by Julie Hall
“Remember, first you rest, then we talk.”
“No, first we make sure my family is okay, then we talk,” I shrugged. “I can rest when I’m dead.”
He shot me a droll look. “The battle is over . . . for now. Your family is safe. We have a lot to discuss, and I’m not doing it until you’ve had some rest.”
Stubborn as always. Still, learning my family wasn’t in any immediate danger did make me more pliable—and I was awfully tired. What was the harm in humoring him? I gave a quick nod and staggered a little with residual exhaustion. I hoped he hadn’t seen that.
His body relaxed and I frowned. He’d expected every interaction with me to lead to a verbal sparring session. I hated that I still caused him so much grief. Another reason we were better off apart.
“This way.” He turned and walked from the room, not even bothering with a side glance to see if I followed.
I rolled my eyes. I was once again reduced to a duckling.
Logan led me to the bowels of the church, the forgotten places with dark hallways and dust bunnies large enough to be real.
I only had one memory of this part of the building. Playing hide-and-seek as a child. I hid a little too well, and it took church leaders and my parents close to two hours to find me. After I’d crawled under a bunch of stacked chairs to hide, I’d gotten too scared to leave when it was obvious the other kids weren’t going to find me. It was an emotion-laden memory for a seven-year-old, so I’d avoided this part of the church ever since. I’d always found it kind of creepy.
He stopped to face me. “This is going to be a little weird,” he warned.
“O-kay.” I wasn’t sure I was ready for anything weirder than what I’d already encountered today. Human traitors, dragons, and portals linking religious places of worship were strange enough.
“Follow my lead.”
“Don’t I always?” I lifted my eyebrows.
He quirked one of his own in response before turning to the wall. He put his hand on the drywall, and it glowed right before a hidden door popped open. It reminded me of my room fridge. Definitely freaky.
Logan held the door open and angled his head to indicate I should go first.
I did, hesitantly. The door softly clicked behind us. I looked around. This was weird in a way I wasn’t expecting. We were encased in a cement block. A single light hung from the ceiling with a pull chain to operate it. The walls were craggy and gray. A wrought-iron twin bed sat in one corner of the room. Two metal folding chairs were stacked against the far wall. A crude doorway led to another room I couldn’t quite make out. This place would never be mistaken for homey. Efficient perhaps. Not homey.
But if I’d hidden in here as a kid, I would never have been found.
“What is this place?”
“A safe haven for hunters. When we’re on Earth for a while, we need to rest and recharge. You already know what exposure to evil feels like.” He motioned with his chin. “You take the bed. We can talk after you’ve gotten a little sleep.”
I would have argued if I weren’t already fantasizing about sinking into the mattress and falling asleep. I unbuckled and unlatched my baldric and set it, along with my weapon, down on the stone floor.
“Is it safe to take off my body armor?” I asked.
“Sure. I’m staying up to stand guard anyway.”
“Logan, don’t you need to rest too?”
I knew the answer without asking. His shoulders sagged with exhaustion and the lines around his eyes were telling.
“I can rest without sleeping. Don’t worry about me. I’ve been doing this for a while. I’m used to going without.”
“That’s what I’m worried about,” I replied without thinking.
His head snapped up, his eyes sharp. I turned to escape his gaze.
I peeled off my armor while he looked the other way, leaving me in tight-fitting spandex shorts and a sports tank. I crawled into bed, already half-asleep. I was settling under the covers when Logan sat on the side of the bed. Unsure of his intentions, I froze.
He let out a breath of air. “Get comfortable, Audrey,” he ordered. I apprehensively obeyed. His nearness made me nervous, but also somewhat excited.
I internalized my frustrated sigh.
When I was fully laid out, I turned toward him. He pulled the blankets further up so they were almost to my chin, then reached out an ungloved hand and caressed my forehead. I held my breath. The empathy link didn’t work on Earth—so this was the only place Logan ever touched my skin. I didn’t know if I was relieved or disappointed that I couldn’t sense his emotions.
When he seemed satisfied about whatever he was checking, he removed his hand and simply looked down on me. I should have rolled over and ignored him, but I couldn’t. He seemed so sad.
“Is this where you’ve been all this time?” I asked.
He nodded, not quite meeting my eyes.
Against my will, my heart melted a little. I felt a fracture wanting to close. All this time while I’d been feeling abandoned, Logan had been watching out for my family. I quickly shut those feelings down and turned over to face the wall. The pain that tore me apart was also what kept me together.
9
The Truth Burns
I awoke with a start and sat up. Logan sat in one of the folding chairs only a few feet from the bed, fast asleep. Even in slumber, it was evident he wasn’t taking care of himself. Dark smudges ringed his eyes. His body slumped as if in defeat. This wasn’t Logan. This was a worn-out shell.
As if he felt my eyes on him, his popped open. He straightened so fast he almost fell off the chair—another indicator of his physical condition. Logan’s movements were never short of graceful. Like a jungle cat, his moves were usually not only precise, but fluid. They were neither at the moment.
We stared at each other for a few more heartbeats.
“You’re awake,” he stated, most likely to fill the silence.
