Page 116 of Damnation
“Where do I go?”
“Lester Avenue.”
“I’ll be there.”
“Thank you. Thank you so much, Logan.”
Twenty-Seven
My head leans against the window. My sodden clothes cling to my skin. Every now and then, my body is shaken by a sob. The soft light of the streetlamps passes me by as I stare up at the sky. It’s black. Starless.
“Tell me what happened.”
I keep looking outside and don’t answer. I touch the leather of my bracelet with my fingertips. His bracelet. The more I touch it, the more nausea fills my belly.
“If you don’t want to tell me, that’s okay. You’ll do it when you’re ready. Should I take you home?”
No. That’s the last place I want to go, because Thomas will be looking for me there. And I don’t want to be found. Maybe that’s why I called Logan of all people. He’s the last person Thomas would think of. I shake my head almost imperceptibly, aware that Logan is looking to me for an answer.
“Okay,” he says, confused. “Where to, then?”
“Wherever you want. It doesn’t matter,” I say apathetically, watching raindrops smash into the glass and then slide away.
Silence falls inside the car. We meander around for a few hours with no specific destination, moving deeper through the dark and deserted streets of the city. Exhausted, I close my eyes, but all I can see is the two of them, naked in bed together. I can hear the words he spat at me last night. The cold way he dismissed me.
“I don’t love you. And I never will.”
Logan stops the car, and the change in motion wakes me up.
I lift my head. “We’re on campus,” I note in an expressionless voice. I asked him not to take me home, but that’s exactly what he did. Why doesn’t anyone ever listen to me?
“Look.” Logan takes his hands off the steering wheel. He puts one on my thigh with a level of intimacy that I didn’t grant him. But I don’t push it away. I don’t have the strength. Instead, I just stare at his hand as he continues to talk. “We’ve been around and around in the last three hours. I’m nearly out of gas. And you seem really shaken up. Your clothes are soaked, and you’re pale. You need to take a hot bath and get under the covers, because you’re shivering. I don’t know how long you’ve been like this, but you’re going to get sick.”
I don’t argue because he’s right. I’ve been shivering since I got into the car. I’ve been shivering for a long time, actually.
“So I’m taking you home now, whether you like it or not.”
“Okay, fine,” I answer, nodding slightly.
Logan stops near my building and tells me to go inside while he goes to look for parking. I pray I don’t find Thomas lurking somewhere waiting for me, but my prayers are in vain. There he is, sitting on the floor with his back against the door to my suite. It’s almost eight in the evening; how long has he been here? He looks horrible. Anguished. And I shouldn’t even care even a little bit. I’m the injured party.
He sighs in relief the moment he looks up and sees me. He leaps to his feet and, in two strides, comes to me and grabs my arms. But I back up, slipping out of his grasp.
“Jesus Christ, where have you been? I’ve been looking for you all day! I used GPS to find the car in a parking lot a few miles from here; some people at the gas station told me they saw the car go off the road!”
I pull the keys out of my pants pocket and throw them at him. He catches them on the fly automatically. “Your car’s fine.”
“I don’t give a fuck about the car. I just want to know what happened. Are you hurt?” He tries to take my face in his hands, but I dodge him.
“You can’t touch me. You can’t do it ever again,” I demand, making him stumble back. The elevator doors open behind me. I can tell that Logan is here by the way Thomas’s face goes hard. He lunges for him immediately, but I manage to get in between them and push Thomas back. Thomas returns to the fray, towering over me, though he is careful not to actually touch me. I’m not his target; Logan is.
“Fuck off,” he warns Logan through gritted teeth.
“I’m here because she wanted me here,” Logan answers from behind me.
Thomas stares down at me. I can read a mixture of incredulity and anger in his expression. “Get rid of him. We need to talk.”
Where does he get the balls to give me orders after everything he’s done?
