Those Who Wait

[Logan (DELETED 7438)]

She wore a low cut emerald colored dress that made her eyes seem brighter in the bar light and Logan sat a few chairs down with friends. They laughed, Mariah hanging onto his arm as she told some joke about their earlier days. Underneath his lashes, he watched how she checked her phone for the time and adjusted her breasts, looking down at them with interest that he didn't understand. She wasn't as pretty as the first, but Logan could imagine with time, and a little of his skill, she would be as beautiful as she was fiery.

The man that she had been waiting on never showed. It was something that Logan learned no matter how many drinks that his friends pushed at him. The beer tasted like piss, he had told them as much, and even after Mariah had spilled some on him, he hadn't picked up the others. He liked having a clear head for the time being. After a while, his wife pulled him to the dance floor and he twirled her, a squeal of delight escaping her as his hands went to her slender waist.

He moved with her along with the music, her slender arms moving to rest against his shoulders. Looking down at her, Logan noticed the way that she was looking at him. It had been the same primal look that had drawn him in, the pout of her lips more enticing with the dark red that didn't seem as slutty as she usually wore. He felt the eyes of the stranger on him as he leaned down and brushed his lips against Mariah’s, the taste of her mint lip balm remaining even after he pulled away.

Flashing lights caught the glint of his wedding band, the sole piece of thin jewelry almost identical if it weren’t for the rock on hers. His wife giggled, going unheard due to the music and as she pulled at his arm, shouting that she was ready for another drink, Logan gave her a nod of acknowledgement to show that he had heard her. His blue eyes went to the stranger’s seat and took note that she was no longer there. “Go on ahead.” He called over the music after a tug to his arm told him that Mariah still remained at his side.

She protested and lightly, he slapped her backside.

Mariah looked at him in surprise, her already flushed cheeks reddening and he dipped his head down, biting down on her bottom lip before kissing her. Pleased by this, his wife sauntered away, pausing to look at him before he winked and turned his back to her. The roll of his eyes could not be suppressed, his hand lifting to rub at the back of his neck. He turned his head from the left to the right, the joints giving a significant crack that he both felt and heard as he made his way further into the sea of bodies.

Limbs flailed, hips shook.

Sweat glistened on bare skin.

It rolled down the chin of a nearby man before it disappeared onto the floor below his feet.

His blue eyes drifted over their forms, imagining the different poses that they could take place. A broken bone here, a cut joint there. It always impressed him in the ways that the body could adjust with just a little bit of help of a knife, extending the range of motion or flexibility. Logan always enjoyed the sounds that accompanied his work, as well. The pops, the cracks. Despite what the news reports said, he never enjoyed the screams unless they came from the more annoying victims.

The ones that fail to accept that they won’t be leaving alive.

Running his tongue over his teeth, he pressed his lips into a thin line after he looked around the room as it darkened before spotting a glint of red in his peripheral vision. The emerald green dress.
It was her.

Glancing over his shoulder, he spotted his wife with her friends and distracted before he made his way over to the other woman with a smirk dancing across his lips. He watched the way her body moved as she danced, the way that her muscles would move underneath her skin. His eyes were drawn to the small of her back where the cloth of her dress had gotten wet with sweat, clinging to her skin if it were even more possible with how she wore it like a second skin.

She turned around and flashed a smile, her green eyes moving over to where his wife stood.

In his pocket, he was reminded of the weight of his knife as she motioned for him to come closer, clearly amused by the fact she had caught his attention. Her skin was flushed underneath the florescent lights, the alternating colors causing it to seem paler or sickly at times.

Blue, in particular, even green.

Just before he reached her, his pocket began to furious vibrate and Logan felt his anger bubbling up to chest as he stopped, turning and heading towards a nearby hallway as he dug his cellphone from his pocket. Stepping into the bathroom, he was aware of the music blaring in the background as stabbed his thumb against the green touch pad. “Sanders.” He spoke in way of greeting, and clenched his jaw while a vein throbbed at his temple as the voice of his mother-in-law cut into his brain.

“Hello to you, too, Jeanine. Yes, Mariah is enjoying herself.”

The clipped sentences were shoved the moment that he had a chance to speak.

“We’ll be there tomorrow at seven, yes.”

He hated his wife’s birthday. Logan stepped back into the hallway, clenching his jaw lightly before he stepped out for the time being and continued to listen as he watched the woman in the emerald dress dance with a tall dark skinned young man that had taken off his shirt, his jeans hanging low enough off his hips to reveal the band of his under armor boxer briefs.

She would be next, he decided as he gave Jeanine a “yes” to the question she had asked, followed by another.

He could wait.

[Logan (DELETED 7438)]

Later on...

Lust.

The word was burned into his mind as he looked at the nail marks on his shoulder, remembering the way her body had quaked in euphoria. Her green dress lay on the floor in a heap, her red hair fanned out on the blue silk pillowcase where her body lay tangled in the matching sheets. A toned muscular pale limb was bare from where he had pushed it off him as he escaped her clutches.

