Shattered Highways

by Tara N Hathcock

  A shadow fell over her and she looked up. “Well, speak of the devil,” she said as Logan graciously scooped her legs out of his seat and plopped down.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” she said with a smile, tucking the book back in her bag.

  “Been here awhile?” he asked, taking a drink of the water a waitress had brought over earlier.

  She looked him over, searching for signs of the quiet, pensive Logan from earlier in the week but none appeared. By all accounts, he seemed like the Logan she’d spent most of Saturday with. A little more subdued maybe, but that could be explained by practically anything.

  “Not really,” she finally said. “I just always come prepared.”

  “I can see that. How’s it coming?” he asked, nodding towards her bag. “I can’t believe you’re actually reading that, by the way.”

  “You’re the one who gave it to me,” she protested.

  “It was a test,” he said casually, picking up the menu and looking it over. “One I’m not sure you passed.”

  Don’t take the bait, don’t take the bait.

  “What kind of test?”

  Nice. Way to stay strong.

  “A test of your feelings for me, of course. You must like me quite a bit,” he said, casually pursuing his menu, “to read a book about car batteries.”

  “I take classes on electrical engineering for fun,” she answered coolly. “I wouldn’t read too much into it.” She was oddly relieved to see him trying to hide a smile behind his menu. She hadn’t realized just how much his weird behavior had been bothering her.

  Their waitress showed back up and Quincy ordered a coffee to go with her chicken salad sandwich. Logan ordered the house special without bothering to ask what it was and shot the waitress a smile that made her blush and fumble the water pitcher. He laughed and helped her clean up the spill, pretending not to notice the effect he had on her.

  No, Quincy thought, he wasn’t pretending. He really didn’t know. He was such a charmer that Quincy sometimes forgot he really was just a nice guy in the shape of a player.

  The waitress bumbled away and Logan glanced over at her, catching her in a smile. “Don’t read too much into it,” he mocked with a smirk. “Sure.”

  Chapter 24

  Logan

  “Don’t read too much into it,” he repeated, smiling. “Sure.”

  Quincy let him have that one and his smile slipped just a little. Yes, she liked him. Enough to let him hang around. Enough to spend her weekends with him and go out for lunch with him. Enough to let him close enough to act. He felt like a heel. By all accounts, Quincy didn’t have friends. Ever. The fact that she’d let him in enough to be one was both a testament to his undercover skills and a condemnation of his motives. He felt bad. Really, really bad. He’d used his people skills and his covert military training to get close to people before, but never in such a personal way. He had been afraid that if he used his usual ins, getting a job in an adjacent area, taking the same classes, or renting an apartment in the same complex, she’d get suspicious. She was the type who watched for that kind of thing. She would definitely notice if he started shadowing her. But if he made contact on purpose? If he was open about it, if he acted like he’d noticed her and wanted to get to know her? He’d had a feeling she wouldn’t know how to deal with someone who stuck with it when she tried to brush him off. Most people tended to give up right away. So he’d played the persistent puppy who refused to be kicked away. And it had worked. A little too well. When he broke her trust, she was never going to trust anyone again.

  It’s for the best, he told himself, glancing back down at his menu. She shouldn’t trust anyone. Not if his boss was right. And he was right. Logan had no doubt about that. Not anymore. Not after last Sunday. Not after the train station.

  Quincy was sipping on her water and looking out over the shopping district spread out before them, almost entranced, and he couldn’t help but think about her staring around the train station in much the same way, only then she had been pale and covered in blood. He had watched her then, too. He had watched the glazed look in her eyes, the slight tremble of her hands after the paramedics had taken over. He had watched as her mind snapped back and her survival instincts took over, watched her fade slowly back towards the restrooms and disappear inside, only to reemerge 10 minutes later in an oversized hoodie, glasses, and baseball cap hiding her hair. Her hands had been shoved deep enough into the pockets of her sweatshirt that no one would be able to see the blood that had to still be packed under her fingernails. Cool as a cucumber, she was. It took a professional to cry so convincingly for the police and then walk away without looking back. He could do it, of course, but he was a professional liar. Quincy, on the other hand, had been amazing. She had stepped forward towards the wounded girl and taken command, assessing the injury and treating it. He had watched her perform surgery in the middle of a dingy, half-empty train station with nothing but her hands and a couple of t-shirts. If that hadn’t convinced him his boss was right, nothing would. And now here they were.

  He sighed and Quincy looked up suddenly, catching him watching her. He knew he should look away, but he just couldn’t. He knew his plan depended on getting her away from the crowds, secluded and isolated, and she wouldn’t go willingly if she started suspecting something was up. But he just couldn’t do it. She wasn’t going to forgive him for this. The thought kept circling around and around in his mind. She deserved so much better, and she wasn’t going to forgive him. Look away, he told himself frantically. You’re blowing it.