“Yeah.” I crossed my legs and leaned against the uncomfortable twisted metal headboard. “Why do you look so bad?” Oops . . . too blunt maybe?
He snorted a self-deprecating laugh, then ran a hand over his face. “That bad, huh?”
I shrugged. It kind of was, but I didn’t want to say it again.
“Remember when I told you being on Earth too long is hard on a hunter?”
I pulled my knees to my chest and nodded.
“Well, physical exhaustion is one of the consequences. I’d just arrived back in the realm to recharge when I received word that you’d slipped down here. I came back to find you.”
It was my fault he was this tired. I frowned. “Why didn’t you sleep instead of me then?”
He looked away. “You needed it.”
“You needed it more.”
He just shrugged. It wasn’t worth fighting over. I would insist he nap the moment the opportunity arose.
“Is exhaustion the only consequence of being on Earth too long?”
He looked into my eyes. Despite the red tingeing his, they were still beautiful. “No.”
“What else?”
Another weary shrug—a strange response from him.
I huffed. “Then you need to get back.”
“Will you come with me?” he asked.
“No.”
He nodded as if expecting that answer. “Then I can’t go back yet.”
I waved a hand in his direction. “You look like you’re going to keel over.”
“Being in this place will help me recharge a little. Not fully, but it helps.”
That made some sense. My body was certainly stronger and more rested than before. Knowing Logan, this wasn’t a discussion I would win.
So maybe we should have a different one.
“Tell me about Morgan.”
It was several heartbeats before Logan released a heavy breath and nodded. “Yeah, I suppose it’s time you knew about him.”
I sat quietly as I waited for him to continue.
“Morgan was my last tra
inee. He was more than that, though—he was my friend. I failed him, and now he’s here, working for the enemy.”
I sucked in a quick breath of air. I’d gathered as much from their strange conversation, but I still didn’t understand how that was even possible. “I don’t get it. How did something like that even happen?”
“Yeah.” He hastily ran a hand through his disheveled hair. “I know. It’s rare, so it’s not talked about much. I’ll start from the beginning so you understand.” He looked me straight in the eyes. “You’ll think of me differently soon.”
His tone told me different wasn’t going to be a good thing.
I returned his stare with a steady one of my own. “It can’t be that bad.”
Rather than arguing, he started his tale. “Like I said, Morgan was my last trainee. I think we were paired because they knew we’d get along so well. That’s what usually happens.”
An unrestrained half-laugh, half-snort escaped me. “Sorry, but are you sure that’s taken into consideration with mentor-mentee assignments? If it is, why did they pair us together?”
The corners of his mouth lifted. “I think we were the exception, not the rule. Doesn’t mean there wasn’t a reason for our pairing, though. Probably an important one.” He looked at me pointedly, silently shaming me for requesting a new mentor.
“Perhaps we were supposed to fit together in a different way.” The words popped out of my mouth without forethought. I mentally slapped my hand over my mouth. Heck, I almost did it physically.
Logan considered me for a few tense moments. “Perhaps,” he finally said, “but now we may never know.”
I chewed on a lip in discomfort.
“Anyway,” he continued, deflating the moment, “mentoring Morgan was relatively easy. He was an athlete in life. A soccer player, actually. About to go professional before he was murdered.”
I sucked in a quick breath. “Murdered?”
“Yeah. That kind of plays into what happened to him eventually. I don’t think I ever told you, but I used to be a professional surfer, so we had the athlete thing in common.”
I couldn’t be sure, but I think his cheeks reddened slightly. He coughed into his hand, obviously uncomfortable discussing his life on Earth. I restrained an eye roll. Of course, he was amazing enough to be a professional athlete. Was I supposed to be surprised?
“I’d been training Morgan for months. He progressed as a hunter so quickly I wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d promoted him to mentor himself within a short period of time. But that was before we were captured by demons.”
My stomach sank. I wanted so badly to fire off more questions, but I held my tongue. A rarity for me, but I didn’t want to do anything to stanch the unusual flow of information coming from Logan.
“We were scouting an area of reported heightened demon activity. An abandoned house some kids had been using to conduct a fake séance, not realizing they’d actually attracted a lot of real demonic attention. We were supposed to observe only, but when we got there it looked like there was just a lone demon lurking about. We were confident we could handle a single demon together, so we ignored our orders and engaged the creature. We were right—we took the demon down fairly easily. What we didn’t notice was the trap we’d fallen into. By the time we’d vanquished the demon, we were surrounded by others. We tried to fight, but the demons didn’t attack us like they normally would. Instead we were herded into the house.”
He took a deep breath before continuing. “A group of hunters was eventually dispatched to find us. Generally speaking, we know where a hunter is while he’s on Earth. That’s how I found you in the middle of nowhere. But if a hunter is in the midst of overwhelming darkness, they can’t be located. The house we were herded into was one such place, so once we were inside, we dropped off the map. Other hunters didn’t know where we were to rescue us.”
“But they knew the last place you were. Shouldn’t they have figured it out?”
He nodded, “Yeah, it certainly gave them an idea. But we’d been fed on a number of times and were weak. We were thrown into a hidden cellar under the basement level. Even after the hunters who came for us cleared out the demons on the surface, there were enough of them with us below to hide our location. We were too out of it to even know a rescue party had been so close. After the initial attack, we were held there for days. Weeks actually.”
