Me: Will do

Dad: I’m sorry

I sigh. Me, too

Sorry because he’s disappointed in me or sorry because I said things I can’t take back or sorry because I don’t know if anything he said is right—I have no idea, but overall, I am sorry. Fighting with Dad doesn’t make me feel good.

Mom responds back to both me and Dad: Be safe. I love you.

Me: I will and you too.

Isaiah flips in his sleeping bag then rubs a hand over his shaved head. “This place have a bathroom?”

I point to the two closed doors. “The one on the right. Don’t shove too much toilet paper down—this place is on an ancient septic system.”

“Great,” he mutters as he stands. He closes the bathroom door behind him and Abby peels her groggy lids open. I hate how she looks—pale, dark circles under her eyes, just plain exhausted and sick.

She didn’t say much after Eric left and I don’t blame her. Eric could be right or he could be feeding her lies. Either way, it’s not a good position to be in.

“Ryan and everyone else will be here soon,” I say, and Abby sits up, her body sagging against the back of the couch she slept on. She gathers her long dark hair away from her face and appears small and young. “We’ll set up an air mattress for you in the bedroom tonight.”

“Explain to me where we are and what we’re doing again.” Abby’s voice is cracked as if she hadn’t used it in years. She glances around the small rustic cabin that has no electricity, possibly wondering if last night was a dream. God knows I’m questioning our current reality.

The open area has a deep ceramic sink made before Chris’s grandfather was born, a wood-burning stove that has a top where we can warm things up, one window, wooden floors and the only piece of furniture is the couch Abby slept on last night.

The cabin is tiny now and when Ryan, Chris, Noah, and West arrive, this place will continue to shrink.

“Remember how you wanted to bale hay with us and I said it was a guys-only thing?”

She barely nods.

I spread my fingers. “Welcome.”

“How long are you here for?” How long does she have until she has to figure out her problems?

“A week, but I’m sure you and I can stay here longer if we need.”

Her gaze wanders to the door. “That shouldn’t be necessary. I don’t want to be away from Grams that long.”

The muscles in my back tighten. “You’re going to have to make some big decisions. None of them should be made fast.”

She doesn’t respond and that pisses me off. Abby’s completely closed down—no emotion, no play in her, just a blank sheet. “What if I needed a ride back into town sooner than a week?”

I jerk to my feet, pulling the sleeping bag up with me and ball it up. “Are you going to consider an option that will save your life?”

She rubs at the wound on her head. “You heard Eric last night, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Then you know that no matter what I do, my life is forfeit.”

Anger rushes through me. “I didn’t hear that at all. Eric took you last night so you could make the choice to save your own life.”

“Eric could be lying,” she says in a deadpan tone.

“You think he is?” I push. “Because I don’t. I think you’re terrified to walk away from this life. I think you’re chicken.”

The first spark of life strikes Abby and it’s in the form of fury. “So let’s say I do choose to walk away—at what cost, Logan? I need the money and have you forgotten I’m trying to protect you?”

“If you walk, then I swear we’ll figure out the money. We pulled together five thousand dollars for Isaiah in a matter of weeks a few months back. If you rely on us, we’ll pull through for you.”

“I made a deal with Linus to protect you. I can’t walk from that.” Abby kneads her eyes. “None of this makes sense, Logan. None of it. If Ricky and Linus wanted me dead, I’d be dead. Linus is the one who found me, not the one who shot me. Even you know that, and if he ordered the hit, he could have finished me off.”

“Maybe he was going to. Maybe when I showed, he stopped.”

“He would have just shot you, too.” The cold hollow look in her eyes chills me from the inside out.

“Then maybe this Tommy was working alone. Tell me where to find him and I’ll confirm if it was him I saw come out of your alley. If it wasn’t, then we know Eric was lying.”

Abby rolls her neck as if she’s stiff. “And then what if Tommy is the shooter? Are you going to keep that information to yourself or are you going to the police?”

