Hi everyone! I'm still alive, I still exist, I promise! Longer author's note at the bottom, but a quick recap:
The Russo siblings are living in witness protection. Elijah is in prison for apparently murdering their marshal, John Hendricks. Blake is living with his roommate Andy. Logan is living with Olivia. The Sons of Solomon found Logan and Olivia at a grocery store and they managed to escape, but WITSEC said they could do nothing because they had no proof. Logan asked Elijah for help and Elijah gave him an address, Logan went to said address which was a bar, he was slipped drugs by someone, and magically made it home. Everyone was in the hospital because Logan was passed out. Logan and Blake went back to the bar to try to figure out who roofied him, and Blake did a sketch of a guy Logan kinda remembers, which is now up on their fridge.
OLIVIA
"Who's this a picture of?"
Olivia held Blake's pencil drawing in two fingers gently, admiring his quick yet precise strokes, the carefulness with which he had drawn the man's eyes. The picture was taped up on their refrigerator with two jagged pieces of tape on the top left corner and the bottom right.
Logan glanced at her as he tried to spread his toast with cold, clumpy butter. He licked a smear of butter off the butterknife handle, frowned, and wiped it on the edge of his shirt. "I don't know. Some guy at the bar where I was."
"Like - you actually don't know?"
"Yes, Olivia, I actually don't know," Logan said impatiently. He put his toast in his mouth and handed Olivia's lunch bag to her and busied himself with putting his own in his bag.
"So there's just a random sketch of some random man on our fridge?"
"That is really not my biggest problem at the moment," Logan mumbled around a mouth full of toast. "Hold this." He hooked his water bottle and wallet onto her fingers and turned to get his backpack. Olivia glanced down the hall into his room.
"Where's Blake?"
Logan took her by the shoulders and steered her towards the door. "I took him to the train station this morning already. He's going to take the west line back to his apartment. Now stop asking questions and start walking! We're going to be late!"
"I can walk and ask questions!"
"Well, I can't walk and answer them!"
*****
During Ms. Mayhew's class, Olivia sat in the hallway with Angel, trying to copy his homework for her next class as fast as possible. Since she'd been in the hospital with Logan, Blake, and Andy all weekend, she hadn't done her homework and she hadn't remembered to ask Logan to write her a note or make a phone call to convince her teachers to let her get some sort of extension.
Angel sat against the wall opposite her in the hallway, his long legs stretched out in front of him, playing a video game on his phone, quiet noises of gunfire and hacking punctuating the quiet hallway. Olivia was grateful for the background noise in the silence.
Every time she had a moment to think by herself, her thoughts would inevitably stray back to two nights before, when Logan ended up outside the apartment door with no explanation.
And who on earth had rung the doorbell? That was what kept her up half of last night. It gave her shivers just thinking about a complete stranger ringing the doorbell and leaving Logan there on the floor in some twisted version of ding dong ditch.
There was a nudge against her foot and she glanced at Angel, who was gently prodding her shoe with his. She shook off the crawling feeling inching its way up her spine. "What?" she asked.
"You alright?"
"Fine."
"You've been staring off into nothingness for like five minutes."
Instead of replying, she said, "You've got a lot of mistakes in your homework."
"Damn, really?" Angel pushed himself off the wall and scooted on his butt, shoes squeaking on the polished tiles, until he was next to her. His warm breath blew her hair across her collarbone as he leaned down to look at where she was pointing.
"This one, this one, and this whole section."
He sighed and put his homework flat on the floor and began erasing the offending problems. "Did you do them? Can I see?"
Olivia handed her sheet to him and leaned back as she watched him scribble the right answers onto his now-worn sheet. "What about you?" she asked. "You always do your math right. And you look like you haven't slept."
"Is my beautiful face that bad today?"
"Your shirt hasn't been ironed either."
He looked down at it and pulled it away from his stomach, examining a large sideways crease. "The tag says wrinkle-resistant."
