving wrecking ball. "She was nineteen-"
"You were in love with her."
"She was just a kid-"
"Then how come you didn't let that stop you?" Max snapped quickly.
"Because I let myself be influenced by weakness," Zack answered, finally in the truth. "I let my guard down and allowed myself to be taken over by phony emotions and look where that got me?"
Max knew Zack's take on 'love.' He didn't believe it was real, it was rather something fake that was shoved at and if you accepted into its lie you were weak. It had taken a lot for him to let his guard down and care for Maria. "It got you the same place the rest of us are in Zack, the real world. You can't help who you love. Truth is you're not suppose to."
"I don't love her okay?" Zack spat.
"Then why would you care about what she said?" Max returned. "If you didn't give a damn about any of it you would've just left instead of tryin' to explain the reason things turned out the way they did between you two."
She had trapped Zack with that remark and he knew it. No amount of smart-ass backpedaling would work now. "What's love anyway Maxie?" He wasn't expecting her to answer; he just wanted to ask it because maybe it would start to make sense if it was spoken out loud. "It's nothing but a ploy. If you love someone the opposition can use them against you to get what they want. It's safer without any real ties, no one to loose, no one to cry over."
"It's also lonelier too." Max pointed out. "People weren't meant to be solitary Zack. Otherwise we'd all live on separate countries and be transsexual like earthworms. And after the offspring was born we'd ship them off to find a country of their own to inhabit."
"Hey baby! Show us your ta-tas!" The same group of teenage boys that had 'introduced' themselves to Max previously were now leering at her from their ten-speed bikes.
Zack raised his head then at glowered at the group of gawky horny teenagers. "Why don't you pricks get the hell outta here and go pop your inflatable women?" It was a request.
"Ah hell no bitch." One of the 'burlier' skinny teenagers - a five foot three beanpole with a long black ponytail with black track pants and a gray Bob Marly concert shirt - cursed at Zack for putting him down. "You lookin' to start somethin' toe head?" He had no idea that Zack was a revved up super warrior, but even without that fact Zack still outweighed the kid by at least thirty pounds in muscle. But the kid still thought he could take him. He stepped over to Zack, a pompous fool trying to act bad. "The way I see it, this is a free country." He broke off and examined Max's body with the intensity of a surgeon on his sedated patient. "And if there are certain thing I find pleasing I'm gonna appreciate it as much as I want." He shifted his gaze back up to Zack's face.
Zack would've laughed right in the reject's face, but that's not the way he did things. He kept silent as a deaf-mute and lunged out his arm to grip the neck of the stick figured teenager in front of him.
"What the hell are you doin'?" One of other boys shouted, a pimply-faced friend to the kid Zack was choking the air out of. The boy had lost all facades of his tough macho attitude from earlier and now tried to find a way to get his buddy out of the situation without either of them wetting their pants in the process.
"Appreciating the things I find pleasing." Zack's voice was nothing but a low grunting growl as his 'captive's' eyes began to become glazed over from the lack of air. The boy tried feebly to grab at Zack's hand but he kept coming up short due to the critically lessened amount of oxygen going to his brain. His face turned three shades of white and he would've passed out in Zack's grip right there, but Max yanked her brother off of the choking teenager.
"Let him go!" She finally managed to pull the two apart. Zack was only backed away by Max's maneuver but the kid fell to the crumbled graveled road gasping and grabbing at his neck.
"Wow, you got skills baby." The kids' friend stated impressed at Max's ability to handle a man he couldn't. "That's sexy as all-get-out."
Max seized him by the neck of his white cotton shirt - with the sleeves cut off and fashioned in a way to show off arm muscles he didn't even have. "You're in no position to even think you can still make it with me so I suggest you slink outta here before I grab on somethin' lower your neck." She released his shirt like she was discarding a piece of trash.
The boy took one last looking - disappointing because she wouldn't let him get what he had originally wanted - before blowing off the scene with a smack of his thin mouth. "See you around sometime girl." He walked away with a mile long smirk plastered across his face.
Max turned her attention back to Zack, but then realized that like a magician's trick he had disappeared sometime while she was interrogating the teen. She wasn't too amazed by how fast and undetected he had left because she was capable of such tactics herself. Rather she was entirely focused on one thing - Where the hell is he going?
BANGKOK, THAILAND
Mei-Mei didn't know how long she had been crouched in the alleyway, but by the time her tears had finally ceased she was covered in their dry crust and her back had gone past the point of aching to a dull tingling numbness. This made trying to stand back in an upright position incredibly difficult and incredibly painful. But she was beyond feeling any of it behind the ancient looking trash can. A lone brown rat had stopped to stare at her with it's beady charcoal colored eyes,the first rays of the rising sun shining off it's dark fur.
A garbage man in a ratty coal blue jump suit rattled his hand pulled forklift down the narrow alleyway. He stopped short when he saw the tiny woman wearing nothing but a thin orange tube dress and a man's windbreaker jacket.
(In Thai): "You can't sleep here, I need to get to get to the trash." He pushed his way behind her and yanked the metal can from behind her back so forcefully that the jagged sides of it tore across the windbreaker creating claw sized tears in the fabric. "Damn hookers." The man didn't speak to Mei-Mei directly or even looked her straight in the eye. He had seen her type plenty of times before. Nothing but cheap street trash trying to find someplace free to sleep off their sexed and drugged up bodies for the night.
Mei-Mei's legs protested greatly at her when she finally stood up. She could barely feel anything in her legs to walk away, but she didn't want to stand around this alleyway listening to a poor beggar garbage man call her a cheap floozy and a whore. She used the sides of the trashcan he was hunched over as support to get around him, which made him curse at her again for being in his way. Her actions caused the trashcan to tip on its side and spill out half of its rubbishy contents.
"Damn it woman!" The man cursed at her bending over an ancient creaking back to pick up the mess she had made. He threw back in the can several empty Thai beer bottles, empty cigarette cartons and used condoms shapped like the limp dicks they supported before they were discarded. A flash of red caught the old man's eye and he pulled out a bloodstained "Diesel" zip up hooded jacket. The front of the jacket was splattered in them in gorish surreal art patterns that coated even the steel zipper. The cotton cloth of the jacket was torn in a huge rip across the identifying 'Diesel' mark across the front of the jacket. The old man held the fabric at arms length, rotating it around to examine it, making an unpleasant face at his findings. "Designer knock off. Imitation sales people aren't even being decent with their products anymore. Look at this thin cotton, THIS is suppose to pass for Diesel?"
Mei-Mei snatched the jacket from him, not because she wanted to seize the chance at stealing the knock-off brand name, but because she recognized the clothing. The jacket was made for a child, a young boy. Even through all the tears and blood she recognized the tiny red stitch mark near the sleeve where she had sewn it up after it had snagged on a loose nail in the door frame. "Where did you get this?"
The old man looked at her curiously. "I found the damn thing floating in the water, people throw their junk everywhere. This can was the nearest place to dump it in."
"What water?" Mei-Mei demanded, grabbing the old man's arm. "Show me where!"
"Get off me woman!" The man snatched his arm away from her. He looked at her like she had just escaped from a mental institution. "You're a crazy freak!"
"Tell me where you got this!" Mei-Mei was now screaming at him waving the jacket around like it was something alive and wounded.
"Over there." The man pointed his hand out to the dirty shores where seagulls were starting to gather in uncommon over the sands.
Mei-Mei shoved past the old man and ran barefoot across the shards of broken wine cooler and beer bottles that littered the alleyway. Her entrance on the filthy beach startled the flock of seagulls foraging at something that lay just off the shoreline. They called at her angrily and scattered when she waded into the water to see what it was they were so anxious to pick at.
