The Mindf*ck Series

Chapter 1

𝘞𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘳𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘥 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘸𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘦.
- 𝘝𝘰𝘭𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘳𝘦

𝗟𝗢𝗚𝗔𝗡

Hadley jumps when I sling open the door to her room. She jerks out her earbuds, clutching her chest with her free hand.

"Cheese and rice, you lunatic. Don't scare someone like that when there's a serial killer literally in our backyard."

"Or living just a few cabins down, right?" I ask dryly, though there's an edge to my tone that has her entire body stiffening.

She doesn't even have to say the words, but I want to hear them.

"You knew?" I ask her quietly, my tone full of disbelief and heartbreak.

Everything hurts right now, even as I fight off the onslaught of emotions. In this unit, you train against showing emotion at all costs. I've never found that to be harder to do than today.

Her lips move for several seconds before words actually start coming out.

"Logan, I'm sorry, but-"

"You knew!" I shout with accusation, as my fist slams into the wall, and my entire body heaves for a breath of air that doesn't feel lined with lead.

"Logan!" she yells, but I turn around and face her, slowly regaining my calm. "Listen. It was complicated, and she-"

"We're done, Hadley. You and me. I'm fucking done with you," I say on a broken promise.

Tears immediately spring from her eyes.

"Are you serious?" She has the nerve to ask that with incredulity in her tone.

"Yeah. I can't be friends with someone who could watch me fall in love with someone like that and 𝘯𝘰𝘵 tell me the truth."

Her eyes narrow, and her lips tremble. "Someone like 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵? Someone who would kill or die to keep you safe? Someone who loved you so much that she almost gave up her revenge?"

"Her revenge?" I ask bitterly, shaking my head as I turn and stalk away. "It's not 𝘩𝘦𝘳 fucking revenge!"

I slam the door behind me, and stalk next door to where Leonard almost falls off the chair when I burst in. "Shit! Easy, man. I'm trying to find some more info on Ken-"

His words die when he sees my face. "Oh shit," he says on an exhale.

"Yeah," I say, dropping to a chair and grabbing the bottle of whiskey he has hanging out of his go-bag. "She admitted it."

"She what?" he asks, shocked.

"She basically admitted it. I couldn't stick around for a full confession."

"Where the hell is she?"

I run my sleeve over my eyes, then turn up the bottle.

"Cuffed to my bed," I say when I lower the bottle.

His eyes grow wider.

"I have no idea what to do right this second. She's fucked my head up so much that I can't bear turning her over to anyone in this town or the FBI. But I know I have to do something. Since I don't know what, I cuffed her in place."

It's a terrible fucking way to stall, but it's the only solution I currently have.

He scrubs his face before shoving a file at me.