The Dead and the Dark(73)

Ashley’s gaze fluttered to Logan’s lips. With surprising force, she leaned across the table and pulled Logan into her. The kiss was only a guess; it was a gentle hand reaching through the dark, wondering what it might meet on the other side. It was careful and quiet and unassuming. Logan held still, because this wasn’t the way it ever went. She was the black hole, the one always reaching, the one always starving. She wasn’t wanted—not in a real way. She wasn’t kissed in a way she felt.

She pulled away, eyes still closed. Her lips tingled in the cool wind.

“Was that…?” Ashley trailed off. Logan didn’t need to see her face to know it was contorted in panic. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

Logan cupped the back of Ashley’s neck with both hands and pulled her into another kiss. Unlike the first, this one was purposeful. It was shaking hands and ragged breath. It was Ashley’s fingers knotting in the back of Logan’s sweater. It was Ashley’s lips that tasted like freshwater and hibiscus tea. Logan pushed a loose strand of Ashley’s blond hair out of her face just to brush knuckles over her skin. Her fingertips left a gray smear of dirt on Ashley’s cheek, but it didn’t matter. Ashley’s lips parted and Logan sank into her, kissing her like it was more important than breathing.

Ashley put her hands on Logan’s shoulders and shifted to straddle her waist. Her lips moved against Logan’s frantically, desperately, like it was all she knew. She kissed like someone who’d never meant it before. Logan wrapped her arms around Ashley’s back and held her closer. She snaked a hand under Ashley’s T-shirt, raked fingernails over the hot skin of Ashley’s back, and her heart raced too fast. The world raced too fast.

Behind them, truck wheels crunched over the loose gravel on the highway shoulder. The steady thump of a country song was muffled inside the vehicle.

Ashley went stiff.

Logan pulled away and glanced over her shoulder. Her head still spun from the kiss, but the white truck parked behind them sent her crashing back to earth. She’d seen it on the gravel turnout to the cabin, outside the Chokecherry, outside the police station. John Paris jumped out of the driver’s seat and slammed the door shut behind him. Paul climbed out of the passenger’s side.

She gripped the side of the picnic table and forced herself to breathe.

“John,” Ashley said tentatively. She climbed off the picnic table—off Logan’s lap—and approached the boys. Her hands were raised in semisurrender as though she were a frightened hunter talking down a charging bear. “What’re you doing here?”

“Saving you.” John strode toward them with a confidence that made Logan’s stomach turn. He pushed past Ashley and leaned against the picnic table. Logan expected him to be angry, but he wore a strange, almost dreamy smile. He was looking forward to this. He eyed Logan and said, “I warned you.”

“Last I checked, people don’t have to listen to you,” Logan spat.

She wished she felt as brave as she sounded. Maybe Gus was right; maybe she needed to learn to shut her mouth.

“Warned her about what?” Ashley asked.

John kept eye contact with Logan. “I told her to back off from my friends. She’s supposed to leave you alone.”

“I don’t think she knows how.” Paul snorted.

“She didn’t do anything,” Ashley said. “I started it. And it’s not your business, anyway. I can make my own decisions.”

John turned to Ashley with such ferocity Logan thought he might charge at her. “I hope Tristan can’t see this, wherever he is. He loved you so much, Ash. And now you’re out here with the bitch that helped kill him.”

“I…” This stopped Ashley for a moment. “It’s not about Tristan.”

“It should be.” John turned back to Logan. His eyes were darker than the night creeping in on the horizon. “He was my best friend. Then you people show up and kill him and nobody cares. Everyone just forgets him. But I didn’t forget, and I’m not letting you kill anyone else.”

“John, what are you—?” Ashley started.

In an instant, John lunged across the table and grabbed Logan, dragging her to the dirt by the collar of her sweater. Logan fought against his grip, but it was pointless. The sweater tugged against her neck like a noose, cutting off her airway. Her calves skidded along the rocks, rubbing her skin raw and bloody. Somewhere behind her, Logan heard the lapping waves of the lake against the shore, but all she saw was starlight. Starlight and John’s face, contorted with hate and anger and grief and pain.

She was going to die.

She’d thought she was getting out, but this was how she was going to die.

“Let go of her,” Ashley screamed, but she was far away now.

John threw Logan down in the gravel, but before she could scramble to her feet, he reached down and grabbed a fistful of her hair. He pulled her into the cool Lake Owyhee water.

It was a crash in her ears—against her face—and then silence. No more Ashley screaming, no more of John’s raspy breath, no more crickets chirping in the evening. Just the slow, sucking sound of water fanning over her skin.

Logan clawed at John’s fist in her hair, but it made no difference. She couldn’t breathe. Somewhere, just beyond her memory, it came back to her.

She’d done this before.