Free Sam I Am by Heather Killough-Walden Page B

she would just have to go in and check on him. Deal with this. Like she always did.
    So she pushed the door open and found him where she had expected, sitting on the edge of his bed, his head bowed. There were bloodied tissues on the bed beside him and some had fallen to the carpet as well. His short brown hair was mussed and his cheek looked puffy in profile.
    “Anything broken?” Logan asked, her voice moving stubbornly past the lump in her throat.
    It took a moment for James to answer, but when he did, it was a tiny shake of his head and then a pause. “I don’t think so.” She could see his tongue moving gingerly in his mouth. “Maybe a tooth,” he added.
    It was strange how books and movies always described someone as lisping or speaking abnormally after a fight. The truth was, the human body was an incredibly resilient and somewhat bizarre machine. Adrenaline would make it work right – even when it didn’t seem to have all of the parts it needed to do so.
    People with bloodied lips and broken teeth would speak normally. People with broken noses didn’t sound nasal until the next day, or even the day after that.
    It didn’t look the way it did in the movies or books, either. After a fight, a face usually looked pretty much normal. A bit puffy perhaps, but not marked with any black or blue until quite a bit of time had passed. Logan had learned, in fact, that the only true giveaways that someone’s face had taken damage in a fight were bloodied tissues, chipped teeth, and wild, crazy stares.
    There was also the vibration in the air. It was indescribable, but it was there. It was something you just got used to detecting after you’d been through enough personal wars.
    Logan sat down beside James and considered, just for a moment, gently straightening his hair. The way she’d done when he was younger. But he was probably tender – in so many ways.
    My family is battle fatigued, she thought. We’ve all got PTSD.
    “Can I see?” she asked, softly.
    He shrugged, and then turned toward her, opening his mouth. That was when she caught sight of the small cut just beneath his left eye.
    Shit, she thought. That’s going to mark bad. God damn it!
    She hid her surprise and anger well and peered into his mouth. Blood was slowly seeping up around the next to the last molar on the bottom left side.
    “Can I feel?”
    He nodded.
    Brave boy , she thought. She gently nudged it and it moved, but just a little.
    “It’s loose, but it might be fine.” She stood and he closed his mouth. “I’ll get you an ice pack and a glass of water.” She went to the door and then paused, turning back to face him. “Did he damage anything else?”
    He looked up at her and it seemed to her that he took forever to do anything at all. And then, noncommittally, he shrugged. And stared back down at the carpet.
    Logan was packing ice into a plastic bag when the door knob turned behind her. She jerked in place, surprised by the sudden sound, and spun to face the doorway.
    Taylor Wright slowly shut the door behind him. His face was gaunt and pale, his eyes blood shot as if he’d been crying. He was visibly shaking and there were dark shadows under his eyes.
    He looked well and truly haunted.
    He glanced up at Logan and then froze there in the doorway, his expression instantly and tremendously pained. And then, without warning, he broke down before her and Logan’s heart instantly ripped itself to shreds.
    “I’m…. I’m sorry, God I’m sorry, Logan. You gotta believe me, I can’t –” He sobbed loudly, his whole body shaking with the wracking, painful sound. Logan stood frozen to the spot, as torn as she always was when Taylor was faced with the aftermath of what he had done to his kin.
    “I can’t help it, I don’t know why I do it…. Jesus Christ, I’m in hell, Logan. I wanna die, I just wanna die.”
    He fell to his knees before her, his knee caps slamming against the ceramic tile. If he noticed the pain, he made no