Shattered: An Extreme Risk Novel (8 page)

I let myself into the house, hoping that a miracle will have happened since this morning and Logan will have had a personality transplant—or at least memory loss about our last real conversation. I’ve done everything I can to talk to him about what he overheard between me and Z, but he isn’t giving an inch. Won’t talk to me about it, won’t talk to me about anything else. Hell, he’ll barely look at me even when I put myself directly in his path and make it impossible for him
not
to see me.

It’s making me crazy, which—of course—is exactly why he’s doing it. If nothing else, this experience has given me a whole new sympathy for parents everywhere. I don’t know how my own did the whole parenting thing as well as they did, especially considering the trouble Z, Luc, Cam and I got into in high school. Obviously, they had more talent at this than I do.

The second I walk into the kitchen and see Logan making dinner with Sarah, I can tell I’m in for another evening of the same-old, same-old. He’s all lit up, talking excitedly to her about the new video game I bought him as a bribe to talk to
me
, but the second he lays eyes on me he shuts down. Goes all silent and surly and I swear it makes me want to pull out every hair on my head. Or his head, I’m not sure which at this point.

Sarah smiles at me sympathetically, right before she slides a casserole into the oven. “Dinner will be ready in half an hour,” she tells me as she grabs her bag from the hook near the back door. “You should make a salad to go with it.”

“Yeah, okay.” I rub the back of my neck, trying to alleviate the stress headache that’s been brewing there all day. “How did everything go today?”

“Fine,” Logan tells me in that snide voice that makes my head want to spin around.
Where’s a bucket of pea soup when you need it?

“It went well,” Sarah answers after a second. “Logan’s doing really well in physical therapy. We got him in the pool today and he swam six lengths. His therapist was thrilled.”

“That’s amazing, man!” I tell him with what I hope is an encouraging smile. I already knew about his progress—his therapist called to tell me after the session—but I don’t want to take anything away from this moment. He’s already come so far, considering the fact that he had a broken arm and dislocated shoulder from the accident as well as the spinal injury. It’s been a long road to get Logan to this spot and he deserves all the credit.

He rolls his eyes at me.

“Well, I’ll see you on Thursday,” Sarah tells me. “Enjoy your day off tomorrow!”

Yeah, right. Something tells me Logan is going to make that next to impossible.

After Sarah leaves, I’m left alone with a grumpy-ass Logan and a pile of dirty dishes. Deciding the dishes are easier to tackle than my brother at the moment, I head to the sink. Logan doesn’t leave as I start to run the water, instead choosing to stick around and glare at my back, and I decide to take that as an encouraging sign. The last few days he’s done everything he can to avoid me, so this has to be progress. Right?

“How did you feel about therapy today?” I ask as I fill the sink with soap and hot water. “That’s pretty awesome, about the swimming.”

“It’s no big deal,” he says grudgingly. “I used to be able to do a ton more laps than that.”

The unspoken end of that sentence—
before the accident—
lays between us like dead weight. It pulls us down and as the familiar guilt threatens to smother me, I wish I could come up with a way to talk to him. Wish I could find the words to make things between us okay.

But how can anything be okay when Logan is injured, paralyzed, because of me? Because of my dream? It can’t be. Not when my dream stole Logan’s so completely. Not when it stole my parents’ lives and ripped my whole damn family apart.

I clear my throat, try again. “Still, it’s really good, right? Brad says you’re doing great.”

“It’s not snowboarding, but it’s okay, I guess. For a
cripple
.”

I clench my fists, refusing to let him push my buttons. It’s hard, though, when he knows all the right ones to poke at.

“So, what’d you do today? Besides PT, I mean.”

He groans. “Really? Is this the small-talk part of the evening, then?”

“Come on, Logan. I’m trying here.” I turn to face him, but he’s already spinning away.

“Do you want an award for that?” he asks as he rolls through the kitchen and down the hall. “Ash Lewis, for
trying
. It can go right up there next to my award for swimming six lousy lengths of the pool.”

I tell myself I should let him go, that he’s got every right to be a pissed-off little shit, but
I’m slamming the faucet closed and taking off after him before I even make the conscious decision to do so.

“You don’t get to just walk away from me when I’m trying to talk to you!” I tell him as I trail him down the hallway.

