Trying to drum up a plan, Logan allowed his thoughts to wander as he pulled off on an exit, finding a cheap room close to the freeway. He knew that it was overdue for them to ditch the car they before they got caught, but he was too tired to think about it. He had about twenty bucks left, give or take, and the thought of having to steal another vehicle didn’t thrill him.
“I'm gonna take a shower,” he said, dropping his bag in the corner of the room. He turned to face Kass, who was sitting silently at the end of the bed. She looked worn down, shattered, like a girl on the verge of a breakdown. He wondered when that would finally happen; no one could be strong forever, not even her, and especially not him.
Instead of heading into the bathroom, Logan sat down on the end of the second bed. He rested his elbows on his thighs and his head in his hand. All he wanted to do was sleep, forever, and fall into some mind-numbing darkness. Kass didn't even look at him.
“If you're tired you can sleep,” Logan said.
She looked up then, her blue-gray eyes meeting his. Her lips stayed set in a stubborn line, but those eyes were sad. Eyes could always give a person away. “I'm not tired.”
“You look tired.”
“Well, I'm not.”
“Fine.” Logan scooted himself back on the bed, feeling the weariness tug at his eyelids. He rubbed his face and yawned.
“I thought you were going to take a shower,” Kass said.
“I will. Can I just take a break?”
She looked down at her hands, as if pondering this. “You could try giving me one, too,” she said.
Logan turned to face her, surprised by her sudden shift in tone. He hesitated, watching her pull her bottom lip between her teeth. Such a bad habit, and one he couldn’t resist.
“I'm sorry,” he said.
“For what?” She sounded surprised.
“For—putting you through this,” he said. “All of it.”
Kass shifted her gaze again. She opened her mouth to say something, but then closed it and shrugged. There was silence between them, a heavy silence that weighed on Logan’s shoulders like a ton of bricks ready to tumble down and smash him into the earth.
“Kass,” he said after another moment of quiet. This time, she didn’t look at him, but he would not turn back now. “Why are you here?”
When she didn’t answer, he tried again. “Back at that motel, I let you go, and you jumped in the car. Why? Why did you do that?”
Silence. Kass stared at the hands folded in her lap, breathing rigid. She didn’t move to look at him, or even speak, and this irritated him.
“I don’t want you here anymore.” He stood from the bed, overwhelmed suddenly, but she didn’t even flinch. “I want you to go home. I want you to go home to your life and never look back again.” He dropped to one knee in front of her, trying to get her attention. Her eyes finally flickered up to meet his face, but still, she was quiet. “Go home,” he said. He put his hands on each of her arms, squeezing. She looked away. “I can’t take you any further than this.”
Logan stood and sat down on the edge of the old oak desk, folding his arms as he stared at her. He wanted to shake her, slap some sense into her. He wanted to grab her and shove her out the front door, then jump into the car and drive away without looking back. He wanted to never see this woman again, this stubborn, sarcastic, demanding woman. He wanted to leave this all behind him so badly, to never see her face again.
And yet, he could do none of that, because the mere thought of Kass leaving now sent a sliver of ice through his chest.
“Where’s the gun?” Kass said. She was looking at him again, gaze steady, eyes locked on his face with suspicion. “You usually have it out by now. You know, to intimidate me.”
“Does it work?” Logan asked. “Because it doesn’t really seem to be.” He reached into his pack and took out the Glock, setting it on the mattress in front of him. Kass stared at it, but her expression didn’t change.
“I hate guns,” she said. “And I hate that you feel you need to carry it around. Who are you going to kill, Logan?”
He reached for the gun and drew it back, ejecting the magazine before pulling the chamber back. He tilted it in her direction.
“Nobody,” he said. “There are no bullets.”
A flicker of surprise crossed her face, an emotion so abrupt is was gone before he was certain it was ever there. Kass stared at the empty gun, nostrils flaring, drawing her bottom lip between her teeth to chew absentmindedly.
“So, it was just to intimidate me,” she said. “Threaten me.”
