Iron (8 page)

On the street, cars flash back and forth, but even with more traffic than last night, it isn’t a very impressive sight. The street we’re on seems to barely extend for more than a couple of blocks in each direction, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the entire area was only made up of a couple dozen blocks.

“Wow,” I say, as he pulls me onto the sidewalk.

I feel his gaze on me and he cocks his head a little when I look at him. “What is it?”

“This place is... tiny.”

“Yeah, that’s right. Good for laying low in. It was the last time I was here.”

I nod and he places a firmer grip on my arm and guides me down the sidewalk. After a few moments, he turns his heel and we walk into a bistro. The place looks just as humble as our hotel, if you could call it that, and has the same kind of charm to it. Old fixtures line the walls and they look like they’re more than for decoration. An old couple greets us in Spanish and I feel my heart sink. I don’t know any Spanish. Before I can freak out, Logan responds in Spanish.

I’m not only bewildered that Logan can speak it, but embarrassed by how little Spanish I’ve picked up despite growing up in Arizona. The old lady that greeted Logan looks at me and asks Logan something in Spanish and he shakes his head. She grins and extends her hand out to me. “
Hola, señorita
,” she says.

I flush and shake my head weakly. I almost want to vanish through the walls I’m so embarrassed. I mean, I know what she said, but I have no idea how to respond outside of my own
hola
. Logan talks with her some more while I just try to pick out words I might understand. After a little bit, she scribbles some things on her notepad and goes into the kitchen.

I lean forward and close to Logan. “I didn’t know you knew Spanish.”

A grin. “Why’s that surprising?”

“It just isn’t something I expected.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Cassie,” he says. He looks out the open door to the street as a car glides past and then he looks back at me. “Same for me with you.”

“Maybe we can change that while we’re here,” I say. I inch my foot forward and tap it against his boot, and give him a smile. He smiles back and I just want to kiss him. That stern look he gives me is enough to make my heart melt. I don’t even know why. This can’t be normal, right?

Is this what other people feel like when they’re...? No, I don’t know him well enough to use that word.

After some time passes, with me admiring the interior and Logan most likely admiring me, our food comes out. The old woman holds each plate with an oven mitt. She places the dishes in front of us and slides them forward and says something in Spanish. After she leaves, I stare at my food. It looks delicious. Something like an enchilada but with some eggs on the side. Nothing like I’d ever seen or eaten before.

“What’d she say?”

“She said, basically, ‘enjoy, lovebirds,’” Logan says.

I flush and pick up my fork and start eating. It isn’t like any Mexican food I’ve ever had before, it makes the stuff up in Phoenix seem like cheap trash in comparison. Each bite is steaming with flavor and before I know it my plate is clean. Logan wraps up slightly after me and laughs a little after he swallows his last bite, as his eyes move from my plate to me and widen. “Hungry, huh?”

I nod. He stands up and walks up to the counter and talks with the old lady some more, before handing her a wad of cash. I have no idea how much it is, but even from where I’m sitting I can tell it’s more than generous. Especially since her reaction is one of overwhelming thankfulness. He waves for me to follow and we head back outside through the open door.

“Come here,” Logan says as we head down the sidewalk. People are all over the place now, mingling up and down both sides of the street. I wrap my hands around his arm and follow his lead back to the alleyway where our room is. We stop just outside the graffitied door and he climbs onto his motorcycle and starts it with a howling roar.

“Are we going somewhere?” I ask.

“I’m going to teach you how to shoot,” he says. I look toward the door to Damian’s place. He practically reads my mind as I meet his eyes again. “The guns are in the saddlebags.” I climb on the seat behind him and scoot forward until my legs are embracing him, and he tickles the throttle a couple of times. He walks the bike around and then jets off down the alleyway, kicking up papers and splashing into the small puddles as we depart. I dig my feet into the pegs and hold on tight.

. . .

As we ride through the city streets and pass slow cars on the shoulder, I think about how stunned I was at Logan’s bilingual tongue. He’s right. I don’t know a lot about him, and he doesn’t know a lot about me. Despite that, he saved my life more than once and now we’re stuck together. That has to be a sign, or something, right?

