Logan
Ow. Ow. Ow. Lia…
That last thought overwhelms all the rest, and by the time I’m opening my eyes, the last thing on my mind is the pain wracking my body.
“Where is she?” I hiss. “Where the fuck is she?”
I barely take stock of my surroundings, of the blank beige walls that surround me, of the strange, unfamiliar bed beneath me. I’m far too focused on the memory of that last fleeting glance Lia spared me just before she entered the wolves’ den.
It feels like it’s been burned into my retinas.
But when Damien appears in my field of vision, I have no choice but to push that image to the side.
“How’re you doing, man?”
I try to lift a hand to my face, but I’m aching all over. My body feels like it’s been turned to lead.
“Been better,” I croak. Then a renewed sense of urgency breaks over me, and I try to get up. “Damien.”
But the latter’s hand on my shoulder, in addition to gravity and to my injuries, keeps me down.
“Take it easy. You’ve got a whole lot of broken bones, a concussion, and I don’t even know what else.
Just relax, man. This is Vale’s place, and he says we can stay as long as we want.
Cool, huh? He’s letting you stay in the bedroom, I’m gonna sleep on the floor, and he’ll take the couch.
Obviously, that’s temporary. But let me tell you one thing: you’re never going back to your foster parents, and—”
“Damien!” I grit my teeth with the effort of cutting into his word flow. “Lia’s in the bar. I’ve got to get her out of there!”
Damien’s lips flatten into a grim line. “No one’s in there anymore. So just calm down, okay?”
I swallow the lump that feels like it’s become a permanent part of my throat. “Where is she, then?”
He shrugs. “She left. You’ve been unconscious for nearly twelve hours. I’ve been kind of freaking out, but the doctor said you’d be alright, and I guess you are.”
“What doctor? What the hell are you talking about?”
I try once more to get up, and for the first time, I realize what exactly is preventing me from moving. My arms are both in casts, my chest is bandaged, and so is one of my legs. I’ve turned into a fucking mummy.
“What the fuck?”
“They gave you a pretty good beating,” says Damien, sagging back in his chair. “Want to tell me what that’s about?”
My eyes close as the painful memories come crowding back.
Lia did that. Lia fucking did that.
Fucking snake.
And yet, my anger is nothing next to the anxiety that throbs in my veins. “What happened to Lia, Damien? Is she okay?”
“Yeah,” he says curtly.
“What do you mean, yeah? Tell me the truth. Did something happen to her? I can handle it. Please just tell me.”
He sighs. “Fine. She walked into that bar and got deflowered. That’s all I know.”
With the way the evening devolved, it would have been crazy to expect a different outcome, and yet, hearing it still hurts like hell. But not so much that my brain doesn’t puzzle over the word Damien used. “Deflowered? She wasn’t deflowered.”
He smirks. “Does that mean you guys did it? Congratulations, man.”
“Shut up.” The last thing I need right now is to get teased by Damien. Especially when he’s got it so wrong. “I didn’t do a thing with her.”
“Huh?”
“I didn’t fuck her. But she wasn’t a virgin.”
Damien raises a surprised eyebrow. “How do you know, if you didn’t fuck her?”
I grimace, unwilling to relive those painful words again.
I’ve fucked about half the school. Maybe half the town, too.
“What made you think she was a virgin?” I counter.
“Well…” Damien hesitates a beat, then mutters, “There was blood on his mattress.”
I blink up at him, trying to digest the few words that have just given me way too much information at once. Blood? Why? Whose mattress?
I settle on that last question.
“Uhm,” he answers, staring at anything but at me.
I’ve never seen him look so uncomfortable.
In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen him look uncomfortable, period.
“See, Vale’s friend, this idiot named Igor, was at the bar last night.
He knows I hang with Vale now, and that you’re my best friend, so when he saw you getting beat up, he gave Vale a ring, and Vale called me.
That’s how I realized what was going on, and I came to the bar just as those fucks were beating the shit out of you… ”
“Okay, Damien,” I wince, trying to get into a more comfortable position. “I don’t actually care about that. What about Lia—”
“Has anyone ever told you you sound like a broken record?” he snaps, before softening his voice again. “I’m getting to that. Carmelo, you know, the don’s son, was inside. He came right out when he found out what was going on and he shot those five assholes dead.”
The realization that five guys just died on account of me is enough to momentarily distract me from my fixation.
“He killed those five guys for me? Why the hell is Carmelo Moretti siding with you over some mobsters? Come to think of it, why the hell does Carmelo Moretti even know your name?”
Damien shrugs. “Guess I might’ve done his daddy a favor or two. No big deal.”
“No big deal? You’re fifteen years old! What kind of favors?”
“Don’t worry your little head about it,” he says, giving me an affectionate cuff on the side of the head, then looking immediately regretful when I hiss in pain. “Just be happy Carmelo Moretti is on our side. He’s the most useful friend we can have.”
“Whatever.” I’m far too tired and in pain to make sense of Damien’s strange new friendship. Anyway, it would take a lot more than that to keep my thoughts on anyone other than Lia.