The jeans he had changed into hung low on his hips, showing more skin than he preferred as he leaned over to collect his belt. From the bed, there was a soft groan and he could tell as he kept his head down that she was rousing from her sleep. "What was her name?" The question remained in his mind even after she had called out the name that he had given her in the bar that he'd found her in after dinner with his inlaws. "Claire?" He wondered as he shrugged on his shirt, ignoring the tingling that moved down his spine as he heard her call his name again and begin to crawl out of the bed.

Logan had just gotten to the third button when she reached him. He lifted his head and narrowed his ice blue eyes at her. While his gaze had been on his shirt, she had collected a nightgown that left little to the imagination as it fell to her upper thigh. Claire. That had been her name. "Come back to bed." She purred in a sultry tone that tempted him to do just that, but he could feel the weight of his knife in his pocket and the man gave a shake of his head. "She makes you unhappy, I know she does. You should just stay." The moment her hand touched his shoulder, he reached up and squeezed the offending arm hard enough to make her wince before he removed it. "You know nothing." He sneered and then collected his tie.

He would finish buttoning his shirt later. He popped his neck, rolled his shoulders and then collected his phone from her bedstand, turning it back on. It was just after two and he had three missed calls from Jeanine, five from Mariah and one from his father-in-law, Clark. Out of them all, Clark was the most tolerable and as the woman asked him to stay once more, Logan waited for the text messages to finish rolling in before skimming through them. He sent a text message to his assistant, Penny, asking her to call his inlaws in the morning, and then dialed his voicemail, listening as he began to walk towards the front door. Behind him, Claire ran out. "Andrew!" She sounded angry and as Mariah's melodic voice caught his attention on the voicemail, asking if he was alright, Logan glanced back at the woman.

"This is your last chance to come back to my bed." She warned and he only lifted his eyebrow at her before reaching into the pockets of his jeans. He fished for a few moments until he found what he was looking for before pulling out a crumpled twenty dollar bill, tossing it to her. "What the hell is this?" She shrieked, picking up the bill and looking at him. Even from where he stood, Logan could feel the rage coming off her like heat from a furnace. "Buy yourself something nice." He stepped out of the apartment and began to make his way towards the elevator, buttoning up his shirt the rest of the way. Stepping inside, he pressed the down button with his middle finger and adjusted to lean against the back wall. Logan slid his tie around his neck and began to prepare the knot, the motions reminding him of preparing a noose.

He took his time, floor by floor coming slowly as he relaxed and began to roll the sleeves of his shirt up to reveal his forearms. Blue eyes lifted to the red countdown. 9... 8... 7... They came at a steady pace and he tilted his head back after a little while as he twisted his wedding ring around his finger thoughtfully. 6... 5... 4... Would Mariah care when she realized what the scratches on his shoulder were? Probably. He dismissed the idea. He hadn't done it to hurt her, those feelings has passed sometime previously. She had hurt him when she'd begun her little hobby, thinking he wouldn't notice it. 3... 2... G... When the doors slid open, Logan stepped out of the elevator and a gunshot caught his attention just before pain erupted in his shoulder.

Surprised, he let out a gasp as he fell back against the door and he covered the wounded area. “You son of a *****!” Claire shrieked at him and he wondered how the hell she reached the ground floor before him until he saw the stairs behind her. He looked at his shoulder, flexing the muscles in the area before he realized that she had grazed him - even if it still hurt like hell. “Twenty dollars, really?” She waved the gun wildly as she came closer to her and he saw a few people leaving the lobby quickly. Some screamed, but there were some that remained frozen in their spot. “You think I’m worth twenty dollars? Give me one good reason to why I shouldn't splatter your brains on the pavement?” Her voice was high and shrill, and for the life of him, Logan couldn't help the comment, “because you can't aim for ****” that slipped past his lips. This seemed to confuse her as she stopped, and Logan leapt at her, catching her around the waist with his full weight and knocked her to the ground.

Although she landed with an “oof” and she winced, she held the gun in a vice like grip as he tried to get it from her. Outside, someone shouted for the police and the gun went off. Logan wasn't sure who pulled the trigger that caused a man to clutch his side and fall, but he didn't care. Claire leaned up and bit him, her teeth sinking into his flesh and instinctively, he let go of the gun before she caught him in the groin with her knee. Stars in front of his eyes and he closed them tightly as he doubled over while she scrambled to her feet. “Dammit!” He heard her cry out angrily and he heard her fiddling with the gun. Instinctively, his hand went into his pocket and his fingers curled around the familiar handle of his knife as there was a click above his head. “Aha!” She made the noise and he heard sirens in the distance the same time that he reached up and drove the blade deep into the stomach. She cried out and a woman screamed as blood began to spill out over his hand, Logan clenching his jaw as he looked up into the woman's emerald green eyes.

Shock.

Confusion.

Anger.

Pain.

Fear.

The emotions registered one by one as he pulled the knife out of her, ignoring the noises around him as he quickly lowered her to the floor. In the same instance, he used the bloodied knife to rip off his sleeves before pushing them into a ball and against the wound. “Call an ambulance!” He snapped at another person, turning his attention back to Claire. “You *****. You weren't supposed to die like this.” He thought angrily, looking at her face as she had blood on her lips. Before he knew it, the police arrived and he felt hands grab his shoulders. Pain ignited once more, a blonde woman and her partner pulling him away. “She shot him, he stabbed her.” He could hear someone sobbing.

She died at 2:46.