The Lies He Spoke

THIRTY EIGHT

LOGAN

Logan dropped Angel's arm like it was burning him, but he kept a firm grip on the door.

"What do you mean, that's your brother?"

There were tears on Angel's face now. "Don't hurt him, please."

"What are you saying?" Logan wanted to throw him out into the hallway, but he needed answers. He needed to know who the man was. He needed to know what Angel was going to do if he let him go. "Who does he work for?"

Angel shook his head, shoulders shaking with sobs. "Please let me go-"

"Answer me!" Logan barked.

"I can't say-" he said tearily.

"Like hell you can't say!" Logan snapped. "If you don't tell me, I will call child services and they will put you with your aunt or in foster care. Do you hear me?"

"He could get in big trouble -"

"I'm not telling anyone as long as you answer me."

When Angel didn't make a move to answer, Logan said in a hard voice, "Olivia, tell him what happens to kids who get put into foster care."

"No."

Logan's head snapped back at her calm tone of voice. She wasn't shaking anymore. She didn't look scared. And that infuriated him, that she wasn't taking this seriously.

"Olivia-" he growled.

"Stop it, Logan, this is crazy," she said with equal fury. "He's scared! You're scaring him."

"Olivia-"

"Would you ever give up Elijah?" she said vehemently. "Would you ever, in a million years and a million threats, give up Elijah?"

But Logan wasn't Angel and Elijah wasn't Mark or Mike or whatever the fake or not fake brother's real name was. Logan was Logan and Elijah was Elijah and that was all he knew to be true.

Logan was tired. He didn't want to deal with these lies anymore.

But even more than that, he wanted this random stranger to stop crying over his brother. Logan hated it. He fucking hated it because it hurt.

Because he saw himself in Angel's expression. All his childhood, when his dad would make him scream or cry, Logan wondered whether his dad felt anything. Did he feel remorse? Guilt? Did he wish he wasn't doing what he was doing?

Logan felt guilty, but he felt rightfully angry too.

Is that what his dad had felt when he made him cry?

I am becoming him.

Logan put his hands over his eyes and pressed his fingers into the inner corners and gently squished his eyeballs in their sockets, as if that would give him some answers. When he opened them, Angel was sitting on the floor, still crying, and Olivia was sitting next to him, her hand on her shoulder. She was gently talking to him, very quietly, softly.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "We're not going to hurt you. Please don't be scared."

Angel wouldn't look at her. He had his face turned into the door but he pleaded, "Where's my brother? Please, I just want to know where he is."

Logan's heart twisted. He hated that it did.

I will not be him.

Olivia sighed. "I don't know."

"You have his picture."

"Logan saw him once. That's all. You remember the day I told you he got drugged? Logan remembers him from that night."