“News flash, loser. I’m not walking anywhere.”

Fuck. “Okay, that was a lousy choice of words.”

He snorts. “No shit, Sherlock.”

I break into a jog, get in front of him to break his forward momentum. “Can we talk about this?”

“Talk about what?”

“Oh, I don’t know. The weather, maybe? Or how about the fact that you’ve been a total jackass to me for the last five days?”

“I’m sorry, is the cripple not living up to your expectations?”

“Will you stop calling yourself that!”

“Will you stop treating me like one if I do?”

“I have never—”

“That’s bullshit and you know it. You gave up snowboarding, got that crappy job at the resort—”

“That crappy job comes with benefits, which—in case you haven’t noticed—are pretty damn important right now. Unless you want me to go through all the life insurance money at once.”

“You made a lot more boarding and you know it. Even without insurance benefits, we’d be better off.”

I force a calmness into my tone that I’m far from feeling. “I’m not doing this with you again.”

“Of course not. I’m just a kid, right? Just a cripple who doesn’t deserve a vote in anything that happens in this family.”

“I didn’t say that—”

“You didn’t have to. What did Mom used to say when we fought? Actions speak louder than words.”

The mention of Mom throws me, and my grip on my temper slips a little more. I try to beat it back down, but it’s not working real well. I’m just opening my mouth to say something I know I’ll regret—what the fuck else is new—when the doorbell rings.

We both kind of turn to stare at it in surprise. The only people who ever show up here these days are Sarah or my friends, and none of them feel the need to ring the doorbell anymore. Hell, they barely knock before barging right in.

Figuring it’s some door-to-door salesman, I almost ignore it—except I can’t help thinking that if the universe gives you a time-out just when you need one, you should probably take it. Conscious of Logan following behind me in his chair, I head to the front door, without saying any of the things that were lodged in my throat. That are still lodged there, if I’m being honest.

Pissed off, tired and completely out of sorts, I throw open the front door. I’m not sure who I’m expecting to find there, but I can tell you the one person I
hadn’t
counted on seeing. Tansy Hampton. At least, I think it’s her. Today, instead of a pink haired pixie cut, her blond hair is tipped with blue and spiked up all over her head. And instead of a sundress, she’s wearing ripped jeans, a short-sleeved, off-the-shoulder sweatshirt and a ton of heavy jewelry. In the course of one short week, she’s gone from fairy to rock star. I’m not sure how I feel about the change—or even why I care.

“Hi, Ash,” she says with a bright smile, like I’m expecting her or something. “Can I come in?”

“Uh, yeah? I guess?”

I step aside to let her in, even as I scramble for what to do. Part of me wants to slam the door in her face—she is the stalker who managed to get my address and show up on my doorstep with absolutely no encouragement from me. Plus, I don’t want her to upset Logan. Things have been hard enough around here for the last few days—ever since Logan overheard me talking to Z—and I don’t want to make things worse. Especially since I can’t help partially blaming her for just how messed up things have gotten. If she hadn’t asked me to do that Make-A-Wish with Timmy, I never would have brought it up to Z, and then Logan and I never would have fought and things would be okay.

It’s a childish response, one better suited for a two-year-old than a twenty-one-year-old, and it embarrasses me. Especially when I consider that there’s another part of me that’s glad to see her. I’ve been thinking of her off and on these last few days, wondering if her lips are actually as soft and sweet as they looked the other day. Not that I ever plan on finding out, but it’s a nice fantasy—one that I’ve jerked off to more than once.

“Thanks,” she says, smiling as she steps inside. “I’m sorry to barge in like this, but I haven’t gotten a response to the last couple of emails or phone calls I’ve directed your way, and things are getting urgent. I need to pin down a date for the trip.”

What is she talking about? I know I’m staring at her like she’s a crazy woman, but I can’t help it. I’m wondering if I’ve actually fallen into the Twilight Zone somewhere between work and here. Or maybe I’m being punked. That makes more sense, actually, now that I think about it. I mean, why else would she be here, looking at me like she expects me to have a clue what she’s talking about? The last time we spoke, I very definitely told her no, I wouldn’t go to Oregon with Timmy. So why is she suddenly talking about it like it’s a done deal?

