Chapter 32 Logan
LOGAN
Itook my first life on the day I was born, and somehow, I haven’t stopped since. Death followed me from day one, sealing my fate before I had a chance to fight it.
My mom—I never got to know her name—probably fell for my father's blue eyes and the lies that always left his mouth.
A man people would warn you about, allergic to honesty and integrity.
Despite that, girlfriends came and went.
I have more half-siblings than I could count, but I was the only child he kept by his side.
“A natural born killer,” he’d call me. Proud, high on whatever was available. His slaps on my shoulder were always too hard, interpreted as fatherly love by a child who didn’t know any better.
I’ll never forget the present he got me for my twelfth birthday, when he deemed me old enough to help with family business.
“You’re a big boy now. C’mon, be a fucking man. I’ve dragged you with me like dead weight for long enough now.”
I wanted to prove myself so badly. Show that I was worthy, but my hands were so shaky, and the way my father yelled at me to stop being a little bitch and pull the trigger wasn’t helping. I shot and didn’t hit where I should have.
It was messy and so damn loud. Since that day, my father’s disappointed expression goes through my head every time I point my rifle.
It was the first and last time I missed a shot.
I had been wearing my favorite shirt, not that I had many, to begin with. It was dark blue, the cheap print already fading. It’s the only piece of my past I kept through all those years. To remind myself that there are no superheroes, that no one will ever come to save you.
Over time, I got better at it. I no longer hesitated to end a life. Instead, I listened to my father’s rambles about how we only kill bad people. I learned that nightmares don’t haunt you if you don’t sleep and how the bagged-up goods from my father’s stash helped to numb everything.
Sometimes, he went away for weeks. Left me in some shady motel, telling the guy at the reception desk to check on me every now and then.
I had long stopped celebrating my birthday, but I must have been a few days short of seventeen when he told me to pack my bag instead of slamming a stack of dollar bills onto the bed.
The years and the drugs had taken their toll on him. I couldn’t remember the last time I had seen my father sober, and maybe that was the reason he brought me to Mexico with him, worried about being unable to do the job himself.
But when I found myself standing in front of a crying mother and her little boy, hell would have needed to open up before I would have pulled the trigger. I distracted my father for long enough they could run, deciding I would live or die with the consequences.
The last time I saw my father, he slammed the handle of his gun against my temple, and everything went black. I prayed to God to just let me die, but woke up in a back alley in Guerrero instead.
Lying next to mountains of trash, as a nobody with nothing to his name. So, I did what I had always done. End lives, so mine could go on for another day.
With every passing year, I felt myself turning more and more into the man I despised so much. I said the same things and made the same sleazy jokes when sitting at a table with potential clients.
Clients who offered drugs or money so I’d do the dirty work for them, but unlike my father, I had one rule: No kids, no women.
A lot of people disrespect rules, even if it’s just a single, very simple one.
Whenever someone tried to negotiate what wasn’t negotiable or suggested they’d find another person to do the job, I adapted my schedule. And I took my sweet time with it.
If I hadn’t crossed paths with Red—or rather took out a fifth of his men back then—I wouldn’t have made it past my 25th birthday.
The burning filter of my cigarette sears my fingertips, snapping me out of my trance. Pain, felt or inflicted, always helps to redirect my thoughts, something I learned after Red forced me to get clean. It gives me moments of peaceful silence inside my head, but they never last long.
It’s funny. When Lily held my hand earlier, it was quiet, too.
Normally, I would lash out at her and Max. Would storm off after, take the keys to his truck with me, and just disappear for a week or two. But for whatever reason, I just tuck the burnt cigarette away and lie down on my towel, closing my eyes.
I try to focus on the breeze blowing through the leaves, telling myself that there is no way Lily has said it on purpose.
Yes, she had been in my office, and she could have seen the shirt, but she doesn’t know the backstory. And while Max can be dumb, he would never disrespect my boundaries by telling her.
I wish I knew when or how it happened, but at some point, I got tired of fighting. Probably because it’s fruitless either way.
The moment my thoughts go from screaming to the usual background noise, they make way for me to hear Max talking to Lily. It’s a conversation I would have gladly ignored, but then he says my name.
“There’s no me without Logan,” he says, holding onto Lily. “Of course, it’s hard sometimes, but without him, it’s unbearable. And then you came along, and now two people hold my happiness in their hands…“
I roll my eyes at his overdramaticness, as if I wasn’t the one holding a gun to his head because I am so fucking scared of losing him.
“And maybe it’s too soon to say it, too dumb, too Max, but I lo—“
“Your phone’s ringing, sunshine,” I yell over to them.
After taking a deep breath, Max carries Lily back to our spot. He puts her down on her towel before he checks his phone while Lily keeps glancing over at me. For the sake of everyone, I decide to act like she didn’t almost send me into a spiral.
“Logan.” Max is doing this mom-stance, hand on his hip, while he looks down at me.
“Sorry, sunshine,” I say, refusing to meet his gaze. “You know my hearing’s a bit fucked up.”
“You know what else is fucked up,” he mumbles, but suddenly, Lily is talking over him.
