Chapter 44

44

LINCOLN

I shouldn't be here. I don't want to be here, but the moment the sun rose this morning, my feet were already moving. I didn't know where I was going, I didn't have any destination in mind, it's just, one minute I was at the foster home, and the next I was here. I watched the graveyard workers finish digging his fucking goddamn hole, and all I felt was numb.

When I spotted Arthur's car pull up in the distance, I quickly stepped away, not wanting to be here when they set up to say goodbye to him. I can't do it. I don't want to see Logan's life be reduced to nothing but a fucking box, not when his blood, his last sign of life, still marks my fucking skin. Bile rises in my throat, but I can't bring myself to scrub it off, not when he's in a fucking box because of me.

I slump down behind a tree out of sight, taking a drink from the bottle in my hand, praying that this time it actually fucking makes me blackout, but just like everything else, I fail. I'm not sure how long I sit there, but it's long enough for me to hear car after car pull up, countless people climbing out, all here to offer their bullshit condolences.

I wonder if they know him the same way I do… knew him .

I'm sure the sight of him in a box wil l make them sad, that they will share stories of his life and say some crap about him being in a better place, but they're wrong. The only place he should be is with me. In fact, that's not true, he should have stayed away from me, and then none of us would be here.

The service starts, and they play songs picked out by his parents, and poems I know he would have loved, yet I can't bear a single fucking second. I shouldn't be here, I can't, I have to leave. I climb to my feet, my hand shooting to my side, as I stumble from behind the tree, making more noise than I intended. Heads turn in my direction, and I feel the shocked stares from all of them, no doubt taking in the state of me, but it's my family's faces that cut right through me.

Elle's face is sad and disappointed, and Helen's is even worse, especially when she spots me, yet when my eyes hit Marcus and Jace, I see instant relief. Both of them stand, ready to make their way over to me, but Asher cuts in front of them, stopping them in their tracks. Both of them look at him, but his eyes are on me, whatever he says to them keeps them rooted in place, I can't hear it, but then he is cutting through the chairs and heading my way.

I don't want to make a scene, not more than I already have, so when he reaches me and grips me with his non-injured arm, I let him drag me away, my eyes on the black coffin we are leaving behind. Yet Asher doesn't stop, not until we are a good distance into the cemetery and away from prying eyes, and only then does he let me go.

"What the fuck is wrong with you? You can't just show up here, looking like…" he trails off, his eyes assessing me closely, as his anger dissipates a little. "Is that his blood?" He asks, his voice cracking a little, as he focuses on my blood-stained shirt, and all I can do is nod.

My own eyes trail over him, taking in the dark circles under his eyes, the bruising to his face, and the bandages barely peeking out of his collar, and I wince. I know if I peeled back his shir t I would find another fucking bullet hole in his body, and I can't bear it.

Asher takes a step towards me, but I instantly take a step back. "You shouldn't be here, not like this," he sighs, and I know he's right, yet still I scoff.

"You think I don't know that," I snap. "Do you think I want to be here, to see the only light my life ever fucking knew, reduced to nothing but a fucking box, knowing I'm the reason why?" I scream, not caring who hears us. "None of us should be here, because I should have saved him, that's what I do. I save people, it's why I became who I am, it's why the guilt of my father's crimes didn't fucking drag me down to the pits of hell with him, because I fucking save people, yet when he needed me most, I let him die."

"Do you think you're the only one who feels it?" He asks, erasing the space between us now and getting right in my face. "Every second since the moment I woke up in the hospital, I remember his cries of pain, the way he screamed my name as they beat me, the way he kept telling me to hang on because he knew you were coming," he scoffs, as if the words cause him physical pain, and they are like a blow to my chest. "I told him to say goodbye to Cassie for me, and he still had faith that you would save me, and now I have to live with that. With the fact that you chose to save me, to come for me and not him, and Logan died knowing that."

His words cut right through me, his grief as raw as my own, and fuck, it hurts. "Ash, I didn't choose you," I admit, and he frowns. "I chose Cassie. The second I learned the two of you were taken, I knew that if it came down to it, that I would save you every single time," I breathe, and his entire body freezes at my admission. "Better she lose an uncle than a father. It wouldn't have mattered if you were side by side, or on opposite sides of the world, in every scenario I would have come for you, for her , and if Logan loved me the way he said he did, he would have known that."

I let my words wash over him, and my hands itch to reach out and touch him, to grab hold of him and never let go, but how can I keep him when we have already lost everything?

"He didn't say we," Asher finally mumbles, tears shining in his eyes, as he shakes his head back and forth.

"What?" I ask, ignoring my head as it screams at me to walk away, and instead, moving even closer to him, like he is a magnet drawing me in.