“No,” Logan said. “It was to protect myself until I finished with this.”
A silence settled over them as Logan tossed the gun aside. He was afraid to look at Kass, afraid of what she might do if she knew that she was no longer at his mercy. She never had been, of course, he’d been playing her against herself, and so far, it had worked. For a moment, Logan waited for her to get up and walk out, to reach for the phone and call the police, to grab the keys and get the hell out of there. But she didn’t.
“How old are you?” she asked instead.
The shift in conversation nearly gave him whiplash, and Logan slid to the floor in total surrender. He leaned his head back against the TV stand and rolled his eyes.
“Guess,” he said.
“Thirty.”
“Ouch.” He folded his arms and ankles and looked over at her. Kass’s face set in a grim line, but her eyes had shifted from sadness to—amusement? “I'm twenty-nine,” he said. “What about you?”
“I had to guess,” she said. “So now you have to.” She ran one hand through her hair and took a deep breath, her body visibly relaxing.
“Twelve,” Logan said. Kass rolled her eyes, but a smile seemed to tug at the corner of her mouth.
“I'm twenty-five.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Where did you go to high school?”
Kass's eyes flickered in his direction, but this time he wasn't sure if she would even answer him. He wanted her to, he wanted to talk and never stop, because when he was listening to her voice, nothing else in the moment really mattered.
“Sorry I asked,” Logan mumbled when she didn’t answer at once. He was about to stand up to take his shower when she spoke.
“Mossy Oaks High School.”
“No shit?” He leaned back and squinted at her. “I knew some people from there.” When she didn't answer, he looked down at his lap. “What do you do for a living?”
“Jesus,” she snapped, catching him off guard. “What is this, twenty questions?”
“You started it.” He put his palms in the air, surrendering. Her tone had taken on a sharp glint, and he was worried she would yell at him. She was scary when she yelled.
“I'm an EMT,” she said after a pause. “I do that part-time while I go to school.”
“An EMT? That sounds—interesting.”
“It's amazing,” she said, and looked over at him. “I love it.” The guarded undertone was gone, and now she almost sounded—excited. “I like knowing that I make a difference in people's lives.”
“What are you in school for?”
“I’m pre-med,” Kass said.
“That’s admirable.” Logan got to his feet to pop the kinks from his back, wishing he had an ibuprofen for his head. There wasn’t much more this girl could say that was a surprise, and only because the surprises hadn’t stopped. He couldn’t even assume anymore because this creature in front of him couldn’t be more different than he ever could have imagined.
“Yeah, well,” Kass shrugged her shoulders, hugging herself. She was quiet now, not saying anything more, and Logan straightened up, thinking about what he could ask. He wanted to know everything he could about this woman—the questions would never end. But for now, he would keep it simple.
“I have a question for you,” he said. She looked at him, waiting. “What are you scared of?”
There was
silence, and Logan was certain Kass wouldn't answer that. He had fucked it up already. Out of every question to ask someone, he had asked that one?
“I don't know,” she said, and her tone had come down a few notches. “There are a lot of things I'm afraid of.”
“Like?” he prodded. She shrugged once before lying back on the bed and crossing her hands over her stomach.
“Losing control,” she said. “I'm afraid of losing control.”
“Of?” Logan pressed. Another long silence.
“Myself.”
Logan pulled off his dirty shirt and pants, letting them drop to the bathroom floor as he turned on the water and cranked it hot. He stepped in, breathing in the warm mist that filled his lungs. He closed his eyes as the hot, steamy water washed away the day behind him. The water pooling below his feet swirled with black and brown. Dirt and grime. Demons.
He took hold of the cheap bar of motel room soap and scrubbed himself from head to toe, unwilling to leave anything behind. He hadn't tied Kass up, not this time—why? He didn't know. He was giving her another out, he supposed. He was giving her an escape. He’d already showed her the empty gun, as he wanted her to know that he wouldn't hurt her. He’d never had the intention to, of course, but now she knew that. If she wanted to go home, she could. Whatever. He was away from Seattle. He could do the rest of this without her, even if he didn’t want to.