We pass outside the city limits and head out into the Mexican desert, and it’s much of the same like Southern Arizona. Less red crags and more sagebrush, though. The wild life scatter around us as we break off the road and travel down a beaten path, until we reach a long hilly area. Some wood and sheet metal are set up in a haphazard way, and I get the feeling Logan’s been here before.

He stops his hog short and we skid across the dirt ground. He shuts his bike off and kicks the stand down, before reaching down and opening the saddlebags to retrieve the revolver. I stand up and wait, straightening my hair by running my fingers through it. I swallow hard. I’m already embarrassed just to be seeing the stupid thing again. The gun I couldn’t find a safety on. How humiliating.

We’re standing close together, and it’s only then that I notice we’re alone. Nothing but the smooth wind and bright sun overhead to spy on us. He holds the gun out in his palm and shows it to me.

“This is the gun, right?” he says. I nod. “Okay. Do you know how to shoot it?”

I shake my head and lower my gaze down to his belt. “I couldn’t even find the safety... the trigger wouldn’t move when I tried that night. Logan, I know I said I wanted you to teach me, but...”

“But nothing, I said I would. Look,” he says. I meet his eyes and he has a gentle expression. He points down at the gun and points out the different parts of it to me. “This is a double-action revolver, it doesn’t have a safety but I never told you that.” He says as he points at the back of the gun. “Double-action means you don’t have to cock it first by pulling the hammer down, but you have to pull the trigger that much harder.” He clicks the hammer down, then releases it slowly. “This is the chamber, which I’m sure you’ve seen before.” He flips it open and shows me the brass backs on the bullets. Each has a silver circle in the center.

“What’s the silver circle?”

“That’s what the firing pin strikes when you shoot it. It detonates the charge and sends the bullet out of the chamber and into the barrel, then, hopefully, into whoever is fucking with you.”

I scrunch my eyes and notice the small grooves around the silver circle. “Okay...” I’m following well enough, but just thinking about actually using a gun again makes my heart race with anxiety. I couldn’t use it to save Sara from that asshole striking her, and Logan expects me to use it again?

He shuts the chamber and points the gun out to some scattered bottles and cans that lay on a used railroad tie about fifty feet away. With steady pressure and firm control, he fires it and a loud and horrific bang startles me. Almost instantly one of the bottles shatters into pieces with a satisfying crunch.

“Where did you learn to shoot?” I ask him. I sit back down on his motorcycle, my legs hanging off the side facing.

“Surge taught me,” he says, with a hint of self-consciousness. “I actually forgot about that. He brought me out to this same spot.”

“You were here with Surge?”

“Yeah,” he says, lowering the gun and turning to me. “It was a couple of months before Los Devils broke up, but we came down here with the whole gang and made connections with some cartels down here.” As he recounts the experience, his expression turns sour and he frowns heavily. “I’m sure that’s when Surge met the asshole who gimped us on our last drop.”

“Drop?”

He smiles. “It doesn’t matter.” He sighs and walks up to me. I shift on the motorcycle seat and look away from him, glancing at the bottles and cans still standing at the end of the shooting range. I’m surprised they haven’t been knocked over by a gust of wind.

“You should probably just tell me. After all, you got me in this deep.”

“Drugs. A drug deal. That’s when I found out that you were probably in trouble.” I frown and keep my eyes fixed on a distant beer bottle. Its label is torn off and bleached.

“Why? Why get involved in all this shit? It can’t be that much fun, can it?”

He opens his mouth to say something but shuts it again. He scratches his arm, hiding one of his tattoos for a moment, then turns around. “It’s all I know.”

All he knows? Like how he was raised? He gestures for me. “It’s your turn now, come here.”

After hopping off the bike and walking up next to him, he hands me the gun. I grasp the handle tightly, making my knuckles go white. “Don’t death grip it,” he orders. The handle is warm to the touch and Logan is nearly touching my shoulder with his arm. I want him to.

I lift the gun up and hold the bottom of it with my left hand like I saw him do. I aim down the top of the gun and try to keep my swaying under control. “Just relax,” his voice says. “Just breathe.”

I pinch the trigger and nothing happens. It won’t move. I grunt and try squeezing it tighter, but it’s no use. “You can cock it if pulling it straight is too tough,” Logan says.

