Logan

The cab ride home was quiet. Too quiet. Veronica, Parker, and Mac all seemed shaken by whatever it was they learned and didn't want to share it with us, in case the taxi driver overheard. So instead, we all sat in virtual silence on the long ride home. Veronica huddled next to me, holding on to my hand for dear life. Even though she didn't say much, I could see behind her eyes that she was thinking about whatever was said, either by Gory or the girl I saw bolt from the Women's bathroom before they came out.

When we got back to campus, one by one, we all dispersed to our homes. Parker and Mac hugged Veronica, murmuring to each other before we walked back to the dorm. As we trudged back, I hoped that once we were safely in our room, Veronica could confide in me the details of what happened.

As we enter the darkness of the room, I turn on the lights as she sheds her warm winter wear, tossing it onto the chair as she makes her way across the room to close the drapes over the blinds, shutting out the rest of the world completely.

I take off my boots and jacket but keep my eyes on her as she folds her arms over her chest and begins pacing the room, waiting for me before she starts her explanation.

"So, are you going to tell me now what you learned?" I ask, walking up to her, and she flinches, stepping away from my touch.

"Yes. But can you sit on the bed?" She hugs herself tighter, and I know something is going on in her head that I can't quite place. "I just need some space. I'm sorry."

Nodding, I step away, lowering myself obediently onto the edge of the bed.

"What's wrong, Veronica? What happened?"

With a heavy sigh, she shakes her head. "I was wrong about the group. So wrong."

"How were you wrong?"

Shivering, Veronica looks up at the ceiling and exhales loudly. "C.H.A.D. is not a front for some sex trafficking ring. I was wrong about that."

"Okay….but by the way, Gory was grabbing you, I would say you weren't wrong about everything. He's still the scum bag we had him pegged as before we even met him."

Disgust curls Veronica's lip as she lowers her eyes to the ground, still avoiding my gaze. "Yes, well, that's true. But it seems as though C.H.A.D. is a front for a good, old fashioned, racist terrorist group."

My mouth goes dry, my lips parting without finding the words to fill the space. This can't be right. Duncan couldn't really have gotten himself messed up in something this ludicrous.

"Wait…what?"

"Yep. You heard me right," she sighs and begins to pace the floor again. "The girl we were talking to in the bathroom was Susan Knight—you may remember her from school?"

Susan Knight. Pretty. Dark hair. Sat behind me in Natural Sciences for two years and giggled with her friends. That was my vague recollection of her.

"That's who that was? Sure, I remember her, a bit. I didn't realize she was going to school here. So what'd she say?"

"Well, it sounds like she's been involved with Gory for a while. Completely consensual, but still creepy and icky." She shivers again, but this time she looks like she may throw up at any moment. "She overheard him and some C.H.A.D. members talking about bombing some places in Chicago. But she didn't hear when or where."

Bombs. Not fake bombs like the bomb scare we experienced. She's talking real bombs by real people. As if we were still in the war. It takes me a second to process what she's saying and link it to everything else, but when I do, fear spreads through me, cold and unyielding.

"Oh my God, Veronica. We have to talk to someone with the Regional Security System. Tonight."

"We do, Logan. But not yet. Not tonight."

"Wait? What? Why not?" I stand, and she freezes, her eyes narrowing with conviction.

"We have to make sure that Duncan isn't part of it first, or they'll send him to prison."

"Veronica! Listen to yourself!" I hiss, walking up to her, and she stands straighter, puffing up her chest as if to make herself bigger in my presence. "If Duncan got himself mixed up with terrorists, then he's on his own. He deserves to be in prison."

"We don't know if he is, though!" she snaps back. "He deserves the benefit of the doubt."

"No, he doesn't!" My voice rises, and I check myself to make sure no one hears us arguing at this late hour in the dorm. "Veronica, while your loyalty to our friend is commendable, you cannot save him from his own foolish mistakes anymore. If he got himself mixed up in this, then he needs to suffer the consequences."

"Logan! We owe it to him. We owe it to Lilly. We're supposed to watch out for him…"

"Yes! And that's what we've done!" I drag my hands across my face and moan in frustration. "He is not a child! And neither are we. This isn't Duncan getting in trouble for drinking his father's beer. This is Duncan getting himself mixed up with terrorists! There's a difference between the two!"

"I know there's a difference!" Veronica spits back, her arms now flailing as she speaks. "I know there's a goddamn difference! But what if it were you or me making a mistake? I would hope that I had a friend good enough to help get me out before it was too late. We're all making mistakes in our lives, Logan. All of us. But we shouldn't have to lose our life because of it."

