Sinfully Devoted by Amber Torney
Chapter Nineteen - Phoenix
I stayed holed up in my room for a few hours. Paige had broken me out of the sorrow stage and sent me careening into anger. When I closed my eyes, all I saw was Kyle’s face, and that had me[1] reeling. I wanted to wipe the fucking smug look off his face.
“Dinner,” Damon yelled down the hall from the kitchen.
Since my girls’ night with Paige, the guys had put me on lockdown. Apparently, Paige hadn’t told anyone she’d planned to bust me out of the hospital, and the boys went bat shit crazy because of it. They blew up our phones the minute they realized Paige had signed me out. After the first hour, she’d finally answered her mobile, and I swore you could have heard Stryker raging in Sydney. My Grey Eyes had a temper on him.
It didn’t help that Paige refused to give up our location either, and because of that, I’d been locked down ever since. It was stifling, and it hadn’t helped that Logan had seemingly moved in and taken over the spare room. I’d hoped it was temporary, but when I came down for breakfast that morning, he and Damon were in a deep discussion about getting the rest of his stuff from his parents’ house.
A knock at my door pulled me from my thoughts. I knew who it was before they even spoke.
“Phee, Damon called you for dinner,” Logan quietly said from the other side of the door.
“Tell him I’m not hungry,” I sniped back. It wasn’t exactly a lie, but I also didn’t want to cop another lecture about always letting someone know where I was, or even better, taking one of them with me everywhere. It felt stifling .
“Come on Phee, don’t be like that.” I heard the light thump of his head hitting the door. He had been doing that almost every day now, it had become predictable. “You know he only wants the best for you.”
“Great Logan, that’s just peachy. But it doesn’t change the fact that I’m not hungry.” I couldn’t help but still be defensive. After everything, it was still a raw topic when it came to him. The old saying ‘once bitten, twice shy’ came to mind. I wanted to believe that his change of heart was permanent, but I was still learning to trust my own instincts again. It was also weird how close he and Damon had become.
“He’s not gonna like this, Phee.” There was a warning in his voice as the door handle jiggled before it was flung open, hitting the wall with a thud. Next thing I knew, I was flung over the shoulder of a big beefy biker. I looked up when I heard Logan’s laughter and shot him the mother of all death stares.
“You didn’t think Damon would send me down without an arsenal, did you Tiny Dancer?” he managed to get out through fits of laughter.
“Screw you, Logan,” I ground out, before hitting the douche canoe that had me over his shoulder square in the back. “Put me down, Madden, now!”
“No can do Baby G. I only take my orders from D and you know that, so why don’t you just relax a little and lose the attitude,” Madden said unapologetically. As much as I loved having the guy there, the place had become a sausage fest.
A lot had changed since I was taken, and I think my being taken had triggered it. Damon had started to amass a little group of merry followers. Madden had met Damon at some bar; they had started talking, and ever since, they were joined at the hip. I swore, if it hadn’t been for the paper-thin walls and the borderline pornographic moaning from the girls each of them brought home, you would think they had the hots for each other, what with the amount of time they spent together.
“Screw you, Madden! Put me down, I can walk from here.” I tried to wiggle out of his grasp. If I were anywhere else, I probably would have screamed the place down, but I knew I was safe there and he was bloody lucky I had been working on coping techniques.
“Madz, put her down. If Stryker sees you manhandling her like that you’ll be sorry,” Damon boomed from behind me. I was carefully placed on the ground, but flanked by both Madden and Logan, as if they expected me to make a run for it. “Nice of you to grace us with your presence, Phee.”
The smart arse actually smirked at me as he placed the plates on the table. I couldn’t lie, the smell of lasagne that filled the room, coupled with the garlic bread, made my mouth water. But I was so pissed right then that I didn’t have much of an appetite.
“Come on, Phee, just sit down and eat; D worked for hours making this for us.” Logan nudged me toward the table where Damon and Madden had already taken their seats and started to dig in.
Growling my reply to Logan, I followed suit. It was easier to go along with Damon’s requests rather than fight with any of them over it. In front of me, Logan had served up my meal. Eyeing him warily, I began to eat. . . or really, push food around the plate as the others started talking. About halfway through, the conversation turned to me, and as I mhmm’d and nodded my way through it, it became clear they were up to something.
“So Madz and I have something going on tonight, so we’re leaving Logan in charge, ” Damon said matter-of-factly, almost like he was waiting for me to blow. “Try not to kill each other when we’re out, yeah?”
“I don’t need a babysitter, Damon. And why is he in charge anyway?” I couldn’t help myself, I had been growing tired of all the shit. It felt like I was being babysat twenty four- seven and it was really starting to grate on my nerves. “And when did you become besties with him?”
“He is in charge because he answers his phone when it’s called, and Phee, I know you’re struggling with all the changes, but please just try to do as I say tonight.” Damon gave me the “dare you to argue” look, and I already knew he wasn’t going to budge. I would need to get him alone to explain his reasoning, but that was hard to do these days.
“Yes Dad,” I mumbled my reply, and started to clear the table. It was a rule that whoever cooked, didn’t have to clean the kitchen. I was just thankful that he was a clean cook. If Damon was gonna head out, I’d do my chore, then hole myself up in my room for the rest of the night.
Logan brought the rest of the dishes over to the sink for me to wash, then proceeded to clear the rest of the table. As I finished up, he joined me at the sink and perched himself in the corner.
“So, you think you’re ready to come back to school?” he asked. I guessed this was his attempt at small talk. I had to hand it to him, he was persistent. Every time we saw each other, he would try to talk to me. “Everyone misses you there.”
I shrugged my shoulders as I put the dishes away. I missed school. Well, maybe not the actual learning part of things, but I missed hanging out with my friends. The girls had told me that everyone knew I had been found. That made me a little apprehensive to step into the halls with everyone’s eyes on me, reflecting back the pity they all held.
Finally finished, I placed the tea towel in its holder and turned to head back to my room. A hand shot out to stop me.
“Phee, please just talk to me,” Logan pleaded. As I glanced down at the hand, then back up to Logan, I narrowed my eyes at him. If he wanted me to talk, then he was going to tell me everything. I wasn’t going to pussyfoot around anymore.
I reached for his hand and twisted it, just like I’d learnt in my self-defence class, before backing him into the bench. If he thought I’d go easy on him, he had another thing coming. He knew better than to just touch me however he liked. He’d been on the receiving end of my wrath on more than one occasion, but clearly he was a slow learner.
“You want me to talk to you, Logan?” I let out a snide laugh, my heart and mind at war. “After all those times I pleaded with you to talk to me? That’s a laugh.”
“You’re right, I fucked up, but at least I’m trying now.” He didn’t seem to fight against me, just maintained eye contact, like he was trying to speak to the very depth of my soul. “I am trying. But what about you, Phee? Are you gonna keep hiding, or are you going to fight back?”
“I fight every fucking day, Logan.” I leaned down, and my lips brushed the shell of his ear as I growled my retort. I pushed off of him roughly and turned to walk away. Who the hell was he to tell me I didn’t fight?