"Resistant doesn't mean non-existent."
Angel exhaled slowly and rubbed his nose. The dark circles under his eyes were very prominent. His bottom eyelids were slightly puffy and tinged red.
"I've just been worried about my brother," he admitted.
"You too?"
"You're worried about yours?"
"Yes. But what about yours? His dangerous job?"
For a while, Angel was quiet, the only sounds coming from his pencil scratching swiftly across the paper. Olivia didn't say anything, even though she was really curious now. What kind of job did he have?
"Sometimes, he works overnight and sometimes I don't see him for a while. And I know he has to but....I don't know. I just wish he didn't. It's stupid. I wish he'd just stop this all."
"So if it's just you and your brother and he works at night, then you're just home by yourself?"
Angel glanced up at her and the corners of his mouth curved upwards. "Yup. It's just like Home Alone. You know, junk food, movies, no bedtime. But without all the creepy robbers."
"Sounds like you're living the life," Olivia said dryly.
"I certainly am. I could have a party at my house like you see in the movies with all the drinks and dancing. Except I don't know where I could get any alcohol. And we just have an apartment."
"I'm sure you could fit a dozen people in there if they all stood toe to toe," Olivia suggested, and Angel laughed.
"I don't even like a dozen people. I'd probably only ask you and my cousin who lives an hour away and maybe Jeremy from twelfth grade. I've heard he's got a fake ID."
Olivia pulled her lips into her mouth to hide her smile and looked away towards the window. Maybe one day she'd be normal enough to go to something as mundane as a high school party. She wanted to know what it was like to worry about what to wear and forget about life's worries for a few hours and dance with too-loud music vibrating against her eardrums.
Then her mood sobered up a bit. "Still, it can't be all great being home alone without anybody there. Do you ever get scared by yourself?"
Angel kept his eyes on his paper and rubbed the back of his neck. "...sometimes." He laughed sheepishly. "Sometimes I have to sleep with the lights on."
Olivia knew what that was like. She'd done it for weeks before and after the trial before Elijah had forced her to start using a nightlight to keep down their electricity bill. "I would do that too," she said.
"Right? It's freaking creepy without anyone there. Every sound is like someone trying to break in." Angel handed her homework back to her. "And you? Your brother's giving you trouble?"
Olivia shrugged. Her problems seemed way less now compared to Angel, who had to live alone, waiting in a dark apartment all by himself. Olivia always had Logan, no matter what his mood was like. He would never leave her alone.
"It must be something," Angel said. "You're pretty upset over it."
"It's okay. He's okay now." She tapped his pants pocket. "Will you give me a turn on your game?"
As he hesitantly slid his phone from his pocket he asked, "You sure you don't want to talk about anything else?"
"No, I'm fine. Really."
"Well. If you ever want to. I've heard I'm not too shitty of a listener."
Olivia took Angel's phone and put it against her knees. She really did want to talk to someone - anyone - about it. She'd been scared to death over the weekend and she couldn't tell anyone about it and she couldn't believe she just had to keep acting normal in school like it had been any other weekend when Logan had almost died from a drug overdose.
But Logan was impossible to talk to and she was still mad at Blake and she couldn't very well bother Andy.
She looked ahead at Angel's worn out sneakers. The plastic aglets were missing from both laces on his right shoe and the soles were encrusted with mud. Most of the kids at their private school were from wealthy families and always had shiny new things. She and Angel were some of the rare exceptions.
What did that mean? That someone had planted him there so he was supposed to be like her so she felt comfortable with him but was really working for someone else? Or that he was just another average student and she could trust him?
She clenched her skirt in her hands and said hesitantly, "Someone roofied my brother over the weekend."
Angel's eyes widened. "Holy shit! Really?"
If Angel was working for someone, he was one hell of an actor. Olivia nodded. "Yeah. I was kinda scared because he fainted and then threw up."
"Is he okay now?"
