A/N: Right, here's the next installment, and I'm really apprehensive about it. There's a pretty graphic scene in it – not really sex, but anyway – and I don't know how well I've written, so feedback is really really really appreciated for this chapter! I only own the plotline, and even bits of that are taken from the TV show, but enjoy…
Veronica isn't at school on Monday. Logan hopes it's because she's tailing his father, but he's worried that after their argument at the beach she won't want to do his case – even for two thousand dollars. When he drives by Mars Investigations later on her car isn't outside, and it isn't in the parking lot at Dog Beach either. He even cruises past her apartment block, just in case she's decided to stay at home, but her car is nowhere in sight.
"Dammit, Veronica, where are you?" Logan groans as he pulls into his own driveway. Still sitting in his car, Logan ponders the places she could be – he's got to see her to find out how the case is going, he reasons. Even as he thinks it, he knows that he's lying to himself. He's looking for her because he wants to see her, talk to her.
He decides to do a little sleuthing of his own. He knows roughly what his father is doing when, and is sure that if Veronica can do this then anyone can. Deciding that his bright yellow 4 by 4 is far too conspicuous for tracking, and quickly switches to the black BMW in the family's garage.
"Logan, what are you doing with Dad's Beemer?" Trina's arrogant voice rings across the driveway.
"I'm going out. Tell Mom I won't be back for dinner." He snaps.
"Aren't you grounded, little brother?" Trina reminds him, tauntingly.
"Tell Mom I won't be back for dinner." He repeats, driving off before his sister can say anything else. He hates the way she treats him – the same sort of way as their father – with disdain, as if she is better than him. "Well, time to find Ronnie." He murmurs, driving to Aaron's agent's office.
Sure enough, when he reaches the office he sees his father's other, silver, BMW, and Veronica's crappy Saturn. As he pulls into a parking space, Aaron drives off, and Veronica follows shortly afterwards.
"Ah, so we've got a chase." Logan is beginning to enjoy himself. He follows Veronica, using the trick that he has learnt from watching endless detective films with said blonde while they were friends. "Two cars behind and one to the left."
He tails Veronica, who is tailing Logan, around town on errands, and his enjoyment of sleuthing is wearing off. Finally, however, something appears to be happening. Aaron pulls up outside the Camelot motel, and saunters in as if he owns the place. A few minutes later, a slutty looking brunette arrives and also enters the scummy motel.
Veronica waits a few minutes, and then Logan sees her go inside. She comes back out and starts climbing the outside stairs. She stops outside a window and pulls out her camera, straining and twisting to get a good shot.
"So this is what she spends her afternoons doing." Logan laughs. He enjoys seeing Veronica in action. It gives him a sense of what she's like now. It's obviously a big part of her, and he likes getting a better perspective on her. After all, if he understands her then he can win her back more gets lost in his musings of what he's going to do to get back into her good books, and when he looks up again, Veronica is nowhere in site. "Shit, Ronnie, what's going on?"
Veronica shifts as her bonds cut uncomfortably into her wrists and ankles. She can't believe she got caught – got tricked. She'd just been getting the money shot – literally, the last one she'd taken was worth more like five thousand dollars – and contemplating how it must feel to have photo proof of your parent cheating when she'd been seized.
Aaron Echolls' firm grip had wrapped around her arms and tugged her into the motel room before she had even had a chance to scream. He had dismissed the brunette he had been with and tied Veronica to the rickety chair that was standard in all Camelot rooms. He'd then disappeared into the bathroom, and not come out since.
She tried to hook her ankle around the strap of her messenger bag, but it was too far away and her legs couldn't get far from the chair, or eachother. Just as she gave up on both the flick-knife in her bag and the cigarette lighter in her unreachable front pocket, Aaron emerged from the bathroom.
He is shirtless, and for once Veronica understands part of the appeal of the movie star – he is in perfect shape, and has the same broad shoulders taping into a narrow waist that she knows Logan had from hanging by the pool. But she snaps out of her musing quickly, as she remembers that however good his body is, Aaron is holding her captive and no one knows where she is.
"Right, you little bitch, did you take any pictures of what was going on in here?" Aaron snaps. Veronica realises that her only way out of this situation with proof is by lying. She knows from Logan's stories, and from witnessing it herself when Aaron thought he was alone, that he has a violent temper.
"No. I'd only just got my camera out." She whispers. Although she won't ever admit it to anyone, Veronica is terrified of what will happen to her, and can't make herself sound brave.
