Let's Go Home

Let's Go Home
Logan’s POV

I knew she would come today. That I will find her months after she escaped during Mariah's funeral. 
I squatted before her. I could see that guilt clawing at her soul as I stared straight into the toffee-brown pair of her eyes. Like a prism, they bared out her soul to me. When would she ever stop blaming herself for Mariah’s death?
I clenched my teeth hard against themselves until my jaw ached. When? 
Her gaze held mine. Her lips parted for a moment. They closed shut after, as she hesitated to speak. She swallowed instead. I followed the smooth column of her throat.
“Let's go home, Rachel.” I said to her. I leaned my hand out.
She stared down at it. Then back to my face. “I am sorry, Logan. But I can't come with you.”
I leaned my face forward to her—slow and deliberate. I made sure her eyes were fully centered on mine. I stopped just an inch before her so that she had nothing else to stare at but me. Her eyes stretched wider on her head as they focused on mine. 
“Let's go home, Rachel.” I repeated.
She suddenly snapped her eyes shut, turning her head away from me, still seated on the grass. Behind us, the commencement went on uninterrupted—the easy voice of the speaker extending to us by the warm afternoon air.
“I can't leave with you, Logan. Seduce me all you want, but I won't leave with you. It would always end badly for us, Logan. Just like Mom, Briella, and Cole, someone else would die,” she said. Her eyes still shut.
I pulled back my head, resuming my original squat. “I don't know about that, but I know someone else would die if you don't return soon.” I whispered, my voice low. 
She snapped her eyes open. “You.” She asked, her lips almost twisted in a scoff.
“No,” I shook my head, forcing a grin. “I won't be wallowing in my bedroom asking for death. I would have been hunting you down and would have brought you back before then.”
Her eyes stretched wider, almost like ‘O’s on her head. “Draco!” she screamed. “Is he okay?” Her eyes narrowed on me, as if she wanted to beat out the answer from my eyes.
“Did you expect him to be?” I answered, rising to my feet.
She rose fast to her feet too. She grabbed my sleeves, her fingers folding on my arm—tight. “Is he okay, Logan?” Tell me he is.”
“He isn't,” I almost snapped at her. My fingers folded beside me as I forced myself to not yell at her. I wanted to hate her for all she had done. But I loved her so much I couldn't. Seven months, she’d disappeared. Seven months of torture for me—I didn't just lose her. I lost my brother too.
“He isn't fine,” I repeated, gritting my teeth to keep back my anger. “How do you expect him to?” He lost Mariah, and then you. You vanished into thin air without a trace. He is the strongest man I know, but he is also the weakest at heart. His condition came back harder than before after you left. Barely two months after he couldn’t find you, his mind crumbled under the accumulated grief.”
Her fingers slid off my arm slowly, and her certificate flew from her hand. She drew back from me, her legs moving so slowly, like they weren't exactly part of her.
Every muscle of her face pulled tight to the other—tight with pain.
She bowed into herself for a moment. She raised her head high again to me. “Let's go, Logan. Let's go home.” She forced me a smile. Her lips stretched too wide. I believed they must hurt.
For the first time in a while, my lips stretched in a smile that came straight from my soul. “Thank you very much, Rachel.” I had planned to bring her with me, by whatever means necessary. But the fact that she came willingly, I just couldn't be happier.
I bent low and snatched her award certificate and letter from the floor. Then I drew closer to her and scooped her into my arms.
Her eyes were wide as they roamed my face. “I agreed to come, but not this way.” She said, almost scolding me, her voice sharp. “We would have to walk through my colleagues. They'll see you carrying me like a bride.”
“I want them to,” I answered.
She bit down on her lips, her legs twitched around me, as if to struggle. Her eyes lingered on me for a moment. Suddenly, she sighed and quieted in my arm.
“Walk past the areas with the lesser crowd,” she said. She pulled her gown up from the side. She draped it over her face and relaxed into my arms.
