Page 54 of Ghost Hunted

Relief floods through me, relief mixed with excruciating pain. I fall to my knees, biting down on a cry.

“Logan? Logan?”

The strangled noise that leaves my lips must startle Lia back to reality. She stares at the scissors, then at me. Then at my hand, from which the scissors jut out.

“Oh… oh god… what happened?”

“Nothing, Lia. Nothing.” I pull down on the hem of her shirt, pushing her down to the floor in front of me.

“I hurt you, Logan. Didn’t I? Oh, god, I hurt you… I don’t remember… hurting you…” She lets out a sob as I rest my face against her bare stomach and breathe in the flowery scent of her skin. And then, I pull her panties down, and lie wearily down over the space where her thighs meet her stomach.

“I don’t remember!” she cries. “I don’t… remember…”

Just before I pass out, I hear voices behind me.

“If this keeps up, it’s going to cost a fortune in doctor’s bills.”

“Mama! Papa! What happened?”

Fear once again rises to the fore, when I remember Damien’s words.

That bazooka wouldn’t only have killed you...

I manage to force aside the dizziness just long enough to grunt, “Quill… I need you to tie Lia up. Promise me, Quill…”

A sharp intake of breath is all I hear before I pass out.

14

Logan

This time, when I wake up, the pain wracking my body has grown easier to deal with. Not because the injuries hurt less than before, but because there are more of them, and the pain feels like a part of me now. A necessary, inescapable part of me, because I’ve reached the conclusion that I’ll be hurting as long as Lia is in my life.

But I’d rather my body was entirely flayed, stabbed to pieces, and riddled with bullets, than lose her again.

That feeling doesn’t extend to Piper, though. I need to protect her. It hurts, but I also heave a sigh of relief when I awaken to the sight of Lia lying on her stomach on the bed, her hands firmly cuffed behind her back.

“Hi, ghost girl,” I murmur, inching toward her, wincing at the hand that does objectively hurt so bad that I wish I could just chop the useless thing off.

The wound has been treated, but I have a feeling it’ll leave quite the scar. Luckily, it’s not my dominant hand. The one I use to write, to brush my teeth, to, well…

Fuck, I’ve got such a hard-on right now.

I know Quill tied her up at my orders to protect Piper, and the handcuffs should be reminding me of just how serious and scary the situation is, but when I see her like this… it does something to me.

“Do you know who I am, Lia?”

“Yes,” she breathes.

“What’s my name?”

She swallows. “Logan.”

“Good girl.” I stroke the side of her face. “You look really sexy with your arms tied behind your back.”

She swallows again, and a tear leaks out of her left eye.

“I think Quill tied me up like this because I… I hurt you,” she whispers. “And he thinks I could hurt Piper. Oh, god, do you think I could?” The tears fall harder. “Do you think I could hurt my own daughter?”