  Quincy watched him curiously, letting the tension and the silence stretch. He was sweating. Maybe he should rethink the plan. Maybe he should give her more credit. She was smart, after all. Brilliant, quite possibly. But she’s not going to forgive me, that voice in his head kept whispering.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” she finally asked.

  Time was up.

  Chapter 25

  “But you can’t make people listen. They have to come round in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up around them. It can’t last.” Ray Bradbury

  No one is ever what they seem. Not me. Not her.

  Not him.

  * * *

  Quincy

  “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  There was a slight pause and then Logan blinked, like the question had surprised him. He cleared his throat.

  “Like what?” he asked.

  “Like I’m a puzzle you can’t quite figure out. Like maybe you think there’s something wrong with me,” Quincy said, a little self-consciously. She was used to people giving her strange looks, because, well, obviously she was a little strange. But rarely did anyone give her more than that single passing glance. One quick look, one wonder what’s wrong with her, and they had moved on. But Logan, for the short time she had known him, had stuck like no one else had. He stuck, despite her abruptness. He stuck, no matter how disinterested she seemed. And it wasn’t because he was enamored with her. She knew that. Maybe he liked her, but he didn’t like her. How could he? He didn’t know her. It had to be something else. She had caught him in several moments like this, where he was looking at her and seeing something, or someone, completely different, and she was tired of wondering why.

  “You’re a puzzle,” he answered finally.

  He relaxed, like he’d finally come to some kind of decision, and leaned back in his chair, stretching his long legs out in front of him and crossing his arms over his chest. He looked completely at ease. Totally at odds with the conversation they were having and the look in his eyes, which was anything but casual.

  “You’re friendly but you don’t want to be friends. You’re smart, but you don’t want anyone to know it. You’re beautiful but you do everything you can to hide it. You try to fade into the background. I’m just trying to figure out why.”

  Quincy stared, a little shocked, although she doubted it showed on her face. No o
ne had ever called her on her stuff before. Yes, she kept people at a distance. Yes, she tried to be as unmemorable as possible. If you made an impression, you were easier to find. And having friends, having people you cared about, just left you vulnerable. But she couldn’t say any of that to Logan. Because if she told Logan that much, he would want to know more. He would want to know all of it. She may not know much about him, but she did know he was curious. Or nosy. She preferred to think of him as nosy. Insatiably so. She had watched him during his study sessions in the library. Whatever subject he was researching, he pursued it with a single-minded focus that she found both impressive and intimidating. He had doggedly pursued a friendship with her without hesitation, despite her stonewall responses. And he had an endless supply of questions. Knowing the answer wasn’t good enough. He needed to know the whys and the hows. He needed to know the inner workings of a thing in order to understand it. An admirable trait to be sure, but one that was dangerous for her. Maybe it was his military background but she felt like she was on display, and he was systematically picking apart all of her carefully built walls and masks. And how was she supposed to protect herself without her defenses? She needed to put a stop to it, and fast. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She should have shut him down when he first started coming around but she hadn’t. When it was obvious her usual tricks weren’t working, she should have been more abrupt. Or she should have just left. But she didn’t. She had let him keep trying and now she rather enjoyed his company, which made it more difficult to hurt him. But her safety, and most likely his, was at stake and she had to cut her losses.

  “Have you ever thought maybe it’s you? Maybe I’m not the problem here,” she said speculatively. “Maybe it isn’t that I avoid friendships and try to go unnoticed in general. Maybe I just do it with you, and you can’t take a hint when it’s subtly given.”

  “I might think that,” he replied lazily, “if there was even one other person in your life. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you don’t have family. And you sure don’t have any friends. So no, it’s not me.”

  Quincy opened her mouth to argue but then shut it. What could she say to that? It was completely true. Did she tell him it was because she didn’t want any friends? That not everyone had a family to rely on? What answer would satisfy his urge to know and get him to leave? He sat there, nonchalantly appraising her reactions, and she found herself frozen, unsure how to proceed.

  The stalemate could have lasted minutes or hours and she wouldn’t have known the difference. She just sat there, staring at him, until he finally broke the standoff.

  “What are you running from?” he asked quietly.

  She froze instantly at the gently whispered words. Why would he ask that? He couldn’t know, not really. Could he? Quincy sat in silence, which Logan took as permission to continue.

  “You know things you shouldn’t know. Like how to pick up a violin and give a flawless performance. Generally speaking, only surgeons know how to clamp off hemorrhaging arteries. And I don’t know exactly what kind of person is fluent in Latin, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t a library resource assistant who audits classes at small town universities.”

  It hit her like a ton of bricks, enough to shake her out of her stupor. Universities. Plural. He knew. She didn’t know exactly what he knew, but he knew enough. She shoved her chair back and bolted to her feet, heart pounding, adrenaline flowing. She felt the noose tightening around her neck and she couldn’t draw a full breath.