I just laughed as I carried her through the crowd to the car.
I turned to her just as I started the engine and steered the car into the road.
“How were you able to evade us all these months that we couldn't find you? Who helped you evade us?” I asked, my brow angled for an answer. There was no way she could have evaded us all those months all by herself.
She sighed softly and reclined a little on her seat. “I am afraid I can't tell you that. I swore to the person not to,” she answered quietly.
I glanced from the road to her again. My lips moved. But I threw my gaze back to the road. I know just how to get the answer out of her.
I steered the car down the driveway nearly an hour later. Beyond me, through the windscreen, I watched the maids dropping out of the mansion, filling up the porch. My eyes narrowed on their uniformed body. How in the world did they even find out Rachel was coming?
The instant we dropped down the car. The maids ran down the stone stairs and swarmed Rachel.
They whispered to her, their voices hushed as they dragged her in, their faces alight with excitement. Draco has been hell for them for months. They practically carried Rachel in like she was their Messiah.
I turned as tyres scratched the stones behind me. Adrian sat in the passenger seat beside the driver, leading his men back after I had called him to pull back his men from the college field.
My eyes tightened into a slight frown as the car drove up towards mine. He must have been the one who telephoned the maids that Rachel was coming.
Since he’d gotten out of prison some months ago on parole, I’d caught him snooping around the kitchen, around one of the maids—Sofia.
Like he knew his crime, he bowed his head away in the car, from me, just as the driver steered the car to the garage.
I grunted, and I turned, running after the maids and Rachel. I wanted it to be a surprise to Draco. I don't want him running down the stairs like a madman.
The maids departed Rachel as she neared Draco's quarters. I strode past them just as Rachel pushed the door and stepped into the room.
Draco was before one of the numerous paintings of her that he’d had hung in his room. The walls of the room were filled with them. His eyes fastened dreamily on the painting.
Since neither of us had a picture of her, he'd had various artists draw her up for him while he described her to them. He'd have had many more paintings if I hadn't stopped bringing in artists after he'd nearly beaten one to a pulp.
His nightrobe, tattered and dirty from weeks of being unwashed, hung loose around his shoulders as they almost slipped from his body. His hair was a typical definition of a mess—almost every strand stood away from the others. 
He didn't turn back, not even as we walked in. Not even with the loud patters our footsteps made against the tiles.
Rachel walked slowly to him, her feet dragging on the tiles. Her whole body quivering.
She stopped just a foot behind him. Her arm still trembling as she raised it to his shoulder and pulled him to her.
He spun around to her, lunging for her neck as he always does to anyone who disturbs him.
I sprinted forward to stop him. I froze at a point when his fingers paused an inch from her neck.
She had shut her eyes, awaiting his fingers on her neck. She opened them, and tears rolled down her cheeks.
Draco’s face brightened, abandoning its previous gloom. His jaw, overcrowded with so much beard than a sheep has wool, slackened. “Rachel,” he screamed. His arm fell back to his sides. He peered forward at her. His gaze moved over her face, her neck, and her gown, as if unsure she could be the one before him.
“Yes, it’s me, Rachel, Draco,” she answered, her voice tight.
He peered right at her once more. “Rachel!” He screamed again, louder this time. He’d almost torn down the whole room.
“Yes, it's me, Draco,” she answered. Her voice tighter. She squeezed her eyes shut tighter. When she opened them again, the tears came down heavier.
Draco's hands moved to her cheeks then. He cleaned off her tears with his thumb, and in one quick pull, he dragged her into his big body, pressing her against his body.
“Please stay, Rachel. Please stay this time.” He begged, his tone serious—anxious, as if she was slipping off of him already.
“I will, Draco. I will,” she answered.
I almost smiled at the sight. Then I frowned. That odor, almost like a rotting corpse, stung my nostrils now—harder. Fucking hell. My eyes widened on them. I ran fast to separate them. It's been months since Draco had his fucking bath.