Page 67 of Logan

Even if that was all I ended up achieving, it would be enough.

CHAPTER 27

Clay

My eyes itched with fatigue,and the numbers on the page were swimming on front of me, but I refused to put the book down.

It was already past midnight. I’d been studying for nearly six hours and my brain felt like it was about to explode and leak out of my ears.

How did teenagers manage to study all this stuff?

I was an adult. I should be able to keep up with children, but the longer I stared at the textbook, the stupider I felt.

The door to my bedroom swung open with a slow creak. By now, I could recognize the difference between Jason and Patrick’s footsteps, so I didn’t bother to look up as my brother approached me.

“Clay. You’re still studying?”

Dropping the book onto the table, I pressed my face against its pages, so my nose buried right into the crease of the binding and filled my senses with the smell of paper.

“Studying is the wrong word. More like staring blankly in confusion. Everything’s just running together in my brain.”

Lifting my head up enough to pull the book out from under it, Jason started to put it back with the rest of my study supplies.

“You need to take a break for today. It’ll still be here for you tomorrow.”

I pulled the book out of his hands but didn’t have the heart to open it again. “I can’t quit. I need to keep going. I’m not good enough yet.”

Before Jason could even ask, I handed him a paper that had been stuffed at the bottom of the stack of textbooks.

“Another practice GED test. Didn’t you just take one?”

“Yes, but I’ve been studying a lot so I thought maybe this time it would be better, but it was even worse.”

With precise movements, Clay folded the paper into a small square, so it resembled an accordion. “Of course you’re not going to do well when you’re stressing yourself out about it. You need to take a break.”

“No, it’s not enough. I still didn’t pass. Children can pass this thing, but I can’t.”

Jason flicked the folded paper at me, and it bounced off my nose. “First of all, high school seniors aren’t that much younger than you. Stop talking like you’re an old man. And secondly, it’s only been a year and a half since you moved here. Less than that sinceyou started tutoring. You’re trying to cram years of schooling into a matter of months. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Besides, what’s the rush?”

I tipped my head to the side, just enough to free my mouth. “I talked with Logan earlier. He’s getting a promotion at work.”

My room only had one chair, so there was nowhere else for Jason to sit. This didn’t stop him as he knelt right on the floor next to my desk and placed a hand on my arm.

“That’s… good, right?”

“Yeah.” I sat up, but my posture remained slouched, so although Jason was kneeling next to me, our heads were nearly the same height. “He’s going to be running his own task force. I know he’s excited about it.”

I also knew that his promotion had to do with the Bell ringer case. Logan never talked about the case, but I could piece the puzzle together. He worked for a department that specialized in crimes against children. He’d specifically been sent to find me, and I’d even seen him writing down information about my kidnappers. Add to that the kids that he’d brought to Dominic’s place that had nearly been kidnapped by traffickers, and that lead to one conclusion.

He was still trying to bring down the pedophile ring that had abused me. The case was apparently important enough to require its own task force, and now Logan was in charge of that task force.

Or maybe he was in charge of one branch of the task force?

I didn’t know how these things worked.

I didn’t know a lot of things, and the more I learned, the more I realized how much I didn’t know.

I kept all this information to myself, and only told Jason about the most pressing issue.

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