was stripped away. That was the power Logan Kade had over me, and it grew stronger with each minute we spent together.
I let out a soft sigh and felt the world right itself again. I was no longer scared.
“Better?”
“Better.”
His grin widened. I caught a twinkle of something mischievous in him and only had a second to brace myself before he twisted around to reach behind the seat.
I grabbed for the bar in front of us and clutched it.
Logan laughed as he pulled the blanket from the back. He unfolded it and shook it out over his side of the car. Then he turned back to me and pulled it over our laps. The evening had started to fade, and so had the temperature. I hadn’t noticed the cool breeze until now, but once the blanket hit my lap, it warmed my legs.
“Okay. This is nice,” I told him.
“Good.” Logan pointed out in front of us. “This is why I brought you up here. Look.”
Then everything made sense—why he’d taken the time and effort to bring the car here, why we’d climbed all this way: the view. As I lifted my head and looked beyond us, I saw my hometown looking beautiful, serene, the way it used to be to me. I gestured to the town laid out in front of us. “This is beautiful. Thank you, Logan.” I looked at him now. “I mean it. Thank you. I’d forgotten that my home could be beautiful.”
Logan grew quiet, but it didn’t matter. For some reason, the words were coming to me now, and I didn’t want to stop them.
“My mom died last year, and since then, I’ve forgotten about things. I forgot about views like this.” I pointed to the hospital. It was the tallest building, set on the outskirts of town. “She died there.”
Bang! Bang!
I flinched, my hand closing again around the bar in front of me. I could hear the shots again. “I was coming home for the holidays. I finished my finals a week earlier. I got lucky somehow. Eric, my boyfriend, wasn’t done. He wanted to stay and study all weekend, but I talked him into going home with me. I promised I’d help him study, so he agreed. I knew my mom was working a double—she was a nurse—so I talked him into stopping at the hospital on the way into town…” I faltered, remembering the day once again.
Going inside the hospital.
Going past the front desk.
Turning down the hallway to the nurses’ station—then the first gunshot.
“My mom was in the ER that night. She loved working there. She loved the adrenaline, the excitement, but that night...” My chest felt like it was shrinking. I was moving backward even though I sat still. “I was told later that a man came in with a gunshot wound. He was still alive.”
Feeling panic, I started to run down the hallway—boom.
“In the chaos, another man walked back there and shot him. He wanted to finish what he’d started. After the first gunshot, it was quiet. Eric and I were walking down the hallway to the nurses’ station, but everyone stopped. Then the second gunshot sounded, and everyone started running. A big guy turned and slammed into me. Apparently, I still wasn’t out of his way enough because he kicked me then, and I fell to the floor. It was funny because I couldn’t feel any pain, but I knew it must’ve hurt because I couldn’t walk.”
Bang!
“The gunman turned the gun on my mom. He shot her twice, and he killed the doctor in there, too. Then he started shooting everyone in the hallway.”
“Taylor, come on!” Eric grabbed my hand and started to pull.
“Eric tried to drag me backward.”
“No. My mom.”
“Taylor, come on!”
“No.” I looked back to the nurses’ station. No one was there. “She’s back there. I have to find her.”
“He wanted to run, but I could only think about my mom. She was back there somewhere.”
“Taylor,” Logan said.
I shook my head. I heard the sympathy in his voice, and I knew he was going to say all the right things: I didn’t have to talk. I didn’t have to share. I didn’t have to fill-in-the-blank. He was wrong. I did have to. I had to get it out now or I never would.
“It didn’t matter anyway,” I continued. “Even if Eric had tried to drag me out, I couldn’t move. The big guy had fucked my knee up bad. And then…” The fourth gunshot. It had sounded right around