Kass was a strange woman; there was no doubt about that. Logan had known his fair share of women throughout his life. There had been blonde-haired women and brunettes, thin women and hefty women—shy girls and outgoing ones. And yet, Kass wasn't any of those things—or maybe she was all of them. She took shit from nobody, especially him. Her guard was always up, and her fists were always ready, but deep down, somewhere in her core, Logan knew there was a little girl just begging to be let loose. She was too strong—too tough. No one was that tough, not even Kass.
Logan turned off the faucet and stepped out, droplets of water dripping onto the cold tile below his feet. He stepped up to the mirror, wiping the vapor from the glass, and stared at himself for a long moment. His black hair was getting too long for his taste. It hung over his eyes, sopping wet. He ran his fingers through it, pushing it from his eyes, and called it a job well done.
Logan gathered up his dirty clothes and tossed them into the bath tub, then cranked the water back on and added hand soap to the running stream. He left them to soak and secured the towel again so it wouldn’t fall off his hips and expose everything in front of Kass.
When Logan appeared from the bathroom, the first thing he noticed was that she was still there. She was asleep on the bed, hands crossed over her stomach like they had been when he'd gone in for a shower. Her eyes were closed, breathing steady. For a moment, he was stunned. He’d expected her to bail, out the door, without a glance back—not be sound asleep on the bed.
The second thing he noticed was the pair of scissors sitting next to the bed stand, scissors she must have just used to cut her hair. In the trash can next to the door, tendrils of brown coated at the bottom of the pail. Logan looked at her for a moment, breathless, wondering why she’d chosen to snip away part of herself. Even with short hair, a mussy bob that framed her face, she was breathtaking.
Logan grabbed a disposable razor and went back into the bathroom to shave some of the scruff. He rinsed his dirty clothes multiple times and rang them out as well as he could, then hung them over the curtain rod to dry. He pulled on the cheap sweatpants and tee shirt he’d snagged from a convenience store and went back out into the living area. He sat down on the bed opposite Kass, his eyes searching her face for something, anything, which could help explain her.
On the floor, Logan's toe collided with an empty Styrofoam cup, and Kass's eyes flickered open. She sat up on the bed, bleary eyed. Logan picked up the empty cup, smashed it in his hand, and tossed it into the trashcan.
“You cut your hair. I didn’t even know we had scissors.”
“I grabbed them from the store,” she said. Logan watched her reach one hand up to touch the brown tendrils. She’d done a damn decent job on it for using outlet scissors and a shitty motel mirror. “Does it look bad?”
“No,” Logan said. He wanted to tell her she looked stunning, the shorter hair suited her, that it brought out the freckles in her cheeks and the soft curve of her neck. “Get some rest,” he said instead. “We're not done with our road trip yet.”
Chapter Twelve
Figuring Logan out was the most difficult thing Kass had ever come to face. She had always known men to be one extreme or the other: the nice guy, or the asshole. Logan, well, he was both. And then some.
She had a tough time trusting his motives, but an even more difficult time not trusting him. Why was that? Who was this man to her besides a criminal? He scared her—but at the same time, he intrigued her, and that was the strangest part of all. Few people caught her attention as Logan had from day one. Not Ryan. Not Abby. Just Logan--just this fucking crazy man in the seat next to her. Sometimes, being around Logan, Kass felt like she was back on the grade-school playground bickering with a friend over whether to play hopscotch or basketball during recess. Only, in this game, sometimes it would end in a knock-down-drag-out fight.
Some old country tune filled the car, and neither of them spoke for a long time. The music soothed her, and she found that it did well to drown out Logan's insistent leg tapping on the floor. If he wasn't tapping his foot, he was smoking, or he was playing the air guitar with one finger. It was…cute.