I stay silent, but I might as well tell her I’m on the feel-good side of the police. In less than three weeks I’ve held Abby as she bled and then untied her from the back of a car. My patience with this nonsense is gone.

“Ricky’s offering me a promotion,” Abby says. “You don’t offer promotions to people you just tried to kill. My world may be jacked up, but it’s not that insane.”

My mind’s trying to place all the pieces on the chessboard Abby’s in the middle of and I can’t seem to keep up. My hands have a slight shake and a hunger overtakes me. Odds are my blood sugar is low and I need to get sugar in me before I go hypoglycemic. Not what typically happens when I wake up, but it’s noon and I can’t remember the last time I ate. “Then you think Eric is lying.”

She meets my eyes and all I spot is exhaustion. “I don’t know. Tommy lied to me last night before Eric appeared. Wouldn’t be the first time people used the idea of taking someone out to gain position.”

A deadly calm comes over me. “So let’s start the loop all over again. You tell me where to find Tommy, and I’ll confirm if he’s the bastard that shot you.”

Her eyebrows rise and that damn I’m-smarter-than-everyone expression falls over her face. “So then I permit you to finger a guy who’s dangerous? Finger a trusted friend of Linus and Ricky? You think that will make you safe?”

“You think ignoring that someone you know shot you is safe, either?”

“I have responsibilities,” she seethes. “I have people I have to take care of. There are burdens that I carry that you can never understand.”

“That’s bull, Abby.”

Abby stands then, staring me down like I’m a soldier on the other side of the battlefield pointing a gun at her. It’s a dangerous expression. One that darkens her beautiful face, one that should scare the hell out of me, but damn me for only wanting to kiss her and by the way her eyes smolder, she’s thinking of kissing me, too.

“I can’t be you. I can’t go around and do whatever the fuck I want whenever the fuck I want to and have a whole bunch of other people take care of me. You don’t have a clue what it’s like to have responsibility. You don’t have a clue what it’s like to always know that every choice you make can mean the world crashing down around you.”

I do know what she’s talking about. I’ve lived with that type of responsibility since the moment a doctor told me I had type 1 diabetes. “Screw that, Abby. You don’t know shit about me.”

“You’re right, I don’t. Nobody knows you. You just walk around and stay silent and act insane and not one person knows you and in the end no one knows me. But the difference between us, Logan, is that your secrets won’t kill you. Your secrets won’t kill anyone. My secrets—they can hurt everyone I know and love. I’m seriously tired of having this conversation with you. I’m seriously tired of having to tell you in eight different languages that we are no longer friends.”

“You keep saying the words, but it’s me that keeps catching you when you fall and when you’re in my arms, I never feel you fighting.”

Abby presses her lips together in an annoyed way. “I am failing to, once again, see how any of my problems are your problems. I’m also failing to see why you can’t just listen and stay away.”

The out-of-control urge to shake her rips through my body. “Because I care for you. Because all of us care for you. You might be able to turn off your feelings for us, but we can’t turn off our feelings for you.” I pound my hand to my chest. “I can’t turn off my feelings for you!”

My chest rises and falls like I just rounded all three bases to make an infield home run and Abby appears just as flustered.

My secrets could definitely kill me just as much as a bullet to the head could kill Abby and that’s what’s frustrating about this. She can walk away from this life, but me...with having diabetes...I don’t have a choice.

The door to the cabin opens and the laughter that had been falling from the guys walking in dies. Abby and I keep staring at each other, both of us daring the other to look away. Her cheeks are red, so is her neck. She’s flushed with anger, flushed with embarrassment from the words I just admitted to her.

Isaiah walks out of the bathroom and he circles the room, avoiding walking between me and Abby and greets Noah first and then the other guys.

West lopes in like he always does, that overconfident stride with his hat on backwards and tosses an arm around Abby. “Rough night, Abby?