"Yes! Yes, we should! Because if I got myself mixed up with terrorists, I would want you to turn my sorry ass in before I killed someone." I poke myself in the forehead and lean toward her as she scowls at me. "Something is not right in Duncan's head right now. He needs help. The kind of help you and I can't give him. And the only way he's going to get that help is if we turn him in."

"Give me a chance to talk to him," Veronica states cooly, her arms crossing again.

"So you can do what? Get him to see the error of his ways?" I toss my hands up in the air and walk away, feeling the need to pace as well. "Because from where I was standing, that conversation you had with Gory went spectacularly."

Spinning around, I catch the look of horror that crosses her face, and I immediately know I went too far. For a split second, I think she's going to burst into tears, but she rights herself, choosing instead to curl her lip and snarl at me.

"Fuck you."

With that, she retreats, darting into the bathroom and slamming the door. My entire body is vibrating with anger again, and my fists ball at my side as I try to hold off punching something. This unwavering sense of loyalty she has towards Duncan is both admirable and annoying, and for a second, I wish that when Duncan didn't get matched with her, he just evaporated instead; disappeared in a puff of smoke. Or, at the very least, that Orwell would have the decency to send him to another college. But here we were, trying to figure out our lives together, and Duncan's as well.

To make matters worse, the image of Gory with his hands on Veronica makes me want to take a taxi back to the party and beat him within an inch of his life. There's a need for bloodshed in me right now that's so strong, I can almost taste it. The way he looked at her—like he would have taken her right there if he had the chance. The way he touched her like she was just an object to be manipulated as he saw fit—the complete and utter disregard he had for her that reminds me so much of my father. How my father objectifies my mother. The misogynist way he talks about the women around him on sets, smiling to their faces, but cutting behind their backs. The way he sees everyone as just puppets for him to manipulate and pull their strings. And when I saw Gory's hands all over Veronica, all I could see was my father's head, superimposed on Gory's body.

This is all too much right now. Too much to think about. Too much to decide.

Walking over to my dresser, I open the top drawer and dig around to find a pair of socks, balled up at the back. Pulling it out, I roll the one sock open to retrieve a small carton and lighter. Pushing back the top, I take out one spliff and put it to my lips. I can hear the water running in the shower, which means I have at least 15 minutes to calm myself down before the inevitable round two of this argument begins. As I ball my stash back in my sock and shove it in the drawer, I breathe in the sweet scent of the pot mixed with tobacco as it hangs off my lip. I bought the pack from the dispensary when Veronica and I weren't talking for a week. She never knew that the small hit of weed before I came home made her nights of silence that much more bearable. And the legal stuff was so much better than the illegal stuff I was used to before I turned of age.

Crossing the room, I pull on my boots, leaving the laces untied, and toss my jacket on over my shoulders. I had just enough time to go downstairs, take a few drags, and come back up. Hopefully, the shower will calm her as much as this will comfort me.

Veronica

The hottest shower cannot erase the feeling of Gory's hands on me. As I stand under the water, I close my eyes and try to erase the thought of him from my memory. No one's ever touched me like that before, at least not without my consent. Logan has left his share of bruises on me since we began having sex—round fingerprint marks on my skin that he later points out and we laugh about. But nothing like this. It makes me think that even though all our schools follow the same course of study across the country, that Gory was taught something very different away from school, in his home. It's something that I don't fully understand—how we can all learn precisely the same thing, but interpret it differently. Even with Logan and his problems at home with his father, he still seems to realize that Aaron was in the wrong, and what he should absorb and learn was that which was set out by our teachers.

My father once said that there will always be people who wished for the days before the war. No matter how hard we fought, it was the way things worked. A person's nature from birth was one thing, but how that human was treated throughout their life made as much of a difference as their DNA. Which was why Orwell judged us on our genetics and aptitudes. There was no way to separate the two. After all, there was a reason for everything.

The water starts to run cold, and so I turn off the taps, stepping out into the steam-filled room and grab a towel, wrapping it around myself. I still feel disgusting. It's hard to imagine that men used to handle women the way Gory touched me. That it was all right. That it was encouraged.

As my stomach twists at the thought, I open the door, releasing the steam into the chill of the room and hope that Logan has calmed down from our argument. The fact that we were arguing in the first place was ridiculous, and all I want to do now is get into warm clothes and go to sleep.

Stepping over to my dresser, I look around. I'm alone.

"Logan?"

For a second, I have the strangest feeling like he's going to jump out and scare me as if we're in junior high school again. But then I realize that his boots and jacket are gone.

