The Dodge Ram was parked along the curb in front of a mini-conveniant store. A woman leaned against the Dodge in profile. She was in the middle of lighting a cigarette. The match flared, showing a perfect profile. Her hair shone in dark, waist length, thick curls to frame her oval face. She tossed the match to the pavement with a practiced flick of the hand. She took the cigarette from her mouth, dangled it by her thigh and raised her face skyward. The streetlight played across her features and her hair. She blew three perfect smoke rings and laughed.

That laugh. It could trail down your spine as if she’d touched you. It could make you shiver; make you wonder if she was human.

Her eyes were perfect, cold gray without a trace of color in them, a dark black ring framing the iris, as if holding the gray from leaking into the white of ones eye. Her hair was a thick blackness, soft as down feather and thick as cotton. She wasn’t tall and she couldn’t weight more then a hundred and fifteen, twenty at most. She had a graceful sweep of neck, divided in two by a tight, undecorated, velvet collar. It was hard to tell if the shirt in which she wore was more shirt or skin. The shirt was burgundy and looked closer to a strip of cloth tied around her body. The shirt looped around her neck, crossed over her chest, looped around the back, and tied together in a knot just above the belly button. He chest was...generous, her belly absolutely flat, a ring in her belly button. The charm was a half loop with a ball at either end.

The pants showed less then the shirt but still flashed flesh. The pants were so tight they could have been sewn onto her, which the basically were. The leather smelled strongly, like newly bought leather usually does. On the outside of either leg was about an inch of skin. The pants were tied up both sides with a burgundy strip, holding the pants on. Along the left leg, revealed by the gap, was a tattoo. It ran from near-hip to the top of her knee. It was a blossomed crimson red rose with a long stem of thorns and delicate leaves.

In her left ear she wore a spiral, dangling earring attached to a stud. Then another stud in a second lobe-hole. This stud had a chain that ran up the side of her ear and attached to a small loop that hung in her cartilage. In her right ear was a single dangling gothic cross. Across her fingers were five rings, one being a class ring with a green stone. Her pants were tucked around a pair of ankle-high boots.

Thorn had turned in her eighty-five Camero for the Dodge Ram when the red car had started acting up, something new wrong every week. The side of the truck was sprayed with mud, the grill cacked in it. She’d need to take it to the car wash. She raised the cigarette to her lips and puffed, lowered it, and watched the smoke drift away with mild interest.

Maybe it was the way she'd dressed. Maybe it was her laugh and the effect it had. Maybe it was just her. People seemed to be walking in a semi-circle around her, as though avoiding her pointedly. Or maybe she was just parnoid.

Perhaps she was just being paranoid, and perhaps she wasn't. Logan didn't care one way or another... and was feeling rather bored.

Keye, his pet, was safely locked up in that abandoned house of his (or so he thought) and he needed some more... excitement in his life. He needed someone to torture, some miserable dog with arthritis to kick in the ribs, some old lady to push down the stairs... for the gods' sake, someone to do something rather nasty to.

It was too hot for this unsuspicious outfit, but Logan was wearing it anyway. A black sweatshirt (over bare skin, in case anyone cared to know) pulled up so his arms were showing (and almost his shoulders) and a pair of black jeans that sagged on him and looked they could fit two, if not three more people into them all at once.

His hair was pulled up into a lazy pony-tail, stripes sticking out like a sore thumb, making him look like a skunk, and bi-colored bangs swooped in his eyes and on either side of his face.

His shoes were comfortable, large and stylish, and they were black and white. He wore no makeup today, but opted for a golden hoop lipring, a silver eyebrow ring, and black hoop earrings in either sides of his ears, on both the cartilage and lobe of his ear.

The woman near the Dodge Ram might be in for a surprise when Logan walked right next to her, and if he were any more silent, he'd be mute, and Thorn would have to be deaf.

Thorn wasn't usually a people watcher, persay. But a small kid in big clothes tends to draw attintion, no matter how unsuspicious those clothes would look on someone else. She drops the hand with the cigarette to her side again, the butt bouncing lightly against the thigh with the tattoo.

Her gray eyes followed the kid's progress along the sidewalk as he crossed her path. She brought the cigarette to her lips again and wondered where his parents were. And why they'd in their right minds let the poor child wander the steet at this hour, or put him in those huge clothes. For christ-sake, buy him something that fit!

