by J. J. Jones
“So,” I started, “you and Jasmine seem to make a pretty good team?”
“Yeah,” Logan replied not really elaborating.
“I mean, the way you guys fought together back there,” I struggled to find the right phrasing for what I wanted to say, “it just seems like you two do pretty well together.”
“Yeah, you could say that, I guess,” Logan said still not really elaborating much.
“It was impressive to watch. I felt like I was watching a movie or something. Have you guys fought together before?” I asked.
“Um, sort of,” he replied.
“Sort of? What does that mean?” I asked hoping that he would explain a little more about their history together.
“We did some training together, so we have done some fighting together, I guess.”
“Training,” I asked, “where?”
“We were both in the program together. That’s where we met. So we learned and trained together there. Jasmine helped me orchestrate the escape. She was one of the other shifters that escaped when I left the program. She was in captivity on her own as she was the only Tiger shifter they had. Not many others know how important she was in making the escape plan happen. I don’t think the Big Dog knows how important she was in that plan or he would probably be calling for her head as much as mine. But I’m glad he doesn’t know – it’s better that way.” His voice was melancholy and sad as he spoke.
“But it’s more than just training,” I said when he had finished.
He paused looked over at me cautiously before continuing.
“It’s okay, Logan,” I said, “I think I realized awhile ago that I’m not the first.” I tried to laugh, but it came out weak and awkward.
“Well, yeah, we had a thing a while back. It was a long time ago though. There’s nothing anymore. We learned back then that things just don’t really work out between two shifters. It’s hard to explain, but we’ve remained friends and always helped each other out when the other needed something – as you can see it is usually me that needs something and Jasmine is usually the one that is there for me”
“Oh,” I replied unsure what else to say. If this were a normal situation I would feel threatened by the presence of Jasmine but right now I clearly could not afford to be a bitch as we needed her.
“Don’t worry about anything though,” Logan said reaching across the car and holding my hand, “Jasmine is a great friend and trust me, that is all she will ever be for me – I have been down that path, and I know I can’t go there again.”
“I trust you, Logan,” I said smiling and stroking his hand with my own. I looked over and smiled and him.
We continued following Jasmine for awhile driving in silence holding hands. I didn’t have much else to say, and I was sure that Logan was lost in thought, either thinking about Jasmine and his history with her or thinking about our upcoming entanglements with the Big Dog. I strongly hoped for the latter although I highly suspected the other. I felt a bit pathetic for worrying about my relationship status considering the huge amount of drama that was happening at the time. I have always found it hard to trust men in my life but I told myself to get a grip and focus on the task at hand.
Finally, we made it to the edge of the city. Jasmine pulled her car into a rest stop and Logan pulled our car in behind her. We all got out of the cars.
The area was wooded and nice. I glanced around and everything seemed deserted. There weren’t any other cars at the rest stop, so we seemed to finally have a little peace and quiet, at least for a few minutes. It felt nice to have a little privacy.
“Thank you for everything,” Logan began as Jasmine walked back to our car.
“I know that you would have done the same for me if our roles would have been reversed,” Jasmine said smiling.
“Of course I would have, but it doesn’t make this any different. You have sacrificed so much. We owe you so much,” Logan said pulling me close to him.
“You don’t owe me anything,” Jasmine said waving him off. “Just go and do what you’ve said you plan to do and you’ll be doing our whole kind a huge favor.”
“I know,” Logan said. “I will succeed. All shifters will be able to come out of hiding soon. I promise.”
“I know. When you set your mind to something, there’s no stopping you,” Jasmine smiled affectionately. She turned to me, “you might as well learn that now, Tanisha, he’s pretty bull-headed when it comes to things.”
“I’m beginning to see that,” I said laughing.
“Hey there’s no need to team up against me,” Logan said defensively.
“We aren’t teaming up against you, we are just stating facts about you,” Jasmine said very matter-of-factly.
We all started laughing.
“But seriously, Jasmine,” Logan said after we all had stopped laughing, “we owe you our lives more than once, and I’ll never forget that,” Logan said very seriously.
“Stop, Logan,” Jasmine said hitting him hard on the shoulder, “none of that matters and you know it. We are all on the same side. The same team. We are all working together on this one. You save me, I save you – remember? There’s no keeping score.”
“Okay, okay,” Logan backed down obviously defeated. “Just let me say thank you for everything you’ve done. Once this is all over we can all meet up again.”
“You know how to get a hold of me when you’re ready,” Jasmine replied. “I hope all goes well with the Big Dog. And if it doesn’t, well get the hell out of there.”
“Yeah, I know,” Logan replied.
“Thanks,” I said briefly not really knowing what else to say.