"Logan, when I was bleeding and I thought I was going to die, he didn't say ‘we are getting out of this', he said ‘you are getting out of this'," he mutters in disbelief, as something clicks to place in his mind. "He was training to be a fucking doctor," he adds in anger. "He knew what was wrong with him, he knew he was dying and he didn't fucking tell me, he didn't say anything, just kept telling me that I was going to be fine." Tears are clinging to his lashes now, and his pain cuts me deeper than I ever thought possible. "How could he think I would ever be fine without him? He was my salvation and now he's gone," he adds quietly, as the first tear splashes onto his cheek, and as if on instinct, my hand reaches up and swipes it away.

"Because he loved you," I tell him, still haunted by Logan's confessions for us, thinking it would help him, yet at my words, more tears fall.

"And I loved him, I loved him for years and never told him, and I didn't get to say it back," he chokes out, his body looking seconds from falling, and I can't stop myself from grabbing him and pulling him in. "The last thing he ever fucking said to me, was that he loved me, and I just stood there and watched him die, and said nothing," he cries into my chest.

"He knew, Ash, even if you didn't say it, he knew," I mutter into his hair, and all it does is make him fall apart more. "Logan lov ed us both, and we loved him." He sobs in my arms, and every tear that falls breaks me apart completely, because he's all I have left now, and I almost walked away.

When he pulls back, he searches my stare, almost as if he could read my mind, as he says, "I lost him, Elle lost him, Cassie lost him," he breathes, reaching up and gently pressing his hand to my cheek. "We can't lose you too. Come home with me, please, your family needs you, I need you," he tells me, dropping his forehead to mine, and it's the first time in days that I haven't felt like I am completely lost.

There are no promises I can give him, no confessions of love, not here, not like this, and instead, all I can do is nod. "Okay."

One word, and he is leading me to his car, where we watch the remainder of the service together. Logan is lowered into the ground, and we watch as each member of our family steps up and drops a fistful of dirt on top of him. More people follow after them, then one by one they all drift back to their cars, ready to head to the wake that is being held at a restaurant in town. Ash and I wait until everyone has gone, pretending I don't feel the eyes of my family on me as they leave, and then we climb out of the car and head to his graveside.

Asher slips the gravediggers a few hundred bucks to take a walk, before we both step up to the side and look down. His coffin is covered in dirt and roses, and the sight has me blinking away tears. It shouldn't have ended like this, sunshine was never meant to be contained in a black box. Ash slips his free hand into mine, and then hands me a rose with the other.

"Together?" I ask hoarsely, and he nods with a grim smile.

"Together."

Then we toss our roses in, and both bid the man we love a last final goodbye, and pretend it doesn't absolutely kill us both.

The drive back to the house is silent, and when we roll through the gates, my heart begins to pound in my chest. The driveway is clean of course, none of his or Asher's blood in sight anywhere, but it doesn't matter, I will never forget what happened here. Ash doesn't pause though, heading straight for the garage, which is mostly empty since everyone else has headed to the wake, and when he kills the engine, he climbs out without another word.

Quietly, he leads me through the house, not stopping until we reach my room, and when I push inside, my eyes instantly land on where some of Logan's clothes are still thrown on the back of my chair. One of his old AGU hoodies that he always left here, and a spare pair of his scrubs and cap that he was so excited to wear. Some of the gifts he got at Christmas are still piled in the corner, and I know if I lay down on my bed, his scent would still be on my sheets.

A fresh wave of pain washes over me and I can't bear it, but as if Asher feels it too, he pulls me into the bathroom and locks the door behind us. When I meet my own eyes in the mirror, I almost gasp at the state of me. There is blood and dirt all over me, and my face looks gaunt, my under eyes almost completely black, and if Logan were still here, he would probably kick my ass for not looking after myself.

Asher turns on the shower, and then I watch as he slowly strips out of his suit, more cuts and bruises being revealed with every piece of clothing he loses, and each one makes me want to scream more than the last. The bullet wound in his shoulder is red and raw, but it's the purple and black that covers almost the entire torso, that has my hands itching to make someone pay.

"Ash, who did this to you?" I ask, my voice shaking, but when his eyes meet mine, he just shakes his head, reaching his hands out to pull off my own clothes.

"Lincoln, I promise I will tell you who did this, and that I will help you make them pay for what they did to us, to him," he grits, not able to say his name, not like this, and my heart continues t o thunder. "But you are in no state to do anything right now, so we're going to shower, eat some food, and then get some sleep, and don't think I won't tie you to the fucking bed if I have to."

If I was still able to feel anything other than pain, his words might make me smile, but instead I just nod, climbing into the shower, and watching wordlessly, as I wash the last of Logan off of me, and watch it disappear down the drain. I don't realize I'm crying until Asher's arm comes round me from behind, and he plasters his cheek to my back and just holds me.

We stay like that until the water starts to run cold, then I scrub the dirt and grime from my skin, being careful around the wound in my side that is still healing, before focusing on Ash. He accepts my help, even though I can tell it kills him, but his shoulder is still fucked, and every hiss of pain that slips past his lips, as I slide the washcloth over his skin, is like a match to the flame of wrath burning inside of me.

Whoever did this better pray they find me before I find them, because when I do, not even the devil himself will be able to save them.