Page 27 of Logan

“Don’t touch me.”

Holding up both my hands, I backed away, but that only distressed him even more.

“No, wait.” He grabbed my sleeve and pulled me back. “Don’t leave. Sorry… I’m not…”

“It’s okay,” I said again, keeping my voice as low and smooth as I could. “I’m not going anywhere. Let’s just get out of the rain and somewhere warm. Okay?”

He nodded but didn’t say anything as he continued to cling to my sleeve. I didn’t dare touch him again, not knowing what kind ofresponse I’d get, so I used his grip on my sleeve to bring him with me as I fetched our stuff from the car and headed for our room.

There were two beds this time, luckily. I wasn’t sure how he would react to sleeping in the same bed right now, and I couldn’t risk upsetting him further.

Leading him over to the other bed, I detached his hands from my sleeve and handed him his own bag.

“Here. You need to get out of those wet clothes and dry off. I’m going to go change in the bathroom.”

Once his fingers wrapped around the handle of his bag, I grabbed my own stuff and locked myself in the bathroom. I wanted to take a shower to chase away the chill after getting soaked, but I also couldn’t leave Clay alone for too long in his current state.

Drying myself off with a towel, I slipped on a new set of clothes and returned to the bedroom, only to immediately turn around again.

“Clay, what… are you doing?”

I should have been more specific with my instructions. He’d stripped himself out of his wet clothes, but now stood naked in the center of the room, looking lost and vacant.

With a sigh, I kept my eyes averted as I sidled up closer to him without looking directly at him.

“Clay. Get dressed.” Bending down, I managed to grab his bag and hand it to him, but after that I didn’t hear any movement.

When nearly a minute had passed with seemingly nothing happening, I snuck another look at him, focusing only on his face.

He held his bag of supplies, looking at it with clear confusion, like he knew he needed to do something, but couldn’t figure out how to navigate the maze of his own body to make it happen.

Then he gave up and dropped the bag to latch onto my sleeve again.

I sighed. This was going to be a long night.

It was a small room, so the beds weren’t too far away. I was able to pull the blanket off of one without leaving Clay’s side and wrapped it around the younger man like a warm dry cocoon.

“There,” I said as I used the towel I’d brought from the bathroom to dry his hair. “That should feel better.”

He responded by leaning his head against my chest. There were only a few inches of difference between our height, so he had to duck a little for his head to fit under my chin.

I expected him to cry. He certainly had plenty of reasons to cry. However, instead, he wrapped his arms around me tightly and screamed against my chest.

Even with his voice muffled into my shirt I could still hear his shouting and feel the vibration in his voice. His screams mixed with sobs, twisting into a tortured sound that would haunt my nightmares for years to come.

I didn’t react, and just continued to hold him, even as his pain overflowed into his fists. He beat against my chest and shoulders, still screaming the whole time.

I was going to have bruises there in the morning, but I bit my lip and forced myself to keep quiet. I could handle a few bruises. It was a worthwhile price to pay if it helped Clay express even a fraction of the pain and anger that must be poisoning him from the inside.

His outburst lasted for several minutes before he finally fell silent and stood slumped in my arms. At a higher-end hotel someone would have probably called security on us by now, but that was one of the only good things about our current location.

No one was going to complain about the sound of screams.

“Sorry,” Clay said with his face still lying against my chest. “I don’t know why I did that. I shouldn’t… I just… Sorry.”

His whole body was trembling in my arms. He was exhausted, but he was still trying to keep himself standing.

I led him over to one of the beds, helping him lie down while keeping the blanket cocoon safely tucked around him.

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