Jasmine pulled me in for hug and whispered in my ear. “He’s a lot to handle, sweetheart, but he’s worth every minute.”
I was so stunned by what she had said that I couldn’t think of anything to say in reply, so I just stood there shocked. There I was worried about this woman but she was nothing but kind to me. She sincerely wanted me and Logan to be happy. As she pulled away she was smiling from ear to ear. I tried to return her smile, but I was sure my smile was more of a small grin than a smile.
She even threw in a wink as she started to turn and practically skip back to her car.
I turned to ask Logan a question when squealing tires pulled my attention away and back toward Jasmine. I thought for a brief second that perhaps the squealing tires could be Jasmine pulling away from us, but of course it wasn’t. Instead, I turned to see, a black town car with all tinted windows pull up next to Jasmine just as she was about to reach her car. The front seat passenger rolled down his window, pulled out a small handgun and shot her straight in the head. There were no words spoken, no taunts made, no explanation given, just a shot, and then the car sped off in the opposite direction it had come.
Jasmine’s body crumpled to the ground in a small heap. The sound of the gunshot echoed through the parking lot like we were standing in a canyon. I heard it ringing again and again in my ears like the bullet was bouncing around in my own brain.
Logan immediately jumped into action. I heard a scream escape from my body as I stood staring at Jasmine’s limp body on the ground. I felt frozen, glued to where I was standing. Everything moved in slow motion as I watched Logan shoot from the gun holstered at his hip at the town car. With military precision he shot the driver and three other passengers. With the driver dead, the town car didn’t even make it out of the rest stop before crashing into the guardrail and flipping over. The car immediately burst into flames, probably from a gas leak in the engine. The ball of flames and smoke would have killed anyone inside that had remained alive before the crash.
I still couldn’t move. Everything inside me told me that I needed to move, but I couldn’t. Instead, I just stood there waiting for something else to happen – what I wasn’t sure, but I knew that I couldn’t move.
After watching the driver and his companions die in a ball of smoke and fire, Logan ran back to Jasmine’s body. He pulled her into his
lap and held her in his arms. I watched as tears welled in his eyes. Silently the tears dropped down his cheeks and hung on his chin. He didn’t speak, but rocked slowly back and forth with her slain body in his arms. He tried to heal her but it was too late. He checked for her pulse multiple times, as if to convince himself that she really was dead, but I didn’t stop him or remind him that he’d already checked it once before. This was not the time for that.
I knew that losing Jasmine was probably just as hard or harder than losing my father. I didn’t know for sure which was harder, but regardless, the fact that he had lost two people so close to him in such a short amount of time was unfair. No one should lose two people close to him like this.
I gently walked to Logan and placed my arms on his shoulders. “I just need a moment Tanisha.” Logan said. We sat in silence for a short while
.
“The car will draw attention soon,” I said as lovingly as I could. “But we can still do something for Jasmine if you’d like?” I suggested.
“Like what?” his tone was hurt and broken.
“Bury her, or memorialize her in some way,” I said.
“I like that idea, either way we can not leave her body here” he said lifting her with ease. “But yes, we’ll need to leave this area. You’re right, it will draw attention soon with the other car. We’ll need to find some other place.”
Logan walked to our car and laid Jasmine carefully along the backseat, pushing our supplies to the floor of the back seat.
“I’ll drive,” I offered feeling that Logan was in no emotional state to drive.
“Thanks,” he said, “I feel exhausted. I think it would be best if you drove.”
“We’ll just drive until we find the next deserted rest area and then we’ll do something for her,” I said.
“Thank you,” Logan said smiling. “I know you didn’t know her very well, but this means so much to me.”
“I know,” I said. “And that’s why it is important to me, too.”
We drove for about ten miles before we found a rest stop that was deserted. We pulled over and Logan carried Jasmine out in the woods for a few miles while I hiked behind.
“This will work,” Logan said looking around.
He had found a beautiful grove of aspen trees. The ground was blanketed with small three-petaled flowers I had never seen before. They were all different shades of red, yellow and pink. In the middle of the grove, you could see directly up into the sky, so the sun and blue sky shone down into the grove filling the area with beautiful sunlight and warmth.
“I don’t want to bury her,” Logan explained. “I want to lay her in this bed of flowers.”
“Yes,” I said agreeing with him, “so that it appears as though she is only sleeping.”
Logan lay her body gently down in the flowers, so the sunlight hit her face gently and danced along her body. If you didn’t know any better, you might think she was just sleeping. I knelt down next to her and gathered some of the flowers and placed them in her hair to cover the wound and fresh blood matted in her hair around the bullet hole. I wiped away the blood that had dried on her face and neck.