A large mass bobbed and floated inside the water in the shape of an enormous elongated rock, but it was much too soft to be a rock. Mei-Mei watched it bob in the translucent water for a moment, hoping that by staring at it long enough she would gain a hidden knowledge as to what it was.
The fates of the world must have sensed her thoughts because soon the heavy object rolled over to reveal that it was, in fact most defiantly not a rock.
It took a second for Mei-Mei's brain to register what she was seeing bumping against her feet, and when she finally realized what it was, she screamed.
"No!" She dove half of her body down into the water, pulling desperately on the water soaked body of her son. His body was bloated from being in the water all night and the skin had turned a sickly gray. But his face was still a healthy color, with rosy lips, completely unaffected by death.
= = = =
We all begin with good intent
Love was raw and young
We believed that we could change ourselves
The past could be undone
= = = =
The water soaked in the boy's body made him hard to pull out but Mei-Mei struggled desperately and he finally broke the surface like a rising Humpback Whale. She carried him to the shore, his feet dangling out from one side of her body.
She didn't place him on the beach and instead knelt down with the dead child in her arms, her dead child.
"Oh baby," Mei-Mei said this as a terribly sad sigh. She cradled his form like he was still an infant, holding onto his limp hand and stroking the wet black hair away from his face like she had done some many times before. She kissed his cold forehead, tasting the salt of the water he had been submerged in.
= = = =
But we carry on our backs the burden
Time always reveals
The lonely light of morning
The wound that would not heal
It's the bitter taste of losing everything
That I have held so dear
= = = =
"I love you," her voice was choked around tears as she rocked his still form. "I love you and your brother so much baby." She rested her chin atop his head and stroked his closed eyelids "I'm sorry. I should've never gotten you two involved in this."
People - tourists mostly - stopped to stare at the woman kneeling on the sand crying over the body of a little boy. The tourists with their Cannon instant cameras and bags of cheap black market merchandise backed away from the scene in stunned silence, because it was not the Go-Go bars and ancient history the travel agents promised them they would see when they booked their flights to this country. But a few of the local residents came foward and dropped paper 'bat' currency notes beside her on the sand to help pay for a burial plot, some offering a few words from Budda on the afterlife.
Mei-Mei said nothing to the village people and stall owners who approcahed her. Her eyes never wavered from her son's and she pulled him up higher on her body trying to find a whiff of his scent that the ocean and the decomposition hadn't washed away.
= = = =
Though I've tried, I've fallen...
I have sunk so low
I have messed up
Better I should know
So don't come round here
And tell me I told you so...
= = = =
CRASH
12: 35 AM
Jondy had wandered into the bar again and now sat at the graffito tagged bar sipping on their pathetic excuse for 'light beer'.
"This where the loners hang out?" Max approached the bar with her own beer mug secured in her hand.
"Guess so if you're here." Jondy stated watching Max slid into the stool next to her. "Shouldn't you be hangin' out with your man?"
Max did not appreciate being asked that. "We're allowed to do things on our own. It's called being two separate people."
"So basically you had a spat." Jondy said in her best 'talk show analysis' voice. She shrugged a second later. "Men are scum sometimes." She took a hit from her mug. But then she turned back to face her sister, as if she had changed her mind on her last statement. "Not to downplay Logan, he's a chivalrous charmer." A pause. "Just that most men in general have one thing on their brain, and it ain't about bringin' home the bacon, it's about bringin' home the heat."
"Are you drunk?" Max asked hearing a slight slur in Jondy's voice.
"So what if I am?" Jondy returned, not caring about her status on the breathalyzer scale. "I'm X5, I can handle the hooch better then any of the slackers here. I think that entitles me to a little plaster time." She took another gulping swig off her beer and licked the foam off of her lip. "Don't know about you Maxie but I'm into that fine lookin' specimen that's been eyein' me from across the room." Jondy raised her eyebrows seductively at the six foot tall African-American with a clean-shaven head wearing a camo green tank and black multipocket baggy pants. The man smiled at her again in a way that told her he thought she was hot and he wanted some of it.
Max looked to where Jondy was staring. "He's nice." She agreed on the looks of her admirer. "But you're a drink away from bein' completely faded girl, you sure you wanna initiate a hook up?"
"Defiantly." Jondy notified. "Not gonna let my brother be the only male who got into my pants this week." She took a last drink from her mug and set it down on the bar motioning with one long finger for the guy across the way to come over.
= = = =
He was a 6-foot stallion with the story of a thug
He was the kind that made you wonder how he put down the love
He had a hickey in his pocket wit that rock in his ear
He made my heart stop palpitating every time he came near
He has a spankin new Range for that tight wardrobe
His pants was saggin, he was plaided, and his head was cornrows
He has his wrists bling blinging and his long legs was bow
He tried to push up on me but I knew he had me at go
= = = =
"What's your name?" Jondy said in sultry come on once the man was standing in front of her.
"Trey," The guy responded letting his eyes travel all up Jondy's long legs hidden in washed out hipster low rider jeans, up her stomach showing slightly through her scarlet red tank top abd finally to her full breasts that hung just below the deep 'U' cut of her shirt.
"You like what you see?" Jondy asked of Trey's eye roam.
= = = =
I Do, I wonder if you feel the same way I do
I can see it in your eyes, I entice you
So come on shorty if you think you can roll
Wit an iced out playah ballin out of control
= = = =
"You're tight baby girl." Trey answered, now finding his home gaze on her blue-green eyes.
"Good." Jondy said in an approving commanding tone. She removed her leather jacket to reveal her well-toned, well-tanned arms - an action that Trey appreciated very much. "Let's hit the floor."
Jondy brushed up against Trey when she passed him leaving him hot and grinning like a fool and thinking: 'Dayum' as he followed her out to the dance floor.
= = = =
Watch me drop, drop, shake it for the fellahs who know
Watch me pop, pop my ass as I dip and roll
Watch me stop, stop traffic as I walk through the room
Knowin all the papi's want me but all I want is you
= = = =
Max watched Jondy lead Trey on the floor, knowing full well that her only intentions with the man were for nothing but getting him into hot sex. It was what Original Cindy had told her once before - 'you got an itch, go scratch'. Jondy was no prude. She had no qualms whatsoever about fueling out her rage and anger underneath an anonymous hot man. And with her body and smooth talking attitude the men she picked up were more then happy to indulge her.
"Hey Max," Sketchy came up her, already drunk and holding a fifth beer in his hand. "Can I interest you in some fine imported alcohol?" He waved his almost full beer mug at her.
"No thanks Sketch." Max returned, brushing off the beer with one hand. "Think I'm just gonna go home." She paid for her beer, leaving unfinished on the counter.
"Well I'll be here all night if you change your mind." Sketchy announced in a drunk tone, holding himself at a slightly askewed angle as he watched her ascend the stairs out to her motorcycle.
FOGGLE TOWERS
Logan lay on his side on his bed, about to drift off when he heard his bedroom door being opened. He flipped on the ornate lacquer beside table lamp and reached inside his drawer for his gun that he kept in there at night.
"It's me." Max raised her hand in the air seeing the weapon hidden in his drawer halfway pulled out.
"Max." Logan squinted momentarily in the light. He released the gun handle and closed the drawer. "What time is it?" He sat up completely.
"Almost one." She answered shedding her leather jacket and throwing it in against an antique looking cherry wood high backed hair. "All the lights were off so I figured you were in here asleep, or possibly working on some covert Eyes Only project that couldn't wait until morning." While she talked she had removed her shoes and her royal blue sweater and was not down to a white cotton singlet and army green twill low riders.
"You placed a lot of trust on the belief that I wouldn't think you were a burglar and let you in here." Logan stated, watching her set her shed clothing next to her jacket on the chair.
"Logan I am a burglar remember?" Max reminded. "And you wouldn't have to let me in. I can pick the lock myself should the need arise for me to come in when you're not available." She walked around to the vacant spot next to the bed and pulled back the navy blue comforter and slid in beside him.
