I blink a few times to get the images out of my head. “How can you tell?”
“I pay attention.” He moves to stand next to me at the railing. “What’s on your mind?”
“I keep thinking about the sirens that pretended to be Sam and Elizabeth,” I tell him.
“What did they say?”
“Sam said he forgives me. Elizabeth said it wasn’t my fault, because my power was out of my control, and I didn’t mean to hurt her.” I squeeze my eyes shut, but all I see is her body crumpling and the smoke rising from her chest from the deadly blast of electricity I shot at her—a voltage cranked up to ten, aimed to kill.
Logan’s hand finds mine, unsteady from however many times he time traveled while we were fighting Scylla and Charybdis, and he inhales sharply, his thumb dragging across my knuckles.
“I think about my parents every day,” he finally says. “I wonder what I could have done differently, and what would have happened if I pushed myself to travel back further.”
I nod, remembering the pain in his eyes when he admitted he’d never stopped blaming himself.
“The guilt doesn’t go away,” he says, years of weight beneath the words. “It becomes part of you, and eventually, you learn to live beside it instead of under it.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It is.” He squeezes my hand. “But it’s better than the alternative.”
I lean into him and let my shoulder press against his arm.
“What’s the alternative?”
“Letting it crush you.” His body tenses. “Letting it win.”
I don’t have a response to that. So, I stare out into the endless gray, holding his hand, trying to imagine a future where I’m able to carry the guilt instead of having it slowly suffocate me.
It’s hard to picture. But with Logan’s hand in mine, it feels almost possible.
“Logan,” Callie says, slicing through the moment. She’s standing a few feet away, arms crossed. “I need your help with the rigging. It got damaged during Scylla’s attack.”
Logan doesn’t move. “Can it wait five minutes?”
“Sure.” Her laugh is sharp. “Let’s hope the remaining mast doesn’t snap in half during your romantic moment. I’m sure the ocean will give us a grace period.”
I want to tell him to stay.
Instead, I say, “She’s right. Go.”
He looks at me. Really looks, like he’s waiting for me to change my mind.
“I’ll be fine,” I add. “Fix the rigging. Keep us alive.”
He hesitates for another second. Then he squeezes my hand once, quick and deliberate, and stands.
“I’ll be back.”
“I know.”
He crosses the deck to Callie, who’s already heading to the damaged rigging with purpose in her step. But before she reaches the mast, she glances back.
Our eyes meet, and triumph flashes across her face, there and gone so fast I might have imagined it.
But I won’t give her the satisfaction of letting her know how much she affects me. So, I turn back to the railing and gaze out at the gray that stretches on forever, giving us no way to know if we’re sailing to safety or straight into the jaws of another monster.
EVIE