On the radio, the last country tune ended and the DJ's voice came back on, rattling on about the weather and upcoming concerts. Kass leaned over to turn the volume down when the man on the radio caught her attention.
“Local police alongside the Federal Bureau of Investigation are still on the lookout for twenty-nine-year-old Logan Ryder, who was convicted of manslaughter involving Ashley Ryder and their father, Malcolm Ryder, age forty-three. Logan was last spotted in a small town in Oregon, and it is said he may have a hostage, twenty-five-year-old Kassidy Harding of Lakewood, Washington. Logan is thought to be heading towards Nevada. Laurel Ryder is offering a hefty reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Logan. If anyone has information on either one of these missing people, please contact your local police department. Logan Ryder is thought to be armed and dangerous.”
The next song came on, some stupid, hillbilly-style twang, and a silence settled over the car. Kass noticed Logan's grip tighten on the steering wheel, his knuckles white with tension. For a moment, she wasn't sure she should ask, but at this point, she had nothing to lose.
“Who is Laurel?” she asked. “Who's Laurel Ryder?”
“She's no one,” Logan said.
Kass turned in the seat to face him, holding back her anger when he refused to look in her direction. “Who is she, Logan? You owe me that much.”
“Who is she?” he repeated. His tone had tightened, angry. “She's my bitch step-mother. She's the reason I got sent to military camp. She's the reason I'm—” he faltered then, taking Kass by surprise as he caught himself and let his mouth snap close. Letting her gaze drop, she pressed her fingers together in her lap.
“You left this woman with no husband and no daughter?” she asked. “You really are a monster.”
Logan laughed at this, but it was bitter, and it sent a buzz of fear down her spine.
“Don't I know it.”
“I hope they catch you,” Kass said. She was too angry to play nice right now. “I hope they find you and give you the electric chair.”
“I prefer the lethal injection myself,” said Logan. His face conveyed no emotion as he glanced sideways at her. She shuddered, unable to fathom what a horrifying death either of those would be. “I hear it's less painful.”
“You deserve all the pain in the world,” she said, and for a moment, she meant it. Some seconds, and even some minutes with Logan had been okay—they had nearly been normal. But then
she was reminded of the situation at hand, and she remembered why she was here, and especially why he was here. All at once any feeling of comfort or security would melt away, and she'd be back to the beginning, back to being the girl in the car with the gun to her side.
“Sometimes,” Logan said, and when she looked over, his striking blue eyes met hers with a sadness that caught her off guard. “Sometimes I agree with you there.”
Kass didn't know what to say at first, didn't know how to react. She had not expected that, and it threw her entire image of him off track. She was left staring in silence, scrambling to find the pieces of this whole thing that might make sense.
“I got out of prison three days ago.”
Kass looked over at him, trying to hide her surprise. His tone was neutral; there was no spite or sarcasm or pettiness. She saw him glance at her from the corner of his eyes, trying to gauge her reaction. So, she said nothing, only waited for him to continue.
“I served seven years in prison for manslaughter,” Logan said. “When I was nineteen years old I was driving the car with my dad and sister in it. Everything was fine, you know. The radio was on and Ashley—my sister—was singing in the back seat.” Logan paused for a second to take a breath and then continued. “We were taking my father to the airport. He had to be in Tokyo that night for business, and we were running late. He was in a pretty shitty mood because his wife had picked a fight with him before leaving. She was supposed to drive him to the airport, but she refused, so Ashley and I said we would. It was my car, so I drove.”
Logan kept his eyes trained on the never-ending road in front of him. Kass could tell he couldn’t bring himself to look at her, and for some reason, she wished he would.
“I hit about eighty-five on the freeway towards SEA-TAC. Ashley was singing, trying to cheer my dad up, and he was checking his phone.”
Logan stopped again. Kass could see his knuckles turn white with the grip he had on the wheel.
“Whatever happened next is blurry,” he said. “I lost control of the car, and it’s because I lost control of myself. Not mentally; I didn’t have some breakdown, but I blacked out. I just…fell asleep.”
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