"I feel so much better now." Logan said, feeling Max back up into his body underneath the blanket. He indulged her more and pulled her to him and draped an arm across her stomach. He had no idea what had made her decide to had come here tonight, but he knew that in her own way she was trying to make amends for the fight they had that morning. She wouldn't never openly admit it, that's not the woman she was, and it wasn't all her fault to apologize for. He had had his part in it as well.
"Jondy was puttin' the moves on an unnamed playa tonight at Crash and I wasn't in the mood to stick around for the ensuing sex so I decided to bounce." Max didn't look up from the pillow she was laying on when she said this.
"Well I'm glad you decided to bounce here." Logan spoke above her, watching her turn to him at his choice of words. "Because I want you to always take the phrase: 'my door is always open for you Max' as completely literal."
Max felt a smile creep up on her face at this. "Can't get any more 'literal' then spoonin' up in your bed." She propped her head up on her elbow, waiting a long silenced moment for what she was about to say next. "Zack loved Maria." She still had no idea where he had gone, but she could recall every second of their conversation that afternoon. "In his own way he was tryin' to protect her. If Manticore got wind of their relationship they would use Maria to get to him. Lydecker never cared about who he had to maime and murder in order to reach us."
"He still owes her an explanation." Logan insisted, rubbing her stomach underneath her tank, not to seduce her, but because he liked to be close to he body. "She deserves to know the truth about that day."
"People make up the truth as they go along," Max informed. "Whatever they have the strongest conviction in is the center of it. And if their ideals change so does their 'truth'."
"Are you saying that Maria should just keep believing that Zack betrayed her because of an idiotic fear of panic that gripped him at seeing the guerilla soldiers kidnapped her?"
"I'm saying not everyone can handle the ultimate reality of a situation." Max returned. Their banter hadn't changed even while they were sharing the same bed in what was suppose to be an intimate moment. "You think if Maria knew that a death squad could be launched on her at any time in order to get to Zack she would have even been with him?" She paused to look up at him, answering his next question before he could ask it. "It was different with you. You're a rich liberal intellectual white guy in what's left of upper class America, you figured out the threats I posed to you all by yourself. Maria was a poor girl from Mexico. To her Zack was a handsome American she thought would take her out of her slum and into a better life. She had no way of knowing that he led this entire secret life with black helicopters and military convoy's on his tail, and if she did she would never understand it."
Logan took in this statement, watching Max breath, knowing that she had been right the entire time and he was just too proud to admit it. She and Zack came from the same horrendous past and even though it was over ten years behind him there were certain scars that ran too deep to try and ignore. Zack shouldn't have lied to Maria, but that was just the man he was. He wasn't about to change a lifetime of ideals for a girl he had only known for five days. Logan leaned over and kissed Max silently, long and sensual, but not seductive because he was offering her his form off apology.
= = = =
Oh, Oh I've
Never felt this way
How do you give me so much pleasure
And cause me so much pain
Just when I think
I've takin' more than would a fool
I start falling
back in love with you
= = = =
Logan cupped her face with one hand when he pulled apart. "I understand you." He pulled a strand of hair away from her mouth leaning down to capture her mouth again, this time feeling her remove her head from her arm and maneuver her way underneath his body, responding passionatly to his kiss.
= = = =
I keep on fallin'
In and out
Of love-with you
= = = =
Zack sat staring out at the broken city on top of the Space Needle. He had found Max's old haunt easily, remembering her fascination with high places. He had climbed up the rickety wrought iron ladder to the graffiti covered surface of what use to be one of Seattle's most prominent marks of tourism.
He had one hand out in front of him, examining what lay laced in-between his fingers - a tiny gold crucifix on a thin gold rope chain. Maria had left on the crap of a night stand the last night they had been together in Mexico because the clasp had broke. He had intended to give it back to her before the next morning, but then the guerilla soldiers came and he was left holding it watching Maria as they drove her away.
= = = =
I never
Loved someone
The Way that I-love you...
= = = =
(FADE OUT)
No Cree in this one, sorry. I had to address a lot of other issues, but she'll appear first in the next chaper. I realize the story centeres around her, but the story isn' over yet.
Songs used are:
Opening Scene: "So Far Away" (Staind)
Mei-Mei discovering the body of her son:"Fallen" (Sarah McLaughlin)
Jondy flirting at Crash: "I Do" (Toya)
Ending scene: "Fallin'" (Alicia Keys)
R/R please.
A/N: This one is for Sammie, who wanted more M/L, which I've been neglecting in trying to focus more on a deeper plot. But now I realize that a good Dark Angel story has a mixture of both. And also for Tab, who never fails to review my work.
FOGGLE TOWERS
"Here." Max held out a set of jeans and red sweater for Maria, who was still wearing pajamas. Cree had gotten a ride with Ty back to her hotel room, or at least that was the story she was telling everyone.
Maria took the clothes hesitantly. "Gracias." She fingered them for a moment, almost as if she was unsure as to what to do with them. Zack had stormed out of the penthouse two hours ago and his absence left an awkward feeling inside of her. Not exactly like she missed him and was ready to forgive his betrayal, but a sense of something unfinished. (In Spanish): "You're his sister?"
"Si." Max answered her in Spanish.
"You don't look anything alike." Maria concluded. Zack was a blonde, well built, but a pale white man and Max was totally the opposite of that with long brown hair and dark skin. Max mentioned nothing of them being adopted siblings, leaving Maria to believe that they were related by blood.
(In Spanish:) "Similarities are sometimes hidden below the surface." Max returned softly.
Logan approached the two women, looking towards Maria, and then - in an action that surprised Max - he spoke in Spanish to Maria: "You can stay here as long as you need too."
Maria's eyes showed gratitude. (In Spanish:) "Thank you Sir, but I can't put you and your wife in danger anymore." Maria had automatically jumped the gun and assumed that Max and Logan were married.
"We want to help you." Logan responded back, not correcting Maria on her mistake about his marital status. "You're not imposing at all."
Maria's eyes betrayed the fact she didn't really believe Logan's statement to be true, but she didn't say anything to that effect. "May I please use your bathroom?"
Logan nodded at her, a gentle expression on his face. "It's down the hall, second door on the left."
"Thank you." Maria said again politely, moving past the two other people and out of the living room.
Max turned to Logan after Maria had left, a surprised expression on her face. "I didn't know you could speak Spanish."
"I didn't know you could either." Logan returned, reminding her that she had been speaking Spanish to Maria all morning.
"It wouldn't be good for an advanced killing machine to stick out in a location by not knowing the local dialect." Max stated the blatant facts of exactly why she knew a vast amount of different languages. "What about you?" Max questioned Logan's reason for knowing Spanish.
"I studied it in college." Logan confessed. "It was an elective."
"I can see how Spanish comes in handy in the covert man-on-a-mission occupation. You might have to negotiate the release of the Ambassador from Spain by local terrorist cells one day, or maybe get an order at a Spanish restaurant."
Logan laughed quietly despite himself. "I could see how it could come in handy for you. I mean the prospects of you being able to talk dirty in another language is something of a turn on." He said all of this with a completely straight face.
Max turned to him with a shocked expression. "Did Logan Cale, defender of truth, justice resurrecting the American way just admit that he enjoys a little verbal scankiness?"
"I don't have an appreciation for it Max, no. But then again you could say 'zygomatic embryos' and I still would find it incredibly sexy. It's not the nine hundred call girl voice I'm attracted to anyway, you just have certain charisma in your voice."
"First of all zygotes aren't embryos," Max corrected him. "Zygotes are the one celled organisms formed immediately after conception. Embryos are formed between three to six weeks after the zygote phase. " She paused for a moment after her biology lesson was finished. "Define what you mean by a 'nine hundred voice.'" She was eyeing him with a look that told him he'd better come up with an answer that didn't involve adult spanking.
