In to Her

And then he wraps his arms around me.

Like we’re not strangers who met this afternoon. But old friends. And he’s been gone for a while but now he’s back. Catching up. And all the news he’s missed has been bad.

“I know who you are,” I say, sighing. “I know why you’re here.”

“Why?” Logan says. “Why are we here, Yvette?”

I swallow hard and say it. “To kill me. Damon sent you. I’ve been waiting, actually. Before I decided to take matters into my own hands I figured I’d just wait. Wait for him to show and take my life too. He’s already taken everything else.”

Logan just stares at me.

AJ hugs me tighter.

“But you guys took too long so…” I shrug. “What else could I do but end it myself?”

There is a long, heavy silence in the room. Thick like the steam in the shower we just took.

Then Logan says, “You said baby, Yvette. How old was the baby?”

I shake my head.

AJ pushes back, places his hands on my shoulders and keeps me at arm’s length so he can look down at my face.

I shake my head again. “She wasn’t his, Logan. I gave his baby away.”

“What?” AJ says.

But I’m still looking at Logan. He’s the one who makes the decisions here. Not that I care what decision he makes now. I’m done. I’m over it. I want to die.

I just need him to understand this so when he goes back to Damon, he can make this perfectly clear.

“My daughter was not his baby. I gave his baby away the year before Bonnie was born. I don’t know where he is, and even if I did, I’d never give you, or him, that information.”

AJ turns. Whirling around, placing himself in between Logan and me. He says, “This?”

Like that’s all that needs to be said.

But he says more anyway.

“This is why we’re here? To get Damon’s kid? And you knew? And you lied to me?”

Yeah, that sucks. I liked Logan. Not as much as I like AJ, but he was growing on me.

But I know who he is. It took me a while to place his face, but I did eventually. Somewhere between the toy fuck and the shower fuck it came to me.

Logan the Loyal.

Which is what Damon used to call him.

Except it wasn’t because he was loyal. It was sarcasm, or irony, or maybe just a fuckin’ joke.

Because Logan has no loyalties. None at all and everyone in the inner circle knew this. Damon, especially, knew this.

But apparently AJ didn’t.

So I say, to him, “I’m sorry.”

Which makes him turn—because I gripped his arm when I said this—to look down at me again. And he says, “What?”

So I say it again. Because it’s gotta hurt and it might take a while to sink in, but eventually it will. “I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?”

I shrug. “That this is happening to you, I guess.”

“What? Nothing’s happening to me, Yvette.” But then the look on his face changes. And for a second I think he gets it. That he understands. He says, “Oh. You mean, this decision that has to be made?”

But that’s not what I mean, and Logan knows it. Because he opens his mouth to say something, but loses his nerve and shuts up.

“Don’t worry, Yvette,” AJ says, shaking his head. “We’re not going through with it.”

He hugs me and I let him. He holds me close and in such a way that Logan disappears from view.

“I want you to go through with it, AJ. I want you to kill me.”

Chapter Fifteen – LOGAN

AJ is going to lose his mind, so I make a decision. “No one’s killing anyone tonight.”

“Tonight?” AJ says. “We’re not killing her tomorrow, either.”

“AJ—” Yvette says.

But he cups a hand over her mouth to shut her up and repeats himself. “We’re not killing her.”

“She’ll just kill herself when we leave, AJ.” I say it in a tone I don’t recognize. Like… I don’t think I recognize myself right now, either.

I feel disconnected. Outside of my body somehow.

But I don’t have time to have an existential crisis because… the kid.

I didn’t know. Not for sure. But I did suspect. I remember seeing Damon one day before Yvette—Glori—left him. They were fighting and it was loud. He was accusing her of cheating but he was always accusing her of cheating and there was no possible way she could, unless she was fucking one of his men without his permission—which he… gave. Often.

So then the fight degenerated into ‘it’s not mine, it’s not mine, you filthy little slut.’ And I made an educated guess.

But I had other business happening that day so I never thought about it again until Yvette went missing a week later.

And you’d think that your woman, who you forced to marry you as a minor and let your wedding party gang-rape on her wedding night, would be more of a priority should said wife ever just up and disappear.