Page 26 of Ghost Hunted

She didn’t abandon me. I abandoned her.

I should have known she wasn’t dead. I did, in a way. I felt it in my body—I wasn’t hurting at the cellular level. My limbs weren’t revolting at the loss of one of theirs. My body didn’t feel ripped apart, like it would have had I really lost its most important part.

But I accepted Emilio Cabello’s version of the facts. I allowed him to keep her a prisoner for eighteen years.

Who could have saved her but me? And I didn’t. I failed her.

I hold her to me, tears making me convulse.

“L-l-logan… I’m sorry…”

The words spill out of her mouth as her eyes flutter open, and she reaches up to touch me shyly, like she’s still terrified of me. I did that. I made her scared like that. What kind of a man terrifies the girl he’s in love with?

“Shh. Don’t speak, baby.”

I know it’s not a good idea—what if she has a head or neck injury?—but I just can’t help it. Still sitting on the floor of the car, I lift her up again, easing her into my arms. Piper inches toward us and rests her head on my shoulder.

I wrap an arm around my daughter, keeping the other one firmly around Lia, and let myself sink into the feeling.

And just like that… we’ve gone back eighteen years, and I’ve got my two girls in my arms. I know it’s a lie, but I let myself embrace it, just for now, because it helps me breathe easier. Because the truth hurts too much.

I’m twenty years old, and all is right with the world, because my two girls love me.

Two girls.

The words are like a shock to my system when I remember the last thing Quill said before the explosion.

Children.

“I don’t know if you noticed,” Quill lashes out from the front seat, forcing my thoughts away from that mystery word, “but it’s fucking war. We’re getting shot at, and I killed some of them, but not all. I’m driving and trying not to land at the bottom of a cliff. I’m not a fucking multitasker.”

“Right…” I blink away the fog in my vision and brain, and struggle up, tearing myself away from Lia and Piper. I need to protect them. I grab my gun around my belt, cock it and aim it out the back window. It’s only then that I see who is following us.

“What the absolute fuck?”

Three men in pitch-black masks are driving dirt bikes like maniacs behind us, and one of them… has a fucking bazooka.

I guess that’s what caused the explosion before. And I can tell he’s about three seconds away from detonating it again.

“Get down! No, get off the road! Fuck!”

There’s no getting off the road—we’re driving down a tiny path on a steep cliff. I shoot wildly, my bleeding arm preventing me from aiming correctly. But my bullets dislodge a cloud of dust, delaying the hit. The bazooka guy coughs, his bike swerving dangerously, before he collides with another biker. He discharges his weapon, and I can feel the top of our car vibrate with the near hit. I fall over the girls, shielding them from it. Another shot, this time from Quill, and then he slows the car down. I can’t see outside anymore, but I assume the fact that he’s stopping means he got the third guy.

“That was fun,” he says casually, the car sputtering to a stop. “I don’t think I’ve ever been shot at by a bazooka before.”

“You don’t think?” questions Piper, her voice shaky. “Wouldn’t you know, if you had?”

Quill shrugs. “Probably, yeah. Logan, want to go get it?”

“Is that why we’ve stopped?” asks Piper. “We’re in the middle of the road, and more bad guys could come at any minute! And you stopped over a gun?”

“It’s not a gun, cricket. It’s a bazooka. And I didn’t stop because of that. I stopped because our tires are blown out. I guess we’re going camping.”

“Ah, fuck.”

“Language, cricket.”

“Fuck. You know I hate camping, Quill.”