"At the risk of a verbal ass kicking I'm going to have to deny that request." Logan answered her in the safest way he knew how, not knowing exactly how they had gotten on their current line of conversation.
"If I'd a found out you were connecting with Silicon Valley there'd be more of physical ass kicking involved."
"Freudian Slip." Logan stated matter-of-factly. "It's what accidents are made of."
"If accidents are accidents why do they feel so contrived?" Max returned. She rested one hand against her hip that was jutting out from her posture, shooting him a raised eyebrow look.
"That's something you'll have to ask those in authority who write the rule books, not us lowly mortals who just read from their pages."
"Zeus and Hera are on a break so I can't," Max stepped closer to him. "And I don't consider you a 'lowly mortal.' More like a member of the nobility who gave up his fortune and ivory tower to join the rest of us out in the real world and better humanity at the same time." She slinked one arm his neck in a slow seduction, then added the other one.
"One minute I'm a groveling peasant and the next minute I'm a born again defender of the stricken and down trodden?" His hands found a place low on her hips, feeling the hard round bone of the clavicle housed beneath a solid wall of flesh. Her skin was warm beneath his fingertips, even through the fabric of her clothes, and he was fighting to restrain himself from letting his hands wander further.
"Let's not go nuts with the 'born again' solo thing." Max informed, her eyes shifting to a darker, more sensual look. "You do have some help in the leg work department."
Logan removed one of his hands from her waist and moved it to caresses a tendril of her hair. He said: "It's not your legs that I'm interested in right now." He pulled forward and kissed her.
The kiss was warm which turned warmer and then turned red hot when Max felt Logan slid his hands all over her back.
It was this scene that Maria came into after she was done in the bathroom. "Ay." She made this sound to indicate her presence in the room.
Logan broke the kiss, looking over to the other woman. (In Spanish:) "Sorry. We didn't see you."
Maria looked at him with a faint hint of amusement on her face. "That's very obvious Sir. Though I understand how love goes." Her tone dropped down to a sad sound at the mention of the word 'love'. She didn't even really believe she knew real love. She thought she knew love with Zack, and it seemed so simple then. She'd meet a man on the street and if there was physical attraction she'd make it with him. Maria knew the power of a pretty face and a well-sculpted body, and if the man liked what was underneath the flesh he'd stay, maybe long enough to profess vows of love. But Zack was far more complicated then she realized. He didn't wait for her on bended knee; he stood in the middle of a pounding rainstorm and waited for her get up the nerve to find him out there. "But maybe I was wrong." Her last remark was so quiet that it was only barely above simply mouthing the words.
"I wouldn't hold yourself to that remark," Max said, moving away from Logan, but just slightly. "Emotions don't come with manuals on correct procedures to follow. They're just what they are."
"You're his sister," Maria said in reply, turning to face Max completely. "Do you think he loves me?"
This was a question that Max couldn't answer right away. She couldn't explain to Maria the deep meaning of the word 'love' to a man like Zack, and Maria obviously didn't know about his past to understand why Max would answer the way she would. So she went for a safer route, one with less questions. "Can't say, I don't know the nature of your relationship."
Maria chewed on this for a moment like a stale piece of rye bread before she spoke again:"I think he wanted to love me, I could see it in his eyes. But there was always something that held him back. He always seemed so - " she bit her bottom lip while she searched for a moment for the right word that would convey her feelings, but not make Zack look bad. "Scarred." Even after she had said the word she still wondered if was an accurate description. "I see soldiers assigned to our village with the same look Zack has, the face of a man who has seen the cold cruelty of death."
"That's something you're no stranger to yourself." Logan reminded Maria. He spoke to her in soft tones so she wouldn't think he was taking a cruel hit on her.
Maria shifted her gaze to him. Her eyes held wisdom far greater then her years, one that was forced upon her from where she had been. "Everything that's happened to me, things I can't even talk about, all that doesn't even equal the pain I see behind his eyes."
The look in Max's eyes changed after Maria said this; it was something she knew painfully too well. But before Max could say anything Maria started speaking again: "Thank you, for all that you've done. You've been very generous but I can't knowingly put either of you in danger anymore. I have to leave."
"Where are you gonna go?" Max cut in. "Those men already have a hit on you. They're not just gonna let it slid that you slipped through their fingers."
"It's my problem okay?" Maria responded. "I don't expect you to get involved."
"You want a relationship with my brother-" Max said, in a quiet reprimanding tone. "So I am involved. Zack may have hurt you in the past, but that kind of screw job is not give and take, he deserves more then that."
"I don't want a relationship with your brother!" Maria spat back so forcefully she had to take a moment to collect herself before speaking. "I don't want to understand the reasoning behind why I stayed with him, not anymore. I slept with him when I was nineteen, I was young and naive, holding out for some damn gallant American to carry me away to a fairytale! But Zack just watched those men drag me off and then I spent the next two and a half years being screwed by every American man who had fifteen pesos and a hard on." She paused for a moment before continuing: "I don't want to love him, but he loves me, I know he does."
"You're a liar." Max hissed defensively, taking a dominating step in front of Maria. "You threw yourself all over Zack the second you caught sight of him with the entire 'lost love' mantra throw in for free, and now you're in denial about whether or not what you had was real?"
"I was surprised." Maria defended, "I didn't know I would ever see him again."
"I'm not a very patient person Maria, so why don't you cut the crap?" Max growled.
"Max-" Logan tried to reach for her arm, but she snapped out of his grip and moved closer to Maria.
"Spending two years of your life being humped everyway but sideways by a bunch of biker club rejects gave you enough time to establish a value system for decent men." Max said. She was now right up in the other woman's face. She went on: "And I hate to break this to you but that whole gallant all American boy ideal is a load of B.S. Zack isn't perfect by a ten mile stone throw but he cared for you, and if you took your head out of your own ass for five seconds you would see that you weren't the only one that was tormented when you were taken by those men."
Maria stared long and hard at Max, taking in the verbal lashing she had just received. "I still can't forgive him for what he did. He left me there to die!"
"Yeah well you don't look dead to me." Max hissed.
"He knowingly put me in danger!" Maria snapped back.
"People knowingly put themselves in danger everyday by taking stupid risks like crossing the street at the wrong moment or staying out too late with a guy at the bar. They had a consciousness decision in their own actions, and most people don't want the man on the street feelin' sorry for them. Now I'm not saying that you had a choice in this but explain to me the perks of takin' pity on your sad violin song of a life?"
"Excuse us for a moment." Logan cut in, urging Max to move out of his living room with his eyes.
Max shot him an angry looked but complied, feeling his hand softly on the small of her back guiding her out.
They walked past the living room and into the hallway where Logan's bedroom sat just beyond a closed dark stain wooden door.
"What are you doing?" He turned to face her once they reached the hallway. "It's been my experience if you're trying to coax an escaped victim of sexual trafficking to seek shelter at your apartment you don't have your girlfriend make verbal assaults on her character."
"I don't care Logan," Max growled in a low voice, her eyes dead on him. "Maria doesn't own the whole damn corner on shitty pasts."
"So you decided an appropriate course of action would be to dress her down about the nature of a relationship you know nothing about?"
"I know my brother," Max returned.
"He watched the men drag her off. Forgive me, but that sounds like something where I would favor Maria as the victim in this, not Zack."
"Back there we were taught to never engage in a situation that would put us at risk for exposure, I'm sure that was running through Zack's mind when he witnessed radical government soldiers take Maria hostage."
"So she had to suffer because Zack's still back Manticore?"
