Page 55 of Bound By Thorns
“Anything,” he said firmly. “I promised myself I’d beanythingfor you.”
A flicker of softness crossed my face, touched by his commitment, but the heaviness of our past weighed on me. My hands rested in my lap, and he gently took them in his, his touch warm and reassuring.
“You have no idea what I’d do for you, Chaos,” he said with a small smile, his use of my bizarre nickname making my heart waver for a moment.
But the reality of what I had done for him—what I had sacrificed—came crashing back. I had traded my parents’ lives for our freedom, subjected myself to my tormentors for his safety.
“Logan,” I started, my voice steady and clear. “Don’t promise to do anything for a whore like me.”
His expression shifted from concern to shock, then to deep guilt. “Don’tcall yourself that!” he protested vehemently.
“But that’s what I am,” I countered. “What do you think the price for keeping you warm was? What part of my body do you think was enough for Noel to secure us an escape car? You called me a whore, right? Whores do that. They sell themselves for assets.” My words were sharp, each one laden with bitter truth. “What do you think I sold to him to get the key to your fucking cell?”
Logan looked utterly devastated, his face a mirror of the pain I felt. My revelation had shattered him, much like he had once shattered me. I wasn’t proud of breaking him this way. He needed to know why he couldn’t be anything for me. The reasonIcouldn’t be anything for me. Let alone him.
TWENTY-TWO
Logan
Every time I thought I had known the extent of Kaylan’s situation, I was thrown into an avalanche of despair burying me further down in the coldness.
‘You called me a whore, right?’
I wish I had never called her that. Because she very firmly believed that she was one. Or at least wanted to punish me by reminding me of my horrible judgement.
‘What do you think I sold to him to get the key to your fucking cell?’
I flinched at her words. I had tortured this woman in ways I couldn’t have survived myself. I had ripped her open with words. I didn’t know why she was telling me all this. Maybe she wanted to push me away. She didn’t trust me. And why should she? I had all but eroded any possibility of building it. She didn’t trust herself either. Not with me. And she truly didn’t trust the possibility of us.
“Kaylan,” my voice cracked, “You telling me this won’t change things. You can’t break a broken man. And you damn well can’t push this broken man away anymore.”
She didn’t look at me, she didn’t even acknowledge my words with a sound. She simply untangled her hands from mine and pressed the button to move the wheelchair backwards, out of my reach, severing our link.
When she retreated to her room, I stayed there, crouching, staring at her door, unable to move.
I didn’t know how long I was there, but eventually my legs felt numb and I moved. I walked towards the gym still wearing the sweatpants and t-shirt from dinner and trudged aimlessly around the empty gym.
The gym door creaked open, and in walked Sebastian Blackthorn, the last person I was ready to see.
“I thought I saw you come in here,” he said nonchalantly, his face unreadable.
Anger surged up inside me, and I strode towards him. “You knew,” I accused, my voice low and threatening. “You knew everything she went through and you kept it from me.”
Sebastian met my anger with a calm that only fueled my rage. “I didn’t. And it wasn’t my place to tell you, Logan.”
“The hell it wasn’t!” I roared, the echo bouncing off the gym walls. “She suffered, and you let me keep…hurtingher. You just stood by and…” My voice broke, choked by my own turmoil.
“That’s on you,” Sebastian shot back, his cool breaking.
I laughed bitterly, the sound sharp and cutting. “You never change, do you?” Without thinking, my fist connected with his face and he staggered back. “Keeping secrets,again!” I swung again, hitting his jaw. “Just watching as my world falls apart,again!”
When I pulled back to hit him once more, Sebastian was ready. He blocked my punch and countered with a swift jab to my stomach, knocking the wind out of me.
“Stop!” He bellowed.
“No!” I snarled and shoved him, “he’s dead. Eli is dead because of you.”
This wasn’t how I’d wanted to say it, because as the words left my mouth, I felt it. I felt the pain radiating out from him.
