Page 54 of Logan

I smoothed out the sheets one last time, then followed her downstairs.

Before I even reached the bottom of the stairs, I could already hear Dominic’s laughter. He had a natural affinity with children and was no doubt already making them feel right at home.

Just as I suspected, when I reached the bottom of the stairs, the first thing I saw was Dominic kneeling on the floor with a boy and a girl, playing with them and making them laugh right along with him. The kids’ social service worker was standing beside them, calmly explaining something I couldn’t hear over the sound of the kid’s joy. Whatever she was saying must have been serious, because there was a frown on her face, but she didn’t seem angry. Just very focused.

Then I noticed someone else standing behind the social service worker, and my heart stopped.

“Logan!”

My shouting caused everyone in the room to jump in surprise, but I didn’t care as I raced down the last few steps and threw myself at the man I hadn’t seen in person for a year. I wrapped my arms around him and barely resisted the urge to wrap my legs around him too and cling like a baby koala to a tree.

Logan was a few inches taller than me, so when he held me, my feet didn’t quite touch the ground. His arms didn’t even tremble as they supported my weight.

“Clay?”

His greeting was surprisingly uncertain, and I pulled back just enough to see the bewildered look on his face.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I just…” He looked around the room like he was only just seeing it for the first time. “I wasn’t expecting to see you.”

“Oh.” I released my grip from around him enough for my feet to slide back to the floor. The excitement I’d felt over his sudden appearance fizzled but didn’t completely fade.

There were at least a dozen people in the front room of the facility, and every single one of them was watching us with curiosity. Even the two new kids stared at me with their big eyes.

Embarrassed, I tried to back away, but Logan’s grip on my shoulders didn’t let me retreat more than a single step.

“What, um… what are you doing here?”

Logan nodded toward the kids that were still huddled near Dominic. “These two needed a ride from Louisiana to Maryland, so I volunteered my services.”

“You drove them here?” I eyed the kids again and swallowed hard around the ball of jealousy that swelled up in my throat. I was the one that Logan had driven across the country to save. Now, these two little kids had replaced me.

Logan had a job to do. He was moving on to helping other victims. I should be happy about that, but it just made me feel bitter.

“Actually, I flew them here,” Logan said, completely oblivious to the spiteful thoughts stabbing inside my brain at that very moment. “Faster than a car ride, and cheaper than buying plane tickets last minute.”

“Oh, you can fly a plane?” I tried to sound upbeat and invested in the conversation, but my words felt wrong on my tongue, and I was certain my tone sounded off.

“Yeah. I told you about my time in the Air Force. I’m still licensed to fly, and an old service buddy loaned me his plane.”

Looking around the room, he finally noticed everyone staring at us. “Hey. I think we’re causing a distraction. Why don’t you show me around the place, and we’ll let everyone else get the kids settled in.”

Dominic’s place didn’t look that big from the outside, but it was deceptive. The building went a lot further back than it seemed from the front. It was not only a halfway house, but was also a pseudo-orphanage for young kids with nowhere else to go.

I showed Logan around, focusing on the facilities that the kids he’d brought would probably need. There was in-house therapy, an on-call doctor, and even tutors who came in regularly. I’d used the tutors myself to help get my education back on track, so I could attest to their quality.

In turn, Logan told me about his most recent mission. He couldn’t disclose all the details, but it was enough for me to get an idea of what had happened.

He was still fighting to bring down the trafficking ring that had kidnapped me, which was turning out to be a lot bigger and more powerful than I’d originally known. He’d not only caught a group of kidnappers in the act, but also pulled those two kids out of the back of a van and saved them from being spirited away.

My teeth ground together so hard my jaw ached.

Why were they lucky enough to be saved when I wasn’t?

Where had all this effort been when I was taken?

My brother had been forced to use his own time and money to hire private investigators to look for me, and I was only found after my captors had already let me go.

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