"Good. I wouldn't want any news of this getting out. Now who hired you?" He leans his menacing face closer to hers.
"Uh, no one," Veronica improvises. "I was hoping to catch a shot of a star cheating on their partner so that I could sell it to the press. You were just the one I saw."
This answer angers Aaron, and he strikes her across the face. "Yeah, well you interrupted my little bit of fun, so you better make up for it." Veronica shrinks away as he rips her t-shirt down the shoulder and pulls it off, exposing her. "You'd better be one good fuck."
Veronica is practically paralysed with fear as he unties her from the chair and throws her onto the bed, strapping her wrists to the headboard. She kicks out at him as he gets close again, and when he shoves his rough tongue into her mouth she bites down, hard.
"You little bitch." He breathes, backhanding her, and pulling off her jeans. "Now, time for you to play nice." Stripping off his trousers and boxers, Aaron pulls a gun out of his tennis bag, and holds it to her head, before shoving his erection into her mouth. "Or else."
Veronica's given head before – she and Duncan did practically everything but have sex, after all, but never at gunpoint, and never when she's this scared. It seems to take forever for him to climax, and he makes her swallow. He then rips off her panties and enters her roughly.
"Scream for me bitch." He growls, and she does just that; the pain intensifying with every thrust.
Veronica passes out from the pain and terror, and when she comes round again, Aaron has untied her and gone, leaving her clothes and bag on the floor of the room. Getting up gingerly, she tries to block out the memories of the past few minutes as she pulls on her jeans and bra. Thankful for the first time that she's got a spare shirt in her bag, she pulls it on, before realising that it's the one she borrowed from Logan after he threw her into the pool last year.
"Everything comes up Echolls." She mutters, as she picks up her bag and limps out of the room, and down the stairs. When she gets to her car she is surprised to see Logan pacing up and down in front of it.
"Shit, Ronnie, you scared the crap out of me!" He says, grabbing her shoulders, in the same place as his father did. Fear floods into her heart, even though she knows that Logan would never hurt her physically like Aaron did. "Where did you go?"
Veronica realises that she has a choice; either tell Logan what happened to her, and have to endure the disbelief and accusations of lying and stupidity that she had after Shelley Pomeroy's party, or keep it to herself and get revenge on her own. She choose the latter option, after a long pause in which Logan stares at her intently.
"I went to grab a cup of coffee. What were you doing following me anyway?" She snaps.
"I thought it'd be fun to see what the whole private investigator thing." He admits, scuffing his shoes on the floor and avoiding her gaze bashfully.
"Wow. That's really sad." She states, flatly. "But, uh, anyway. I got the shot. Thinking of putting my price up too, cos this one is really good and I'd get more if I went straight to the press with it."
"How much are you talking?"
"Five grand. And no less." She says, shortly. "I'll print it off and give it to you tomorrow. Right now I have to go."
Before Logan can say another word, Veronica clambers into her car and drives off towards the one person she knows she can talk to; Wallace.
She and Wallace had got incredibly close since she'd cut him down from the flag pole, and he had saved her from attacking Logan, and she knows that he'll believe her and comfort her if she tells him. His mother is less keen on her than Keith is on Wallace, but even that won't keep her away from Wallace's 05 zip townhouse.
She hops out of her car and knocks impatiently. Alicia Fennel, said disapproving mother, comes to the door and frowns, but when she sees how close Veronica is to tears she simply tells her that Wallace is in his room, and lets her through. She hurtles along the corridor, and bursts into her friend's room without knocking.
"Hey, V, what's hanging?" Wallace asks, before looking up and noticing the state his friend is in. He opens his arms, and she runs into them, finally letting out the tears she has been holding in since she left the Camelot. "Sh, sh, it's okay." He whispers, as they sink down onto his bed.
She falls asleep after she's cried herself out, and Wallace pulls his covers over her. He goes out to tell his mom that Veronica is staying the night, and calls Keith to tell him the same thing. When he reenters his room, he sees her phone buzzing and he answers it.
"Hello? Veronica's phone." He says, unsure of what his friend will say to him answering her calls.
"Where's Ronnie?" Wallace recognises the frantic voice of Logan Echolls, "I need to talk to her. Is she okay?"
"She's uh…" He doesn't know what he should say, after all, while he knows that Veronica was working on a case for Logan, the last time he saw them together, or heard her talk about him was after their fight in the toilets. "She's okay, I guess. Asleep right now, though, so you can't speak to her."