I pull the gun down from my dead-lock and stare at it. I knock the hammer back with a metallic clunk. This time I breathe and try to focus as I squeeze the trigger. The bang is loud and shocking. I flinch and let the gun carry itself upward from the recoil. I can’t help it. When I open my eyes, all the bottles and cans are still standing. Logan chuckles a little.

I frown. “Don’t laugh.”

“Everyone flinches their first time,” he says. He touches my arm and loosens my locked elbows. When his hands touch my skin and send electricity shooting through me, it actually helps relax me a little. “Just stay calm, like I said. Let me help.” He moves behind me and slides his hands down my arms, before he grips my forearms. His warm and intoxicating scent curls around me and his voice is deep and gravelly in my ear. I want to melt in his arms.

“Raise the gun again,” he commands. I obey and his hands tighten their grip on my forearms. His voice is like sweet chocolate. “Try squeezing the trigger, don’t close your eyes.” I cock the gun with my thumb and some effort.

He’s so relaxed and I feel so anxious in comparison. I try to channel that kind of vibe, that cold determination that he has. The one I admire. The one that brought us all the way down here, snuck past the border, and found a hook up so we could sleep somewhere. I pull the trigger as I exhale and watch the round soar right into a bottle and break it apart.

I laugh and turn to him. His lips lock mine and we kiss. I feel the gun go heavy in my hands and he takes it from me. I slowly twist until we’re facing each other, and our arms are wrapped around each other. His kiss is deep, passionate, and overwhelming. I feel tears well up in my eyes and streak down my cheeks.

After we release each other, I stumble over to his motorcycle and lean on it. I feel a little lightheaded from all the excitement. He’s beaming at me.

“Why me?” I ask, suddenly feeling sadness grip my chest.

He looks stunned. “What?”

“Why did you pick me? Why protect me from everything? I’m all the way down in Mexico with you now, and you didn’t have to do any of this. You could have walked away.”

His smile comes back and he walks over to me again. He looks down and strokes my cheek with his hand, before touching my chin with his thumb. “Because you light a fire in me... I haven’t felt in a long time...” He trails off, his gaze moving past me. “I don’t know how to explain it, myself.”

“I understand,” I say. I touch my chest and feel my heart racing with an intensity I’m still growing used to when I’m around him. “I feel the same way.”

We’re silent for a while as we both stare across the landscape on the horizon. The sun has tilted past noon and the shadows are growing longer across the landscape, but it isn’t quite sunset yet. A gentle breeze keeps us both cool under the hot sun. I look away from the horizon and at him. He doesn’t seem to notice. I study him, his features, his strong jaw, his tattoos. Everything about him that makes him a man. That look he gets in his eyes when he’s telling me something.

He glances at me and our eyes connect. My brain feels fuzzy.

I finally break the silence. “How long are we going to stay here?”

He doesn’t answer. His eyes go to the northern horizon, and although he doesn’t say it, I can feel his doubt. He doesn’t know.

What are we waiting for? The Skeletons to relax? I don’t know if that’s something that’ll ever happen.

“Something I’ve been thinking about a lot...” Logan says, breaking the silence again. “Rattlesnake said that Surge was a liar. I didn’t believe it at the time because... well, it was coming from him. But, maybe there was something to it...”

I nod. The tone of his voice is hard and I’ve only heard it once before: when he was in my apartment with Rattlesnake.

“I just keep thinking about it... what could Surge have lied to me about? Our history goes way back, and I’m sure if it is true... it’s more than something like he drank the rest of the milk and didn’t tell anyone.” He walks past me and climbs onto the motorcycle. “Let’s get going,” he says.

I shake my head. “No. I want to keep practicing.”

“Are you sure?” he asks.

“Yes.” He doesn’t move from his bike so I walk up and take the gun from him again. He lets it slip from his fingers and I move back to where we stood before, my footprints marking the spot. I raise the gun and aim down the sights again. I pull the hammer back and focus on my breathing again. I let another shot ring out with a loud bang.

I need to be able to protect myself. I’m only going to get Logan in more trouble if I can’t. He needs me.