Jade
I can’t sleep.
Logan’s beside me, his breathing slow and even, one arm draped across my waist. It should be soothing.
It’s not.
Because my brain won’t shut off. Every time I close my eyes, I see the Lotus Eaters standing on that beach with their empty smiles, and the woman waving goodbye like we were leaving a dinner party instead of abandoning her to an eternity of drugged oblivion.
Logan shifts in his sleep, pulling me closer. The hard line of his jaw has softened, the tension that lives permanently between his brows smoothed out in a way that makes him look younger and more human.
I take a few seconds to memorize the rare, unguarded softness of Logan Ashford asleep, because when he’s awake, this face doesn’t exist.
Then, not wanting my restlessness to disturb him, I lift his arm off my waist and slide out from under the blankets.
The air hits my bare legs, and I shiver, grabbing Logan’s shirt from the floor and pulling it over my head.
It smells like cedar and smoke, and for a second I just stand there, breathing it in.
It’s crazy how much comfort a piece of clothing can hold, as if I’m wearing his arms around me when the real ones are asleep.
As quietly as possible, I slip through the door and climb up the ladder to where the nearly full moon is bright against the canopy of strange stars. The boat rocks gently, the sails billowing with a steady wind.
Then I see Callie sitting at the stern with her legs stretched in front of her, a flask in her hand, her coppery-blonde hair loose around her shoulders. She’s staring at the dark water behind us, at the white trail of our wake cutting through black.
I should go back to the cabin and pretend I never came up here.
“Can’t sleep either?” she asks, catching me mid-pivot, one foot already angled toward the hatch.
My fingers find my bracelet as I’m suddenly, horribly aware that I’m standing on deck in Logan’s shirt.
Go back downstairs. Nothing good comes from late-night conversations with your boyfriend’s ex.
But Callie’s still watching the water. The set of her shoulders makes her look vulnerable, as if the lotus haze burned away whatever walls she normally hides behind, leaving her exposed to the world.
So, I walk over and sit down a few feet away from her. Close enough for conversation, but far enough that we’re not pretending to be friends.
She takes a long pull from the flask and holds it out to me.
I eye it. “Where did you even get that?”
“I packed it before we left.” She shakes the flask slightly. “It’s whiskey, not poison.”
“Those aren’t mutually exclusive.”
She gives me a closed lipped smile. “Just take it.”
I shouldn’t. We’re rationing water, and alcohol dehydrates.
But I take the flask anyway.
The whiskey burns going down, cheap and sharp, nothing like the top shelf stuff my parents keep in the crystal decanters I snuck sips from at their parties.
But it settles warm in my stomach, loosening the buzzing anxiety in my lungs, and I realize I hadn’t noticed how tight they’d gotten until right now.
“Thanks.” I shake it slightly and hand it back to her.
Silence stretches between us. It’s not comfortable, but it’s not hostile, either.
Finally, she speaks.
“The lotus was the first peace I’ve had in years,” she says quietly—conversationally, almost, like she’s commenting on the weather. “There was no wanting or aching. No feeling like you’re constantly reaching for someone who keeps stepping out of range.”
Every nerve in my body goes on high alert. Because I’ve been on this boat with Callie Bennett for days, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that every word out of her mouth has a purpose. A destination she’s steering you to while you think you’re just having a chat.
“Logan and I were together for three years before his parents died.” She takes another swig, and her eyes are far off, as if she’s seeing moments from the past and wanting to live them all over again.
“He was different then. He laughed. Actual laughing—not that thing he does now where his mouth moves but nothing reaches his eyes. He let people in. He looked at me like I mattered.”
I stare at my hands in my lap. A spark flickers between my fingers, and I clench my fists to kill it.
“Then they died, and he came back wrong,” she says, that far off look still in her eyes. “He was cold and distant. A shell that looked like the person I loved. And I keep waiting for the real Logan to come back, but he never does.”
