CRASH (A Logan Brothers Novel) (22 page)

I stood in the doorway, waiting
a moment for my eyes to adjust. I could hear a light breathing, the
body on the bed moving slowly up and down. The motel was basic and
bare, a closet in one corner and a small table in front of the bed,
an archaic television set sitting atop it.

The walls seemed to be covered
in some sort of decoration. It looked like pictures in the dim light,
pinned up against it.

I turned and gently shut the
door, drawing a crowbar from behind my back. It was time.

I hit the light switch and the
room was quickly bathed in a sickly orange glow. I squinted as I saw
the figure on the bed stir, Brad's face now revealed as he lay on his
back. His eyes flickered, his left hand lifting to cover them as he
sat up.

It took a while for things to
dawn on him as his mind came into focus. His hand dropped and the
confused look on his face turned to shock and fear as his eyes found
me, standing in the doorway, a heavy crowbar at my side.

He scrambled up out of bed and
into the corner of the room. It was the reaction of a fucking coward.
When he spoke his words were rushed, cracked and broken in terror.

“
Who..who...are you!” he
said, cowering in the corner of the room like an abused dog.

“
Brad Scott?” I asked, my
voice cold and dry. My heart was pounding inside but I didn't show
it. I had grown used to reigning in my emotions when I needed to.

He nodded. “What's going on?
Who are you?”

“
I'm a close friend of Elle
Harper. I think you know her don't you?” A growing menace infected
my words as a questioning frown dipped over my eyes.

“
Erm, yeah.” His face was
white, the blood rushing out of it. He looked like he was going to
faint.

And yeah, he knew exactly why I
was here.

“
I've come here tonight for
one reason.” I let my words hang as I slowly walked further into
the room towards him.

“
I've come here to tell you
what you're going to do. And if you don't, well...” I lifted up the
crowbar as his eyes widened.

“
OK Brad, here's how things
are going to go. You have two choices.” I played this part well. It
was what I did with anyone who tried to cheat in my casino, anyone
who tried to wrong me. I gave them two options, and they always chose
the one I wanted.

Brad, I knew, would do the same.
Because really, there was only one choice he could make.

“
You can either leave this
motel right now, tonight, and never come back here again, and never,
ever, ever, speak or go anywhere near Elle again or....”

I walked in further, watching
him shake and cower, my eyes growing ever more fierce.

“
...or I can take this crowbar
here, and do what I'm best at.” I didn't need to clarify what that
was. The threat was enough.

His reaction was instantaneous.

“
No, I'll go, I'll go. I'll
leave in the morning.” The words came tumbling out with such speed
and fear that I could hardly understand them.

God he really was pathetic,
squirming around on the floor like a worm. He'd been hiding out in
this motel, creeping in looking for Elle. There was probably no other
reason for him to be here. He was just a fucking stalker, a low life,
his mind consumed by thoughts of her.

I looked briefly to the table
with the TV on it and saw pictures scattered over it. They were all
of Elle, pictures of her with him, pictures of her with friends,
pictures of her on her own. My eyes drew up to the wall where I
thought I'd seen decorations. They were images, as I thought, once
more of her. They littered the wall, pinned up all over it.

My eyes began bulging in anger
at the sight.

His face looked even more
sheepish and scared when I turned back to face him. I gritted my
teeth and growled through them, my words vibrating out of my throat.

“
No, you'll leave now. You'll
leave tonight. If I don't see you coming out of this motel and
driving off in the next 5 minutes, I'll come in here and give you
option 2. HAVE YOU FUCKING GOT THAT!”

The last words thundered out of
my mouth, my calm suddenly shattered.

I couldn't tell whether he was
nodding on the floor or just shaking, but I didn't care. He'd got the
fucking message.

I took one last glance at the
images on the wall, my eyes stopping on one of Elle smiling in the
sunshine, her face lit up. She looked so happy, so at ease, so free.
I smiled lightly as I looked at it. I'd love to see her like that
again.

I ripped my gaze from the image
and back towards the door. “5 minutes.” I growled again. “I'll
be watching from my car.”

With that I stormed out of the
room, leaving the door hanging open as the cool night air spilled
inside.

My promise kept. I hadn't
hurt him.

Elle

The last two weeks had flown by.
I mean, seriously flown.

That night Crash came to me I'd
been a mess. It sucked that anyone could make me feel like that, and
it sucked that I didn't have the guts to do anything about it myself.
Well, I guess I would have done eventually, or at least that's what I
told myself.

Only, I didn't need to in the
end. Crash did it for me.

He'd called me early the next
morning to tell me he'd found Brad, talked to him, and had seen him
leave. He'd done all of that while I was sleeping. I couldn't believe
someone would do all that for me.

I'd questioned him, of course,
to find out exactly what had happened and he'd told me. I believed
him when he told me he hadn't touched Brad. I believed the iron tone
of his voice when he'd told me that Brad wouldn't bother me again.

But I also knew what he didn't
tell me. That he must have threatened him. That he would have
promised violence if Brad ever came back. As long as they only
remained threats, that would be fine.

At the end of it, I didn't want
Brad hurt. I wanted him to move on. Maybe this was what he needed to
deter him for good, to shake him out of this state he'd got himself
into. I hoped - no, believed - that he could finally move on.

And so could I.

....

It was a summer evening when I
went on my first night out in a while.

Even with the threat of Brad
gone, I'd remained locked in my room for the next couple of weeks. I
had mountains of revision to get through and wasn't going to let
anything get in the way of my grades.

