“Yes,” confirms Logan, his face ashen. “And it was the middle of the night. Only, she didn’t make it. I waited for her here for several hours, and she never showed up. So, I drove back, freaking out, thinking something had happened to her. I found her passed out in the middle of a street. Luckily, there weren’t too many cars.” He pauses, barely managing to look up at me.
“Anything else?” I growl.
“I… well… by the time I brought her home, I felt terrible… and she smelled so bad from the water that I believed… I believed I had no choice but to give her a shower. I averted my eyes, but… well… I know that you won’t like that… that I saw her… that she was naked…”
“She was naked,” I echo, my voice harsh.
I rise slowly from the table and turn toward the cupboard behind me. Both Everest and Igor pale as they see me fumbling through the drawer, but Logan’s face is in his hands and he never notices a thing until I press the gun I fetched to the back of his head. He inhales sharply.
“Okay, man. Okay. I get it. You’re angry.”
“No, I don’t think youdoget it,” I say in a strangled tone.
I close my eyes. Somehow it feels like just yesterday when I found her that morning sleeping on the floor. She’d fallen into my arms and lifted her head for a kiss, and I had withheld my affection. She must have been so relieved to see me, so thankful, believing I would protect her. She was sadly rewarded for her faith in me. Tortured at Logan’s hands, humiliated beyond belief when I asked him to go unlock her handcuffs. And then… I grimace in pain as I remember it. And then, I allowed him to win her at poker, and I beat her in front of him, in front of Vale, in front of them all, when she refused to go.
Of course, she refused to go. She didn’t know it was all for show. She didn’t know she was safe with him, because shehadn’tbeen safe with him.
That was why she kneeled before me, that fateful day, and begged. Not to be spared, but to be spared a death at Logan’s hands.
A sudden suspicion nearly strangles me.
“I will allow you to leave this Earth painlessly,” I snarl, my finger on the trigger.
Logan’s eyes grow wide with shock.
“Oh, come on, man, don’t say that…”
“LISTEN TO ME!” I bark. “I will allow you to die painlessly, if you can look me in the eye and promise me you did not touchher.”
His mouth actually hangs open. “What the fuck, dude? What the fuck?”
“Stand up,” I order, my voice harsh. “Turn around slowly. Face me. Look me in the eye.”
He stands up then hesitates, his hands shaking at his sides.
“Do it,” I insist.
He turns around slowly, very slowly, and lifts his eyes until they meet mine.
It’s all I can do not to look away. His terrified expression is like a blow to my stomach, and all the wind is knocked out of me. I look in his eyes and see all our life together. The first time we met, when we were six. Beginning of first grade. We had been assigned seats next to each other, and from that moment on, we were inseparable. We played at recess together. We did our homework together. We copied off each other on tests. When the teacher demanded silence, he whispered jokes in my ear. If he was sick, I’d invent an excuse to stay home too. School wasn’t school without him. Life wasn’t life.
There’s an unspoken plea in his eyes, and I have to force my tears from welling up in mine. I can’t even remember the last time I cried. Probably when the doctor pulled me out of my mother. Oakley boys don’t cry.
And here I am, about to bawl like a motherfucking baby.
But my finger remains steady on the trigger. Because he didn’t get it, but now he does. The days when he was the most important person in my life are over.
Now, it’s me and my pet. And if anyone hurts her, they die. That includes him.
“Did you touch her?” I ask quietly.
He shakes his head wordlessly, and I remove the safety. He closes his eyes, and I can tell he’s doing his best to accept his fate.
I take a deep breath and put my finger once more on the trigger.
“Damien,” says Everest suddenly.
“Fuck off,” I grunt. “This is between me and Logan.”