Thorn shook her head, shacking a few ringlets of curls loose from the rest of the hair to fall around her eyes. She pushed off the truck, wiping away the dried mud from her rear and pulling a ring of keys from where they dangled out of her back pocket. The pants had been too tight to pocket the keys, instead, she'd stuffed the key ring in the pocket and left the keys outside.

"Where's your mom?"

Alright, so maybe she's too young herself to be asking that question but at least she's tall enough to reach to gas and old enough to live alone.

With a raised eyebrow, Logan shoved his hands into those large jean pockets of his. He was watching her now, but took a step away, because he didn't want her to feel uncomfortable just yet. Maybe later, but not now.

"Do you just ask any person that at random?" Logan asked, sounding obviously offended. Sure, he might've looked young, but he was going to be sixteen very soon, and that classified as old enough to be out on his own, old enough to drive, and old enough to move out.

"But just for curiosities sake, she's dead."

She threw up her hands in a very young guesture. That guesture you make when your parents are reprimanding you and your blowing them off.

"Chill out. I was just asking."

Then he said his mom was dead. Matter of factly. It must have happened a while ago, enough time to have let him stop mourning. Or at least long enough ago that he could say it so casually. Or maybe he'd hated his parents like her. Ah, bonding. She almost shook her head. No. It was rare to find a child who hate their parents like she did. It was rare to find a parent who hate a kid like they did.

"I'm sorry."

Feeling as though now would be a good time to drop away from a potential conversation she herself would have started and probably would go no where pleasent, she turned away from him and opened the passenger door. The truck was on a lift kit, jumbo tires, it made her look short.

She didn't have a reason for doing that except to let him know she wasn't going to make him explain.

It was a sort of love/hate relationship with Logan's mom. He'd loved her, but she was a bitch and abused him. She deserved to die, even if Logan didn't want her to. It was weird...

"It's okay. It's not like you knew." He shrugged, looking like an innocent little boy. But he wasn't, that was what made the difference.

Another eyebrow raise.

"Leaving so soon?"

Even though he knew people didn't drive on the passenger side of the car.

He didn't leave. She turned back around slightly to look at him over her shoulder with a contemplating look resting on her face. It made her look peacful. Finally, she shook her head.

"Nah. I'm not leaving."

She turned entirly around to face him, leaning her butt against the floor area of the truck, her back against the seat, she crossed her arms over her stomach.

"What's your name?"

"It's Raven." He said this as if his name actually were Raven, instead of Logan. He never gave out his real name, and nobody knew it, aside from "GothTech". And Logan didn't even know his name was Criss. How ironic.

"What's yours?"

This is all trust-building conversation, by the way. He didn't care what her name was.

He was actually pondering if he'd like to get into her pants. Sick little freak.

That's about what Thorn would say if she knew. Sick little freak.

"Thorn."

As if her name really was. Like Logan, the only people who knew her real name was her family, and they hated her. Well, her brother didn't hate her, he just disliked her. Once upon a time she was Rose. Now even her Identification cards say Thorn Heltin. The real card was behind the fake one.

"What are you doing out her so late?"

A small puff on the cigarette and she blew out another ring.

"It's a pleasure to meet you." No really, a real pleasure. He didn't imply that, however much he'd have liked to.

He smiled, and it was sort of... insane looking, put on his pretty little face. He couldn't help it... he was just a sadistic little kid, and the expression fit him.

"I dunno. Just bored."

She frowned at the smile. She did not say 'pleassure to meet you to,' because as of yet, she wasn't really sure about that.

"Bored?" She smiled, able to ignor his smile. Just a quirk. Everyone has something wrong with them right? Not as wrong as Logan. But....oh well.

"Don't you have a curfew?" A glance at the watch. Nearing eleven thirty. She dropped the cigarette and ground it out with the toe of her boot.

"Yeah, bored. Ever heard of it?" he asked sarcastically, his smile toning down a notch as he removed his hands from his pockets to pull up the sweatshirt sleeves again. Damn things kept falling down on him.

"Curfew? No." Criss hadn't given him a curfew... and if he had, he probably wouldn't have come home by the time selected for him to be. Logan was just like that.

...come to think of it, he hadn't been home in a week, anyway. At least, to the apartment.

"Well you should have one. How old are you? Thirteen?"

So maybe she should keep her mouth shut. She's never been faulted before for being oppinionated, but usually she doesn't mouth what she's thinking. Shetoed the cigarette butt on the ground, grounding it again with the toe of the boot, a finger picking at the string of leather that threaded her pants on, tracing the rose.

