“He drove so fast that my asshole is still clenched. I don’t think he tapped the brakes until we got here,” Craig tells him dryly. I didn’t know he followed us.
“Get your guys out of the house. We need to clear the scene,” Logan says.
“What happened?” Duke asks, looking by us. “He really attacked?”
“Yeah. And Lana got lucky,” Hadley says as she walks by us, moving toward Craig, tugging his elbow. “Give me a ride home in case I have a concussion.”
My stomach tenses, and Logan gingerly brushes his lips over my forehead, not asking any questions about how I killed the man in my house. All he cares about is that he’s dead and I’m alive. All the details seem unimportant, as though I’m priority above all else.
He looks down, his eyes tortured with guilt.
“This isn’t your fault,” I say, knowing the bruises on my face are the reason for that look shading his usually bright eyes.
My wounds are nothing more than superficial. I’ve survived much, much worse.
“It’s all my fault. But no one will ever touch you again, Lana.”
His lips find mine, and I kiss him, deciding to deal with Hadley later.
When he breaks the kiss, he looks over at a man and woman as they drive up, not getting out of the SUV.
“Give us a ride to town. I’m getting a room for the night,” he tells them.
“My purse is—”
“I can manage a hotel room,” he interrupts, not bothering to look at me.
My lips try to twist into a smile, but I deny it, knowing a girl who just endured what I did shouldn’t be smiling about him being so alpha right now. I’m supposed to be meek and timid.
“Hop in,” the woman tells him.
“Someone should probably work the scene,” the guy says.
They seem completely unaffected or unnaturally guarded about their curiosity.
“He’s dead. There’s no scene.”
“Dead?” the woman asks in surprise, then narrows her eyes. “I wanted to be the one to take him out.”
“I’m taking a week off,” Logan announces randomly. “This case is closed. Hadley was attacked. Lana was—”
“Hadley?” the man and woman ask in unison.
“He gave her a shiner,” Logan explains. “I didn’t get all the details. But right now, I don’t know if I can handle hearing them. Let Donny deal with it for now. You two can come back after you drop us off.”
He keeps me in his lap as he loads us into the backseat. I don’t resist the seating arrangement, feeling my eyes grow heavy. With all the adrenaline pumping through me, I almost forgot it’s been over twenty-four hours since I slept.
Now I feel beaten and defeated by the clock that displays the hour. It may be closing in on forty-eight hours instead of twenty-four. We spent a while at Logan’s office. It was already closing in on midday then. It’d just gotten dark when I got home.
Now it’s… Fuck, my eyes are so blurry with sleep deprivation that I can’t see the clock. Can’t count the hours.
And I don’t care.
They talk as the dude drives. At some point I hear Logan refer to them as Leonard and Elise.
“Hadley got a hotel room too,” someone says, and that has me jarring back awake. Elise. It was Elise. “She says she’s too exhausted to go home, and too creeped out too.”
“Which one?” Logan asks.