“Aw, have I been keeping you up at night?”
Tate cracked one eye open. “Logan?” He was about to tell him to shut up, but that was when the sound of his cell phone peeled through the room.
Tate knew that ringtone immediately. That was his mother—or his father, which would be worse. He didn’t move as he lay there, intent on the man lying beside him.
“You need to get that?” Logan asked, his expression now serious instead of the relaxed humor from seconds before.
They both knew that whoever was on the other end of that phone was going to change things.
So, instead of reaching for it, Tate scooted closer to his lover, laid his head on the same pillow, and told him, “I’ll call them back.”
“And then?” Logan asked, his body relaxed, but his eyes betraying his easy calm.
“And then…everything is going to change.”
Logan swallowed visibly and asked the question that Tate knew must have just about killed him, “Are you really ready for what’s about to happen here, with your parents?”
Tate raised his palm to stroke Logan’s jaw. As he leaned in and pressed their mouths together, he decided that now was the time. This was the moment where he asked again and hoped for a different outcome. It would either be the bravest thing he’d ever done or the most stupid. He looked directly into Logan’s eyes, and told him, “I always was. What about you—are you ready now to try?”
And patiently, Tate waited for the answer.
Read on for a glimpse of
Veiled Innocence
Spring 2014
And
TAKE
Logan & Tate’s story, will continue
Summer 2014
Veiled Innocence
by
Ella Frank
There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness. – Friedrich Nietzsche
You are free to choose, but you are not free from the consequence of your choice. – Anonymous
Prologue
Drifting out into the field, I am hit with a sense of familiarity. Every time, the dream is the same. It never changes, never deviates. Not even once—ever.
Clasping Daniel’s small hand in my own, I cautiously look down the path we will take, knowing this is the only way. Ahead of us, as far as the eye can see are miles and miles of fields, blanketed in flowers of the deepest of blues and purples.
The colors, vibrant and loud, call to me, beckoning me closer—though I know what fate they hold, I can’t change our course. We’re bound to this path, as I am forever bound by my decision that led us there.
Squeezing the warm fingers in my palm, I manage a small smile at the trusting face turned up to me. I know this dream. I don’t want to be here.
Turning my back on such trust, I desperately seek a way out—a way to escape the world we have been sucked back into, but I know it’s no use. We can never escape.
“You’re late again Addy.”
His voice is exactly as I remember—cheerful sweet, and a little high-pitched. Looking down, I find the same blue eyes I possess peering back at me.
“Dad is gonna flip out. You know how he gets.”
“Shh, we won’t be late,” I promise, pulling Daniel’s arm up so I can see his watch. As always, it has stopped at 3:17 p.m. “Damn it.”
“Oooo, you cussed.”
“Daniel…” I warn, knowing we have no time.
I can hear it as it’s chasing me.
Tick, tick, tock.
The watch I was given for my fifteenth birthday methodically keeps time as the second hand ticks around the face.
Tick, tick, tock.
I watch it. I hear it. I memorize it.
“Come on. If we hurry we’ll make it, we still have time.”
As I step forward, a breeze brushes my cheek, making the hair on my arms rise as though someone has stepped on my grave.
“No, Addy. I have no time,” he tells me, and tugs his hand from mine.
It only takes a second for our connection to be severe, and as I turn to him, I know he is right. His time has stopped. It’s not my grave that has been stepped on.
Before I can reach him, the flowers around us wilt, shrivel into the ground, and as he disappears, everything before me fades to black.
All I am left with is darkness, a car horn’s insistent blast, the counting of the crosswalk—and the ticking of a clock…
Present…
Tick, tick, tock—one. Tick, tick…
“Addison?”
Tock—two.
Pulled from one nightmare and thrust firmly into another, I try to focus on the balding man sitting across from me. Jesus, I knew he was boring but this was the first time he’d put me to sleep. I’ve known Doc ever since Daniel—well, for three years, and now he’s been brought here. To help me, save me—heal me.