“Back here,” I called, running my hands over Logan’s face and chest as I tried to find out where else he could be injured.
“You’re hurt,” I fretted. “Is it your shoulder? Do I need to go get Rego?”
“No,” he said, his jaw clenched and his eyes tightly shut as he tried to take a deep breath that ended in an agonizing shudder.
“Let me see,” I begged, trying to unwind myself from his hold. But Logan merely pulled me tighter to his chest, burying his face in the crook of my neck.
“Just give me this moment,” he asked plaintively, clutching me tightly—and I began to panic.
“How badly are you hurt?” I whispered, my eyes wide as I wrapped my arms around him. A sticky wetness soaked the back of his shirt, and I pulled my hands back in shock, staring at Logan’s ashen face as tears began filling my eyes. He quickly grabbed my wrists, covering my fists with his hands as he pulled us to a standing position.
He grimaced at the movement, the agony plain across his pale face.
“Logan, please. You’re scaring me,” I said, the tears that were blurring my vision now streaming down my cheeks. “Let me see. Let me get Rego. Please, I can’t lose you.”
“It’s just a deep scratch,” he insisted, his voice rough as he held my hands. “I swear. Please, don’t look.”
Dottie’s and Travis’s faces appeared behind Logan, their expressions perfectly synchronized as they transitioned from worry to relief—and then to confusion.
“Aiden attacked. Logan’s hurt,” I choked out, and Travis’s brow was furrowed as he stared at Logan.
“What’s all over you guys?”
“What?” I asked, puzzled. Logan dropped his hold on my wrists, and I looked down at our hands, missing his touch.
And then I stopped.
Everything stopped.
My palms were splotchy with Logan’s blood. He watched me carefully for my reaction, but I could only stare at him. Without saying a word, he shifted his stance, turning his back toward me but continuing to watch me over his shoulder for my reaction.
There, on his right shoulder blade, was a curved rip in his white shirt, where a lash had sliced through the fabric and into his skin. It wasn’t wide, but it was deep—he was bleeding profusely, and the blood glued his shirt to his back and stained my hands.
Stained them a deep purple.
Logan turned to face me again, wincing at the movement.
“I wanted to tell you. I tried to tell you so many times,” Logan began, but he let his voice trail off.
“Tell you what?” Travis asked, but Dottie just shook her head at him. She knew what it meant.
“Paige, you should leave,” Dottie ordered, giving Logan a suspicious look that would normally have made me laugh. “I don’t think you’re safe here.”
“You think I’m going to hurt her?” Logan sputtered, twisting to stare at Dottie in shock. The movement caused pain to shoot across his face as he reached his hand behind his back, bracing his injured shoulder.
I felt numb. Foolish. Naive. Blind. A thousand words for how I felt raced through my head as I stared down at my hands, colored a rich purple from demon blood—Logan’s blood. I raised my eyes to meet his, those brown eyes that I thought I knew so well, and I could only think one thing.
How can I love you if I don’t even know you?
“Paige, please, say something.” Logan took a step toward me, and I reflexively flinched backward.
“It’s still me,” Logan insisted, gazing at me with those mournful eyes.
The same eyes that sparkled at me playfully in class, teasing me about my pens. The same eyes that were serious when we sparred on the roof, narrowing with focus as he taught me how to swing a sword. That peeked at me over an adoring grin, before sharing a sweet kiss.
I don’t know who you are.
I backed away from him as more images assaulted my mind. Logan defending me. Standing up for me. Saving my life.
Lying to me, telling me he was a half-warlock. Instead, he was a demon—part of the race of creatures that wanted to kidnap me and hurt me.
“This is what you wanted to tell me. This is why you gave me an out.” My voice sounded foreign and hollow, and I felt disconnected from my body, like I was watching someone else react.
Logan took another step toward me, and I stepped back again, not trusting myself to touch him. Not trusting him to touch me.
My gaze met his briefly, the regret and sadness that had always been brimming in his eyes suddenly making sense.
I wondered what he was seeing on my face, since every nerve, every emotion was at once numb and overloaded. I got my answer when he finally spoke.
“You want to go,” Logan said softly, his eyes never leaving my face. “You should go, Paige.”
It was all I needed to hear. So I ran—leaving Dottie and Travis and Logan standing there on the stage as I rushed up the aisle, grabbing my coat and bag and pushing the doors open. I kept running, my mind flooded with memories of the past six weeks with Logan. The letter he’d written me. How he’d offered me an out—an out I probably should have taken. But then I wouldn’t have the memories I do have, like us curling up on the picnic table on the roof every Friday and Saturday night after my parents went to bed. Cushioning ourselves against the unforgiving, splintered wood by wrapping ourselves in a soft, thick blanket that I’d smuggled from the linen closet, and sharing soft, unhurried kisses in between talking about everything and nothing...
But we never talked about the one thing we should have talked about—his past, and who he really was. I never asked him, hoping he’d open up in his own time since he’d begged me to be patient with him. Would he have answered me if I’d asked about his parents?
Oh, your uncle once got arrested? Talk about embarrassing relatives—I’m related to a bunch of demons. Sorry if I didn’t bring that up earlier.
I braced my hands on either side of my front door, panting. I had no recollection of my run home, vaguely recalling horns bleating at me on Amsterdam Avenue. I’d probably run right through an intersection and didn’t even notice it. I could hear the TV through the door, the rapid-fire flipping of channels indicating that my father was home. I tried to steady my breathing—I just wanted to curl up in my bedroom and think. Or not think. Or swipe the bottle of Irish cream my dad thought I didn’t know was hidden with his cookbooks, and drink it until I couldn’t spell my own name.
I slid on my coat—I’d somehow run here with it in my hand—hoping it would hide my disheveled appearance. The last thing I wanted was my father to notice that anything was wrong. I’d just found out that I didn’t really know the one person who knew me best. I couldn’t face an interrogation about it.
“Hey, Dad,” I said, giving my father a tight-lipped smile and wave as I walked into the apartment, trying to stealthily head straight into my bedroom.
He didn’t fall for it.
“Paige, what the hell happened to you?” Dad asked, and I paused, looking down at my hands and feeling my heart drop when I realized they were, of course, still stained with Logan’s blood.
“My pen exploded?” I said, holding up my hands.
“Not the ink!” Dad replied, muting the TV and sitting up straighter as he scrutinized me. “What’s in your hair?”
I gingerly patted my stained fingers on the crown of my head, feeling gravel-like bits of concrete coating it like a veil.
“Oh, I don’t know. Construction site near the school?” I lied weakly. Why not keep lying, Paige? Everyone’s doing it.