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“I love you,” I say to Jake, biting back the pain as I twist around to fire more. “I’ll hate you if you die,” he says angrily.
“Get out,” he hisses. “Don’t cry for me, Jake. I’ve survived because of you. You kept me alive,”
“Please be you,” he says as though he’s in agony. “I love you,” I say into the earpiece, still firing in the background. “No. Don’t do this to me. Fight, Lana. Get out of there. You can do it. I know you can. I’ve seen what you’re capable of.”
😭😭😭😭
“You showed me what living was like again. I’d forgotten,” I say softly,
“You’re the only reason I’m still breathing right now, Lana. Don’t give up. Not now. Not after all you’ve survived.” Tears start pouring freely from my eyes as I close them, letting the sounds drone on. “You’re a survivor too,” I whisper. “And you make the world a better place. Don’t ever stop.”
Suddenly there’s a face in front of me, and more tears leak out as I see my brother. “Marcus,” I whisper, touching his cheek as more tears race down my face. His face disappears with the touch, and I break, sobbing as I quit firing back. Logan’s face is the last thing to cross my mind before I see the blaze of the fire nearing.
They say miracles are past. —William Shakespeare
suddenly it explodes, a deafening sound roaring through the speakers around us. I stagger back as the building continues to erupt, pieces of it blowing up at different times.
I barely notice anything around me as I break, throwing anything I can get my hands on as I fall apart.
Ice and fire wash over me with no mercy, and I shut down. Everything on me turns to stone as I’m restrained and forced to watch the fire join the building, blanketing the town. There’s no way she got out in time.
Three months later… LOGAN
WHAT 😳😭 NO NO NO NO! I CAN'T BREATHE 😭😭😭
Only three of us know why I broke down three months ago. Only three of us know why I’ll never be the same again.
Please, Jake! Please! 😭😭😭😭
By the time ambulances and fire trucks arrived on scene, there was nothing left but flames they couldn’t put out in time to save anything. The town burned, leaving nothing but charred, empty structures in its wake. None of the bodies were recognizable. They were too burned to be identified. And the only place with bodies was the town hall and the sheriff’s home.
For three months, the news has spoken of nothing else, giving contradictory reports from truthful and falsified sources. That’s why I’m back. Lana gave her life for the truth. The last thing I’m going to do is let them cover it all up again.
I didn’t realize until she was gone that nothing else mattered at all. Nothing I stood for was worth more than her.
😭😭😭😭
Nothing I valued held any true value at all. Everything I have is pointless without her.
“Day one back, and you’re already putting together a new case file?” I shake my head. “No. I’m fixing the old report they refuse to go public with.”
“Like I said, they’ve given all the concessions they’re going to. The director is gone now. Johnson is dead. No more corruption from this point on, Logan.”
Instead, I let her think my career and morals meant more than she did. I was wrong. Nothing else fucking matters but her.
“Because they knew who the original killer was. Now I do too. And I know why I couldn’t find any evidence of retaliation before now.” “Why?” she asks quietly. “Because they’re fucking brilliant.”
“He’s dead, Logan. Destroying your unit and all the good it has done won’t bring that man back to life. The end justifies the means right now.” I stand, knowing he’s not going to budge. And I pull off my service weapon and toss my badge on the desk with it. “Then consider this my resignation,” I tell him.
“I’m thinking very clearly. I joined the FBI with the naïve notion we were going to always do the right thing no matter the personal costs to ourselves. I dedicated my every waking moment to this place, sacrificing any chance at a healthy lifestyle or any actual living. I didn’t sign up to be corrupted by the one thing that is supposed to be filled with honor. And I won’t be a part of it. Plenty of corruption is just outside those doors, and at least I get to have a life out there.”
“You’re making a mistake,” he says as I start to walk out. I turn and face him. “No. I’m fixing the mistakes, Director. Just remember that.”
“Logan, Jason Martin was just found dead and castrated in South Carolina,” she says in a hushed tone reserved for blasphemy.