  “How do you know those things?” She felt cold, rigid. “You couldn’t possibly. I don’t...I keep it...have you been following me?” she demanded.

  And then the full meaning of his words slammed into her, hard. He had been at the train depot when she’d stopped the girl from bleeding to death. He had to have been, to know it was her.

  The blood drained from her face and she whispered, “You’re one of them, aren’t you?”

  And then a new thought occurred to her, even more horrifying than the last. “Did you...did you hurt that girl, just to get to me?”

  The stress in her voice must have reached him because Logan stood as well, but he looked confused, maybe even a little hurt.

  “Hurt her? Why would you think that?”

  She almost believed him, with his sad puppy dog eyes and his hands held out to his sides, seemingly at a loss. “I would never do anything like that Quincy. You know that. And am I one of who? Who are you running from?” he asked again.

  He took a step in her direction and reached out, like he was going to take her arm, but she jerked back violently. He sounded so sincere, so genuinely concerned. But she couldn’t believe him. She couldn’t afford to. She steeled herself.

  “This is why I’ve had a reprieve, isn’t it? Instead of an outright attack, they embed someone to watch me. To get close to me.”

  The nausea was rolling through her at the thought of being watched by the very people she was running from and she gave a sharp glance around, looking for his backup to move in for the take down.

  But it was still just Logan, standing in front of her and reaching out.

  “I don’t know who is trying to hurt you, but Quincy, it isn’t me. I came to help you.”

  He finally broke, agitation leaking out through his words. “Yes, okay. You’re right, I have been watching you. I wasn’t sure I was on the right track at first, but I’ve been looking for you, and others like you, for a long time. Please, let me help you. You’ll be safe with me.”

  His eyes were so earnest that she wanted, desperately, to believe him. She looked at the hand he held out, and for just a moment, considered taking it. If he was telling the truth, she could be safe. She wouldn’t have to constantly look over her shoulder, waiting to be found. She could let him take care of her. If he was telling the truth. If he wasn’t, she would die. Or at the very least disappear. And no matter how much she wanted answers herself, her survival instinct was too strong to give up without a fight. She met his eyes and saw that he already knew her decision. She backed away.

  “Don’t follow me. It’s the middle of the day. If I see anyone coming after me, I’ll make a scene and you can explain to the police why you’ve been ‘watching me’. But I’m fairly sure whoever you work for doesn’t want that kind of attention.”

  Logan opened his mouth to speak but she cut him off.

  “I don’t know who you are, and I don’t know what you want with me. But if you’re going to come at me, then just come at me. Don’t pretend to care.”

  She reached down blindly for her backpack, grateful she never went anywhere without it, then spun and walked away as quickly as she could.

  She was thankful for the aviators she had slipped on before leaving her apartment earlier. To her embarrassment, the tears had started before she’d even turned away from Logan. She reached up to brush one from her cheek. She couldn’t believe she’d allowed herself to fall for the act. How had she not seen it? She thought back over all the run ins and surprise meetings, all the times Logan had popped up unexpectedly. She knew she should have seen it earlier but she’d been so content here. And Logan was so sincere. Or had seemed sincere, anyway. She had bought into the act, hook, line and sinker, because she’d wanted to believe him. She’d wanted to believe that she could have a friend. That she could belong somewhere for more than a few months. She had been so desperate to believe she was safe that she’d allowed herself some unguarded moments and now she would have to pay for them.

  She took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. Now was not the time for pity. She squared her shoulders and took stock of the situation. She was walking further into the commercial district, which meant contingency plan two. Since she had her emergency cash stash on her at all times, she would walk to the bus station and use it to pay for a ticket to whatever location was available on the 3rd ride out. Then she would duck into the restroom and swap out her button up for the bulky pullover she kept in her bag for just such occasions. Then she’d tuck her hai
r up into her old ball cap and wait it out. Once she was several hours away, she’d decide on a new location and head that way. She felt marginally better knowing she had prepared for this situation. And unexpectedly relieved she wasn’t being forced to use the train station to make her exit. The memory of blood and Logan’s role in it was still too fresh. Maybe it was an unexpected mercy, she thought, that Logan knew about the train station. It’s where he would expect her to go. And while they were watching the trains, she’d slip onto her bus and be hours away before they got wise.

  She rolled her head around, trying to release the tension in her neck and see if she could spot any tails yet. The wind gusted and she ducked her head to tuck a wayward strand of hair behind her ear a split second before the glass storefront to her right shattered.

  Chapter 26

  Quincy

  She heard the report of the rifle at the same time she was thrown bodily to the ground. She didn’t have time to sort out what had happened before Logan was rolling off of her. He shoved to his feet, grabbed her under her arms, and dragged her around the corner of the closest building. Once they reached the relative cover of the brick building, he grabbed her hand and yanked her to her feet, pulling her deeper into the alley.