So I knuckled down and set my
mind to my exams alone. Everything fell to the wayside, everything
except my dancing. That was the one thing I could never give up on.

Now, though, my mind was free.
I'd just completed my exams for the year and was revving myself up
for a celebratory night out. I could feel the excitement building in
my body as I danced and drank in Tess' room, Alice and Lexi bouncing
alongside me.

But it wasn't an excitement
about finishing my exams that gripped at me the most. No, it was
something else.

It was the knowledge that Crash
would be there.

Crash
.

The guy who people had warned me
off. The guy who was apparently a psycho. The guy who'd been rumored
to be involved in murder.

But no, that wasn't the man I'd
come to know.

A car arrived to pick us up and
take us to the club for 8 PM. There was a boundless energy inside it
as we drove, the four of us cracking jokes and giggling the whole
way. For the first time in a while, everything seemed to be going
right for us all.

The most notably happy to me was
Alice. I mean, Tess and Lexi always had this enthusiasm and verve for
life, but Alice was a more reserved character, rarely letting her
emotions run loose.

Tonight, though, her smile
couldn't be contained. She looked like a different person, a jubilant
glow around her as if she'd just gotten married or something. It was
great to see.

I'd spoken to her briefly about
what had happened with Brad, how Crash had come to me and how, by the
next morning, it had all been sorted. I felt nervous telling her,
expecting her to frown and tell me that Crash couldn't be trusted,
that he'd probably hurt the guy or worse.

But she didn't. Something had
changed in her. She only smiled when I told her and said how she'd
been wrong about Crash, how he'd always do anything to look out for
me. It was a complete turnaround, and one I didn't quite understand.
I knew, however, that her buoyant mood tonight was probably related
to it somehow.

Inside the club the guys were
waiting. Kyle mirrored Alice's radiance, his face lit as brightly as
hers. The twins stood together, as they often seemed to, Gem by
Cade's side. Then there was Jude, standing by Zack. I noticed his
eyes fall on Lexi as she came in, following her closely as she went
through the group, kissing them each on the cheeks. I smiled at the
sight, watching his expression turn a little sheepish as she
approached him.
So cute.

I felt my heart dip, however, as
I looked on, Crash's absence sapping my excitement.
Why wasn't he
there?

A huge surge of disappointment
began fusing through me, my entire body deflating as I went in and
said hello to everyone.

“
Is Crash not coming?” I
asked Kyle as he passed me a glass of champagne.

He frowned, as if I was slightly
mad, and smiled. “What, you mean the guy standing behind you?”

I turned to see Crash standing
right behind me, a wide smile on his face. He wore a pair of smart
black pants and a beautifully fitted white shirt. It hugged his body
tight, the curve of his pecs and muscled arms visible beneath it.

I saw his smiling eyes dance
over the group before he quickly took my hand and pulled me away
towards a back-room.

“
I've never been one for
public affection,” he said as we rounded a corner away from prying
eyes.

Then he kissed me passionately
without me saying a word, sparks running through my lips and down my
body as his hands brushed through my hair.

“
I can't stay,” he spoke
again, pulling away. “The work never stops.” He smiled, his
beautiful white teeth shining like his shirt, but I felt the world
drop again.

“
But I've only just got here.”
The disappointment in my voice was so obvious.

He nodded. “It's just for now.
But I wondered,” he said, taking my hand in his, “if you'd like
to have dinner with me tomorrow night?”

My heart lifted like a kite.
“Yeah! Oh, I mean...that would be nice, sure.” I checked myself.

He lifted my hand up to his lips
and kissed it. “Perfect. I'll call you.”

And just as suddenly as he'd
appeared behind me, so he was gone again.

....

The rest of that night I was
walking on clouds.

Dinner tomorrow night. With
Crash.

I couldn't keep my smile at bay
as we all celebrated together. My boundless joy wasn't lost on the
girls who all commented, at one time or another, on my Cheshire Cat
grin.

The sense of relief inside me
was almost overflowing from my every pore. Exams over, Brad gone,
social status solidified, dance troupe flourishing. For the first
time in months, years even, my life was great.

Of course, the cherry on top was
Crash. And by God was it a delicious cherry.

I spent most of the night
dancing with Lexi; Tess and Alice coming and going. We had a private
table beside the dance floor where the boys sat, chatting happily and
sipping on spirits. They all looked really smart, with Armani shirts
and jackets hugging their frames.

I could see Alice trying to drag
Kyle out onto the dancefloor but he was having none of it. It looked
as though none of the Logan boys liked to move much, actually. All
except Jude. After a few drinks he'd built up enough confidence to
make a play for Lexi.

He came and whispered in her ear
and I saw her giggle coyly. They looked like they'd make a really
cute couple. Lexi was literally the most adorable girl I'd ever met
and Jude had this boyish charm and boy band look to him that would
appeal to most girls. Not me though - I preferred a man's man.

Tess still had her eye on Zack,
so went over and chatted with him on occasion. I knew they'd made out
before but it was always when Zack was wasted. Any time I saw him
sober he looked disinterested.
Give it a couple of hours though
Tess, and he'll be all yours.

She got plenty of interest when
she joined us out on the dance floor though. She always did. It
wasn't just the way she looked, it was how she acted and this vibe
she gave off. From the stories Alice had told me I knew she had this
totally open side to her, completely sexually liberated and willing
to try just about anything. She didn't seen to mind when Alice called
her a slut in jest. Frankly, she had no way to argue against it.