Logan kept a hand against the blood spilling out from between his fingers as he nodded.
“Are you going to become a Savage?” Juan inquired.
“No,” Asher said as he knelt at Logan’s other side. “This one death will affect him and make him more sensitive to the sun, but he won’t become a Savage. It takes more than what happened here for that to happen. He’d also have to choose to go out and kill more.”
“Are you going to make that choice?” another man asked.
“No,” Logan croaked and threaded his fingers through Elena’s. As long as he had her to keep him grounded, he wouldnevermake that choice. “No.”
“Don’t try to speak,” Elena said.
Logan smiled at her commanding, caring tone. He loved that she was so bossy.
“Come on,” Juan said. “We’ll get him inside, call the doctor, and clean up this mess. I don’t know how the doctor couldn’t have heard those screams,” Juan muttered.
“What happened?” Asher asked. “How did Manuel get free?”
“We’re not sure,” Juan replied. “Hopefully, we’ll figure that out soon.”
“Did he kill anyone?” Elena asked and pointedly looked towards the bodies by the medical building.
“He killed his wife; her mother is with her now. That’s who was… was screaming like that,” Juan murmured.
Elena recalled those screams, and she could now see the woman leaning over her daughter and weeping as she clasped her hands. Leticia, Elena recalled, was the mother’s name and Manuel’s wife was Maria, or at least she had been Maria.
When one of the hunters tried to pull Leticia away, she wailed as she clung to her child’s hand. Elena closed her eyes against the anguish in those screams and tried not to cry. There had been far too much sadness around the compound lately. It was never the happiest place on earth as far too many were lost far too young, but it had been much worse lately.
“Their poor baby,” Elena breathed as Logan squeezed her hand.
“He also attacked Diego and Leonardo,” Juan continued. “Hopefully, they’ll be okay.”
Elena hoped so too. The last thing they needed wasmoredeath around this place. She wrapped her arm around Logan’s waist, and he draped his arm over her shoulders. Asher grasped his other arm and helped him rise.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“Are you okay?”Asher asked.
Logan nodded, but he didn’t trust himself to speak. He knew his throat and voice were still all fucked up. His bleeding had stopped flowing as he walked with them to the medical building. By the time they reached the porch, Diego and Leonardo had been moved inside, and a sheet covered the body of Manuel’s wife.
When they entered the building, Diego and Leonardo took up two of the six cots; she helped Logan settle onto another one. On the floor under Manuel’s bed were the chains that once bound him.
The door creaked open, and Dr. Espinosa rushed inside. His puffy eyes were wide, and his hair tussled. Elena recalled that the doctor lived nearby; she didn’t know how he hadn’t heard the screams, but he looked like he just woke.
“What happened?” he demanded as his eyes few around the room.
“How didn’t you hear it, Doc?” Juan asked.
The doctor’s face colored a little, but his eyes were steady when they met Juan’s. “It’s mine and Teresa’s anniversary. We had a few drinks to celebrate. I was out like a light.”
And no one could fault them for that, Elena decided. Everyone was entitled to a celebration, even if shit was falling apart all around them. Maybe more so then. They had to remember there were still good things and happy times, or they’d all give up the fight.
Elena rested her hand on Logan’s knee before walking over to inspect the chains as the doctor went to examine Logan. Waving the man away, Logan told him, “Check on the others first.”
The doctor changed course and went over to Leonardo and Diego
When Elena got to Manuel’s cot, Juan was already there; he ran the thick links of the chains through his hands as he examined them.
“They’re not broken,” he muttered.
