“I’m saying,” Isaiah continues, “You need to figure out what you can live with. Each man has his own code—molded and decided by him. I know mine. So does Noah. West recently discovered his. You’re strong, Logan—mentally, physically. Can handle more than most. It’s why you hang so easily with us—but this is critical mass. Can you care about someone, protect someone, lie for someone who’s moral code stands in the face of what you believe?”

My temples pound like Isaiah just pulled the rug out from underneath me and I banged my skull against the floor. “When did you become a shrink?”

A slight tilt of his lips, but it fades. “I lived life on the streets and I’m pulling myself out. Once I’m completely out, I don’t plan on going back.”

“You and Noah rose above the streets,” I say. “Abby can, too.”

“Noah and I never went down the path that Abby was born in.” He hesitates. “Here’s the truth. If Abby isn’t willing to walk in your direction then maybe you should walk away and you should do it starting now.”

A lethal snake slithers through my veins. “Are you telling me to leave?”

Conversation—for me and Isaiah—doesn’t happen. Neither of us says a lot. Only talk when we have something worth saying and it makes me on edge that he’s pushing me so hard.

“Why stay? You don’t know Abby and she will never let you in.”

“You stick around.”

Isaiah lifts his head and stares straight into my eyes. “I owe her and it’s the type of debt I can never repay. I care for her, but she and I understand my boundaries. I can show up at a hospital, I can listen when she needs to talk, but even I know she can’t be saved and because of the choices she makes, she knows I won’t try. I don’t believe in suicide missions and that’s what Abby is. I’m glad you went after her in the alley, and I will owe you for that, but because we’re friends, I can’t watch you drive a car over a broken bridge without waving a red flag.”

My head spins and I end up where I started, crashed against the wall opposite of Isaiah.

“I’m not doing this because it’s fun,” he says. “I’m doing this because I like you. Let’s cut the bullshit. You’re into her and she’s into you—more than friends. Ask yourself, do you want to be with the person who deals drugs for a living? Do you want to be with the person who gets shot for doing their job? Do you want to be with the person who puts the people they care about in danger in return? I’m not busting your balls. If you can take that shit without flinching then I’ll be the best man at your wedding, but if you can’t, that’s fine, too.”

“There’s more to Abby than what you’re saying.”

“I hope there is.”

I wait for more of Isaiah’s wisdom, his arguments, but it’s what he’s left unsaid that’s the most damning. Hope—it’s what Rachel and I all have for Abby, but hope doesn’t make Abby’s choices less real.

A knock on the door and Noah pops his head in. “West got someone to talk. Abby made it out of surgery. Bullet went straight through. Huge blood loss, but they gave her some to replace it. Concussion is why she was passed out. Stitched up the gash. They’ll run more tests later. She’s in recovery and barring shit that comes up in the meantime, she’ll be fine.”

Fine. For some reason, that word creates a hot rage through my blood. Fine. Abby’s always fine. I don’t want her to be fine, I want her to wake up. I want her to have left with me earlier tonight. I want her to change.

Noah eyes me like I’m something someone vomited. “Why don’t you head home, shower, change, and get some sleep, bro?” Noah says. “We’ll call if anything changes.”

It’s two in the morning and I’ve got that appointment with my parents at ten. My father’s too used to my brushes with death to let this appointment slide. “Is she safe here?”

“Noah, West, and I will watch over her,” Isaiah says. “We’ll protect her while she’s weak and can’t defend herself. Noah’s right—you look dead, man. Get some rest and think about what I said and then if you want, you can take a shift watching over Abby later.”

Our eyes meet and he’s telling me to reconsider my friendship with Abby. My gut and head are too twisted up. She’s a drug dealer. She was shot. I could have died in the process. But I’m exhausted. It’s the reason I can’t think.

I offer my hand to Isaiah and he accepts it with a quick pat to my back. “You need one of us to drive you home? Noah will take you, I’ll stay, and West will follow to bring Noah back.”