"Yeah, he's fine. I called my other brother and his roommate and we were all at the hospital."
"Then did they catch the person?"
Olivia shrugged. "My brother who likes to draw tried to draw some sketch of the person Logan remembered from that night, but...I don't know. He doesn't really remember much."
"Damn." Angel dragged a hand back through his hair and leaned his head back against the wall. "And I thought I had a shitty weekend."
"It's not a contest."
"But if it was, you would win. What about your parents? They must be really worried too."
Olivia frowned and for a moment she was lost. Then she remembered the lie she'd told Angel about her parents being alive and well and living with her.
"Right. Yes. They were. With us at the ER."
Angel raised an eyebrow at her. "Right..." he said dubiously.
"Right," Olivia repeated, and before he could confront her about her very obvious lie, she took his hand and pressed his finger down on the Touch ID so the screen unlocked to reveal a shooting first person player video game app.
"So...how do I play this game?"
*****
"Are we here to tell him what happened?" Olivia asked Logan when he parked the motorcycle outside the prison where Elijah was being held. Logan had told her that morning they would be visiting him, but that had been the end of the conversation. Now, Olivia was wondering why Logan had decided to follow through with that decision.
"I don't know," was all he offered.
Olivia frowned. "Well, is it supposed to be a secret?"
"I don't know!"
"Then how am I supposed to know if I should say something or not to him?" Olivia's voice was getting louder and louder. Logan wasn't talking much and she hated his repeated I don't know. How was she supposed to act if she didn't know what he wanted?
"I don't know! I'm still figuring it out so be quiet for three fucking seconds so I can fucking think! God. Take your backpack." He shoved it at her and pressed his thumb and forefinger into his eyeball sockets.
Olivia pulled her uniform shirt away from her chest a few times, trying to blow in some cool air, but it only ended up pushing more muggy air underneath her clothes. She wiped the back of her neck with her sleeve. She tried not to fidget so much so she wouldn't annoy Logan even more but she was melting. He had all day to decide this. Why then, were they standing like idiots in the parking lot with the sun beating down on them?
Olivia closed her eyes. She shouldn't be complaining. She was just glad to see Elijah after the terrible weekend. She had wanted Elijah so badly these past two days that it made her insides hurt. She couldn't wait to see him.
"Alright, come on," Logan sighed, shoving the keys in his pocket. "Let's go."
"So, are we-"
"I don't fucking know and don't ask me again. I'm figuring it out."
But Logan still didn't have an answer after the half dozen security lines and checkpoints. He didn't know when they were led into the waiting room and Olivia's eyes immediately gravitated to the man sitting by himself at the back corner. And Olivia was sure he didn't know after they had greeted each other and sat down.
Logan's face was tight, the muscles around his mouth so stiff she was sure when he let them go he would have permanent wrinkles. She felt like she should hold his hand with how nervous he was, but she made herself keep her hands in her lap. He would not take too kindly to holding his little sister's hand in this steel-colored visiting room.
"Um," she said when Elijah started looking too intently at Logan's face. "So..."
"So," Elijah acquiesced, turning his gaze to Olivia. "What's been up?"
Olivia blanked. Elijah's dark eyes made her feel anxious, like he could read the answers right off her lips. She couldn't think of anything besides being at the hospital, desperately hoping Logan would wake up. She couldn't remember doing anything else all week, any day, any time. The thought consumed her.
She forced herself to look at Elijah even though it made her skin crawl with lies. If she looked at Logan, she would break down and tell Elijah everything.
"Um, so - I -" Her voice teetered on the edge of found Logan almost dead and then disappeared. She cleared her throat. "So I...met Andy. Blake's roommate."
Elijah raised an eyebrow. "Yeah? Did you go to Blake's apartment?"
"No, he - came over."
"That was nice of him. How's Andy?"
"He's nice," Olivia said briefly, trying to come up with something to say. She always told Elijah stories, but she couldn't make up something too elaborate on the spot. She decided to forego the lies. "Blake stayed the night."