"Where's your dad?"

Since he doesn't have a mom.

"I'm sixteen." Not yet, but so nearly there that it didn't really matter if it were a lie or not. He looked mildly offended, but stood over next to where she was now, planning on inviting himself in sooner or later. He was feeling bored and pissed off, for some reason.

"He's. dead. too."

She frowned. He didn't look sixteen. He was probably lieing but that wasn't up for her to judge, even though she was doing it anyways.

"You don't look sixteen." She jingled the keys, traced the ink on her thigh. Then her eyes widened and she looked over at him.

"Oh. I'm sorry." She just wasn't doing so well tonight in the conversation department. "Who do you live with then?"

"Everyone tells me that." Okay, so not everyone actually said that, but I'm sure if they knew, they'd say that... or at least think it.

He leaned up against the truck, not caring whether these pants got dirty. They were old, and too big for him.

Did she notice how he was constantly getting closer? It must've been just a little unnerving.

"Foster father." A shrug.

My, he was good at acting cool and casual, rather than the nasty bastard he was.

"Foster Father."

She repeated the words slowly. Actually, she had not noticed his creeping closer until he'd leaned on the trunk of the truck.

"He married? Cause I thought a single man wasn't allowed to be a foster parent."

She shifted slightly. "You don't wanna lean there. There's mud everywhere." She'd been out playing. You couldn't play in mud like that in the camero.

"Eh, fuck if I know the laws. He's a bachelor... it's painfully obvious."

Logan turned and pressed his back to the truck, just to show that he didn't really give a shit whether he got dirty or not. This was just mud... he played with other people's blood and got it stained on his clothes all the time. Mud came off in the washer, and blood didn't.

"Mm, as I noticed."

But she wouldn't like to know that, and his getting potentially dirty had been her only excuse to get him to step away. It didn't work.

"Painfully obvious how?"

She watched him roll his back against the truck, light brown mud clinging to his shirt and pants. Then she edged away slightly, leaning against that place between the door and the dashboard. In a corner. Smaaart.

"It just is."

Deciding that she'd asked enough questions, he stretched his arms and yawned a tad, boredly.Then he stepped up on the running booard of her truck, inviting himself in.

"And now, what about you, hm?"

And he's reaching in one of many of those pockets of his to pull out something.

She watched him step up on the running bored and seat himself in her truck. She narrowed her gray eyes. He was getting dried mud on her seats. At least they were just seat covers, she could take them off and put them in the wash. But she frowned anyways. She wasn't sure if she wanted him there. On one hand, he was just a kid, on the other, he made her squirm.

"What about me?"

She really didn't know. What about her? Her parents, the curfew? What?

"Anything. Why are you so curious about everything?" He pulled out a switchblade, leaning forward to where she was seated in that little corner of hers.

"Don't you know it's rude to interrogate strangers? Nevermind the fact that it's dangerous." He purred, and he was just toying with her for now, really.

She frowned down at the switchblade in his hand and her eyes darted instinctivly across his lap to the drivers side. Why did she leave her knife in the truck? Why didn't she leave it under the passenger side seat instead of the drivers? Instead, she shifted, got to her feet, cocked a hip. What now?

"And didn't you know it's rude to sit in someones car uninvited?"

Shut up Rosie! God!

He got up, cooly raising an eyebrow, taller than her, but only by an inch, so it didn't really count for anything.

"What's the matter? Does it offend you or something?"

Now he placed the blade to her throat.

"You like pain, Thorn?"

That's what he always asked everyone.

"Yes it off..."

The blade went to her throat but she hadn't stopped talking because she was afraid. She'd stopped because it had suprised her. Fear hadn't set in yet. Probably wouldn't for a few minutes. But she'd only expected the kid to threaten her.

Pain? She shook her head, black curls falling around her face again. "Not particularily. Do you?" Not a threat, just a question. A question too keep the fear from setting into her stomach.

"I'm not masochistic." He hovered so very close to her that there was only about an inch inbetween them. He began lightly tracing the blade against her neck, only mildly amused.

"I just enjoy other people's pain."

And he moved closer to her, closing that damnable space between them.

"You fucking sadist."

Nope. Still not scared but she's getting angry. The fear probably won't set in until she gets home in her bed alone. If she gets home. Wait. That thought put a cold feeling in the pit of her stomach. Was it fear? It was uncomfortable that was certian.

