Chapter 40 Max
MAX
“Oh, so I am the problem,” I force out, turning my head to the side to spit out some blood, and Logan stops his fist before it collides with my face.
“I’m not too much, Logan. Maybe you’re just not enough, and someone has to compensate for your coldness.
And you know what? Sometimes, I fucking hate you, too. ”
Wet, trembling hands close around my throat.
“You hate me? You want this to end?” Logan’s grip tightens, and I try to control my breathing to make use of the little air I get. “Because I told you how this is going to end, Max.”
I know how Logan looks when he kills. How his eyes seem to turn a shade darker, how his finger twitches before he pulls the trigger. I know every damn microexpression, and the man staring down at me doesn’t look like the cold-blooded killer I am so familiar with.
Perhaps I’m reading too much into it, or maybe I just don’t care if he goes through with it. For months, he’d break my heart just to stitch it back together, and then, two days ago, he broke it and left it to rot away inside of me.
The edges of my vision go dark as I speak up, weak, the words cut off but still clear enough for him to hear.
“I love you, Logan. I love you so much it fucking hurts, and I don’t know if dying would be worse than continuing like this.”
He drops his arms to his side, and I take the opportunity to suck in a lungful of air and sit up straight.
Logan doesn’t move, as if my words have turned him into a statue—one with a hurt expression on its face.
And it’s only now I realize that the watery, bloody mess running down my cheeks wasn’t just a mix of rain and my tears.
Leaning closer, I grab Logan’s jaw to force him to look at me.
“You never tell me what’s going on here.” I point at my head, my voice strained with tears. “Or fucking here,” I say, hitting his chest right above his heart.
Logan pushes my hand away but keeps his fingers wrapped around my wrist.
“Because there is nothing worth telling about. Just a fucking ton of darkness, and every day, I expect to lose myself in there.”
He squeezes my wrist so hard I’m sure it’s only a matter of minutes until it breaks, but I don’t pull away.
Instead, I cradle his face with my free hand.
Fractures heal; so much easier to fix than what’s going to break inside of Logan if I don’t show him that I’m still here. That I’ll always be here.
“Well, it’s nothing, and with you, it’s a little less nothing.
I tried so hard to stay away from you, Max, but you were so full of life and joy, and I just—couldn’t.
You keep shining lights on the parts of me I don’t want to see, and I’m so fucking scared of losing you.
That I’ll dull your light, and Lily’s, until you’re both as miserable as I am.
You both need to leave because I don’t think I can live with the punishment of seeing the ruins of the life you and Lily deserve, a life I’m only going to rob you of. ”
Logan lets go of my arm to wipe over his face with the back of his hand, and I let out a shaky exhale.
“We’re not going to leave,” I say. “And you’re not going to lose us.
I love you, and I’ll keep loving you until the day I take my last breath.
You’re not robbing us of anything because we don’t want to live a life without you, Logan.
Lily loves you, too; I know she does. The poor girl fell for you just as hard as I did back then. ”
Taking his hand in mine, I wipe away the blood from his knuckles.
“You have to stop pushing us away. We love you, but you need to actually let us love you.”
“I don’t know if I can,” he says, leaning his head against mine.
“Do you trust me?” I whisper, and he nods. “Good, because I know you can.”
I close the tiny distance between us, and for a moment, it doesn’t even feel like a kiss. More like mutual assurance that the other is still here, still breathing, still real.
“You’re not the man you used to be when we first met.
You don’t see it, but you’ve changed. You let me in, and then Lily.
You stay, in situations where the old version of you would have left the country.
And even if you would try to leave, we’d simply follow you.
There’s no way for you to get rid of Lily and me. ”
“Is that a threat, sunshine?”
“A promise.”
In the distance, someone’s heavy footsteps thump on the grass.
“Are you gonna give me an alibi when they ask about Hunter’s whereabouts?” Logan asks, pushing a strand of wet hair out of my face.
But the bellowing voice that reaches us doesn’t belong to Charlie, so Logan and I stand up with a heavy sigh.
“Ruby isn’t answering her phone,” Sam yells over to us, his voice almost distorted by the heavy rainfall.
“Isn’t she walking Mochi at this hour?”
“No,” Sam snarls as we join him in the small, roofed area for drill instructors. “My wife treats her phone like a damn pacemaker. That woman picks up when I call, no matter if she’s fast asleep or in the fucking shower. Something is wrong. Call Lily.”
The last time I heard from Lily was a few hours ago when she sent me a good morning text and asked me if it really doesn’t annoy Logan if she messages him from time to time. The text I sent her, asking about her plans for the day, remains unanswered.
I call her, but she doesn’t pick up. So Logan tries his luck, with the same result. The teddy cam shows nothing out of the ordinary, just a made bed and an open bedroom door.
Opening another app, Logan clears his throat. “Safety measure,” he says. “They can’t be too far away. Lily’s phone is at Ruby’s house.”
Sam curses under his breath when the app for their security systems won’t load fast enough, the cameras only showing countless black squares. One after the other, the cameras turn on, revealing our two girls sitting on the couch in the living room.
“See, they are fine,” I say, only now noticing that I held my breath for the entire time that the app had been loading.
“No,” Sam mutters. “Give me your phone. The show,” he says while we wait for the call to go through. “They air a new episode every Monday. Ruby wouldn’t wait until today to watch it.”