"It's not something you can turn off light a light switch." Max's voice was rising now, and she was right up in his face the same way she had been with Maria. "We're all back at Manticore at some point, in that dark room where nothing makes a whole hell of a lot of sense. You of all people should understand that."
"I'm sorry," Logan said in a higher pitch giving an exaggerated shrug. "But I can't understand a situation that warrants treating a former victim like she's a criminal."
"Then you don't understand me." Max brushed past him and stepped into the living room to grab her jacket.
Logan stepped into the hallway, watching her slip on her leather jacket.
"I gotta go to work." Max snapped.
"Max-" Logan said stepping closer to her, but she ignored him and went to the door.
She opened the door, but stopped before she went out it, saying: "Call me if you come up with anything that'll get her to Mexico." Her eyes shifted over to Maria quickly before the door closed behind her.
= = = =
This is my life
Its not what it was before
All these feelings I've shared
and these are my dreams
That I'd never lived before
Somebody shake me
'Cause I
I must be sleeping
= = = =
Logan watched her, sighing in the back of his throat and lowering his chin to his chest. His eyes turned back to Maria who was watching him.
= = = =
Now that we're here,
It's so far away
All the struggle we thought was in vain
All the mistakes,
One life contained
= = = =
They all finally start to go away
Now that we're here its so far away
And I feel like I can face the day I can forgive
And I'm not ashamed to be the person that I am today
= = =
SEATTLE POLICE DEPARTMENT
45TH PRECINCT
"Hey baby," Ming spoke into the black-corded office phone to Jade. She was sitting in one of the mustard green plastic school type chairs in the break room at the police station. Across a long chipped white painted countertop rested an ancient white GE coffee maker. A desk cop had poured a cup of coffee for Ming and it rested beside the appliance - in a green glazed ceramic mug - still untouched beside an opened quart carton of half and half and three blue packets of Equal sugar substitute.
"Mom," Jade's voice was elated. She was sitting on a stool in their living room drinking a soda a working on her Trigonometry homework. "I'm glad you called. I missed you."
"I miss you guys too." Ming admitted. "Is dad around?"
"No dad's at work. Some electrician is coming to wire that wall he's building so he had to get an early start."
"Damn," Ming cursed. "I was hoping to get a chance to talk to him."
"Hey I'm here," Jade reminded.
"I guess you'll have to do."
"Mom." Jade stated in that tone only an exasperated teenager could pull off.
"Kidding baby relax. So-" Ming paused for a moment as she thought about her next remark. "How's school?"
"If you're calling to check up on me you need a better cover then fussing over my grades."
"Humor me okay?"
"School's fine. Mr. Preston gave me a D on one of my Art History tests, but that's only because he didn't have his glasses on when he graded them. I confronted him about it today after class and he said he would re-grade it."
"So what was the final score?"
"B plus. Not perfect, but getting there."
Ming smiled from her end. "I thought Sam Richardson was your art history teacher?"
"She is." Jade answered. "But Ms. Sam had a family emergency so she took off two weeks, and stuck us with Mr. Ulinmyer Preston. The man is sixty-five years old and keeps telling us how he's only substituting to make ends meet, but he really hates every minute of it."
"That's comforting," Ming responded."I hope Sam's family problem isn't serious. I really like her."
"Me too. I don't think it's that big a deal. She told me she has a large family, eleven brothers and sisters, maybe she was just looking for an excuse to go see them."
"Wow," Ming was in awe of the number. "I'll say that's a large family."
"How's Cree?" Jade asked.
"She's doin' good. She misses you and dad."
"I have that effect on everyone."
"Jadayan Sedeyra Amston, don't make me come through this phone and smack the pretty off you." Ming laughed through her words. Jadayan was Jade's full name, but Cree took to calling her Jade for short when Jade was a baby and the name stuck.
"I guess you're the exception to the rule." Jade kidded her mom. "I miss Cree too." She changed the subject. "It seems like she just came back and now she's gone again."
"Sure she'll be glad to know she's appreciated that much. Listen baby I hate to cut this short but I have to talk some sense into the Seattle Police Department."
"No rest for the anti-corruptor lady huh?"
"Where'd you hear that phrase?"
"Dad."
"Tell him I said 'hi' and hit him upside the head for me?"
"Will do."
"Okay baby, I love you."
"I love you too mom, bye."
"Bye." Ming hung up the phone.
"Excuse me Officer Amston?" A young wet behind the ears cop entered the break room standing in the still opened doorway. "Detective Ruiz is asking for you."
Ming stood up from her chair, checking out this man, boy actually. He was not much older then nineteen, with cropped sandy brown hair and a baby face that only now seemed to be thinning out into a manly look. "Does the lackey position come before or after the training?"
"Its kind of there for the entire duration." The young cop - who's gold plated nametag read 'Margolis' - joked around with Ming, even offering her a light smile.
"Must be a Seattle thing." Ming fell into joking with the fellow police officer. She stretched her long arms over her head like a Siamese Cat, turning to face Margolis when she felt the young man's eyes on her in more then just a casual observance. She said: "Did the Detective say what he wanted?"
"No ma'am." Margolis informed, keeping his distance from Ming, but not hiding the look of pleasure in his eyes at her physique inside her clothes. "I was just asked to come get you, I assume he wants to talk shop. Det. Ruiz is very by the book when it comes to police work."
"Then I better not keep him waiting." Ming said. She grabbed her leather jacket from where it was draped over the back of the chair she had been sitting at. She hung it over her left arm and took just one step towards Margolis prior to speaking to him again: "This isn't the Army or a fancy restaurant Officer Margolis. You can drop the 'ma'am' and call me Ming, or Officer Amston if you want. But I'm telling you right now that I'm married so you're also gonna have to drop the 'pick up' voice if we're gonna be working together, understand?"
"Yes ma'am, er-Ming-Amston. Yes Officer Amston, I understand." Margolis responded around his being tongue-tied. He was mentally letting his collar loose so he could breathe easier.
"Good." Ming responded with a slight nod of her head before she left the break room.
Margolis watched her go out, whistling under his breath at the effects her confrontation had on him.
"You wanted to see me Detective Ruiz?" Ming's voice reached Ruiz's ears and he looked up from the file he was examining.
"Yeah." Ruiz responded in an authoritative voice, pointing at an empty cushioned seat in front of his desk with the tip of a pencil. "Take a seat Amston." He closed the manila folder and placed it to the side on top of a stack of blank traffic violation reports. "You want some coffee or something?"
"No I'm good." Ming responded, sliding into the chair with the ease of butter melting in a pan. "I take it you've managed to find someplace in this dank cess pool to put my girls and you're ready to tell me about it?"
Ruiz nodded before he spoke, grimacing internally at Ming calling his precinct a cess pool. "There were a couple of un-used interrogation rooms beside Block D that I set them up in."
"With sufficient luxuries I hope." Ming threw in.
"If by that you mean we gave them showers and a place to piss it's all taken care of."
"So I guess you're work is done now huh?" Ming asked, not meaning it to be a compliment.
"You asked me to find them a place to stay and that's what I did." Ruiz said leaning over his desk before speaking to Ming again: "In case you've forgotten the economy's in a rescission right now so I can't just book them into a suite at the Marriott."
"No it's fine." Ming reassured, dropping her voice down from the 'don't mess with me' cop tone it had been at earlier. "I appreciate everything you've done for us Detective I really do, I just -" She looked down at her hands like a timid little girl telling a police officer where she last saw her puppy. "I don't want these women to fall through the cracks." She finished, looking back up to Ruiz with piercing eyes. "This kind of crime kinda hits home for me."
Ruiz agreed with her silently, giving the moment the quiet reflection it deserved before addressing her again. "Believe me Officer Amston, I understand about having to work on a crime like, there's no black and white way to deal with it, and the fact that you had a daughter in this same situation makes it that much tougher."
