Before You Go (YA Romance) (24 page)

The shock of it made her stiffen. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t breathe.

And then he pulled away. Logan let go of her and gravity returned.

“Sorry. I’m sorry, Margo.” His eyes flickered over her. His mouth was half open. She could hear him
breathing,
see the ghost clouds of his breath in the cool, wet winter air.

“I— how
are
you? Oh Jesus, do you have a date? That guy, Alton, he said there was a thing tonight… I— God, I’m sorry.”

He turned away, and Margo’s pulse tripped. “Logan—
wait
.”

In another second he had closed the gap between them. He stood so close she could feel the heat of his body, smell his shampoo,
familiar mountain
fresh. She watched his mouth move, no words coming out.

“Logan, what are you doing here?” She felt like she was in a play.
Or maybe in a mental institution.

“I have a guest speech.” Margo clutched her chest. “I have a guest speech tomorrow at the prep school. It was the only way I could get away during finals. I… I had to see you.”

He came to see me.

“Why?” She didn’t mean it the way it sounded, but of course she had to know. “Why do you want to talk to me?”

He rubbed his hair, blinked those wide eyes. Clearly, he was upset.
Agitated.

“Is it something with…the stuff that night…you saved me?”

Logan was shaking his head. She watched his throat work, his fists clench. Unclench. “Margo…” He let his breath out slowly. “Margo, I came here to see you. I needed to tell you a few things. I’m looking into housing here.”

“What?”

He inhaled deeply, watching her face like he was about to say something vitally important. “Margo, I’ve transferred to Tulane.”

“You have?”

“I’m starting there this spring. Pre-med.”

“Pre-med?” She didn’t understand.

“I’m not going to be an astronaut.” Logan smiled ruefully.
“At least not at first.
I’m going to get a medical degree first, then maybe work my way into space medicine. If I go to space…” he shook his head, “it won’t be with Cindy. I’m not telling anyone until after my speech tomorrow at the prep school.”
 

“What about
your…
what about Cindy? Why would you leave MIT?”

“Because of you.”

“Because…of me?” She felt like she’d swallowed a frog.

Logan was nodding, but she still didn’t understand.

“So just…you wanted to see me again?”

“Margo, yes.”
He sounded breathless. “I want to see you all the time. I want to live here, near you. I don’t want to go away again, Margo. I want you in my life. Is that okay?”

Was that okay?

Margo giggled. It started as a silly little sound and turned into an insane cackle.

“But Logan,” she gasped, “how will you afford it?”

She watched a wry smile spread across his face. “There was a reward for whoever caught your kidnappers. Cindy gave it to me.”

That brought on more laughter. “But…” another gasp— “it’s only five-hundred-thousand—”

“No it’s not. It never was. Cindy was always offering ten million.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Apparently she’d asked the media to keep it on the
downlow
so you didn’t become a target. I got the money. I transferred to Tulane. And you know what?” He grabbed her hands. “After that, I’m thinking Stanford for med school.” He grinned, and it was like the sun.

“I heard they’re good at that at Stanford.”

“Someone told me.”

“Who?”

His gaze softened, mouth pressed flat and vulnerable; then the corners tipped up.
“My girlfriend?”

She grinned, nodded, and Logan’s arms were closing tight around her.

“Your girlfriend,” she gasped.
And then leaned in for his kiss.

If you liked Logan and Margo’s story, check out these scenes from two of Ella James’ other books:
Stained
, book one in the award-winning YA paranormal Stained Series, and
HERE
, first in a YA sci-fi romance trilogy. Both are out now!

STAINED…

The monster clawed the dark sky, hissing and spitting and belching ash. Its fat orange talons twisted the little house until it cracked, until the walls caved and the roof collapsed.
  

Neighbors sprang from their quiet homes and stumbled to the yard, drunk from the light, shouting for help.
And for nothing.
No one inside was alive.

Julia knew this.

She watched the fire as it swelled, as it swallowed glass and gulped brick. She watched while her clothes and books and,
God
, the bodies of her parents, stoked the beast.

The wet Memphis wind whipped smoke through her hair as the remains of the little house on Galloway Avenue rained over the street.

Sirens wailed, frantic screams interrupted by the sound of a million kettles screeching:
The end! The end!
And it was the end.