"I bet he was glad to be back home."
"...yeah...."
There was an awkward silence. Olivia clutched her skirt under the table and wondered if Elijah's x-ray vision applied to wooden prison tables as well. Could he see her nervous, white fingers?
"Er..."
"Okay, stop. Just stop."
Olivia froze at Logan's voice. Her blood turned to needles in her veins. She stared down at Logan's legs but she couldn't tell from his knees whether he was angry or not.
Logan leaned forward and put his elbows on the table and put his head in his hands. "Olivia," he groaned. "It's like you've never lied in your life, which is stupid, because I know you have."
Olivia's cheeks flushed from embarrassment. She dropped the painful facade. "You didn't even give me any warning!" she protested. "You can't be mad!"
"I'm not mad, I'm just cringing so hard I literally can't stand it."
"You don't have to be so mean!"
"What on earth are you two talking about?" Elijah cut in, his voice slightly anxious, slightly annoyed. "What are you supposed to be lying about?"
"Logan wouldn't even give me an answer about whether I had to be lying or not!"
Elijah frowned. "Olivia, I'm pretty sure that's not the point I'm making."
Olivia crossed her arms over her chest. "Well, that's the point I'm making. Just so you know. I can lie."
"Okay, okay, we get it. You want to be a liar," Logan snapped. "Now can you please shut up and let me talk?"
"Why do you always have to-"
"I don't always do the things you accuse me of-"
"Will both of you quit fighting and tell me what the hell happened that neither of you want to talk to me about?"
Now Elijah was not annoyed. He was angry.
When Logan said nothing, Olivia looked at the white tiles on the floor and said, "Um, so everything is fine now. So it's all fine. But we were....in the hospital Saturday night and Sunday."
Elijah's voice shot up five octaves. "In...the hospital?"
Olivia waved her hands frantically in his face. "Um, but it was Logan, and look, he's fine now and everything is fine. Look at him, he's completely fine."
Logan glared at her.
"I've never told anyone bad news before!" Olivia said defensively.
Elijah was shaking. His voice was a wreck, like he was trying to keep it steady and majorly failing. "Logan, was it something about-"
"No," Logan said. "It wasn't that. I didn't - it wasn't."
Olivia glanced between them. What, she tried to ask, but Logan was already going on.
"I went to the place you told me about and some guy put something in my soda. I don't know who it was but apparently I somehow made it home and then Olivia called the ambulance. Blake and Andy came. The end."
Elijah's face drained of color. His lips formed words but no sound came out.
"I'm fine!" Logan insisted into the eerie silence.
Olivia grimaced and waited for the entire world and everyone's sanity to blow into teeny, tiny pieces.
"F-fine?" Elijah squeaked out.
Olivia had never heard Elijah squeak.
This was bad.
Logan held out his arms straight over the table. "Fine," he repeated. "See?" He flipped his hands over, palms up. "All in one piece. All in working order."
Elijah grasped Logan's arms so suddenly he jumped, but he reluctantly held still while Elijah clutched first his elbows, then his biceps, then moved around the table to hold his face in his hands. Logan squirmed.
"Elijah, stop feeling me up like a ninety-year-old grandma-"
"This is my fault."
"Okay, no, we're not doing this bullshit-"
"I'm sorry," he whispered.
"Quit it, Elijah," Logan said more tersely, his voice getting more panicked as Elijah's hands moved down to his shoulders to make sure everything was really all together as Logan claimed. "I won't take these apologies for something you didn't do."
Elijah ignored him. Apparently satisfied that all of Logan's limbs were attached, he pulled him into a rib-crushing hug, Logan's chin squished against his shoulder. "I'm sorry-" he repeated.
"I don't want to hear any more of these stupid apologies," Logan protested, trying to pull away, eyeing the guard behind Elijah that was frowning at them. "Let go, the guards are getting mad-"
"Fuck them," Elijah said. "Did someone hurt you? What did the doctors say?"
