Page 11 of Cedar Edge
“Law?” She asks softly.
I barely conceal the smirk, turning to face her. I cross my arms over my chest, enjoying how her eyes roam over my body. “He’s around.” She seems to relax with the news. “This is what we are going to do. I want you to hop into the bath. After you take a nice long soak we are going to have a long conversation about what the fuck is going on in that pretty little head of yours to think swallowing whatever you took was the only way out.”
“I didn’t…” She starts, frowning and shaking her head. “I didn’t want to kill myself. If that’s what you think.” Her voice is so fucking soft as her eyes flit around the room avoiding my own gaze.
I raise an eyebrow. “You sure about that?”
Her gaze cuts to me, hard and unmoving. “It’s odd you seem to care now.” The words are quiet but they hold an edge to them and they confuse the fuck out of me, but she plows forward before I can ask anything. “You don’t know anything about me Logan, you don’t know what I’ve been through.”
She may not have consciously wanted to die when she took those drugs but apathy towards life is just as deadly. Stepping into her space I cradle her face with my hands, the soft skin practically translucent. “So tell me your story Tink, give it all to me, I can take it.”
This time it’s fear that floods those blue eyes of hers and her body goes rigid. “I don’t need you to do that.” She physically backs away from me until she’s just outside the threshold of the bathroom. She looks small in the room. Her frame is thin and her hair hangs limp around her face. The circles under hereyes are so dark they look like a deep bruising, as if they are permanently etched into her skull.
Taking one step forward I raise my eyebrow at her, hating that she’s hiding anything from me. That she feels like shehasto hide anything from me. “You know of the three of us I’m going to ask the nicest, Ace won’t be asking at all and Law? Well… daddy doesn’t like being denied.” She sucks in a breath of shock at my words, cheeks flushing. “For now, however, I just want you warming up in the damn bath.”
I step back from her, allowing her to head towards the bath. She seems to melt with relief when her hand grazes the warm water. “Lavender?” She murmurs with a faint smile.
“Of course.” I lean against the door frame, watching her as she wraps her arms around herself.
Her cheeks flush with a light pink blush as she glances around, nervously. “Uh, if you don’t mind?”
I snort, nodding. “I’ll give you space.” I make a move to head out the door before pausing and glancing back at her. “But Tink, next time you won’t be alone in that bath.”
Thea
My body shivers at his words as I slowly strip from my clothes. His presence still lingers in the opulent space, his scent filling the room and overpowering the lavender he dropped into the warm water. Logan has always been a shameless flirt, and it’s easy to get lost in the way he makes me feel alive. It's even easier to think about falling back into their lives, to think that they could maybe save me from the monster that haunts me. We could hit rewind and pretend the party never happened, everything could go back to normal.
I groan. Utterly confused and beyond exhausted.
Dragging the sweatshirt over my head I drop it to the ground, turning towards the beckoning water. My eyes skim past the mirror, a momentary lapse of judgment on my part. I wince at my reflection, refusing to linger on it longer than necessary. I know what I’ll see, and it’s the ice cold water I need to cool the lust I have building. The girl in the mirror is nothing but skin and bones and bruises and scars. She uses drugs and alcohol and pain to escape anything and everything. She took five pills of unknown origin so she wouldn’t have to face life. That’s the truth of it.
Their silence may have broken me all those years ago, and Royce may have shattered those pieces even smaller, but I think deep down I've always been this girl. I avoided life in my garden when I was little. And lost myself in them when I was older. My methods just improved when I became an adult.
My attention drifts downward to my abdomen, my hand covering the mark Royce left on me long ago. The swirling double RR brand that he burned into my flesh. I can still smell my flesh, still feel the agonizing pain as he held me down and laughed. I can still vividly remember how it felt when he took me later that night, taking care not to ‘ruin the brand’ when he did so. It was the first night he gave me one of the white pills. And the last night I cared about fighting him.
The sobering reality of it all is Logan may flirt all he wants but no one is going to want me once they see the ruined canvas Royce made of my body. I lower myself into the water until the lavender scented liquid hits my chin. For a flash of a moment I think about how easy it would be to slip under the warm water and slide into its embrace. I could escape everything with one simple act. I would never have to face any of my monsters ever again. It's so tempting that I let my body start to slip on the bottom of the tub, a test if you will, to see if I can do it.
But when I hear Logan wrestling around outside the bathroom I halt my descent. Guilt washes over me rapidly and I force myself to sit up fully the chill of the room wrapping itself around my body. I've already subjected him to finding me half dead on the side of the road. I don't want to be the source of any more trauma for him.
Tears well in my eyes and slip down my cheeks. My sobs are quiet which is surprising given how violent they feel as my whole body shakes. Living feels like a chore, trying to escape Royce and being on the run for the rest of my life is overwhelming and exhausting to think about. Even this moment of peace isn’t something I can get comfortable in. Royce will always rip apart any happiness I can find. I may have physically escaped him but I’ll never emotionally escape him, he’ll always occupy whatever room I’m in.
Logan
My muscles strain with the effort of walking away from Thea in the bath. I wasn’t kidding when I said this was the last time she would fucking take a bath alone. I may have restraint but Ace sure as fuck won’t. And Law? He may pride himself on his restraint but one look at Thea will have him crumbling. Whoever she left us for doesn’t deserve her, they either did this to her or allowed it to happen. Either way, she is ours now and I’m not giving her up. The three of us broke when we lost her and it’s been a long time coming to fuse us back together…
“What the fuck do you mean she’s gone?” Ace runs his hands through his hair, a wild look taking up residency in his seafoam eyes. The scent of smoke still clings heavily to his body from thefire he was out on. I’m not even sure if he told anyone he was leaving given the soot that still decorates his face. It looks like he walked straight off the front line.
Law braces me, his body against my back as I take a deep breath. “I mean, she’s fucking gone. I went to your place looking for her and your dad had no idea where or even when she left.” His fist punches into the wall before I register his movement. Ace’s rage is like the fires he fights, sometimes its a small spark and other times its a fucking inferno that is ready to decimate the entire world. Very few people stand up to him when he’s like this, when the flames flicker into his eyes like they are now.
Stepping into his space I press my body into his. The challenge in my eyes is clear. My own anger over how it all ended with Thea is still simmering under my tattoo covered flesh. I respected Ace’s choice not to go after her that night but I never should have let him convince me to stay in Seattle when she went silent on us.
“Not a single one of us got here in time.” I say, adding salt to the wounds. “She vanished from us before this Ace, all because you fucked up.”
That seems to break him, those words undoing his control. His hand finds its way around my throat in a punishing grip and he slams me into the drywall behind us. The impact knocks the air from my lungs violently.
From my peripheral I see Law walk towards us. “Let him go Ace.” He says low and controlled. “It’s not his fault.”
But it is my fault. Deep down I know it is. Ace made his choices, but I didn’t have to follow them. I could have fought back and found our girl.
