LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter Ten

      “What?” Addison asked. “But you told everyone…”

      Logan looked back down at his hands, unsure of why he was saying any of this. Of what it would mean when it all finally came out.

      But he had to. For one reason, and one reason only

      When he wrapped his hands around Addison’s neck tonight, he’d proven that whether he talked about this or not, whether he believed it was hidden or not, it was the thing that haunted his sleep. It refused to be buried. And if he wouldn’t talk about it, it seemed determined to break through the surface of the soil and claw at whoever was near him.

      Because all this, the memories…they were in him. They were him. And in his sleep they crept over him like a fog and they were all he saw. All he knew.

      “I lied,” he said, the words hard, cold. “Remember that. I am a liar, and when I came back from that island I told lies for everyone’s comfort. Including my own. But the biggest lie I told was to Kelly’s father. Kelly McIntire. That was her name. She was my…lover. Not really a girlfriend.”

      “Oh, Logan…”

      “No, don’t say it like that. I’d slept with her, but I had no more emotional attachment to her than I did to anyone else on the boat. It’s not like I was in love with her.” He cleared his throat. “But I saw her in the water, and I was able to pull her up onto the wood I was floating on. And we managed to make it to shore sometime the next morning. It became very clear, very early it was only the two of us who made it. But…”

      He stopped, reliving that moment. When his feet had made contact with the sand. When he’d finally been out of that dark, horrible water. Full of hidden dangers, waiting to devour them. The water itself the most deadly. Dark, frigid and fathomless.

      The island, in that moment, had seemed like a paradise. Rocks, dirt, trees. A secluded rain forest out there in the ocean.

      How quickly he’d learned that it was its own hell.

      “She was hurt,” he said. “Injured by…furniture or pieces of the boat. Something that happened during the storm. She was bleeding from her abdomen. I managed to use some clothes to stanch the wound. I made her a place to lie down. Then I got to work right away building a shelter. That’s one thing about being stranded. One thing about survival. You can’t stop, even when you’re exhausted, because nothing in nature is going to wait for you to catch your breath.” He swallowed hard. “I left her there after I was sure she was stable. Climbed up to see what I could see. If there was a town. Roads. People. Shit, there was nothing. Nothing but howler monkeys and birds. Bugs. Spiders the size of baseballs. No people. That was…a horrible thing to find out. That we’d reached land, but not help. Still, I was sure they would come.”

      He let out a long breath and pressed on. “I didn’t have any way to clean Kelly’s injury. And by the third night there, it was horribly infected. She had a fever. She was starting to hallucinate. She didn’t want me to leave her ever, because she was afraid. And I didn’t blame her. She mostly slept, and when she slept I tried to get things for us. Food. A way to make a fire. I was a dumb rich kid who didn’t know how the hell to light a fire in the first place, much less in a rain forest with no matches. And she was shivering. And vomiting. And in so much pain. And when I left…if she woke up she would scream.” His throat closed up, his muscles locking tight as if his body was trying to force him not to tell the rest. “I couldn’t…I couldn’t take care of her. I couldn’t take care of me. But we were the only two people in the world, as far as I was concerned.”

      Addison didn’t say anything, she only watched him, her expression serious, but cautious. She was trying not to look scared or horrified, but he could see it all there, glittering in her blue eyes.

      And he would have to watch it all rise to the top when he told her the rest. But she deserved to know why. Deserved to know why when Kelly had said “Logan, please” he’d put his hands around her throat.

      And he would have to watch as the desire he’d glimpsed in Addison’s eyes turned to horror. Watch the moment when she saw him as the monster he was.

      “She was so afraid, Addison. And so was I. I didn’t know what to do. I had nothing to give her for pain. Nothing…there was nothing.”

      He closed his eyes and replayed those last moments. Like the way he did. Over and over again. Kelly, beads of sweat on her forehead, blood, sweat and dirt matting her dark hair.

      Logan, please. Please make it stop. Please make it stop. I keep trying to hold my breath, but then I make a mistake and breathe again. Just help me make it stop.

      “She begged me,” he said, making sure he kept his gaze on Addison’s. “She begged me to end it. To make her stop breathing.” He took a sharp breath, a reminder of what he’d denied her. Of what he still had. “So I did.”

      He let the full meaning of his words sink in. Not just for Addison, but for him. Let it all sink into the room like a stain. One that could never be removed. It was said, and it couldn’t be unsaid.

      It was done. And he could never go back and see it undone.

      “We’d been stuck there for two weeks by then,” he said. “I was…I didn’t…” He could see it so clearly still. Feel

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