TWIN PASSIONS: (A Logan Brothers Novel) (23 page)

I quickly walked forward and
grabbed the picture. It was me and Zack hugging outside of my
apartment on Saturday morning. It must have been Tara who Zack had
chased. She took a picture and they were going to make it look like
he'd stayed over, that we'd slept together. With the image of us
'kissing', who would believe that we'd done nothing at all?

I shook my head, throwing the
image back down onto the desk. “This doesn't mean anything. He
slept on the sofa, nothing happened. Nothing's going on between us.”
My words were growing more agitated now.

“
You bitch,” I continued,
turning again to Tara. “You know we didn't kiss. You were there,
you saw it. Nothing happened!”

Tara
shook her head and shrugged her shoulders. “I have no idea what
you're talking about honey,” she said. “I think the picture
speaks for itself.”

“
That's fucking bullshit Tara
and you know it.”

“
Come on Gemma, stop lying to
yourself. You've been lying so long you've begun to believe in your
own delusions. I know you went to school with Zack, I know how close
you two were back then.”

“
Don't look so shocked,” she
continued, seeing the look on my face. “It's what a real journalist
does honey. She goes and talks to people, gets information. I tracked
down a couple of girls from your old high school and they told me all
I needed to know. How you two were so close, how everyone thought you
were in a relationship. Something was going to happen...I just had to
wait for my opportunity to catch you out.”

“
BUT NOTHING IS HAPPENING!”
I shouted at her. “THERE'S NOTHING GOING ON YOU STUPID BITCH!”

She stayed calm. “Oh Gemma,
you really have fallen for your own lies.”

“
I'M NOT LYING!” I shouted
again.

As I did the door suddenly
opened and I turned to see Brenda's head popping through. “Is
everything all right in here Mrs Banks?” she asked.

Banks nodded. “Yes, it's all
OK. Just a few heated words, nothing to worry about Brenda. I'll buzz
if I need you, thank you.”

Brenda backed away again, slowly
shutting the door and leaving a silence in the room.

“
So what are you going to do,
make out that I've been cheating on Cade with Zack?” I fumed.

“
Yes,” said Banks, still
sitting calmly behind her desk. “It's just the sort of exciting
family drama that people love to sink their teeth into. As I say
Gemma, it's a shame you have to be embroiled in all of this, but it's
not an opportunity I can turn away from.”

Her words were almost tinged
with sorrow, as if she actually cared that the scandal would affect
my life. I knew she didn't. She was as callous as they came, a
vindictive witch, utterly devoid of empathy and compassion.

But I knew just how to level the
playing field. She'd get her comeuppance, I'd make sure of that.

I set my eyes on her, staring
her down. As I prepared to open my mouth again, however, my attention
was drawn back to the file on her desk.

A picture was hanging out of it:
the image of a man, his face bloodied, lying on the tarmac. I felt my
pulse begin to rise quickly as I walked forward, reaching towards the
desk.

“
What are you doing?” asked
Banks, but I didn't listen. I grabbed the file and pulled it towards
me. “There's no point,” I heard Tara say, “I have copies of
everything.”

But I wasn't interested in
taking the file or destroying the story. I was only interested in the
image that lay on top.

I slipped it out of the folder
and looked at it closely. The face, the wavy hair, the green eyes. It
was unmistakable. It was Zack.

“
What's this,” I said, my
voice quiet and shaky. I didn't look up but kept staring at the
picture. “What have you done?”

I could hear Tara scoff behind
me. “What have we done? We've done nothing. You can blame your
boyfriend for that. Or is that ex boyfriend?”

I quickly tipped the file upside
down, shaking all of the contents out. More pictures fell to the
desk, pictures of Cade and Zack brawling in the street, a crowd
encircling them.

“
Did you not know?”
questioned Banks. “It's been all over the news. People are
wondering why they were fighting, of course, but we know. Tara did
well to goad Cade into action, sending him the picture of you and Zack hugging outside your apartment. Now everyone's talking about
it, everyone wants to know the truth. When we release our exclusive,
they're going to be lining up down the street to find out.”

She was licking her lips was
anticipation, like a lioness over its downed prey.

The information was barely
registering with me. I only wanted to know one thing.

“
Is...is he OK? Zack...is he
all right?” My voice was beginning to grow in volume again.

I looked up at Banks, who was
now frowning. “How do you not know this? Have you not been watching
the news? He's in hospital, my dear girl, Denver Point....”

The rest of her words blurred
into the background. I didn't hear them. I just turned and ran
straight out of the room and rushed out of the building towards my
car.

Present Day

Zack

“
Zack...Zack...can you hear me
Zack.”

The voice was blurry in my head.

There were flashes of light now
streaming at my eyes as they flickered and cracked open. The world
beyond was hazy and muddled, the walls white and bare.

My senses began to return to me.
I could hear beeping, the sound growing louder. The voice came at me
again. It was a woman's voice, soft and homely. “Zack, can you hear
me Zack.”