"Must have gone for a walk," I murmur and reach into my drawers, pulling out a pair of sleep shorts.

Glancing around, I realize that his hoodie is over the back of his desk chair, and I close the drawer before padding across the room. I let the towel drop to the floor and grab the hoodie, pulling it over my head before stepping into my sleep shorts. My hair is still dripping wet, and I fling the hood over my head, using the fabric to dry my hair a little.

Walking over to the window, I pull back the curtains and peek through the blinds, trying to see if I can spot Logan on the sidewalk below. There are fresh footprints in the snow, but they could have been made by anyone. That's when I hear his key in the door, and I turn to greet him.

"Hey!"

His eyes look up at me and quickly look away. "Hey," he mutters back.

Fixing the curtains back to being closed, I start to walk towards him and suddenly stop, my nose wrinkling at the smell coming in with him from the hallway.

"Did…did a skunk follow you home?"

Pulling his hood off his head, he looks up at me, and that's when I see his glassy, bloodshot eyes. "Veronica…."

"Are you kidding me?" My hands go up in defence as I walk back away from him.

"I needed to calm down," he states in a monotone as he toes off his boots. "This was the fastest way I knew how."

I click my tongue on the roof of my mouth as I watch him slowly remove his jacket and drop it on mine. Now the room is not only moist from the steam from the bathroom, but it smells like weed too.

"You can't control your emotions like an adult?" I snip, crossing my arms over my chest.

Logan's lids are heavy, and he purses his lips as he shakes his head. "No. Sometimes I can't. 'Specially not when some guy is groping the woman I love."

I can't help the snort that rises from me as I roll my eyes. "You didn't have to defend me. I can take care of myself."

This time, he snorts and rolls his eyes, pulling his sweater over his head and tossing it towards the laundry hamper.

"Bullshit."

"What?"

A smart-ass smile spreads across his lips, and his eyes narrow as he points his index finger at me.

"Bull. Shit. I saw how afraid you were with Gory. And you had every right to be. If he's a terrorist, then you had no business being around him in the first place. You and this stupid idea to find out about C.H.A.D." He waves his fingers around dramatically and rolls his eyes.

"Don't give me shit! You wanted to find out what they were up to too!"

He mutters something incoherent and pulls his t-shirt over his head, dropping it to the floor, and I try and ignore how hot he is in just his black jeans and nothing else and focus on the fact that he's stoned and I'm angry.

"Then you should have let me and Wallace do it. Not you. You shouldn't have put yourself in that position, Veronica."

Rage shoots through me so hot and blinding that I feel like I could punch something or someone. "Are you saying that I should have let the men handle this, Logan? Are you saying I deserved what Gory did? Because that's what it sounds like."

"No!" he snaps back, but his words have lost their bite in the haze of the pot. Rubbing his face with his hands, he shakes his head and moans. "That's not what I meant at all."

"Then what did you mean? Tell me!" I step up to him, crossing my arms again, so I don't accidentally smack him when I talk with my hands.

"I mean that I don't want to lose you, okay?" As he removes his hands from his face, I realize his eyes are even glassier, with tears now, and my anger starts to subside. "It means that the thought that you almost got wrapped up in something with someone as terrible as Gory Sorokin, without me or anyone else really as back-up, terrifies me to my core because if he would touch you like that in front of people…" He takes in a shaky breath and the last of my anger disappears. "…then I don't even want to imagine what he would do to you if he got you alone."

Logan reaches out his hand to cradle my cheek, and I close my eyes, my hand reaching up to cover his as I savour his tenderness.

"I love you, Veronica," he continues, and I open my tired eyes to meet his. "But I know men like that. I could have been a man like that. Because that's the kind of man my father is. And I don't want to be that man, and I certainly don't want you around that man either."

I kiss his palm, and he steps up to me, wrapping his arms around my body and pulling me close. He smells of sweat and skunk, but he's also warm and calming, and I can't help but relax into his grasp. For a moment, we linger in each other's arms, forgetting that we were just fighting.

"You're pretty eloquent for someone who is higher than a kite," I murmur and kiss his pec before pressing my cheek to his skin.

"I'm actually not that high. Only smoked half to take the edge off of life." He pulls his hood off my hair and kisses the top of my head. "I'm sorry I am, though. Everything feels like we're in a cloud, and I shouldn't have done it. Not now."

"You're right about the cloud. I may have put the shower on too hot, and the steam filled up this room. So, it's not just the pot making you feel that way."

"Good to know." He kisses my head again, and I focus on the rhythm of his heartbeat next to my ear.

"Lilly once told me you used pot to sleep. Is that true?"

