Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to any of these characters. I am not, however, profiting monetarily, or intending any disrespect, in their use.

Part 2

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Logan Echolls hated small talk. It wasn't that he wasn't good at it; on the contrary, it was something at which he excelled. After all, he came from a family of actors- appalling actors, maybe, but actors none the less. So the art of making polite conversation hadn't been a difficult one to master. The basis for his dislike was simply this: he couldn't be bothered. Conversing with people about trivialities was made pointless by the fact that he was completely uninterested in most people themselves, which therefore made the things that came from their usually overly garrulous mouths wholly not worth inconveniencing himself over.

In short, small talk was, more often than not, extraordinarily boring. And Logan wasn't one to waste his time with boredom. After all, there were much more entertaining methods of wasting time.

This pursuit, for example, was vastly more enjoyable. Punching people had always had something of a cathartic effect on him.

The man he was punching now was big- a lumberjack type, down to the flannel shirt, thick canvas pants, and sturdy boots he wore. He was tough, too, with fists like hams and a face that each blow seemed to glance off of like limp spaghetti.

Of course, none of this mattered. Battered, bloody, and losing, Logan Echolls was enjoying one of the few pursuits left to him that made him feel something that even vaguely resembled alive.

If he was only playing at being a lumberjack, it certainly wasn't evident in the man's arms- they threw punches like sledge-hammers. A closed fist was even now colliding with Logan's face with a wet thunk, and not for the first time, if the large gash above his left eyebrow and the purplish bruise coloring his jaw-line were to be believed. Logan went down in a tangle of limbs, but scrambled to his feet again almost immediately, a goading sneer on his lips, and a challenge in his eyes. Lumberjack grinned obligingly, his teeth shining and bloody, and moved in for another assault.

Before he could strike though, Logan feigned a left-handed attack, but moved in with a right-handed punch to the gut. Lumberjack, in the act of dodging the aborted left-hand blow, moved right, which brought his abdomen and Logan's fist together in a powerful collision, knocking the wind from him quite successfully.

It wasn't the first punch of Logan's that had landed, but it was the most effective. Logan grinned triumphantly and hit the man hard in the temple. Lumberjack swayed, staggered, but rallied, coming back from a protective huddle with a knee to Logan's groin.

Logan doubled over, his vision fading in and out, his breath leaving him with an abrupt whoomph. Lumberjack turned, preparing to enjoy a celebratory beer, but Logan's breathless but disgusted voice stopped him.

"Wait, wait, wait- you're done?" Logan panted a little and returned to as much of an upright position as he could manage. He wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, and then showed the man a scornful sneer. "Gee, after all of the things I said about your 'ma'," he hand-quoted the word, giving it an unclean connotation, "… I really would have expected more. Apparently they don't make white-trash like they used to." He shook his head sadly. Then, slowly and deliberately, "What is the world coming to when you can't even taunt the inbreds anymore?"

Logan waited for the inevitable explosion. He wasn't disappointed. The man gave a roar and hurled himself towards him like a torpedo with a homing device. It took half of the bar to pull the two men apart, and that was only when it was obvious that one of the fighters wouldn't likely be walking away if the fight was allowed to continue. And even then, Logan thought that the patrons of the bar wouldn't mourn him overly- they only held a mutual aversion to the certain arrival of the police, who were never well received in this part of town, should the lumberjack be allowed to act on the murder in his eyes.

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Attempting to escape from a darkened cellar with ones hands tied was, as Veronica Mars was discovering, not an easy task. There was blood in her eyes from the injury on her head, her wrists were torn and abraded, as were her arms and hands, from traveling to and fro along the rough stone wall. Her legs were bruised, especially about the knees; she had been forced to utilize them as much as possible to move any and everything she could find that seemed at least semi-solid into a pile under the window. Stacking things without the use of one's hands was a pursuit Veronica never wished to attempt again. She'd found herself lying on her back and pushing boxes and crates up on top of one another a few times, and didn't even want to imagine the kind of picture she made.

Of course, her appearance was the least of her worries at the moment.

'Blood, dirt, cement dust, rock fragments… I've seen it all tonight. I've been held at gunpoint, struck, and locked away in the dark. I probably look like something that crawled out of a sewer. But you know what? I don't care. Right now the only thing that carries any weight with me is getting out of here alive, and if I have to resemble a sewer rat doing yoga to do it? So be it. I'll do it gladly.'

Suddenly, a crate fell off of the pile, striking Veronica on the cheek. She cried out, ducking her head and stepping back quickly- too quickly. Her feet tangled in another crate and she fell backwards, landing hard on her shoulder. Veronica felt a new flow of blood stream down her cheek, gagged as it seeped into her mouth. Her shoulder throbbed where it had come in rough contact with the ground.

She lay still for several moments, breathing hard. With considerable effort, she rolled onto her knees and clambered upwards to her feet once again, gasping sharply as the pain flooded from her shoulder and down her arm.

'Did I say gladly? I take it back. This entire situation has so little glad in it, I'd go so far as to call it 'gladless'. It is completely lacking in glad. Which is unfortunate, because if there is anything my life needs right now, it's a little bit of glad.'

Finally the makeshift stairway was assembled. Veronica wobbled onto the first crate, scraping her shins on the way and cursing the hot rush of tears that sprung to her eyes at the contact. She scrambled up the second and third crates, not giving herself time to consider the fall she could take if she missed her footing or jostled the pile too badly. Finally, out of breath and with sweat stinging the myriad array of cuts and scrapes that adorned her face, arms, and hands, Veronica came face to face with a filthy pane of glass, held firmly in place with a simple sash lock. She used her teeth to pull around the swivel catch and nudged the window open with her head, the single pane raising high enough to admit her body, although it proved a tight squeeze. She slithered and wiggled her way through the window, biting her lip as her shoulder bumped into the window frame, sending lightning flashes of agony coursing through her arm. The room she'd occupied proved to be a basement; Veronica's upper body twisted and squirmed its way onto soft grass as she emerged from her confines. She rested for a moment, taking in the night air and the aroma of fresh grass through her nose, breathing deeply and evenly as she tried to amass the energy to move the rest of her body, snakelike, through the window. The thought of her captors finding her as she was, half in, half out of the window, gave her ample impetus to wiggle her way completely through the window. Then she struggled to her feet and ran with all of her might.