“They sent me the pictures. I told them it wasn’t our Scarlet Slayer because she was dead. But it’s her, Logan. The knife is the same type, the wall was painted red, and there were no hesitation marks at all. Also, the shoe was a woman’s size. It wasn’t Jake. It was her. She’s alive, Logan. She’s actually alive.”
“If you go to him, you can’t come back Hadley. If you leave with me right now, it’s the end of your life here. Do you understand that? It’d be too dangerous for them if we keep any sort of attachment to this life.” “I’ll be packed and ready within the hour,” she says without hesitation. “I can’t quit, since this is a mandatory position, but I can disappear. I can make us both disappear if you want to give me two hours.”
“Do it,” I tell her. “I’ll meet you out front in ten minutes.”
“Where are you going?” she whispers. “To learn the truth.”
They do not love that do not show their love. —William Shakespeare LOGAN
“It’s funny how even now Lana can surprise me,” I say quietly.
“A psychopath with narcissistic tendencies,” I say on a sigh. “That should have been the profile. A psychopath can feign empathy. Can imitate regret, remorse or even emotional pain. Can even become a believable actor in his or her well-adjusted life. It makes them the hardest ones to find, to be honest. You don’t always know your neighbor is a psychopath.”
Lana conceded her own revenge for someone who needed it more. And here you are: impotent, weak, powerless, utterly helpless and literally pissing yourself.”
“She did her part, and left this note for me. Somehow she knew I was coming,” I say, lifting the note, and I read it aloud. “It’s too late for him. I drew out his agony as long as I could. But you can’t save him now. Good luck finding me.”
“She thinks I want to save you and find her so I can lock her up. She doesn’t understand why I’m really here.” I pull out my gun, cocking it as I stand and push the note back into my pocket. “You should know, your son was twice the mastermind you ever were, because he didn’t kill just to be powerful. He killed for revenge. And his own father helped aide in the murder of the boy he loved.” I point the gun at his groin, even though I almost grimace at what’s to come. But Lana needs to know I’m not going away once I find her. One irredeemable act will mean I can never come back. “As much as I
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With that, I fire the gun into his groin until it’s empty. The monitors go crazy as he crashes, and his body starts to convulse as blood plumes form across the sheet and blankets.
They played the longest game of torture for the worst offender. As I said, I underestimated th...
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Wherever you go, go with all your heart. —Confucius
I’d thought I saw Marcus, but it wasn’t him. It was the other brother. The one who had stood by me through hell and high water, and dragged me out of the pit one last time, saving me just barely in time.
At least I won’t mind my new scars. They tell a better story of survival than the others.
My wax apple is proudly stationed next to a portrait of the ashy remnants of Delaney Grove, and I smirk at all the nails sticking out of it. The last one was added over a month ago. There’s only one more nail to go before the apple art is complete.
“Bennett,” I hiss at the fur ball.
And maybe Jake and I took a long trip back to the states just to kill Jason for the purpose of letting Logan know I was alive.
The same day Jason’s body was discovered, another man died, though his body was just recovered yesterday afternoon. It’s the man’s name that has my skin prickling.
Christopher Denver.
He started the regimen Olivia concocted—a new synthetic parasite she’d been working on in her lab—and so it began. The first thing to leave him was his sex drive. Not even a little blue pill could fix that. The second thing to go was his energy. From there, things just slowly, agonizingly, started getting worse and worse. She assured us the pain would grow to be unbearable, and she was all too happy to make it happen.
“If you’ve hurt my cat, you have no idea what that will cost you.”
my entire body turns to stone when I see someone smirking at me from the corner. Logan pushes off from the wall, and I’m tempted to pinch myself just to be sure I’m not hallucinating or dreaming.
“They still don’t know it was you. Did you kill Jason as a sign to me that you’re still alive, or was he just unfinished business? The torture was mild in comparison to the others, almost as though you were in a hurry.”
“It was the safest way to tell you.
“You said if you could be anywhere, you’d be in Greece with me. I hoped that meant you came to wait,” he says softly, thumbing my chin.
