The Bad Boy with a Heart of Gold

✖ Chapter 22 ✖

I wasn't ready for something like this.

Sawyer lay on his side, facing the window. He was shirtless and I could see really nasty bruising in his abdomen and sides. Worse off was his nose, definitely broken with the way the bridge was not as straight as always. The purple and green hues in his face didn't disguise the gash on his cheek. I didn't know how long it'd been since he got injured, but it didn't look to me like it was healing well. He opened his eyes like he was coming to after a long nap, squinting against the sun behind me and I heard the groan again.

"Dios mío," I whispered. My Spanish vocabulary wasn't as vast as it could be, but only that sentence seemed appropriate.

Sawyer's voice came with difficulty as he asked, "Who's there?"

"It's me," I said, looking around once more before I dumped my bag inside his room and hauled myself up and through the window. There was a moment of delicate balance as I tried not to fall and swing my legs clear into the room at the same time, but I made it.

He turned to lie on his back with a wince. "What are you doing here, princess?"

"I don't know, to be honest." I looked down his body, searching for more injuries. He was in his underwear, but everything below his torso seemed healthy.

His throat worked for a second before he was able to say, "You shouldn't be here."

"What the heck happened to you?" I asked, ignoring his comment.

It seemed like it hurt him to breathe. Oh God, I should probably call for help. This looked bad.

"None of your business, Rory," he rasped out.

I stood there looking down at him. He was always so larger than life, walking everywhere with the gait of someone who knew the world could belong to him if he asked for it. Right then, he looked defeated and sick and I never thought this was even possible.

Sawyer cracked one eye open a couple of minutes later and appeared startled that I was still there.

"What the fuck are you still doing here?"

I folded my arms. "Look, I know we didn't end things in the nicest terms, but you look like you need help right now. So, let me help you."

This time the sound that came out of him was more like a growl. But we both froze as we heard something outside the door. With the level of pain that Sawyer was in, I was stunned when he jumped from his bed and pushed me into his closet. At the same time his bedroom door opened and through the crack in the closet door I watched Jack Logan stumble in. Something else that didn't go unnoticed to me, despite Sawyer having his back to me, was the tension that took over the son. It was in the way he suddenly tried to make himself small, even though he was a full head taller than his father.

"This is all your fault," Jack spat out.

"What is?" Sawyer asked, his voice low and soft like a feather. I'd never heard him use a tone like that.

I'd just never heard him be afraid. Period.

His father shoved him and Sawyer landed with a hard gasp against the closet door. I jumped back and slammed my hip against something, but I managed to bite back the cry. So did Sawyer. He was as silent as I was. After I gathered my bearings again I glued my eye to the gap so I could see what was happening.

"Everything," Jack growled, taking one step closer toward his son. "It's your little antics what got you looking like a mess. Now I have the school exploding my phone. What are you gonna do to fix that?"

"I can't go to school looking like this," the younger Logan said. His words chafed me like sandpaper. "People will ask too many questions."

"Why don't you tell them it was that boy, huh? The one who beat you up before like the weak little shit that you are."