Judging by the look on his face, I wouldn’t be surprised if I had to pick up pieces of my phone from all over the training ground in a few seconds.
“Sam, I can’t go off of your fucking grunts. I need proper information,” Logan barks, and Sam turns his phone around so we can see the screen.
He points at Ruby’s phone, which is lying beside her on the couch.
“I’m calling her right now. It should light up, ring, vibrate, anything. But nothing is happening.”
The implications are crystal clear, but hearing Sam put the thought into words makes bile rise in my throat.
“Someone messed with the cameras.”
“Sam, you call Rockwell. I’ll go find Charlie. Logan—“
But Logan is already busy with his phone, waiting for someone to pick up.
“Helo,” he mouths, and Sam and I take off in a sprint.
An hour and ten screaming matches later, Sam, Logan, and I are sitting aboard the helo Red organized for us. He had to call in a good amount of favors, and the only pilot he seemed to get a hold of on such short notice is a guy who is even crankier than we are.
While we waited for him to arrive, we informed Rockwell about the situation and about our departure. He had made it clear that this has turned into a family matter and that family stands above everything.
Above our duty, and certainly above an asshole like Sanders.
Rockwell and Charlie decided to stay on base for now to dodge possible questions and to make use of one of Charlie’s friends, who works as a surveillance operator.
Still, we all hope we won’t need her. That the thing with the cameras is just some weird glitch, that we’ll open the door to see Ruby and Lily sitting on the couch, or the damn terrace, where we’ll give them a loud and stern lecture about the proper way to deal with phone calls.
With every mile we get closer to Ruby’s house, my heart beats a bit faster, and when we land in her neighbor’s garden, I’m worried it’s going to jump out of my throat soon.
We climb over the fence separating the properties, running over to Ruby’s front door.
It’s closed, but as Sam shoves his key into the lock, it gives with one turn. Next to me, Logan curses. Ruby always locks the door behind herself. Always. So it was either Lily who left the door unlocked, or the other option I still refuse to think about.
The house is dead quiet as we enter, a breeze pushing the curtains in through the open patio doors.
“Do you smell that?” I ask, turning to Logan, who’s already taking quick steps toward Lily’s bedroom.
“Like someone pissed in a fucking corner,” he replies.
But there aren’t any puddles to be seen, and neither are Lily and Ruby. It’s like they just went out for a walk—and vanished.
When Sam comes back from his and Ruby’s bedroom, holding a teal leash and the matching collar in his hand and his face whiter than I’ve ever seen it, my stomach clenches.
“Ryves, is your wife cooking meth in here?” Logan yells back to us from the other bedroom. “The house reeks.”
“Does my wife smell like fucking meth to you, you asshole?” Sam says so loud I don’t hear the faint barking at first.
Logan comes back to the kitchen, two phones in hand, and I lift my finger to silence both men before he speaks up.
“Quiet, I heard something.”
I follow the sound to the hallway that leads to the master bedroom, where my gaze lands on fresh scratches on the hardwood flooring. Sam shoves me out of the way, throwing the contents of the built-in bookshelf onto the floor until he finds a security pad.
Hectic, he slams his fingers against the buttons, and after what feels like an eternity, a click resounds, and the door to their panic room opens.
For a moment, I’m sure we’ll find our girls in there. Hope washes over me, and it turns into a current that pulls me under as I see the empty room instead.
Slowly, an anxious Mochi comes out of her hiding place behind a small table, her tail tucked in so hard you’d think she doesn’t have one.
She nudges Sam’s thigh with her nose, and he bows down to scratch her chest, swallowing thickly when faint red streaks cover his fingers.
Mochi doesn’t protest as Sam lifts her up to check if she’s okay, but once we all see the smeared 203, written with red lipstick, nothing is okay.
“Cover her ears and give me a second,” Sam says calmly before he leaves the panic room, closing the door behind himself.
“Where is he going—“
A loud thud interrupts Logan, followed by a second and a third one. When Sam comes back, it’s with bloody knuckles and an expression so dark I’m sure he’ll rip anyone affiliated with the 203 apart with his bare hands the moment we catch them.
Logan pulls a piece of paper closer with his foot, crumpling it up in his hand after he reads what’s written on it.
“What does it say?” I ask, trying to pry it out of his fist.
“Thanks for the two-in-one deal.”
“We need to keep a clear head,” I say, though it’s mainly directed at myself.
I sit down on the floor, running my fingers through my hair, and soon, Sam and Logan flop down next to me while Mochi seems to try climbing onto all our laps at once.
“No forced entry, no signs of struggle,” Sam mumbles.
Meanwhile, Logan tries to unlock the phones, throwing Ruby’s over to Sam when he’s unable to guess her password.
“We told them to stick together. Ruby has a thick head, but she’d never leave Lily on her own,” I say when I’m interrupted by a cursing Logan.
“What the fuck,” he hisses, swiping through Lily’s messages.
She had been talking to a guy, sending messages that included one or two hearts too many for my liking, while they discussed how they wanted to meet up today for coffee.
Dialing Charlie’s number, I squeeze my phone between my head and my shoulder while I snatch Lily’s out of Logan’s hand because I want to see this shit for myself.
“Check a number for me, Hunter,” I say when Charlie finally picks up the phone. “And get me the guy’s fucking address.”