Chapter 10
Ten
Logan
Logan Black hates hospitals, but not for the same reasons most people do.
Logan hates them because they’re cathedrals that worship weakness. The unnatural antiseptic covers failure: sickness and death. The sterility is a lie. Humans are walking bags of filth and disease.
Drugs are a mask when pain is information. Suffering is a teacher.
And Logan Black is an excellent student.
"Excuse me. You can't go in there." Logan turns to find a young nurse, her hand out to stop him.
He looks down at her. At six foot five, he looks down on everyone.
"Are you sure?" The question is like a deep lake.
Cool on the surface, but a threat lurks in the darkness beneath.
The nurse looks into his eyes, and her face melts from mild bureaucratic annoyance into fear.
He knows what she sees. Deep within his black pupils, those depths will swallow and drown her.
And he can see in her eyes that she isn't sure. Isn't sure at all.
"He's with me," a sharp voice calls from within the room. The nurse flees without another word as Logan steps into the room.
Logan Black stares at the man in the hospital bed. A mountain of a guy, with tubes running in and out of him, desperately trying to keep him alive. His face is so swollen and discolored that it barely looks human.
Then Logan’s eyes fall on the woman who dismissed the nurse: Isla Graves.
She’s petite and in her early sixties, but her dress and features are as sharp as her voice.
He has been working for her for the past few years.
Often, there is friction between them, given Graves’s distaste for Logan’s methods despite her need for them. "What happened to him?" Logan asks.
"Gunshot to the chest, punctured lung, broken ribs, severe blood loss, and a throat laceration just shy of the carotid," Graves replies clinically. "He's lucky to be alive."
Lucky isn't the word Logan would use, looking at the bag of meat lying before him.
"Who is he?"
"This is Travis McCord. He and a small team were sent to clean up a little mess."
Logan scoffs. "Doesn't look little."
Graves sighs. "An analyst found one of our sites that we don't want eyes on."
"Well, it looks like he was the one who took out the trash." Logan can't help the hint of admiration in his voice.
"This analyst was a female and not even a field agent. And these were four highly trained operatives.” Graves folds her arms over her chest.
"She had help?"
"A lot of it. The whole team is dead, and she and whomever helped her disappeared without a trace. But given the footprints we found, it looks like it was only one other person."
"One guy took out the team?" Logan raises an eyebrow, reassessing the situation. This isn't some plucky analyst and a coworker or a friend or a random passerby. This is something else entirely. Logan's heartbeat picks up speed, which is a rare pleasure.
Graves nods, lips pursed and face severe.
Logan's lips curl into a smile. It’s a predator's grin of bared teeth but narrowed eyes. Most people flinch when they see it, but Graves just watches him with that same flat, cold stare.
The other source of their friction is her hypocrisy, which irritates Logan. While she may not directly get her hands dirty, she isn’t all that different from him.
"What do you need me to do?" Logan asks, already knowing the answer.
"Clean up the mess."
"Done." The words come out as equal promise and threat. The familiar taste of the hunt rises in Logan's throat. Metallic. It’s been too long since he's had a proper challenge.
"Law enforcement will be tracking them too," Graves says, turning away from Logan and walking toward the exit.
Logan looks at Graves, disgust etched into his features. "You should know better."
Graves at least has the decency to look slightly disgusted herself. "Yes. Well, I'm fixing my mistake and coming to you now."
Logan doesn't respond, instead moving to the monitoring equipment beside McCord's bed. His fingers hover over the power switch.
"He could wake up and give us a description of whoever helped her," Graves says, her eyes tracking what Logan is about to do.
"He's not waking up, and I don't need it. And we have enough loose ends to tie up," Logan says simply. Graves doesn't respond, just nods once and walks away, footsteps fading down the sterile hallway.
Logan flicks off the machine. The steady beeping stops, replaced by silence. Logan reaches for the breathing tube next, pulling it free in one smooth motion.
McCord's body bucks weakly on the bed, his lungs desperately searching for oxygen that won't come. It goes on longer than one would think, given the damage to his body. But then he’s still.
Logan watches every moment, savoring.