“From the moment I met you, you wouldn’t give up. Why was I expecting any different even here?”
I took a deep breath when his voice was calm and playful. We’d met the night of his fight, when I’d asked him to teach me self-defense, he’d laughed; then after making fun of me he told me a direct no. But I wasn’t taking no for an answer, and Logan found that out pretty quick.
“I met Kite when I was sixteen.” My muscles relaxed as he started talking. “My mother and I had just moved to Toronto, and Kite and I went to the same school. We became instant friends.” I felt him shrug. “Think it was his calm, take-no-shit attitude. First time I saw him was in the lunch room where a couple of guys purposely bumped him then pushed his tray out of his hands, spilling his food onto the floor. Kite picked up his tray, threw his ruined lunch in the garbage then strolled over to the guys who were now sitting at the table laughing.
Kite never said a word as he grabbed one guy and had him on the ground crying within seconds. The other guy took off running. There wasn’t a flicker of fear or unease in Kite.
We started hanging out after that. He’d just left a band he was playing with. I found out the two guys were his old bandmates. Kite played drums, and we soon discovered I could hold a tune.” Logan kissed my neck just below my ear, and I shivered. “We hung out at the local coffee shop where I started writing my own music. Georgie bought the place a couple years later.”
“I didn’t realize you knew her.”
“She introduced me to Crisis and Ream. They were friends with her brother.”
“Brother? She never told me she had a brother.”
His finger stopped tracing for a second and then started again. “Yeah. Georgie’s brother was in the JTF2—Joint Task Force 2—with Deck. A counter terrorism unit. Deck came back from their last mission, Georgie’s brother didn’t.”
“Oh. God.” I hadn’t known. Was that why Deck was so protective of Georgie?
“Go back to sleep, Eme.”
“Logan?”
“Yes, Emily.”
“When can we leave?” I held my breath. Afraid to ask the question, yet needing to know if he was taking me with him when he left. I hoped. No, I prayed he’d tell me not to worry. That he’d never leave me. That he’d never sell me. But the truth was—I didn’t know.
I felt his muscles stiffen, and he drew in a deep breath. Our moment was over. It changed within seconds, and I wanted to cry and hit him then yell and scream. Instead I watched him as he threw back the covers, got out of bed—still with a raging hard on—then strode into the bathroom closing the door.
The tears slid down my cheeks and I buried my face in the pillow as the sobs took hold. Logan was going to sell me.
The day was lonely after Logan left. He’d showered, dressed, then walked out without a single word to me. I waited all day for him to come back, uncertainty playing with my mind as I paced the length of the room. I ignored the food the girl brought and saw her frown when she came back to get the tray and the food remained untouched. In the afternoon the same thing happened except this time the girl kept her eyes lowered.
By the end of the day, I was exhausted from worrying if whether or not Logan was trying to find a buyer for me today. I’d upset him, pushed him with my questions.
When the door finally opened it was dark outside. I knelt in the corner of the room and held my breath until I peeked up and saw that it was Logan and not Alfonzo coming to drag me away. I wanted to throw myself into his arms with relief. I wanted to cry and I wanted to kiss him and thank him.
God, I was crazy. There was something wrong with me. I was so screwed up with my feeling toward Logan. One moment afraid of him, the next wanting him, then terrified he was going to sell me then having hope he’d get me out of here.
What did comfort me was that, if given the chance, I’d leave. I’d leave Logan, and I’d get out. I’d never look back. I may want him sexually or want the comfort of someone I’d once loved, but that would end the second I escaped.
I even wondered if I would kill Logan to do it. These thoughts are what happen when left alone for ten hours with nothing to do. My mind went on an imagination highway contemplating scenarios that may never be true.
But when I saw Logan walk in tonight the pain in his expression was worse than yesterday, and I began to wonder if the fight Raul had talked about was beginning to weigh heavily on him. Did he think he might lose? I hadn’t considered Logan losing. I’d been so worried about everything else that I assumed he’d win, but he might not. What would Raul do if he lost? I’d be sold, but what would he do to Logan? I suspected Raul didn’t take failure too well from anyone. Was Logan concerned about what would happen to him? But if Logan was worried about losing that meant he wanted to keep me right?
“Come here.”
I got up and walked toward him.
He raised my head with the tip of his finger under my chin. “You can’t do that again.”
A crackle of fear went through me. I hadn’t done anything wrong. I’d been good.
His thumb stroked my lower lip back and forth, and I didn’t even think he realized he was doing it because ... because he used to do that all the time to me. “Last night was wrong.” His hand dropped, and he strode to the other side of the room and stared out the window. His hands gripped the iron bars as he stood silent and still.
I knew what I had to do and there was a struggle within me whether I was doing it because I was trying to help myself or because I wanted to comfort him. I quietly approached him, stopping a few inches behind, and took a deep breath then reached out and placed my hands on his waist. “Please.” I didn’t know what I was saying please for; maybe to get him to talk to me, to turn and look at me, to hold me, God, to tell me that we were leaving.
“Let go.”
I was going to. I stiffened and was about to, but he’d said those exact words to me the night I’d met him, and I didn’t listen then. Yeah, stupid maybe, because this Logan wasn’t the same one. But maybe he was? He had friends, a band, there was a chance that the Logan I knew existed. Maybe I just had to find him and bring him back to me.
I stepped in closer, kissed his shoulder then trailed kisses down his spine.
“Emily. Don’t.”
But he let me. My hands started at his shoulders then ran down his arms until they rested on top of his hands that were gripping the bars so tight that his knuckles were white. I peeled each finger away from the bars, until he let go, his arms falling to his sides, my hands holding his.
“Are you scared of me?”