Logan sighs and shrugs, shifting his arms to hold me closer. "I used to. A lot. Helped me with my nightmares."

"But now…?"

"Funny thing—I don't have the same nightmares I did when I was at home."

"Oh."

I pull away and look up at him to find him staring down at me, a crooked grin on his face. His fingers brush my cheek, continuing around my ear and gently sweeping down the back of my wet hair.

"My only nightmare now, Veronica, is losing you. So tell me, how do we do this, while keeping you and me safe?"

"I think you and I talk to Duncan this week. See what he knows and give him the chance to play the hero and turn the group in himself." I suck in a slow breath, steadying myself before releasing it. "And if he doesn't, we go straight to the Regional Security Systems with what we know. Before anyone gets hurt."

"That sounds like a solid plan." He plants a kiss on my forehead before releasing me and walking away towards the kitchen.

Putting my hands up to my cheeks, I shake my head as I watch him start to open cupboard doors. "What are you doing?"

"Eating," he says and pulls out an open bag of chips from the top cupboard. "It's now one-in-the-morning, we've been to a party, we drank, we left, we argued, we made up, we may have saved the country from possible terrorists, and also, I'm stoned, so I really need to eat."

With a roll of my eyes, I head over and take a handful of chips from the bag as he grins. "You're really unbelievable, you know that?"

His grin disappears for a second as he frowns in question. "Good unbelievable, or bad unbelievable."

Pointing a rippled chip at him, I smile. "Good unbelievable. Now."

"I'll take that." Logan shrugs and pops a chip in his mouth. "How are you feeling otherwise?"

"Fine, I guess." I shrug, concentrating on the chips in my hand. "I mean, physically fine. But I still feel pretty icky about being touched by Gory." Another involuntary shudder runs through me, and I let out a groan of discontent.

"You get that I wanted to snap his hands right off his body, right?"

"Yes, I do. And trust me, if you saw how Gory pressed up against me, you would have wanted to snap other appendages off him too."

"I can still track him down and do that to him if you want?"

Chewing the last of the chips, my face scrunches as I try to keep from smiling. Swallowing, I shake my head. "That won't be necessary."

He nods and then tips his head back, raising the chip bag over his head and guiding the crumbs into his mouth. It's such a stupid sight to behold that I start to laugh, rolling my eyes at his antics.

"There seems to be a disconnect between how you're acting and what you're saying, Logan."

Pointing his finger at me, he smiles, dropping the empty bag on the counter. "That would be the pot really kicking in."

I walk up to him and wrap my arms around his waist, and he looks down at me with a wobbly grin. "Can you promise me that this is the last time you try and control your emotions with pot? I mean, I know that it's legal, and I get why you did it, but I would prefer talking to you."

His smile disappears as he wraps his arms around me and kisses my forehead. "I won't do it again. I promise."

"Good." I step back and start to walk towards the bed. "Now go, brush your teeth, and come to bed, skunky. Even though you reek, I need a good cuddle before we go to sleep."

Crawling under the covers, I watch him bow to me dramatically before heading toward the bathroom. "I think I can manage that. I'll be there in a minute."

When he closes the door, I sink under the blankets, turning my back to his side of the bed in anticipation of him climbing in behind me.

There's no denying that there are problems right now. And frankly, I'm too physically tired and emotionally exhausted to continue to be mad about him smoking pot during our argument. On some level, part of me is jealous that he has some means of escape from his brain, from his emotions. Part of me yearns for that—a way to break free of my own mind, if only for a little while. Because everything that's in my head seems like too much.

He steps out of the bathroom in only his tight grey boxer briefs, and a rush of warmth flows through me as he turns out the lights and makes his way through the dark. There's a bump and a swear, and I giggle as he blindly stumbles to our bed, breathing a sigh of relief as he crawls in next to me. His body slides into position, spooning mine, and just the feel of him next to me is the best drug, easing my mind with just a touch. When he nuzzles my hair, I wriggle against him, pulling his arm tightly around my waist.

"I love you, Veronica," he whispers close to my ear. "And all I want is to keep you safe. That's all."

"I know," I whisper back in the darkness. "I love you too, Logan."

"Even when I fuck things up?" he asks quietly, his heart beating hard against me.

"You didn't fuck things up. You just learned that maybe sometimes your old coping methods don't work anymore."

Logan's silent for a second before murmuring, "That's profound."

Snickering, I let out a deep sigh and a yawn. "Thanks. Now sleep it off so we can have post-argument make-up sex tomorrow."

I feel his breath on me as he yawns, and I close my eyes, ready to put this night behind us, for now.