But not for the sirens.
They wailed and wailed and wailed—God why were there sirens, hurrying drivers running red lights, when no one was alive?—and lo, the Angel of Death appeared in the air above her home.
All black skin and white teeth and red, red eyes.
She thought he was laughing, but before she could be sure, his long wings beat the dirty air and he was gone.

Julia staggered into the shadows between her yard and the next. The path behind her led to Dirk and Dwight’s house, through two tidy yards and down three doors.

She shook her head, squeezed her eyes shut. It hadn’t been late. Not that late. Dirk had Ms. Botch for pre-cal. Ms. Bitch. He couldn’t do math, and Dwight just plain couldn’t do school, so Julia had laced up her new pink All-Stars, slipped her notes into her pocket, and sneaked out the window. She hadn’t bothered peeking into her parents’ room. They were snorers, so she knew they were asleep.

Julia had sat on the boys’ front porch and explained trigonometric functions, her cereal-box watch reading 12:40 a.m. when she arrived. Now it read 1:08. Twenty-eight minutes.
Twenty-eight minutes and this.

The neighbors stayed near the crumbling curb, bobbing heads together, palms pressed over eager mouths. Soon they would be talking.
That foster
girl and that poor, sweet couple.
Such a shame.

Julia searched for a cue in their script, but she couldn’t find her lines.
Because she didn’t have any.
Because she would be gone.

She couldn’t go back to the state, not after five years of paradise. Harry and Suzanne had been her parents since she was twelve, and she would follow them into the annals of the neighborhood’s folklore.

As red and white and orange light jumped across cotton gowns and tragic faces, and the sirens out-whined the noise of the inferno, Julia walked away.

                                               

It was the water that startled her out of it—startled her awake. Somehow, she’d gone to sleep standing, and when Julia came to, she was a long way from home. The girl who could barely do two miles for
PhysEd
had walked—well…her brain didn’t seem capable of
guesstimation
, but it was a stretch.
From Overton all the way to the muddy Mississippi.

She was a gunshot from downtown, her bare feet bunched over the short grass that fringed the river. She took a few wobbly steps back, almost into Riverside Drive, and someone’s import horn reminded her of her place.

Heart pounding, Julia crossed the street. She followed the sidewalk past a steep hill bearing a row of river-view homes, until the neighborhood folded into
itself
and the pretty painted houses became old gas stations, abandoned buildings, and squalid apartment complexes.

Julia sank her nails into her palms as she passed a patch of deserted warehouses. One, a white brick ruin with a faded pecan mural, caught her eye. She ripped three weathered boards off a window and shimmied inside.

Suzanne always bought a giant bag of roasted pecans for Christmas, and that’s what the place smelled like: Christmas.
And plastic.

It looked like a nightmare. Crates and boxes and overturned chairs littered the floor. Thick cobwebs covered the corners, and every surface sported a layer of grime.

There were three locked offices and two bathrooms; the men’s had a cracked porcelain sink that worked, and the women’s had a toilet that still flushed—barely. Julia found a torn gray tarp covering a stack of crates and, thinking blanket, ripped it off.

The boxes tumbled down, spilling
bucketfuls
of rotten, black pecans.

Julia stared at them and her skin came alive, jumping over her bones like a horse’s jittery coat. Once the shaking started, she couldn’t make it stop. She fumbled to her feet, gasping for air. She tripped over a piece of plywood and
crawled
the rest of the way outside.

She fell asleep under a scrawny oak tree and slept through the night—a stupid thing to do anywhere, much less in Memphis. She woke up cold, confused, and aching.

Julia thought about the twins as she rubbed her neck. If it went right, the cops would think she was dead, so she couldn’t see Dirk and Dwight again. Not even at school, which she suddenly realized she would never again have to attend. Suzanne and Harry would have knocked
her a
good one for dropping out, but she didn’t care. School was nothing. Not really. She was smart enough already.

To celebrate, she relieved a convenience store of two candy bars, a can of
Grapico
and, on a whim, scissors. Back in the warehouse, she chopped her thick black hair to her shoulders and frowned at the cloudy mirror.

The girl frowning back was a stranger. Without the ebony curtain around her face, Julia’s smallish mouth and unremarkable nose stood out. Her big brown eyes looked even bigger. She could see too much of her high cheekbones and honey-colored skin. And without the weight of her mane, she felt too light.

The difference in her appearance made her feel faint, so she fled the bathroom and tucked hers herself into her tarp.