Then he closed the space. She put a hand up against his chest, pushing at him. Get away.

"I'll scream." She said it just a little lower then her regular tone. Her voice didn't shake. Ten points for her.

"Go ahead. I'll make you wish you didn't, you little bitch." What happened to the cool and casual, almost innocent Logan? It's obviously gone now, but where did it go to?

The hand with the knife 'accidentally' pressed up against her neck harder now, creating a thin line of blood.

She narrowed her eyes at him, debating with herself. Usually someone will threaten to do something but won't. Maybe Raven was bluffing. But it's not a bluff she wants to call and incidently be wrong. He cut her, the sharp pain made her instinctivly pull backwards, bumping her head on the dashboard.

"Ow. You little bastard." Still she's speaking softly. Still she isn't afraid of him. Or maybe she is. If the cold knot in her stomach is fear she'd rather not know.

He placed his other hand on the side of her neck and asked, while tracing the knife on the opposite end, "Do you know how easy it is to crush a windpipe? Or I could just slit your throat right now."

He paused, smriking and squeezing.

"Which one is more preferable, hm? Or perhaps you'd like rape.. decisions, decisions."

She still had her hand flat against his chest, trying to keep their bodies apart. She wasn't much taller then he was but she wasn't looming either, and he had a knife. Her chances at anything weren't very good. Aside from the cold in her stomach he was just managing to make her mad. Yeah, she'd definatly be scared shitless later.

"I want you to go away." That's what I want. She pushed him back away from her, trying to draw the knife away from her throat. She closed her gray eyes.

She tried to keep their bodies apart, but Logan did and wanted just the opposite. pushing into her harder.

Then he was pushed away, but he regained his footing, flicking the knife away from her throat and instead tracing a deeper cut into her shoulder, ripping through fabric, though he still held her throat with his other hand.

"Watch your words. They just might be the death of you."

The shred of fabric seemed more important to her then the slice through her shoulder. He'd cut the cloth almost all the way through, almost. It was just a wrap around shirt, if he cut to far it'd be gone. No cover.

Watch your words. They just might be the death of you

So she didn't say anything at all, just looked at him.

"I wonder what this shirt is made of..." Logan mused aloud, cutting through the last strands of fabric... "I wonder... how well it stays on.." And then the last pieces of the fabric were gone, leaving Thorn's poor wrap around shirt as something to throw into the garbage.

He chuckled darkly. "Whoops. Must've slipped or something."

She grabbed the shirt desperatly and held the peice to her body, glaring daggers at him, now she wanted to cry. It wasn't really anger, but it wasn't fear yet, but something made her want to cry. Maybe it was that a young body could be so cruel.

"Your a bastard."

And she let the tear run down her cheek.

"I shouldn't have to be reminded." He smirked, holding her jaw in his hand with most of his fingers and his palm, and wiped away the tear with his thumb. The gesture was almost nice, kind, and gentle... or at least it would've been if anyone else but Logan had done it.

His other hand with the knife? Well, it was still working on tearing the shirt down the middle.

What fun.

She whimpered at another tear in the shirt, letting her other hand fall away from where it was pushing his chest to hold the shirt up better. She reeally didn't want to be topless.

"Go away."

Finally she's cracking, her voice was a whisper, another tear. But she wasn't going to crumble. She couldn't crumble. She refused.

Now Logan began to slice through skin on her chest, doing more than tracing a thin line and instead making the shirt even more useless by getting blood on it.

His hand left her jaw and slowly slid down smooth skin to get to her neck, pushing himself further up against her, if possible, now that she had stopped pushing.

"I don't want to."

She whinced. Then cried out. The sucked in a gasp and chocked on it, her eyes wide and fearful.

"I didn't mean to."

Not that anyone heard, it wasn't a loud cry. And no one was so very near them. She closed her eyes and turned her face away from him, still clinging to the shirt.

"Go away...please."

In an instant, the knife was back to her neck again, sharp point in the middle of her throat. "I told you not to."

He glared, forcing the knife to prick skin just a little bit.

"And so help me if you do it again, you will lose your tongue so you cannot speak, your eyes so you cannot see, but your ears so you can hear."

It was a threat he'd carry out, and a nice one, at that. Satisfying... and he'd heard someone say it once. It was a pity they were bluffing.