Her hand hovers over my arm like she’s waiting for permission to touch me. “I like your tattoos. That’s the Virgin Mary, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Lots of skulls.” Her fingers dance over my stomach, featherlight touches that force me to suppress the urge to swat her hand away.
“I like ‘em.”
“I can see that.” She smiles at me, and the urge to push her away becomes a little less prevalent.
“What’s this one supposed to be?” Lily asks, pointing at a small tattoo on the inside of my left arm, right at the height of my heart.
“Go ask the stray what it’s supposed to be,” I say, groaning when Max comes over to take a look.
“You did not.” He gasps, straddling me before I can turn away. “Logan Cabrera, you did not—“
“That’s my bite mark?” he finally manages to get out, his voice full of disbelief.
“No, I let some rando bite me and decided to get it tattooed because his teeth looked nice.”
I give him a soft slap on the back of his head, wishing he’d get off of me so I can take a nice, long walk. Alone. I could just live in the woods, befriend a bear or something.
“When did you get it?”
“A while ago.”
For your birthday, but I don’t say that.
It’s embarrassing enough I got the tattoo in the first place, and once it was healed and I wanted to show it to Max, the whole thing with Lily started.
I was too pissed to give him his present, apart from the fact that it’s fucking ridiculous, and I still don’t know what possessed me that day.
“Shows how much you can’t stand me,” he says with a grin, stealing a kiss.
Seeing him so giddy always makes my stomach act up. Like my organs are doing somersaults, a feeling I do not appreciate.
We spend the next few hours at the lake, and in a weak moment, I let Max and Lily drag me into the water with them. I tell them both to keep their distance unless they want to end up as a missing person case, but when Max throws Lily my way, my arms wrap around her instinctively.
Just because I don’t want her or me to drown.
Her warm body is pressed against mine, her giggles echoing in my ear, and for a second, I allow myself to think about a future where we could do this more often. Having fun. About a future without bloodshed—or a minimal amount of bloodshed, if needed.
I’m playing a risky game by giving someone so much power over me.
Max is trouble enough, makes me vulnerable and weak.
For years, there was no way to hurt me. No pain or torture would get me to break because the prospect of dying wasn’t scary.
But then Max showed up, and now Lily… They are far more dangerous than any weapon could ever be.
When Lily starts shivering a bit too much for my liking, I force both of them to lie down in the sun to warm up. Away from me because they insisted on sharing peaches earlier, despite me warning them that it would attract ants.
They did not listen, so I had to move my towel away from the quickly forming ant highway.
“You’re getting sunburnt,” I yell over to a half-asleep Max, who grumbles something in response. “Let’s go back home.”
He groans but nudges Lily awake nonetheless. She blinks her eyes open, shielding them against the afternoon sun.
“Huh?”
“Cabin, now,” I say, starting to pack up my things.
I walk back home without waiting for them, and upon reaching the house, I go straight to my room to shower. Judging by the sounds coming from the other rooms, Lily and Max are doing the same.
The na?ve part of me had hoped I would get a bit of me-time, but as soon as I leave the bathroom, that dream is crushed.
Max sits on my bed, must have sat there for quite a while already, judging by the wet body prints on my sheets. He refuses to use towels and one day, I’ll make him shake himself dry like a dog.
“We need to talk,” he says, letting out a loud sigh.
“Why is there so much talking involved with you two?” I groan, running my hand over my chin.
I haven’t had the patience to trim my beard in the last few days, and my usual stubble starts getting out of control. So far, no one complained about it, though.
“If we don’t fuck her soon, I am going to die a painful death,” Max says, the sole thought of fucking Lily apparently getting him hard enough he has to adjust his cock in his boxers.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah?!”
“I have an idea.”
Max looks at me expectantly, tilting his head to the side like an eager puppy.
“I won’t tell you. You can’t keep your mouth shut around her, but if you tell her, it would ruin the surprise.”
Back when we were at Ruby’s place, I made an interesting discovery about our innocent Lily.
Apart from watching trash TV and yelling at grown men, Ruby also likes to read.
And some of the stuff she reads makes even Max and me blush.
So when I walked in on Lily reading one of Ruby’s books with bright red cheeks and her thighs pressed together, my interest was piqued.
I acted like I didn’t see her hastily shoving the book underneath the pillow, and I also didn’t tell Max about the scene that got her so hot and bothered.
I may not be able to turn myself into a werewolf or whatever that thing was, but I am always ready for a good chase.
“Just make sure she gets some rest. We’re gonna go stargazing tonight.” Max looks at me with furrowed brows, and I clear my throat. “I’ve read that you can see the Ulna Major from here.”
He bursts out laughing, and I push him to the side before I sit down on my bed.
“What’s so funny, asshole?”
“Ursa, Logan. This,” he grabs my arm and squeezes, “is an ulna.”
“If you laugh at me one more time, I’m going to rip your ulna out and shove it up your ass, sunshine,” I growl, and he bites down on the inside of his cheek in a pathetic attempt to stop laughing.
“Ulna Major,” he mutters to himself as he gets up. He leaves my room, probably to go outside where I don’t hear him laughing at me.
“And Max,” I yell after him, and he stops in his tracks. “Pick a pretty outfit for Lily. I’m sure Ruby packed a few nice, short skirts.”