Page 91 of Tortured Eyes
Thirty-One
I’m done with this fucking city, and anyone I’ve ever decided to give a damn about. Leave? Screw her. It’s no fucking surprise I stopped doing this emotional shit with nearly everyone. Pushed away. Told to go. Not fucking wanted. The pain inside me now is the same as it was years back, like someone’s stuck a knife in my guts and told me I’m not good enough. Only this time it’s higher up my chest, digging in, twisting, and causing untold injury. The damn bullets that have hit my body over the years haven't hurt as much as this. And at least with that the ache eventually stops.
I scan the dark drive up toward my family home, unsure if I should honour my own words and go see my mother before I leave. I should. I know that, especially after that discussion with my father, but now Bryce is in my mind, reminding me of all the reasons why I don’t deserve any peace in my life. Even after that time in her bed, after soft hands and a feeling I only ever get with one other person, she threw me out as if I meant nothing.
There’s only one place I want to be now, and it’s not here.
Bright lights suddenly interfere with my rearview mirror, a car pulling up behind me and blocking my exit. I scowl at it and let my head lean back on the rest. Dumb move, Logan. I should have stayed out there on the main road, avoided this happening. I watch as the door opens on the car, legs getting out of it and walking their way to me. Carter. Great. At least it’s not my father again. I can’t cope with any more heart to hearts from him, certainly not after Bryce’s words of anger.
Carter knocks on the window, waiting for me to open it
“You alright?” he asks. Am I? Fuck knows.
“Thinking.”
“About what?”
“All this.”
“All what?”
I look up at him, head a riot of thoughts and opinions I can’t process. “All this crap. I need drink. Lots of it. Chased with any substance you’ve got to hand.”
“I don't have any substance to hand." He's got insulin. That might work. "But come up to my place, and I'll find booze.” I shake my head, damn sure I don’t want Fia in my face yet. “Fia’s out if that’s what’s bothering you.” Right. Still, I stay in place, some morose part of me not even trying to get out of the fog my head’s in. Maybe I should wallow in it some more while I'm sober, try to understand what the hell Bryce’s problem is. “Logan, drive the fucking car.”
I rev and ease it forward until I arrive outside his place, unsure why I’m doing as big brother says. Whatever. Maybe he can make me feel something other than this goddamn pain that keeps biting into me. It’s annoying, fucking debilitating actually. Perhaps ten minutes in his company will make me feel like my old self again, wind me up enough to go face my mother. Not that she’ll have anything bad to say to me. I know she won’t. She’ll be glad I’m here, hoping to build bridges that were burnt and battered. Hard, though. Just the thought of her face and the amount of love talk she’ll want to get into is ripping at the insides that Bryce has already managed to shred.
I don’t even know if I’m capable of what the word means anymore, anyway. Respect maybe, care, but love? What the fuck is that? Seems to me like it’s a bind around your insides, something that makes every thought and decision harder and more acute. If that’s my feelings for Samuel and Bryce, though, I know one thing—it damn well hurts as much as it might heal.
A sharp knock on the hood brings my mind back to the here and now, Carter walking for his door. For the first time in a while, the sight of him doesn’t infuriate me. He swings his jacket from his shoulders, his face looking back at me and his hand beckoning me inside. I snort; seems like I’m home again, being welcomed like I was when I was a kid. My gaze turns to the main house, wondering about all those times both my mother and father asked me to come back, come home. Maybe it was all me and my own head causing the problems after all, no matter what they did to me.
Mother. Images flick through my mind, all of them involving her and how she cleaned my wounds and scrapes up when I was young, her smiling face as she told me that being a Cane meant tumbles would happen. She was right.
Guess she didn’t know quite how much given how I live my life these days.
I get out and start walking for the main house, a call back to Carter telling him I’ll be over later. Gravel crunches under my feet as I make my way there, reminding me of so many times over the years. Hell, the first time I ever stood side by side with my family and a gun in my hand was right here. I stop and look at the spot where Vico stood, his team scattered around him. Can’t remember what I thought of him back then, other than the fact that he was larger than life. Suited, scary as all hell in his manner, and yet we won that battle to a degree. Side by side. All for Fia and Carter.
My fingers run over the calloused ridges of my palm,the imprint of a gun well and truly marked in now. That fight might have been the first time I worked out what I was capable of, what I wanted to do. Shame my father tried stopping me. Everything would have been different now if he hadn't.
“Logan?” My head turns at the sound of my mother. She’s standing under the portico, her arms wrapped around her body to ward off the chill. “What are you doing here?”
“Coming to see you,” I reply, walking over to her.
“You are?”
“I am.”
“Is everything alright?”
“Yeah. Fine.” I put my arm out to guide her into the house, eyes scanning the place. Still the same. “Thought it was about time we talked.” The smile that beams back at me is nicer than I care to analyse. It reminds me of too many memories I’ve pushed to the side, ignored. Buried maybe.
“What about?” she says, hovering.
“Everything. Nothing. Be motherly, mother. We’ll see how it goes.”
She chuckles lightly and walks through to the kitchen, elegantly aged features leading me there. She turns on the coffee machine, and I watch her move, hearing no other sound in the house but her soft footsteps. Guess everyone’s out. She talks about things for a while. Inane things. But then she tells me about the fact that my father’s been ill. Nothing to worry about, but he’s not as fit as he was. Heart issues apparently. My brow furrows at the thought, another part of my own heart clenching under the pressure of more care.
“Where’s Gabby?” I ask, sitting on one of the chairs around the table.