Ming snapped her head up when he said this in shock. She silently demanded to know how the hell a Seattle Police Department Detective found out about Cree.
"We were the precinct that busted Jack Warren for forced solicitation." Ruiz gave an explanation to Ming's unspoken question. "Detective Matt Sung and I interrogated him for four hours to get out any names of the girls he sold off. He bragged to no ends about his first score on his girlfriend." Ruiz blinked. "You two have the same last name so it was just a matter of adding two and two. Plus the number of times your daughter came to beat down on Warren's ass outside our holding cell kinda tipped us off."
"Cree doesn't get all the credit for that. I had my part in the ass kicking too." Ming said and leaned back a little in her chair. She picked up a ballpoint pen with a blue lid off of Ruiz desk and twirled it in her fingers. "I want round the clock protection for these girls."
"I can only give you the guys who are on desk work." Ruiz notified "I barely have enough officers to cover the shit that goes on outside as it is without having to keep some off the streets to pull guard duty."
"Just make sure there's someone there at all times." Ming returned, setting the pen back down on the desk. "And see to it that whoever you get for this job understands that these women are not to be treated like street hooker trash." It wasn't a request.
Ruiz was silent for a moment and then stood up from his desk."C'mon." He waited for Ming to do the same. "I show you where they are." He held out his arm and let Ming pass him in an act of politeness towards a woman. "We can hammer out the details on the way."
"Hey, ya know there's a no loiterin' law here." Max had not intended to find Zack. It just sort of happened after she had left Logan's penthouse. She was on her bike, barely pushing it above a cruising speed due to the insurmountable amount of traffic that was clogging up the roads. The sides of the roads were packed with the usual group of stray teenage boys who decided that their home away from was the edge of the pavement so they could gawk at every woman with breasts that walked by.
Max had been looking past these leering teenage boys getting hot in their pants for her when she spotted the lone figure of her brother standing off to the side of a meat packing plant, an obscure figure hidden in the shadows cast from high rise buildings. She hand dismounted the Ninja, ignoring the whistles from every punk within a five-foot radius who thought she wanted to get all in their action, making her way over to Zack, which was where she now stood.
Zack didn't acknowledge her presence, keeping his eyes trained on the hole that rats bore into the wood siding of the adjacent building. His face was expressionless, leaving Max to guess what emotion, if any, he was feeling.
"How come you never told me about Maria?" Max broke the silence, her hair blowing like delicate feathers in the small wind that had just picked up. She didn't expect Zack to answer at all so he surprised her when he spoke:
"I never told anyone about her." He still wasn't looking at her, fixated by something on the wall that was more appealing to look at then Max. His words contained such feeling that if Zack had been an emotional man he would have given a desolate sounding sigh then. But instead he went directly into talking again, not allowing his sudden silence to give away anything. "I bought a piece of fruit from her father's stall in Mexico, and she was there-" A pause. "It was a mistake."
"You honestly believe that?" Max stepped closer to him, leaning the small of her back up against the rotting brick of the factory that had been built thirty years before the Pulse. "Or is that what you hafta tell yourself to keep from remembering that you had finally started to believe in phony sentimentality?" She ended her remark with the words Zack had used on her countless times because she chose to stay in Seattle right under Lydecker's radar for Logan.
"It's not that simple Maxie," Zack turned his head to her like a slow moving wrecking ball. "She was nineteen-"
"You were in love with her."
"She was just a kid-"
"Then how come you didn't let that stop you?" Max snapped quickly.
"Because I let myself be influenced by weakness," Zack answered, finally in the truth. "I let my guard down and allowed myself to be taken over by phony emotions and look where that got me?"
Max knew Zack's take on 'love.' He didn't believe it was real, it was rather something fake that was shoved at and if you accepted into its lie you were weak. It had taken a lot for him to let his guard down and care for Maria. "It got you the same place the rest of us are in Zack, the real world. You can't help who you love. Truth is you're not suppose to."
"I don't love her okay?" Zack spat.
"Then why would you care about what she said?" Max returned. "If you didn't give a damn about any of it you would've just left instead of tryin' to explain the reason things turned out the way they did between you two."
She had trapped Zack with that remark and he knew it. No amount of smart-ass backpedaling would work now. "What's love anyway Maxie?" He wasn't expecting her to answer; he just wanted to ask it because maybe it would start to make sense if it was spoken out loud. "It's nothing but a ploy. If you love someone the opposition can use them against you to get what they want. It's safer without any real ties, no one to loose, no one to cry over."
"It's also lonelier too." Max pointed out. "People weren't meant to be solitary Zack. Otherwise we'd all live on separate countries and be transsexual like earthworms. And after the offspring was born we'd ship them off to find a country of their own to inhabit."
"Hey baby! Show us your ta-tas!" The same group of teenage boys that had 'introduced' themselves to Max previously were now leering at her from their ten-speed bikes.
Zack raised his head then at glowered at the group of gawky horny teenagers. "Why don't you pricks get the hell outta here and go pop your inflatable women?" It was a request.
"Ah hell no bitch." One of the 'burlier' skinny teenagers - a five foot three beanpole with a long black ponytail with black track pants and a gray Bob Marly concert shirt - cursed at Zack for putting him down. "You lookin' to start somethin' toe head?" He had no idea that Zack was a revved up super warrior, but even without that fact Zack still outweighed the kid by at least thirty pounds in muscle. But the kid still thought he could take him. He stepped over to Zack, a pompous fool trying to act bad. "The way I see it, this is a free country." He broke off and examined Max's body with the intensity of a surgeon on his sedated patient. "And if there are certain thing I find pleasing I'm gonna appreciate it as much as I want." He shifted his gaze back up to Zack's face.
Zack would've laughed right in the reject's face, but that's not the way he did things. He kept silent as a deaf-mute and lunged out his arm to grip the neck of the stick figured teenager in front of him.
"What the hell are you doin'?" One of other boys shouted, a pimply-faced friend to the kid Zack was choking the air out of. The boy had lost all facades of his tough macho attitude from earlier and now tried to find a way to get his buddy out of the situation without either of them wetting their pants in the process.
"Appreciating the things I find pleasing." Zack's voice was nothing but a low grunting growl as his 'captive's' eyes began to become glazed over from the lack of air. The boy tried feebly to grab at Zack's hand but he kept coming up short due to the critically lessened amount of oxygen going to his brain. His face turned three shades of white and he would've passed out in Zack's grip right there, but Max yanked her brother off of the choking teenager.
"Let him go!" She finally managed to pull the two apart. Zack was only backed away by Max's maneuver but the kid fell to the crumbled graveled road gasping and grabbing at his neck.
"Wow, you got skills baby." The kids' friend stated impressed at Max's ability to handle a man he couldn't. "That's sexy as all-get-out."
Max seized him by the neck of his white cotton shirt - with the sleeves cut off and fashioned in a way to show off arm muscles he didn't even have. "You're in no position to even think you can still make it with me so I suggest you slink outta here before I grab on somethin' lower your neck." She released his shirt like she was discarding a piece of trash.
The boy took one last looking - disappointing because she wouldn't let him get what he had originally wanted - before blowing off the scene with a smack of his thin mouth. "See you around sometime girl." He walked away with a mile long smirk plastered across his face.
Max turned her attention back to Zack, but then realized that like a magician's trick he had disappeared sometime while she was interrogating the teen. She wasn't too amazed by how fast and undetected he had left because she was capable of such tactics herself. Rather she was entirely focused on one thing - Where the hell is he going?
BANGKOK, THAILAND
Mei-Mei didn't know how long she had been crouched in the alleyway, but by the time her tears had finally ceased she was covered in their dry crust and her back had gone past the point of aching to a dull tingling numbness. This made trying to stand back in an upright position incredibly difficult and incredibly painful. But she was beyond feeling any of it behind the ancient looking trash can. A lone brown rat had stopped to stare at her with it's beady charcoal colored eyes,the first rays of the rising sun shining off it's dark fur.
