Chapter 8: We sinn’d and judg’d on earth. – X, 229

Even with her hair tied up, out of her face, the smell still lingers. But, somehow, it only lingers on her.

At breakfast, Lane seems perfectly normal. Well, normal for them – which is to say way too chipper for this early in the morning, eating enough to feed a small army and occasionally conversing in hushed tones with Ezra in French. 

Really, Logan knows, she should be impressed by how completely fluent Ezra is in the foreign language. She never really pegged him as much of an academic giant. 

She’s just too preoccupied by the insistent and terrible ache just behind her ribcage. If the pain didn’t feel so fundamentally weird, she’d have been fearing a heart attack, but she somehow knows that’s not it. Not when it seems to hurt a little more every time her mind wanders to Joel Curtis…

According to her grandmother’s diary, Logan had been lucky to find him. Grammy Penn had searched years before finding her Hound. Curtis had been there for Logan from the jump: teaching her to defend herself, protecting her when she couldn’t, sharing the load of being Pine Grove’s sole harbingers so that she never had to carry that burden by herself. 

It’d been a special kind of hell to leave him behind, which is something Will had noticed. She’d known she has the perfect boyfriend when, instead of being jealous at Logan being more broken up about a guy that wasn’t him, he’d done all he could to make sure she’d be comfortable here and able to distract herself with work so the longing hadn’t crippled her too much. 

In any event, she tries to push it all out of her mind, even managing to convince herself that Lane has been good to them all so far and that they’re not an idiot. They know who they’re dealing with, at home and out there. They would not have let Logan see all she did if they didn’t have a good reason for it. 

As for Curtis, surely Will or someone back home would tell her if something had happened to him, right? Her friends know about their bond. They wouldn’t let either of them suffer unnecessarily.

“Okay, but do we get to know where you and Lane went on your mysterious midnight stroll?” Tally asks, around a mouthful of bacon. 

“Our what?” Logan doesn’t mean for it to come out so sharply. 

She definitely doesn’t mean for literally everyone at the table to look over at her.

“I saw you both leave last night. Not together, maybe, but I assumed it was some kind of super-secret meetup thing. Is there trouble, or are you just missing Will?” Tally gives her a strange look, then, but Nihira elbows her in the side. “What? He hasn’t been here in over a month.”

“I don’t need to sleep much,” Lane jumps in. “So, I took Logan out to see the city. All innocent, I promise. It was more of a historic tour, anyway. Gave Ezra the same one when he got here.”

“Wait. That tour wasn’t meant to be our first date?” Ezra says in mock disappointment.

“Bro, I didn’t even call you after!”

“And now they ‘bro’ me,” Ezra says, staring gravely down at his eggs. “So fast the flame dies.”

A few scattered chuckles sound up around the table.

“So, you two aren’t dating?” a girl Logan is pretty sure is named Hanieh asks, looking between Ezra and Lane.

“Oh, no!” Ezra says quickly.

“I saw Ezra naked once and that cured me of any future attraction,” Lane deadpans, but there's a mischievous twinkle in their eye.

“Plus, French dirty talk isn’t nearly as sexy as it seems,” adds Ezra.

“So, the weird heaving sounds I hear coming out of your room at all hours…?” Nihira aims this at Ezra.

“Is not Lane-related, I assure you.”

It’s quiet for a while, only the sounds of breakfast filling the room. Logan sighs an internal sigh of relief. 

She doesn’t know what it is, but something is telling her to keep last night to herself as far as possible. Just until she knows more. But then Lane opens their mouth again and she’s right back to feeling anxious as hell.

“I don’t know, man. I kind of preferred it when I thought you were secretly into me.” They look over at Ezra who smirks.

“Just because I’m a convincing actor doesn’t mean I’m not,” he replies, lifting a forkful of egg to his mouth and making solid eye contact with Lane the entire time.

“I mean, we ship it,” chimes in Saint, a new coyote they’d given asylum not two weeks ago.

“You’re all weird,” Lane decides. “Eat your breakfast.”

Later, as everyone’s finishing up their meal, Lane makes an announcement that, to Logan’s ears, sounds nothing but suspicious, but she reminds herself that she’s trusting them.

“Okay, so, I’m heading into town later. I have to pick up a package. I figured, though, that maybe we could do an ‘after hours’ tour? I could show you all the catacombs?”

Logan feels her own ears prick up like a puppy hearing its owner come home, and she hates herself for it. 

Truthfully, though, she would love to go see the catacombs. Maybe it’d help her to stop seeing all these ghosts, or maybe somehow aid her in getting an even better handle on her powers. She’s just never wanted to go alone.

“Dude, that is miles and miles of dead people. Hard pass,” Saint decides off the bat.

“Yeah. I don’t want to go, either. I’ll babysit!” Tally offers.

“Nihira?” Lane asks. “I could really use your help keeping everybody together.”

Their brave, strong Alpha, who turns to look at Logan. She knows it’s not safety Nihira craves, but companionship. Logan would like to have her there, too.

“I’ll go with, on one condition,” this she projects. “All of you stay together and stay with us. If you wander off, we leave you down there. Got me?”

Every face she catches sight of, nods. Good. Nihira doesn’t need any unnecessary trouble.

“So, Ezra,” Hanieh asks as they all leave the table, “did Lane take you to the catacombs on your first date?”

Ezra’s eyes flash a wolfish yellow and he growls at her, making her run off with a small shriek, while Lane snorts so hard, coffee comes out their nose.

Tally rolls her eyes at Logan to which she makes a face of total agreement.

Coming out of her room at their designated meetup time, Logan is ready to put the whole scary business with Lane behind her. She’s honestly had enough creepiness for multiple lifetimes. For now, she’d like to enjoy being in a foreign country while studying in a field that she loves and proverbially kicking the asses of men twice her age with half the effort. 

For once, she’s going to ignore all potential trouble until it inevitably becomes her problem. She’s here to save and foster lost supernaturals. Not keep in check the hunting and murdering habits of one Delaynie Laube.

“And you think your safety lies in a bunch of traumatized refugees with claws and fangs?”

Logan stops dead outside Ezra’s room. It’d definitely been him that spoke, but in French. The hairs on her arms stand on end.

“It’s never been this bad before! Killing one the other night was hard enough. They have a resilience shifters don’t. What do you expect me to do? It’s not like I can count on my family!” Lane this time.

Fear grips Logan all over again. The thing Lane had killed, that smelled of corpses and rot, isn’t a shifter? What does that even mean?

“Come clean!” Ezra’s ‘yell’ is more of a carrying whisper, but it has the same impact of making her flinch at the sound. “Nihira and the others can help. You don’t have to do this by yourself. You should’ve let me help from the start. I’m not scared of some v––”

“Keep your voice down!” Lane cuts him off. “This isn’t me being noble, alright? If Uncle Nick were here… Different story. I can’t risk any of you. Not when I… Well, just be glad I’m taking precautions. Today should be fine. Even the dim tunnel lights are too much for him most of the time.”

Suddenly, she hears someone approaching the door. By the heavier gate, she assumes it’s Ezra. Before he can get a hand on the doorknob, she’s already ten feet away and heading casually for the stairs, eyes on her phone screen.

“hey Miles. need ur help. i’m sending u some info on the Hunter. capital h. not safe for me to do research myself. wld b rly helpful. hope everything is still fine in PG. love to everyone xx”

She can say she’s texting Will. It doesn’t make this undertaking any less anxiety-inducing, but it does make it easier for her to get it done.  

“You ready?” Nihira asks, looking nervous.

“As I’ll ever be,” she gives her a small smile.