"I'm coming over. You're Fennel, the basketball guy, aren't you?" Logan's tone is arrogant, but it's clear to Wallace that he is worried about Veronica, and so he gives the boy his address, and hangs up.
Logan struts through the house a short time later, and Wallace realises that he must have been driving way over the speed limit to get there so quickly.
"Ronnie, Ronnie, you've gotta wake up." Logan mutters, as he shakes her gently. She groans and rolls over, mumbling. As she rolls, her shirt rides up and both guys catch a glimpse of a purple bruise forming on her ribs. "Holy crap. Ronnie, no more sleeping, you've gotta wake up and tell me and flag-pole-dude what happened."
Veronica reluctantly rouses herself, and sits up, her hair tousled and her expression annoyed. She starts slightly when she sees Logan kneeling in front of her, but visibly relaxes when Wallace sits on the bed and takes her hand.
"V, how did you get that bruise on your ribs?" He asks, gently.
"There's a bruise on my ribs?" Veronica shifts, and sucks in a breath as her bruise is knocked against. "Yeah, I bet there is." Logan hesitantly reaches for the hem of her shirt. "What do you think you're doing, Echolls?" She asks, moving away from him, unable to separate the boy in front of her from the man who attacked her only a few short hours ago.
"I need to look at that bruise, need to make sure you're not bleeding internally or anything." She gives him a sceptical stare. "Hey, I just know about this kinda thing, no need to look so suspicious. You were the one who told Lilly I had hidden depths, remember?" She smiles slightly at the memory, and allows him to lift her shirt over her head. "Hey, this is mine! How long have you had this?"
He keeps her distracted, talking about the time he'd lent her the shirt, and why she'd forgotten to give it back, while he inspects her bruise and finds other ones scattered across her back and stomach. Wallace just holds her hand and watches the easy way that these two enemies are interacting. Both boys, however, are holding back their concern for the tiny blonde and her injuries.
"Holy crap, V, what happened to you?" Wallace finally asks, unable to hold in his consternation any longer.
She leans into him and murmurs something softly into his ear, so that Logan can't hear. Her face is impassive but Wallace immediately jumps up looking thunderous.
"That ratbastard did what to you?!" He yells, pacing the room frantically. "Why didn't you tell me?!"
"I couldn't." She says shortly, as Logan looks on curiously.
"What happened, Fennel?" Logan asks, worry etched into every feature.
Wallace pulls him into the bathroom, aware that Veronica whispered her story because she didn't want to see Logan's reaction. He tells the richer boy to keep his voice down and then begins explaining.
"Veronica said that while she was taking 'the money shot', as she puts it, your dad spotted her and took her inside. Then he tied her to the bed and raped her." Wallace explains, trying to keep his voice calm. "She said that she passed out and when she came round he was gone. Then she came over here."
"Oh my God. She didn't come straight here." Logan is trying his hardest to stay calm and not punch the mirror in front of him. "I was looking for her, and she said she'd gone to get coffee and that she'd give me the picture tomorrow." He tips his head back until it hits the wall. "I could tell something was wrong – I can always tell with Veronica – and I didn't make her tell me. I let her go and I didn't try to help her." His expression is one of agonising guilt. "I thought it was something small, you know, something Ronnified like her camera smashed or something. Do you wanna know how I found out that it was important. I knew that it was to do with Aaron – because he told me. When he was fucking beating me. He taunted me with the fact that now he'd broken me and my little blonde friend." Logan has been shouting for several minutes now, and before either boy realises, the door has opened, and Veronica is giving Logan a bear hug. "Why couldn't you tell me, Veronica?"
"I guess I couldn't separate the guy who put me through so much emotional pain from his dad, who put me through so much physical pain." She whispers. "Have you patched yourself up yet?"
"How long have you known?" Logan mutters, realising for the first time that Veronica doesn't seem shocked that he gets beaten – unlike Wallace, who is still standing with his mouth wide open.
"A couple of years. I knew you wouldn't want my pity or sympathy or anything, so I kept it to myself. But didn't you ever wonder why your first aid stuff was always fresh even though you didn't replace it?" She laughs, softly.
"That was you? I thought it was my mom." He whispers, finally hugging her back. "I haven't even looked at my back yet – I was too worried about you."
As Veronica coaxes Logan's t-shirt off, and begins tending to his cuts and burns, Wallace studies the pair. He notices how comfortable they are with eachother, and how they seem to crave eachothers touch. It's then that he works out that Veronica and Logan are the kind of couple that are meant to be together – and wonders whether either of them realise.