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“Fourth.”
I smile. I’m not even sure why. Of course Logan knows, though.
He leads the way out of the alley. “I like their zucchini.”
It startles a laugh out of me. “What?”
“Zucchini. They bread it. Then fry it.” Logan’s gaze flicks toward mine. “At Chester’s.”
I grin. “Yeah, they do. I didn’t realize you ate fast food like that.”
It seems so un-Logan-like.
He shrugs. “I used to… live around here. Sometimes I ate there.”
“Around here?” I look around at the shitty little businesses and empty, boarded-up storefronts. “Are there apartments above some of these places?”
“I didn’t have an apartment.”
I frown. Then it clicks. “Were you living on the streets?”
Logan gives a sharp nod, striding purposefully down the cracked sidewalk toward Chester’s. It’s a little hole in the wall a couple blocks over.
“Why?” I press, hurrying to catch up to him.
Logan doesn’t answer, doesn’t even look at me, and his silence would have felt unnerving a few weeks ago. But now I’m not pushing just because I’m curious. I feel like Ineedto know. I want to understand him, and that means understanding where he came from.
I reach for his arm, pulling him around to face me. “Logan, why were you homeless? What happened? When was this? Before you joined the Reapers, right? Before you met Maddoc?”
He doesn’t shake me off, which feels like a win even though I can tell he’s not going to answer. But then he surprises me and gives me something.
“I used to pick up work from Maddoc’s father. That’s how we met.”
“How old were you?”
“Twelve when I started working for Jonas Gray. Thirteen when I first met Maddoc.” He pauses. “Ten when I… left.”
“Ten when you left your home?”
He gives me another one of those sharp little nods, all precision and control and economy of movement, and starts walking toward Chester’s again. “I had to. Everyone was dead. It wasn’t safe to stay there.”
“Who was dead?” I whisper, catching up with him. “What happened?” Then I remember. “You had a sister.”
He mentioned her once.
A bleak look flashes across Logan’s face, and something inside me cracks in two.
His steps speed up. “Her name was Emma,” he says without looking at me. “But the mons—my mother killed her, right after she killed my father. I tried to… Emma was standing too far away from me. I couldn’t get between them in time. I couldn’t protect her, and then it was too late and I had to get out before she killed me too.”
“Oh, Logan.”
I stop walking, but he doesn’t.So I run to catch up and get ahead of him, blocking his way.
When he stops, I put my hand on his chest to keep him there and just like back in the alley, the rapid patter of his heart is at odds with his emotionless demeanor.
“That’s horrible,” I whisper. “I’m so sorry.”
It’s not enough, but it’s true. My own father is a certified piece of shit, but a parent who would do something likethat…