Logan stopped talking. There was a blankness to his stare. A chilling quiet settled on the room as he mentally relived those days. There were horrors in the details he wasn’t giving me. He refused to meet my gaze.
“I don’t see why Morgan blames you,” I said quietly.
Logan shook his head. To shake off the memories or bring him into the present, I wasn’t sure. He turned to me then. Listless eyes connected with my own.
“It was my call to go after the demon. He went with it, and sure, he might even have encouraged it, but it was my job to enforce the rules. If I had done what we were supposed to do, we never would have been captured. After a while we lost track of days and kept time by how often they fed from us. When we were weaker than I’d ever thought possible, Satan finally came to us.”
I shivered and rubbed my hands up and down my arms to rid myself of the bumps.
“He came to us once a day, or at least as well as we could tell. Saving us from another feeding, ‘protecting’ us with his presence. Satan couldn’t have gotten a stronghold to corrupt Morgan if we hadn’t been captured. He used Morgan’s own murder against him. He claimed a loving God wouldn’t have allowed it to happen. He said Morgan’s life was unduly cut short and he should have been a star on Earth. He claimed it wouldn’t have happened if only God had sent an angel or hunter to protect him. Bitterness eventually took root in Morgan. Even though we’d been tortured by the darkness, Satan tried to convince us it was ultimately for our own good, so we would finally see God clearly—not as a loving father but as a selfish deity.”
Logan sucked in a lungful of air. “Morgan eventually believed him. Once Satan’s manipulation took hold, Morgan began to change. Rather than growing weaker, he steadily grew stronger. Then his other powers started to develop.”
I couldn’t help the “Huh?” that slipped out.
Logan nodded and continued. “When a hunter changes sides, he gains new abilities. In Morgan’s case, he lost his skill with a bow, but he gained the ability to manipulate shadows. He can pull and stretch darkness to make fighting more difficult for us.”
That thought was as frightening as it was fascinating.
Logan’s head hung in defeat. “I knew things were hard on him, but I hadn’t realized he’d fallen so far until that happened. Even after we were captured, if I had been stronger for Morgan, maybe all this wouldn’t have happened. But it was so hard not to fall into despair. It was possible we’d never be rescued. Morgan not only gave up on himself, but on God as well. If I had been the mentor I was supposed to be, the outcome might have been different.”
I was shaking my head before I was conscious of the movement. “No.”
Logan’s gaze lifted, a questioning look in his eyes. “No?”
“Yeah, that’s what I said. You can’t take responsibility for someone else’s weakness.”
His eyes didn’t even flare—they just stayed dull and listless. I’d never seen him so defeated. “If I’d been stronger, better, we would never have been in that position. I know it’s my fault.”
“Are you serious?” I scoffed. “You really need to get over yourself.”
Logan jerked back as if slapped. “What?”
Something about his shock angered me. “I get it, you screwed up. Heck, you both screwed up. But you’re not responsible for Morgan’s decisions any more than you are responsible for mine.” Perhaps I shouldn’t have gotten so worked up, but it frustrated me to hear him take all the blame. I felt for Logan, I really did. But how long had he been beating himself up about this? “You’re being egocentric by taking responsibility for the
whole thing.”
Logan’s eyes were impossibly wide. “Egocentric?”
I was on a roll. And angry. Not angry because of Logan’s mistake, but angry that he’d carried the blame around for someone else for so long. Morgan’s choices were Morgan’s. I’d seen him in action. He wasn’t some pansy, haplessly following a mentor’s lead.
I sat up straighter and moved forward so I could get in Logan’s face and drive my point home. Anger built up behind his eyes. He could blow at any minute, but I didn’t care. I welcomed it.
“Morgan’s the one who gave up, not you.”
“Yeah, but—”
“There is no ‘but’ about it. You should not be carrying around guilt over this. And I think deep down you know it. You’re holding on to it like a toddler cuddling his blanket.”
Logan pushed out of his metal seat so fast it fell to the ground with a loud bang. He breathed hard and fast. My guess was people had been handling Logan with kid gloves ever since this happened. Perhaps no one had wanted to tell him the truth—that holding on to this guilt was wrong. No wonder he still carried the physical scars.
And, I realized suddenly, he’d been relating to me all along through this stupid, stupid perception of his. Any type of normal relationship between the two of us had been doomed from the start, and not because of me, but because of Morgan.
I sucked in a quick breath. “That’s it, isn’t it?” I asked.
“That’s what?” Logan asked through clenched teeth.
“That’s what this is all about. You’re trying to protect me to prove something. To right some previous wrong.”
I swung my legs over the side and stood, leaving the softness of the bed behind. “That’s why you are so overbearing. Do you even really care about me, or is this just some sick form of redemption you’ve cooked up in your head?” Now I was really steamed.
Logan’s own fury was palpable. “No!” he roared. “You are not Morgan.”
I flinched at his intensity, but I refused to back down. “Dang straight I’m not,” I snapped back. My words carried the venom that simmered in my heart.
