I have to follow. Have to save her.
I rise. It takes everything in me. But my legs buckle. I crash to my knees, then forward onto my face. The floor is cool against my cheek, sticky with my blood. Darkness crowds the edges of my vision, an encroaching tide I can't fight back.
Not now. Please, not now.
I need to stay conscious. Need to chase after her.
The last thing I hear before blackness claims me is the sound of the receding engine, taking with it the only thing in this world I've ever truly loved.
Twenty-Seven
Logan
Logan walks into the interrogation room with measured steps, savoring each moment. Naomi is once again in an orange prison uniform, cuffed and shackled to the metal table like a dangerous criminal. Logan finds that deeply ironic. The dangerous criminals in control of the system have done that to her to make her look like the guilty one, when he knows full well that the real monsters wear business suits.
The room is stark. Bare concrete walls, a single metal table bolted to the floor. No windows, just a two-way mirror that Logan knows has no one behind it. The fluorescent lights cast harsh shadows across Naomi's face, making the hollows of her cheeks more pronounced. But she’s still very pretty. He understands why Walker couldn’t help himself.
Naomi doesn't even look up at him as Logan approaches. She keeps her eyes fixed on the table's scratched metal surface. Her hair hangs limply around her face, masking part of it.
"I’m guessing you think you were fated to meet him. For him to find you in those woods in Montana. For you to fall in love." Logan grabs a chair and sits across from her. The metalscrapes harshly against the concrete as he pulls it close. "But that's not true," Logan whispers.
Naomi stares at him, her face hard, betraying nothing. The chains binding her hands to the table clink softly as she shifts almost imperceptibly away from him.
"You're not fated. Me and Walker are." Logan feels a rush of pleasure at the words.
Naomi lets her eyes look just a little doubtful. It's the first crack in her armor, and Logan pounces on it, leaning forward, elbows on the table.
"Think about it. I survived that foreign prison. The torture. I escaped it. Searched for the man who betrayed me for years." His voice drops lower, intimate like a lover's. "Plied my trade for dark programs all over the US government and one little job, to bring back a girl who stuck her nose in a place it didn't belong. And I find him. The man I’ve hunted for years."
Logan feels his pulse quicken as he leans even closer, inches from her face. "And not only that, but I also find the means to hurt him. To really tear his heart out of his chest, you know, before I really tear his heart out of his chest." His lips curl into a smile. "I couldn't hurt a man who had nothing to lose. But he had you. And nowIhave you."
Naomi doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t move. To Logan, she looks broken. Logan tilts his head in question. "You think he's dead? You underestimate him."
Naomi looks up. In her eyes is not desolation, or fear, or loss. They're fire. Blue flames burning so intensely that Logan finds himself instinctively leaning back, though he'd never admit the reaction.
"No, you do. He's better than you. He's beaten you over and over again. He'll save me and defeat you." Her voice doesn't waver. It's steady and assured.
Logan smiles. "Well, well, well. I see why he fell for you,wildcat." His voice drips with false admiration, but something in her defiance genuinely intrigues him. The smile vanishes like a light switching off, replaced by the cold darkness that always lives just beneath his skin. "Butyouunderestimateme."
"No. You're a man who doesn't believe in anything. Good. Evil. You have no compass. It just spins and spins, pointing nowhere and everywhere. You're simply a lost little boy. Walker believes in things. Right. Wrong. And I believe in him."
Logan rises from his chair to loom over her.
"I believed in Walker. And he betrayed me." The words escape before he can contain them, raw and unfiltered. Logan hates himself for the momentary loss of control, for showing even this sliver of vulnerability.
Naomi's face brightens with sudden understanding, and Logan realizes his mistake immediately.
"Oh, I see. You're jealous." Her voice lacks mockery. It's almost gentle in its insight, which only makes it worse.
"Of what?" Logan sneers.
"You sound like a jilted lover. You wish you were fated. That would make you feel better." Naomi leans forward. Her eyes burn with a certainty that gets under Logan's skin like nothing else could. "It would mean that your thirst for vengeance meant something. But it doesn’t. You were simply reaping what you sowed. You're not half the man Walker is. And you never will be. You never mattered. And you never will."
Logan leans down until his face is inches from hers. His breathing comes shallow and fast, nostrils flaring with barely contained rage. The room seems to contract around them.
"You think you understand me?" he whispers, each word sharp as a razor. "You won't be so sure when I spend hours carving your skin in front of Walker. When I peel you apart layer by layer until you're begging me to end it." He tilts hishead slightly, studying her face the way an artist contemplates a canvas. "And I'll make him watch every second, until that look in your eyes, the one you have right now, is taken from you."
Her breathing quickens, but she doesn't look away. She doesn't break. And that just infuriates Logan more. His hand begins to move toward her face, to grab her jaw and force her to understand the reality of her situation.
