“Home, sweet home.” Marie looked around puzzled. Logan had parked the truck to a small clearing in the woods. There were no buildings, just soft looking grass and some twigs and bushes.
“Looks like nobody found it. Good…” Logan said, rubbing his hands together.
“Found what?” Marie asked. Logan smirked.
“The Bat cave. Wait here. I’ll go and check it out, just in case…” Logan said, opening the door and jumping out. She watched when he walked to a small hill in the middle of the clearing. He fiddled with a pile of rocks for a moment. Suddenly she could feel the whole truck around her trembling. Logan took a few steps away from the rocks when something happened. Side of the hill started to tear open.
“It’s an old bunker. Found it after I escaped from the Army,” Logan explained, helping her down from the truck. Where had been a beautiful, soft-looking grass, stood now sturdy looking concrete building. Flat roof and slightly tilted walls. No windows. Only one, heavy metal door.
“But how… Where was it? What happened?” She stammered.
“Underground. This is just an entrance. There’s a mechanism that makes it possible to lower it under the ground level during an attack. I use it to hide my home when I’m not around. Got tired of throwing out squatters every fucking time I came home.”
“Squatters? You mean people?” Marie asked. Logan nodded.
“But they know about this place…” Logan frowned and turned to look away, clearing his throat.
“It’s safe in here. Nobody knows about this place. I took care of it. Haven’t seen any more people after first five went missing…”
“You killed them?” Marie whispered.
“Let’s talk about something else. I’ll show you around, and we can start unpacking the truck.”
She had expected damp and gloomy corridors, and equally damp and gloomy small cells. What she encountered when Logan opened the door and led him underground made her gasp.
There was a corridor. It was softly lit and clean. Floor was covered with wide, polished wooden planks. Walls were painted light brown, almost white. Light came from small spotlights mounted to the ceiling. At the end of the corridor was a large, oval room. Ceiling was somewhere high above her head. Floorboards under her feet were squeaky clean. Walls were covered with light brown wooden paneling. Rows of bookshelves with books on them covered large parts of the walls. There was a cozy-looking fireplace, and two doors, one on each side of it.
“Bedroom,” Logan said, opening the one on the left side of the fireplace.
“And kitchen.” He pushed open the door on the right side of the fireplace.
Furniture was clearly self-made, but it was done with a skill. Every chair and table, every shelf, even the bed looked like they had rather grown than cut to their current shape. And soft glow of electric lighting illuminated it all.
“There’s an underground current. It powers up the turbines and they produce electricity. Enough for lights and heating this place. And kitchen is electric. Stove, freezer, fridge.”
“Have you done all of this by yourself?” Marie asked. Logan nodded, shuffling his feet.
“Bathroom’s at the other end of the corridor. Come on, I’ll show it to you,” he said, tugging her after him.
She had expected a small closet with a sink and a toilet seat. Again she was in for a surprise. First they entered to a small room with row of benches lined against the walls. There were hooks above those benches. Again she was facing two doors.
“Toilet,” Logan opened the smaller door. There was a toilet seat and a sink.
“Bathroom,” he said, opening the other door. It was small, but clean. A shower, and in the middle of the room a large, sunken tub.
“Took me ages to find these tiles…” Logan said, smiling and brushing his knuckles against light green ceramic surface of the wall. He had fought a bled for every single tile. For every single machine and lamp. For every single nail that he had used to coat cold concrete surfaces with wood. And now he could finally kick back and relax. He had a home. He had transportation. He had somebody to share those with.
“So… Are you up to it?” Logan asked, swaying lightly on his heels, hands clasped behind his back. Marie tore her eyes from the lavish bathroom little reluctantly.
“Up to what?” She had never seen a place like this. Even the town hall in her home village had been a cruddy barn compared to this, and after she had taken off to the road, it had all been downhill from there.
“Will you stay with me?” Logan asked. The tone of his voice was carefully masked, but the pleading look on his face revealed his true feelings. He was terrified. Ready to kneel and beg if needed to.
“Will you let me stay?” She asked. Logan pulled her against his chest and wrapped her his arms around her, squeezing gently.
“Wouldn’t have brought you here otherwise. Stay?” He spoke; face pressed against the top of her head, feel of warm breath sending shivers down her spine.
“I’ll stay.”
She explored her new home more thoroughly while Logan carried their belongings in from the truck. Kitchen fascinated her. She had never seen those things Logan had named before. Fridge. Freezer. Electric stove? Fridge and freezer were probably for storaging food, because they were cold. Stove looked at the same time familiar, and frighteningly alien. Four cooking plates on top, and an oven underneath them. Just like the ones she had used before. But there ended the similarities between this electric device, and stoves she had used. Where she had had to keep applying wood and make sure fire kept going, but not too hot, this one looked like it would be much more complicated. It had several different buttons and switches. She wondered where Logan had gotten it. Gotten all this electric stuff. Nobody had it anymore. Nobody. Not after the war begun. They were luxuries. Only lazy mutants relied on those. Real, clean people worked hard and fair. That’s why mutants were so easy to find, capture and cart away, Marie’s father had told her once, when she had seen a picture of a television on a book she had been reading.
“So, I’m a lazy mutant, now. Proud of me, daddy?”
Where did you get all this stuff?” She asked when Logan was putting away food, clothes and other belongings.
“It fell from the sky?” Logan offered, opening the freezer and lifting two huge cardboard boxes in there.
“Right.”
“I fought for it. Some guy had ambushed an Army caravan with his friends. He was stupid enough to come in to the cage with me.”
“Oh… What about the other stuff? Fridge, stove? That freezer?” Marie asked.
“Everything you see in here I have either made it, or fought for it.” Logan started to sound a bit agitated, but she had one more question. She had to know.
“Have you ever killed anybody?” That stopped him. He turned to look at her.
“You know I have. You even helped to clean the truck after it. And when the Army had me…”
“I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the cage. Have you ever killed anybody in there?” She clarified. Logan shook his head.
“This stuff is clean for that part. Nobody has died for this.”
“Good. It wouldn’t feel right to use all this if I knew it was taken from a corpse.”
“Is that why you didn’t make bets?” Logan asked.
“How do you know?”
“I watched you. You stood there and listened, heck, you knew the guys and knew probably what they were capable better than themselves, and you didn’t use that knowledge. Pride got in the way?” Logan asked tilting his head. Marie’s anger flared. Was he mocking her?
“It wouldn’t have been right. I couldn’t have used that money if I knew somebody died because of it!” Logan let out a low chuckle for her outburst.
“How the hell you managed to stay so fucking pure an innocent?” He turned his back to her and continued arranging various packages to the cupboards.
“And how the hell you can stand being with me in the long haul?” He continued silently when he heard Marie leaving the kitchen.
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