The sleep was beautiful. Lying half-awake was a new kind of heaven, though its wonder was relative. The next thing she stole was a bottle of
NyQuil
, and she spent an entire day asleep.

She might have slept forever, but a loud thud woke her sometime late that night. Julia jerked up, heart pounding, senses scanning though she had no idea why.

Then she heard it: a series of thuds on the warehouse roof. She pulled the tarp to her chin as clouds of dust rained over her. The banging continued for probably half a minute before it stopped. Julia counted to ten before she opened her eyes, and several more seconds passed before she dared to breathe.

“What the—”

The roof exploded. Julia covered her head as wood beams and chunks of concrete crashed down around her. She pressed against the wall until the racket became a whimper. When the dust cleared, she peeked over a pile of rubble and gasped.

Dozens of glossy charcoal feathers settled around a hole in the floor at least half a foot deep. A guy was inside. She swiftly registered broad shoulders, hard muscle, and dark hair.

A hot guy.
Very hot.
He had, too literally, fallen at her feet.
 

 

***

 

HERE…

 

The day it happened, things were regular enough.

Halah
, Sara Kate, and
Bree
had spent the night—a chilly October Friday we’d talked through until the sun rose, pink and soft across the Rockies. I awoke to Sara Kate’s knee in my back, sharp enough to poke a hole through my favorite Rolling Stones t-shirt.
Halah
and
Bree
were curled up on the floor,
Halah’s
pink subzero “
hotsack
” tossed over the Miley Cyrus bag
Bree’s
grandmother had given her the previous Christmas—the year we’d turned 15.
Halah
called the bag Miss Miley, and at sleepovers at Sara Kate or
Halah’s
house, I usually fought
Bree
for “her.”

This morning,
Halah’s
curly head stuck up, and her hazel eyes met mine. We grinned, then pounced on
Bree
, chanting “Miss Miley, Miss Miley, Miss Miley!” till
Bree
lurched up, her curvy body raining fragments of the popcorn we’d all munched and, later, crunched into my rug.

“
Shhh
hhh
!”
That was Sara Kate, lumbering up and glaring at us.
She was never a morning person, and she’d been even less one since she’d started hanging out with Ami
McVea
of the multi-colored dreadlocks and
Turn
Off
Your Radio
(KILL THE MACHINE)
bumper sticker. S.K. hadn’t actually told me this—I was only her best friend, after all—but I’d overheard her talking to Ami after band practice, saying something about midnight rides, and I happened to know from my college cousin West that Ami and S.K. had been sneaking out on weeknights, riding in to Denver to go to (what else?) indie music shows.

“You’re riding with the big
dawgs
. This
ain’t
no
rusty banged up Beetle,”
Halah
drawled. She had the most ridiculous faux Old West accent I’d ever heard, and she was referencing Ami
McVea’s
VW bug. We—the quad—had called ourselves the big dogs in years past, although I couldn’t quite remember why.
 

Bree
ambled over and barked in Sara Kate’s ear. S.K. batted her off, then slid out of my bed and pulled a Pop Tart out of her overnight bag; she’d always had a thing for sweets.
Halah
braided
Bree’s
hair, and S.K. painted her toenails with my electric lilac polish, and I straightened my room and made us waffles, which we ate on the downstairs couch, watching
Jeopardy
re-runs that
Halah
killed,
cause
that girl is awesome with random facts, despite what she wants our school to think.
(Re: brainless, badass, and beautiful).
 

Half an hour later, the four of us stood in the pebbly indention of my driveway, a time-shorn path through the rough grass that dusted the foothills of the mountains.

I looked at
Bree
and
Halah
, a unit within our unit, best friends just like S.K. and I. “You guys
be
careful.” I smiled tightly. “
Halah
, spare Robby the crotch shot.”

Robby Malone was this senior who’d cheated on one of
Halah’s
cheer teammates—Annabelle Monroe, the blonde cheerleader archetype—and also, apparently, the bull’s eye in the day’s paintball meet-up.

Halah
grinned wickedly. “I’m not going for his crotch, Milo. I’m going for his little tiny
balls
.”

“That’s disgusting.”
Bree’s
nose scrunched.

“Keep her out of trouble,
mkay
?”
 

Bree
shrugged. She had a piece of popcorn smashed under her breasts.