A garbage man in a ratty coal blue jump suit rattled his hand pulled forklift down the narrow alleyway. He stopped short when he saw the tiny woman wearing nothing but a thin orange tube dress and a man's windbreaker jacket.
(In Thai): "You can't sleep here, I need to get to get to the trash." He pushed his way behind her and yanked the metal can from behind her back so forcefully that the jagged sides of it tore across the windbreaker creating claw sized tears in the fabric. "Damn hookers." The man didn't speak to Mei-Mei directly or even looked her straight in the eye. He had seen her type plenty of times before. Nothing but cheap street trash trying to find someplace free to sleep off their sexed and drugged up bodies for the night.
Mei-Mei's legs protested greatly at her when she finally stood up. She could barely feel anything in her legs to walk away, but she didn't want to stand around this alleyway listening to a poor beggar garbage man call her a cheap floozy and a whore. She used the sides of the trashcan he was hunched over as support to get around him, which made him curse at her again for being in his way. Her actions caused the trashcan to tip on its side and spill out half of its rubbishy contents.
"Damn it woman!" The man cursed at her bending over an ancient creaking back to pick up the mess she had made. He threw back in the can several empty Thai beer bottles, empty cigarette cartons and used condoms shapped like the limp dicks they supported before they were discarded. A flash of red caught the old man's eye and he pulled out a bloodstained "Diesel" zip up hooded jacket. The front of the jacket was splattered in them in gorish surreal art patterns that coated even the steel zipper. The cotton cloth of the jacket was torn in a huge rip across the identifying 'Diesel' mark across the front of the jacket. The old man held the fabric at arms length, rotating it around to examine it, making an unpleasant face at his findings. "Designer knock off. Imitation sales people aren't even being decent with their products anymore. Look at this thin cotton, THIS is suppose to pass for Diesel?"
Mei-Mei snatched the jacket from him, not because she wanted to seize the chance at stealing the knock-off brand name, but because she recognized the clothing. The jacket was made for a child, a young boy. Even through all the tears and blood she recognized the tiny red stitch mark near the sleeve where she had sewn it up after it had snagged on a loose nail in the door frame. "Where did you get this?"
The old man looked at her curiously. "I found the damn thing floating in the water, people throw their junk everywhere. This can was the nearest place to dump it in."
"What water?" Mei-Mei demanded, grabbing the old man's arm. "Show me where!"
"Get off me woman!" The man snatched his arm away from her. He looked at her like she had just escaped from a mental institution. "You're a crazy freak!"
"Tell me where you got this!" Mei-Mei was now screaming at him waving the jacket around like it was something alive and wounded.
"Over there." The man pointed his hand out to the dirty shores where seagulls were starting to gather in uncommon over the sands.
Mei-Mei shoved past the old man and ran barefoot across the shards of broken wine cooler and beer bottles that littered the alleyway. Her entrance on the filthy beach startled the flock of seagulls foraging at something that lay just off the shoreline. They called at her angrily and scattered when she waded into the water to see what it was they were so anxious to pick at.
A large mass bobbed and floated inside the water in the shape of an enormous elongated rock, but it was much too soft to be a rock. Mei-Mei watched it bob in the translucent water for a moment, hoping that by staring at it long enough she would gain a hidden knowledge as to what it was.
The fates of the world must have sensed her thoughts because soon the heavy object rolled over to reveal that it was, in fact most defiantly not a rock.
It took a second for Mei-Mei's brain to register what she was seeing bumping against her feet, and when she finally realized what it was, she screamed.
"No!" She dove half of her body down into the water, pulling desperately on the water soaked body of her son. His body was bloated from being in the water all night and the skin had turned a sickly gray. But his face was still a healthy color, with rosy lips, completely unaffected by death.
= = = =
We all begin with good intent
Love was raw and young
We believed that we could change ourselves
The past could be undone
= = = =
The water soaked in the boy's body made him hard to pull out but Mei-Mei struggled desperately and he finally broke the surface like a rising Humpback Whale. She carried him to the shore, his feet dangling out from one side of her body.
She didn't place him on the beach and instead knelt down with the dead child in her arms, her dead child.
"Oh baby," Mei-Mei said this as a terribly sad sigh. She cradled his form like he was still an infant, holding onto his limp hand and stroking the wet black hair away from his face like she had done some many times before. She kissed his cold forehead, tasting the salt of the water he had been submerged in.
= = = =
But we carry on our backs the burden
Time always reveals
The lonely light of morning
The wound that would not heal
It's the bitter taste of losing everything
That I have held so dear
= = = =
"I love you," her voice was choked around tears as she rocked his still form. "I love you and your brother so much baby." She rested her chin atop his head and stroked his closed eyelids "I'm sorry. I should've never gotten you two involved in this."
People - tourists mostly - stopped to stare at the woman kneeling on the sand crying over the body of a little boy. The tourists with their Cannon instant cameras and bags of cheap black market merchandise backed away from the scene in stunned silence, because it was not the Go-Go bars and ancient history the travel agents promised them they would see when they booked their flights to this country. But a few of the local residents came foward and dropped paper 'bat' currency notes beside her on the sand to help pay for a burial plot, some offering a few words from Budda on the afterlife.
Mei-Mei said nothing to the village people and stall owners who approcahed her. Her eyes never wavered from her son's and she pulled him up higher on her body trying to find a whiff of his scent that the ocean and the decomposition hadn't washed away.
= = = =
Though I've tried, I've fallen...
I have sunk so low
I have messed up
Better I should know
So don't come round here
And tell me I told you so...
= = = =
CRASH
12: 35 AM
Jondy had wandered into the bar again and now sat at the graffito tagged bar sipping on their pathetic excuse for 'light beer'.
"This where the loners hang out?" Max approached the bar with her own beer mug secured in her hand.
"Guess so if you're here." Jondy stated watching Max slid into the stool next to her. "Shouldn't you be hangin' out with your man?"
Max did not appreciate being asked that. "We're allowed to do things on our own. It's called being two separate people."
"So basically you had a spat." Jondy said in her best 'talk show analysis' voice. She shrugged a second later. "Men are scum sometimes." She took a hit from her mug. But then she turned back to face her sister, as if she had changed her mind on her last statement. "Not to downplay Logan, he's a chivalrous charmer." A pause. "Just that most men in general have one thing on their brain, and it ain't about bringin' home the bacon, it's about bringin' home the heat."
"Are you drunk?" Max asked hearing a slight slur in Jondy's voice.
"So what if I am?" Jondy returned, not caring about her status on the breathalyzer scale. "I'm X5, I can handle the hooch better then any of the slackers here. I think that entitles me to a little plaster time." She took another gulping swig off her beer and licked the foam off of her lip. "Don't know about you Maxie but I'm into that fine lookin' specimen that's been eyein' me from across the room." Jondy raised her eyebrows seductively at the six foot tall African-American with a clean-shaven head wearing a camo green tank and black multipocket baggy pants. The man smiled at her again in a way that told her he thought she was hot and he wanted some of it.
Max looked to where Jondy was staring. "He's nice." She agreed on the looks of her admirer. "But you're a drink away from bein' completely faded girl, you sure you wanna initiate a hook up?"
"Defiantly." Jondy notified. "Not gonna let my brother be the only male who got into my pants this week." She took a last drink from her mug and set it down on the bar motioning with one long finger for the guy across the way to come over.