"Get off me and I'll tell you!"
"Separate," came the order.
But Elijah didn't seem to hear. He held on tighter, shoulders shaking.
Logan pushed his hands against Elijah's chest and wriggled his head out of his grasp. "Elijah, let go," Logan hissed. "Seriously, they're going to come and hurt you! Let go of me, I'm fine!"
Eventually, the clicking of the guard's boots across the slick tiles brought Elijah back to the present. He slowly released Logan just before the guard reached them.
"S-sorry," he whispered, eyes downcast. Olivia could hardly look at him herself, her strong, bold brother reduced to a trembling, desperate prisoner.
"Nothing is your fault and if you say that one more time, I will be really mad at you. Okay?"
"I didn't mean for you to get hurt," Elijah said in a quiet, muted voice.
"I know. I'm the one that begged you to tell me something. So stop freaking out. Everything is fine. I'm here, okay? I just wanted to tell you because I said I wouldn't keep secrets. Because we said we wouldn't keep secrets."
There was a terse silence. Olivia wanted to cry. Before she came to live with her brothers, when she was an only child, she always imagined having a sibling was like having a friend, a built-in partner in crime for everything, someone to do things with.
She didn't realize until she lived with her brothers that this was also part of being a family - being angry when they did something that didn't make sense, being annoyed when they wouldn't listen, being quiet when they were angry until they cooled off.
"Um, the doctor said he just needed to drink water and he's fine and Blake answered all her questions for Logan," Olivia ventured into the silence. "She said it was nothing serious. It was only a little. She said he didn't even need to go to the hospital. I only did that because I was confused. Promise."
The lines in Elijah's forehead eased a little. "She said that?"
"Yes. That's exactly what she said."
The tense atmosphere began to dissipate and Olivia breathed easier.
Disaster averted.
She turned the conversation to asking Elijah about what he'd been up to since they'd last seen him. She told him Logan got an A on his chemistry test and that she'd gotten a B on her math test and Angel had gotten 100% even though he never paid any attention in class. Elijah gave terse, one-word replies until her stories warmed him back up and by the end he'd even managed to crack a smile for them.
Finally, the guard in front of them cleared her throat and tapped her watch with two fingers.
"Olivia, wait by the door. I'm coming after I talk to Elijah," Logan said like last time.
And when Olivia gave Elijah a hug goodbye, she made sure to hug him as tight as she could because she knew Logan wasn't going to do it and whispered into his jumpsuit, "It's fine."
When they left, Logan was rubbing his eyes tiredly and massaging his temples. He breathed in deep as they exited the building into the hot air outside. Even Olivia welcomed the muggy heat compared to the chilly atmosphere inside of the prison.
"So I guess you can lie, can't you?"
Logan turned around and gave her a look that was close to an almost-smile, and even though they had lied to Elijah despite Logan's promise that they wouldn't, and even though she had to see Elijah almost cry, all of her stress faded into the background for a moment, and she felt a grin on her face for no reason other than that her brother was just an arm's length away from happy.
He sloppily patted her head, as if he was still scared of physical contact but still wanted to tell her good job for calming Elijah down, and Olivia laughed.
She loved him.
"I guess I can," she said, smiling back at him.
Sorry for ghosting you all! Life has been a lot these past few months. I'm a college student so I have to be an adult and get into grad school and all and things have been everywhere but I'm trying to go back to doing things I like so I can have some sanity.
I tried writing this chapter so many times and had to rewrite it four times and I still feel not great about it but it's seriously time to move on to the next one.
I don't even know if I have any of my original readers anymore but if you're here, hello and thanks for reading again, you guys are my favorite <3 thanks for checking in with me and I saw your messages when I logged in every few months and I will try my best to reply when I have time.
Hope you all are well :)
For next time: Elijah discovers Jimmy Peters' secret