“So what happened to her?” I insist.
“Well, she came out of the back room of the bar a little later,” hedges Damien.
“You know, that room with the mattress. She looked very upset. She’d probably heard what happened, or saw you on the ground.
Or it was the five dead bodies that did it.
Anyway, she was crying. And I guess she went home. ”
“You guess? Did she get home alright?” I ask, my head pounding.
“I assume so.” Damien shrugs. “I was kind of focused on something else. Or someone else. You were dead to the world, and for a while, I was worried you were…” He cuts himself short with a loud, strangled cough.
“Did you go check on her? Did you make sure she’s okay?”
His face hardens. “I haven’t left your side, Logan.
Listen, I understand you’re into her. I’m not going to bully her anymore.
I give you my word. But you’re crazy if you think I’m going to abandon my best friend to go check on the girl who has spent the past nine years making your life hell. Got it?”
“Got it,” I mumble after a beat.
I guess I haven’t been half as discreet as I thought. Or maybe it’s just impossible to get anything past Damien. Whatever the case, he’s clearly known for a while now that Lia apparently enjoys nothing more than to put me down.
“What about the mattress?” I add after a short silence. “Who used it, Damien?”
Damien grimaces. “Definitely not the most ideal person, if you catch my drift.”
“Uhm, no.” Anxiety starts to sink its claws into my chest again. I’m not sure I can bear to hear more about the guy who had his cock in Lia last night. “I don’t catch your drift. Who, Damien?”
“Carmelo,” he mutters at last. “Carmelo Moretti.”
Carmelo Moretti? What the fuck?
For a while, I can’t do a thing but stare at him in shock. At last, though, I manage, “The guy who shot those five men dead? The guy who owes you? The most useful friend you could possibly have? That guy?”
“Yep. And you forgot to add, the don’s son.”
“Fuck.”
I sink back into the mattress, trying, and failing, to process what Damien’s just said.
It was one thing to see her walk into that bar in her tight leather outfit and hear her tell those five guys to beat the shit out of me. It’s another to imagine her getting into bed with the second most important guy in Oakley.
Damien keeps an eye on me as he says, “You know, it’s not like she didn’t go in there wanting it. I mean, she literally walked straight to him. It’s not like he grabbed her and…”
“I know,” I cut in miserably.
“But I’m also aware that possessive isn’t quite strong enough a word to describe how you feel about her,” adds Damien. “So just give me the word, and he’s dead.”
I stare at him in utter disbelief. “No way would you kill the don’s son, Damien,” I growl. “Stop fucking with me.”
“Not fucking with you. Not at all. Just say the word, Logan, and he’s dead. I can make it as painful as you want, too. You know Vale’s friend Igor? He’s got a machete, and he taught me how to use it. So just say the word, Logan.”
“Bullshit,” I snarl. “Bullshit, Damien. I don’t know what game you’re playing, but—”
“I’m not playing a game,” cuts in Damien. “I’m dead serious. There’s not a thing I wouldn’t do for you, and it’s time you found that out.”
I pass a hand over my eyes. I always knew Damien was a little unhinged, but this is on another level.
“I’m not sure killing him is the best idea, though,” he continues.
“Oh, really? You think?”
“I mean beyond the obvious,” he says coolly. “Sure, he’s useful, sure he’s powerful, sure we’d be pretty fucking screwed if we ever went after him. Details.”
“Details?”
“The main thing, Logan, is that this girl has spent nine years making you miserable. Insulting you at every turn. The hard truth is, I’m just not sure she gives a shit.
Not that that matters in itself. All you have to do is ask, and I’ll drag her right over to you.
I’ll cut her tongue out so she can never cuss you out again.
I’ll buy you a private island where you can keep her.
Whatever you want. But is she really worth it?
Huh, Logan? Maybe it’s time you… moved on. What do you say?”
I bite my tongue to keep myself from admitting how tempting all those options are, because I’m convinced he’s in jest, despite there not being a trace of humor in his voice. And yet, even though every cell in my body recoils at his last words… I know they’re the only ones that make sense.
I can’t even remember the last time she wasn’t cruel to me.
She’s so set on hurting me she hooked up with the first man she saw who wasn’t me.
What kind of a guy keeps pining over a girl who treats him so badly?
In fact, bad doesn’t even begin to describe everything she’s done to me since I met her.
The only reasonable thing to do now is the thing I should have done nine years ago, when Lia Cabello walked into class late in the very beginning of first grade.
The teacher had assigned her the seat across the aisle from me, and I’d leaned over to introduce myself.
“Hey,” I’d grinned. “I’m Logan.”
She’d turned her blue-green eyes toward me, batted her long black lashes, stretched her lips into a sweet smile, and whispered, “I don’t care.”
Letting her go feels just as impossible as tearing off a limb. And yet, what choice do you have, when that limb is gangrened?
I can’t let her infect me anymore. I just can’t.
And so, huffing out a deep sigh, I mutter, “Okay. I’m moving on.”