A Flawed Alliance

Chapter 19- Address of Moral Inducement

I was going to turn away when Logan shifted his head in my direction. His body still hadn't completely turned around so I could still see the phoenix symbol, but just as his eyes registered it was me, he quickly looked away, embarrassed.

After a few seconds of silence, he turned his whole body toward me. Then, he was standing in front of me, his hair tousled and face glistening with sweat. His eyes were wide as almonds and his cheeks flushed with a rosy red.

His eyes never left my face, almost as if searching me, reading my reactions. There was a certain solemn distance between us, yet just him being stark naked in front of me and me not daring to leave had a sense of intimacy I could not describe.

"Did I come at a bad time?" I started, unmoving.

Logan scratched his head, suddenly nervous, his face as red as the blood on his back. "I don't know."

"Can I ask why you have a Phoenix Hunter symbol on your back? I thought you were a Phoenix Auxiliary." I began to walk toward him, closing the distance between us. I stopped at the edge of the pool and squatted down. His eyes followed me as our eye level shifted.

"It..happened..when I woke up. Just now." He tightened his lips.

"Are you okay?" I hesitantly asked. I had to remember he was bleeding, he was injured first before he was anything else.

He finally looked away and touched the back of his shoulder with a hand. "It's not too deep, I will be fine. I'm still confused, myself, how I got it."

"Strange," I whispered.

He ran a hand through his hair and then tipped his head toward me as if bowing, "Sorry, I should put something on."

He waded through the pool and picked up his buttoned white shirt on the curb, now wet from all the splashes. He hastily put it on himself, wincing through the pain. He fumbled through the buttons on his shirt as if pressured to put it on as fast as possible. Rather than looking suspicious, he looked rather embarrassed by the whole ordeal.

"I wonder what would have happened if Aaron had allowed me to lose that competition back at Center Assemblage," I muttered more to myself than to converse with Logan. "What does it mean to be a Phoenix Auxiliary? I don't know. How can I have expected you to be one if I myself can't understand."

He continued to button his shirt.

"I don't even know what to think anymore. What I want. All the things I hear and see are not making sense."

Logan had finished buttoning his shirt, letting loose the top button. He lifted himself out of the pool and I could see everything clearly. I did not turn my head, only watched as he pulled his pants up and snapped his belt around his waist. He made sure to slip his red beaded bracelet around his wrist.

I flourished my hands. "You could be a murderer for all I know. I barely know you and yet all I've done was trust you, Veronica, and Ace." I paused and hesitated. "Why have I never questioned that you'll be the one I see after I wake up from nightmares?"

He sighed, finally having the mentality to talk. "I could be all those. I could be none. I don't know how or what you think of me." The water droplets that dripped from his shirt seemed louder than his voice. "I am only one person out of many in your life, Iridian. One in passing, and maybe nothing more. I only hope that you will find completion with your goals as well as I find mine."

Sweet black coffee. Once consumed, it fills the body with relief, but just as it can be inviting, it can be bitter and cold. Logan had given me a bittersweet aftertaste. One I was repulsed by but continually craved.