“The trip?”

I’m sure I look as clueless as I feel, because—for the first time—her smile falters. “The Make-A-Wish trip? With Timmy? To Chile?”

Now I know I’m being punked. “I’m sorry. Could you repeat that?”

“We’re going to Arpa. It’s all set up. I just need to know which of the dates I sent you work best.”

“Are you crazy? I wouldn’t go to Oregon for three days and now you think I’m going to Chile?”

“That’s what your manager said. He called me to set up the Oregon trip, but when I let him know about the donation that came in to go to Chile—for real snowboarding—he said you were in?” She says the last part like it’s a question, and suddenly she’s looking as confused as I feel.

“My manager?”

“Alan Montgomery? He called me the day after we met at the resort.”

Now she’s blushing and, despite everything going on, I can’t help but notice. Can’t help wanting to run my hands, and lips, over all that rosy skin. Obviously I’m having some kind of mental break with reality.

“Alan Montgomery called you?” I haven’t talked to him, or my agent, Mitch, in months. They email every few weeks, just to check in, to see if I’m ready to go back to boarding, but at no time have Alan and I ever discussed the Make-A-Wish thing, at all. “He called
you
?”

“That’s what I just said.” The words start pouring out of her mouth at about a million miles a minute. “He told me you wanted to coordinate everything through him, gave me an email address for correspondence. We’ve been going back and forth for the last few days, but when I tried to get the dates worked out, he said he’d have to talk to you. I’ve been waiting, but I just talked to Timmy’s mom and she thinks the trip has to be sooner rather than later. Which is why I’m here …”

For long seconds, I can’t do anything but stare at her as my brain tries to catch up with what she’s saying. It’s not that difficult, but I just can’t wrap my head around it, especially when I’m pretty damn sure that Alan hasn’t been corresponding with
anyone
behind my back.

Behind me, Logan clears his throat. “Ash? Can I talk to you?”

There’s something about the way he says my name—and the look on Tansy’s face when she hears his voice—that has everything clicking into place.

“You?” I demand, whirling on him. “You called her?”

I expect him to deny it, or to at least plead his case a little. Instead, all he does is obstinately stick his chin in the air and say, “Yeah. So what?”

“Oh my God,” Tansy says behind me, but I don’t have time to worry about her right now.
I’m still in shock that my brother has done this, that he’s gone behind my back and set something in motion that is so crazy, so ridiculous, that I don’t even know where to begin talking to him.

So, naturally, I start by yelling. “Are you kidding me? Why would you fucking do that? Why would you lie to her like that?”

“I wasn’t lying. When I first called her, it was just to get you to go to Oregon. I mean, that kid is dying, Ash, and he wants to meet you. How selfish can you be not to go do that for him?”

Selfish? This kid, this little shit who is doing his best to make my head explode, is calling
me
selfish? “You know why I can’t go—”

“Yeah, because of me! Except, I’m fine.” He gestures to his wheelchair. “It’s not like I’m just out of the hospital. I’ve been doing this for six months and I’ve pretty much got the hang of it now. I can go three days without you, especially if Z, Luc and Cam are here. Between them and Sarah, I won’t have to do anything. They’ll take care of it all.”

“But it’s not three days anymore. It’s a trip to Chile. For—” I glance at Tansy, who looks horrified. She also looks more than a little concerned, which probably means I’ve got my crazy eyes on. God knows, I feel more than a little nuts.

“Eight days,” she says.

“
Eight
days? Are you kidding me with this?”

“You don’t have to be there the whole time,” she points out quickly. “But that’s what the anonymous benefactor sent enough money for—”

“Anonymous benefactor?”

“Yes.” She beams, literally beams. “The day after I talked to Alan—umm, I mean—” She gestures to my brother.

“Logan,” he tells her with a grin.

“Logan.” She smiles back. “The day after I talked to Logan, a letter showed up from a local attorney about the trip, along with a very large check to pay for it.”

“Oh, it did, did it?” I think about Z and the millions of dollars he doesn’t know what to do with. Of the unflagging campaign he and the others have launched to get me to go along with this Make-A-Wish thing. To get me back on the powder. I end up glaring at my brother. “I wonder where
that
came from?”