= = = =
He was a 6-foot stallion with the story of a thug
He was the kind that made you wonder how he put down the love
He had a hickey in his pocket wit that rock in his ear
He made my heart stop palpitating every time he came near
He has a spankin new Range for that tight wardrobe
His pants was saggin, he was plaided, and his head was cornrows
He has his wrists bling blinging and his long legs was bow
He tried to push up on me but I knew he had me at go
= = = =
"What's your name?" Jondy said in sultry come on once the man was standing in front of her.
"Trey," The guy responded letting his eyes travel all up Jondy's long legs hidden in washed out hipster low rider jeans, up her stomach showing slightly through her scarlet red tank top abd finally to her full breasts that hung just below the deep 'U' cut of her shirt.
"You like what you see?" Jondy asked of Trey's eye roam.
= = = =
I Do, I wonder if you feel the same way I do
I can see it in your eyes, I entice you
So come on shorty if you think you can roll
Wit an iced out playah ballin out of control
= = = =
"You're tight baby girl." Trey answered, now finding his home gaze on her blue-green eyes.
"Good." Jondy said in an approving commanding tone. She removed her leather jacket to reveal her well-toned, well-tanned arms - an action that Trey appreciated very much. "Let's hit the floor."
Jondy brushed up against Trey when she passed him leaving him hot and grinning like a fool and thinking: 'Dayum' as he followed her out to the dance floor.
= = = =
Watch me drop, drop, shake it for the fellahs who know
Watch me pop, pop my ass as I dip and roll
Watch me stop, stop traffic as I walk through the room
Knowin all the papi's want me but all I want is you
= = = =
Max watched Jondy lead Trey on the floor, knowing full well that her only intentions with the man were for nothing but getting him into hot sex. It was what Original Cindy had told her once before - 'you got an itch, go scratch'. Jondy was no prude. She had no qualms whatsoever about fueling out her rage and anger underneath an anonymous hot man. And with her body and smooth talking attitude the men she picked up were more then happy to indulge her.
"Hey Max," Sketchy came up her, already drunk and holding a fifth beer in his hand. "Can I interest you in some fine imported alcohol?" He waved his almost full beer mug at her.
"No thanks Sketch." Max returned, brushing off the beer with one hand. "Think I'm just gonna go home." She paid for her beer, leaving unfinished on the counter.
"Well I'll be here all night if you change your mind." Sketchy announced in a drunk tone, holding himself at a slightly askewed angle as he watched her ascend the stairs out to her motorcycle.
FOGGLE TOWERS
Logan lay on his side on his bed, about to drift off when he heard his bedroom door being opened. He flipped on the ornate lacquer beside table lamp and reached inside his drawer for his gun that he kept in there at night.
"It's me." Max raised her hand in the air seeing the weapon hidden in his drawer halfway pulled out.
"Max." Logan squinted momentarily in the light. He released the gun handle and closed the drawer. "What time is it?" He sat up completely.
"Almost one." She answered shedding her leather jacket and throwing it in against an antique looking cherry wood high backed hair. "All the lights were off so I figured you were in here asleep, or possibly working on some covert Eyes Only project that couldn't wait until morning." While she talked she had removed her shoes and her royal blue sweater and was not down to a white cotton singlet and army green twill low riders.
"You placed a lot of trust on the belief that I wouldn't think you were a burglar and let you in here." Logan stated, watching her set her shed clothing next to her jacket on the chair.
"Logan I am a burglar remember?" Max reminded. "And you wouldn't have to let me in. I can pick the lock myself should the need arise for me to come in when you're not available." She walked around to the vacant spot next to the bed and pulled back the navy blue comforter and slid in beside him.
"I feel so much better now." Logan said, feeling Max back up into his body underneath the blanket. He indulged her more and pulled her to him and draped an arm across her stomach. He had no idea what had made her decide to had come here tonight, but he knew that in her own way she was trying to make amends for the fight they had that morning. She wouldn't never openly admit it, that's not the woman she was, and it wasn't all her fault to apologize for. He had had his part in it as well.
"Jondy was puttin' the moves on an unnamed playa tonight at Crash and I wasn't in the mood to stick around for the ensuing sex so I decided to bounce." Max didn't look up from the pillow she was laying on when she said this.
"Well I'm glad you decided to bounce here." Logan spoke above her, watching her turn to him at his choice of words. "Because I want you to always take the phrase: 'my door is always open for you Max' as completely literal."
Max felt a smile creep up on her face at this. "Can't get any more 'literal' then spoonin' up in your bed." She propped her head up on her elbow, waiting a long silenced moment for what she was about to say next. "Zack loved Maria." She still had no idea where he had gone, but she could recall every second of their conversation that afternoon. "In his own way he was tryin' to protect her. If Manticore got wind of their relationship they would use Maria to get to him. Lydecker never cared about who he had to maime and murder in order to reach us."
"He still owes her an explanation." Logan insisted, rubbing her stomach underneath her tank, not to seduce her, but because he liked to be close to he body. "She deserves to know the truth about that day."
"People make up the truth as they go along," Max informed. "Whatever they have the strongest conviction in is the center of it. And if their ideals change so does their 'truth'."
"Are you saying that Maria should just keep believing that Zack betrayed her because of an idiotic fear of panic that gripped him at seeing the guerilla soldiers kidnapped her?"
"I'm saying not everyone can handle the ultimate reality of a situation." Max returned. Their banter hadn't changed even while they were sharing the same bed in what was suppose to be an intimate moment. "You think if Maria knew that a death squad could be launched on her at any time in order to get to Zack she would have even been with him?" She paused to look up at him, answering his next question before he could ask it. "It was different with you. You're a rich liberal intellectual white guy in what's left of upper class America, you figured out the threats I posed to you all by yourself. Maria was a poor girl from Mexico. To her Zack was a handsome American she thought would take her out of her slum and into a better life. She had no way of knowing that he led this entire secret life with black helicopters and military convoy's on his tail, and if she did she would never understand it."
Logan took in this statement, watching Max breath, knowing that she had been right the entire time and he was just too proud to admit it. She and Zack came from the same horrendous past and even though it was over ten years behind him there were certain scars that ran too deep to try and ignore. Zack shouldn't have lied to Maria, but that was just the man he was. He wasn't about to change a lifetime of ideals for a girl he had only known for five days. Logan leaned over and kissed Max silently, long and sensual, but not seductive because he was offering her his form off apology.
= = = =
Oh, Oh I've
Never felt this way
How do you give me so much pleasure
And cause me so much pain
Just when I think
I've takin' more than would a fool
I start falling
back in love with you
= = = =
Logan cupped her face with one hand when he pulled apart. "I understand you." He pulled a strand of hair away from her mouth leaning down to capture her mouth again, this time feeling her remove her head from her arm and maneuver her way underneath his body, responding passionatly to his kiss.
= = = =
I keep on fallin'
In and out
Of love-with you
= = = =
Zack sat staring out at the broken city on top of the Space Needle. He had found Max's old haunt easily, remembering her fascination with high places. He had climbed up the rickety wrought iron ladder to the graffiti covered surface of what use to be one of Seattle's most prominent marks of tourism.
He had one hand out in front of him, examining what lay laced in-between his fingers - a tiny gold crucifix on a thin gold rope chain. Maria had left on the crap of a night stand the last night they had been together in Mexico because the clasp had broke. He had intended to give it back to her before the next morning, but then the guerilla soldiers came and he was left holding it watching Maria as they drove her away.
= = = =
I never
Loved someone
The Way that I-love you...
= = = =
(FADE OUT)
No Cree in this one, sorry. I had to address a lot of other issues, but she'll appear first in the next chaper. I realize the story centeres around her, but the story isn' over yet.
Songs used are:
Opening Scene: "So Far Away" (Staind)
Mei-Mei discovering the body of her son:"Fallen" (Sarah McLaughlin)
Jondy flirting at Crash: "I Do" (Toya)
Ending scene: "Fallin'" (Alicia Keys)
R/R please.