My chest caves in around those words. Because I’ve seen glimpses of those moments when Logan’s eyes go distant and flat, when he retreats behind walls I can’t breach.
I thought those moments were about grief. But the way Callie’s talking about it makes it sound less like grief and more like he fundamentally changed.
Which, given that he gained the ability to burn through time on the night his parents died, totally tracks.
“The sirens spoke to me with Logan’s voice,” she continues, and a chill runs through me at the words.
“He told me that the version I’d known since his parents died wasn’t him, but a pretender living in his body.
He said he missed me. He said he was hoping I’d find him—the real him that was waiting for me on that shore—so he could tell me how much he loves me, and we could be together again, like we’re meant to be. ”
My heart twists. Because Callie’s describing a version of Logan that died with his parents, leaving behind a stranger who looks the same but isn’t. And now she has to see him every day and be reminded that the person she loved is right there, completely unreachable.
How do you grieve someone who’s still alive? How do you mourn a person whose heart is beating and whose voice sounds the same, when everything underneath is gone?
I don’t know how she survives it. I hope I never find out.
“I’m sorry you lost him like that,” I hear myself say.
“I’m not looking for pity.” She takes another swig from the flask.
“I’m giving you a warning. You have his attention right now, but one day, you won’t, and then you’ll understand why I can’t let go.
Because letting go means admitting the person I love is gone forever, and I refuse to grieve someone who’s still breathing. ”
I search for a response, but nothing comes. What are you supposed to say to the girl who loved your boyfriend first, who held him while he fell apart, who watched him rebuild himself into someone she doesn’t recognize?
There’s nothing I can say to make it better. If I tried, it would come off as ingenuine, and Callie would see straight through it. So, we sit there in silence as the boat rocks, the strange stars glitter overhead, and the dark water stretches endlessly in every direction.
“Can I ask you something?” she eventually asks.
“Sure,” I say, bracing myself for anything.
She turns the flask over in her hands, studying it like it holds answers, her promise ring glinting in the moonlight. “Does Logan ever scare you? Do you ever look at him and see what’s underneath? How dark and dangerous he really is?”
The night air is suddenly colder.
Because yes.
He told me there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep you safe with a dark, final certainty that left no room for metaphor.
He described exactly how he wanted to tear Oliver apart for dancing with me at the Halloween Ball, and he told me about going back over and over again to torture the assassin who killed his parents.
He moves through the world like a predator pretending to be tame, every gesture calculated, every reaction controlled, and despite all of it, I’ve never felt safer with anyone else.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I lie, and it’s the worst lie I’ve ever told. My voice shakes, my electricity sparks across my palms, and Callie looks at me with exhausted, knowing eyes.
“He takes from people,” she says, her gaze sharp when she looks at me.
“He’ll take your energy, and your focus, and he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it.
” She stands and brushes off her pants, that cool, untouchable expression settling over her features like a shield.
“I thought our history would be enough to keep him, but it wasn’t.
Remember that the next time he tells you something that doesn’t quite add up. ”
Then she walks to the hatch, disappears below deck, and I’m alone.
I pull my knees to my chest and wrap my arms around them, gazing out at the endless sea. Electricity hums under my skin, tendrils of current reaching for the hatch where Logan sleeps below deck, as if my magic can’t accept that I’m choosing to sit up here alone instead of pressed against his chest.
My brain heard Callie’s warning, but my magic didn’t.
So, I don’t let it spark. I just sit on the deck of a boat sailing through impossible waters, trying to figure out why Callie Bennett’s words are burrowing under my skin like splinters I can’t reach.
He takes from people. Your energy, and your focus.
Is that true? My entire nervous system rewires itself whenever Logan walks into a room. I can’t think when he’s near me, can’t breathe when he touches me, and I can’t focus on anyone else when we’re in the same space.
I thought that was love. Callie’s calling it consumption.
And the worst part is, I can’t tell the difference.