I shake my head. Last thing I need is any of them near my truck. My black bag of diabetes supplies was emptied onto the front seat. I don’t need their sympathy or having them believe I’m weak.

“Call if anything changes,” I say, they agree, and I begin the long walk down the hallway to the exit.

Abby

It’s quiet yet not. A low hum of conversation and I feel like I’m floating. I like floating. I turn my head and it’s heavy and the rest of my body is still asleep.

“...so then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night...”

“Are you exorcising the demons from my soul?” My voice comes out cracked, groggy and I flinch with how raw my throat is.

“That’s the third time you’ve asked that question.” Too many years of drinking and too many years of smoking has damaged his throat. He used to have a smooth tone that I would sit by his feet and listen to, but that, like so many other things in my life, is in the past.

My eyelids flutter open and a weathered man sits by my bedside. He wears a Marine Corps baseball cap and the Bible is in his hands. I squint as I try to understand where I’m at and why. Something happened. Something I should remember...

“You were shot, Abby.”

A throb in my brain. Damn. Just damn. “Bet that wasn’t the first time you told me that.”

He closes the yellowed-paged book. “It’s not. You wake up. Go back to sleep. Over and over again. You look seventeen in your sleep.”

“And not like a monster,” I finish for him. Too many fights between us have caused me to memorize the ending. “Did you claim me or will the good people of child protective services be here to sweep me up into their beams of rainbows?”

My great-uncle Mac bows his head like he’s in prayer. He probably is. When he’s not sipping on whiskey, pretending to be drunk, really drunk, fixing cars or missing his wife, he prays for me. Mac’s one of the real people—both good and bad, both the villain and the hero.

It must be genetic.

“I claimed you,” he said.

My eyes drift closed as I breathe out in relief. He may not agree with my method, but he appreciates the results of my life. “Thank you.”

“If I could exorcise the demon from your soul, I would,” he says as I begin to fade back into the comforting darkness.

“If you could exorcise my demons, I’d willingly tie myself to the cross.” I lick my dry lips and an important memory surfaces. “I had to tell someone.”

Mac sighs deeply. “Someone you trust?”

“More than Isaiah.”

“You could have told me.”

“Can’t. Got to protect you. Got to protect her. They have to think we hate each other.”

He gruffly chuckles. “We do hate each other.”

My mouth twitches up. “See, the plan worked.” And the brief humor dies. “I’m sorry, but it’s not safe. You being here isn’t safe.”

“I’m safe enough. Go to sleep, Abigail, and let me finish Thessalonians.”

I snuggle the best I can under the thin blanket. “Tell them I want Jell-O. The red kind and tell Isaiah I want a bunny. Big and fluffy and with huge ears.”

“The type you had when you were five?” There’s a quiet laughter in his voice.

That’s exactly the bunny I want and I also want my dad and my old life back.

Logan

“Why did you drive all the way back to Bullitt County?” Mom’s voice is high enough in pitch my ears ring and my eyes snap open. “You should have slept over at my place.”

Mom plops down on my bed and messes with my hair. “You should have called me. I would have been with you at the hospital. You shouldn’t have been alone.”

Damn. She knows about Abby. I rub the sleep out of my eyes before checking out the clock. It’s eleven in the morning and I’m rolling out of bed. Shit. I overslept. Dad’s going to be a powder keg. “The appointment.” The specialist about my diabetes.

“I rescheduled it.” Dad has a hip cocked in my doorway looking as dead as I feel. He’s in a pair of sweatpants and a white undershirt. Appears I’m not the only one Mom bulldozed out of a deep sleep.

Dizziness disorients me. With Mom in my room, even with her words, I thought I was in her apartment in Louisville. A quick scan confirms I’m at Dad’s. A stack of award medals grouped together near trophies on the floor. My dresser. My mirror. My bed stand. Dirty clothes in piles mixed with piles of clean ones. Not much else.