Logan stood above her smiling peacefully. He knelt down and brushed a piece of hair out of her eyes and spoke to her one last time. “You sacrificed so much for us, Goldflake,” he swallowed back tears. “We won’t let your sacrifice be in vain. I promise. We will end this suffering. We will finish this battle. You won’t be forgotten.”
We both stood. Logan extended his hand to me. I took his hand and we turned away from Jasmine’s body lying peacefully resting in the grove of aspen trees and we walked back to the car.
Chapter3
We continued our drive out of town, away from the pain. I could see that Logan was frustrated and hurt. I didn’t have the words of comfort that I wanted to help him heal. I knew that only time was going to heal the wounds brought by the deaths of Lionel and Jasmine.
I drove mostly in silence letting the navigation system guide us to our next destination. I hoped that we would make good time and not run into any trouble along the way. The last thing we needed was more trouble when our emotional and physical energy was so depleted.
“We need to rest,” Logan said as the afternoon wore on. “We should have reservations for a nice hotel in the next city.”
I wasn’t sure exactly how Logan knew about the reservations, but I didn’t want to ask just in case Jasmine had made them for us. Logan leaned forward and put an address into the GPS. I wondered more about the hotel we would be stay at. Was it a regular hotel that Logan had stayed at before – like the luxury hotel where we’d had the top floor suite?
I wasn’t going to complain if we had that kind of treatment again. I let the GPS guide me to the address, and I wasn’t disappointed. The hotel was definitely on the nicer end of hotels.
“Don’t leave anything in the car,” Logan instructed. “Obviously, we’ll need to conceal things as we bring them in, but we don’t want to be unprepared if we have an unwelcome visitor during the night.” Logan must have seen the panic in my face because he quickly added, “I’m not expecting any visitors, I’m just erring on the safe side.”
“Of course,” I replied feeling relieved.
Together we worked on hiding the many weapons and guns in various bags. Luckily there wasn’t any type of security as we walked into the hotel. It wouldn’t have been hard to see that we didn’t have typical luggage.
Logan walked confidently to the check-in desk and used the same alias he had at the previous hotel to check-in. The desk clerk handed him our room keys.
“Would you like help with your bags?” the desk clerk asked noticing the large number of bags at our feet.
“No, we’ll get them,” Logan replied quickly. “Thank you, though.”
“Have a nice stay,” he said turning back to his computer screen.
I quickly grabbed a luggage cart from near the front door and started stacking the bags. Logan finished stacking all of the bags and pulled the cart onto the elevator.
Together we made it up to the room, which wasn’t on the top floor, but was still a luxury suite. Logan stepped into the room and immediately grabbed one of the bags, unzipped it and grabbed an unopened aerosol can. First he sprayed himself with a generous amount of spray. Then he walked around the room and sprayed just about everything in sight leaving the place with a nice werebear repellant smell. Had the mood been lighter, I would have made a snarky remark about ruining the furniture, but I could tell Logan wasn’t in the mood for snarky.
After using the entire can of spray, Logan found the nearest trash can, tossed away the can then collapsed on the nearest couch. He placed his head in his hands and rubbed his temples. I was starting to get used to seeing him do that. I guess being a werebear can be stressful.
I walked over and placed my hand on his back and rubbed his shoulders. “Logan,” I said trying to find the right words, “we’re going to make it through this – together. I just know that there will be a light at the end of the tunnel when all of this is over. Things will get better.”
He turned and looked at me attempting a smile. “I’m so glad you’re with me. I’m glad I didn’t send you away. This would be too hard to do on my own.” He reached up and placed his hand on my face rubbing his thumb along my cheekbone.
“Why don’t I make us some dinner?” I asked placing my hand on his. “We’ve been eating out like crazy. I feel like a good home cooked meal. What sounds good to you?” I asked.
“What?” he asked obviously confused.
“There’s a fully stocked kitchen in here. We might as well use it,” I said pointing over to the kitchen. “We haven’t eaten well in days. We’ve been running through drive thrus and skipping meals, we should have a nice meal tonight. I’d like to cook something for you. What sounds good – do you have a favorite meal?”
“Oh I see,” Logan replied. “Um, let me think. If I could have anything in the world, I would probably cho
ose chili and cornbread. It was a favorite meal that my mother used to cook when I was young. Can you make that?”
“Yes, of course,” I replied. I stood and walked over to the kitchen and started rummaging through cabinets and drawers looking for the supplies I would need for chili. They didn’t have everything I needed, but the front desk was willing to go shopping for us and within 30 minutes they had all the supplies we needed brought to our room.
It felt nice to be making a meal for us to eat. Logan even came into the kitchen and helped, too. I had him be in the charge of the corn bread. I liked to cook; I always had. But cooking for others had always been a pleasure for me. I liked to see their enjoyment when they liked what I’d cooked.