My eyes opened wider, the sharp
light causing me to blink heavily. I could see the shape of a woman
leaning over me, looking straight into my eyes. She kept speaking,
uttering the same words over and over.

“
Where...where I am?” I
mumbled groggily. “What's going on?”

“
You're in hospital Zack.
You've had an accident.”

An accident?
My
mind was acting slow, trying to catch up. I shut my eyes again,
thoughts and memories slowly creeping back in.

Cade.

The fight.

I remembered him fighting me in
the street. My memory was cloudy, only giving me glimpses of what
happened. He hit me and I went down. My head hit the floor and
then....nothing.

I opened my eyes again, my
vision slowly returning. The woman above me was a nurse. I was in a
hospital bed, wires and tubes attached to my body. The beeping was
from some medical equipment next to the bed. A heart monitor maybe.

I saw movement out of the corner
of my eye. A figure stepped forward from a chair by the wall, moving
in close towards me and looking me straight in the eye.

“
You're going to be fine Zack.
We've been waiting for you to wake up, but you're going to be OK.”

I blinked as the man came into
view.

“
Crash...” I mumbled.
“Where's Cade?”

Crash shook his lead lightly.
“He's not here.”

“
Please Mr Logan, if you'll
just give me some room. I need to do a couple of tests and then Zack
here needs some rest. You can come back tomorrow morning.”

Crash didn't say anything. He
kept looking into my eyes, his face troubled, yet relieved. He
reached forward and grabbed me by the arm, squeezing tightly and
nodding.

“
It's
good to have you back Zack,” he said. “I'll be back early
tomorrow morning, OK.” His voice was reassuring.

I nodded, my head still
pounding.

“
OK Mr Logan, we'll see you
tomorrow.” The nurse moved Crash off towards the door. He kept his
eyes on me the entire time, looking back as he walked away.

“
He's a good brother,” the
nurse said, turning back towards me after shutting the door behind
him.

“
Why do you say that?” I
groaned, my voice wispy and cracked.

“
He's been here the entire
time. You were brought in early yesterday night. He stayed with you
all night and all today. It's nice that you have support like that.”

“
Has anyone else come?” I
croaked again.

“
There were two other young
men who came in, yes. I didn't get their names. Your brother told
them to go home not so long ago, told them he'd let them know when
you woke up.”

“
No one else? No girl?”

She had this consoling look in
her eye. “Just the three men, I'm afraid. Now please, I need to do
a few tests, just to make sure you're going to be OK.”

I nodded and shut my eyes again.
Cade hadn't come, I knew that. I remembered him walking away from me
as I lay slumped on the ground. He hadn't even looked back. I knew
now that I was dead to him, that he'd never forgive me.

And there was nothing I could do
about it.

I lay alone in the hospital room
early the next morning. I couldn't sleep, not with the dull ache in
my head, not with the turmoil raging inside it.

The light of the day was
beginning to seep in through the cracks to the side of the curtains.
It was a misty light, not bright but shallow and cold. It echoed my
feelings, my life now descending into a void. This – lying in
hospital, my head almost cracked open – was just the icing on the
fucked up cake that my life had become.

I hated hospitals, always had,
ever since I'd spent days by my mothers bedside as she battled with
death following her car accident. It was the worst time of my life,
seeing her slowly pass away in front of me, hoping that she'd wake
up, hoping that she'd recover. It was torture.

She'd lost that battle, of
course, eventually passing at 4.33 PM on a Sunday afternoon. We were
all there, waiting and hoping and praying. But none of it made any
difference. She died all the same.

The smell of the place had been
fused into me ever since: that horrible sour smell of disinfectant. I
hated it. I felt sorry for Crash, and the others, sitting there with
me, watching me lying there unconscious. It must have brought back
terrible memories for them, an echo of what had happened with our
mother.

The
thought that Crash had stayed all night, however, warmed me. Despite
what they thought I'd done, they'd come to watch over me. The nurse
had told me that I was never in serious danger, that they were simply
waiting for me to regain consciousness, and expected it to be within
a day or so. But Crash – he wanted to be there when I woke, a
friendly face among all of this shit.
Maybe they didn't all
hate me after all.

It was at about 9 AM in the
morning that Crash walked back through the door. He looked like he'd
hardly slept, his eyes deep and dark, but with a consoling edge to
them.

“
Morning Zack, how are you
feeling?” he asked. His voice was low and mournful.

“
OK,” I said with as much
chirpiness as I could muster. “Head aches a bit, but the nurse says
that'll pass in a couple of days.”

He walked in, dragging a chair
from the wall and placing it beside my bed. “Good, that's good,”
he said, sitting down gently.

He
looked at me, his eyes still low. I felt like he had something heavy
on his mind, something he wanted to tell me.

“
Zack, have you seen the news
at all?” he asked.

I shook my head, my eyes arching
down in a frown.

“
You and Cade have been all
over it. Your fight was caught on film by several onlookers and it's
gone viral. Everyone is wondering why you two were fighting.”

“
They can think what they
want,” I said bluntly. “Why should I care?”

Crash sighed deeply, wearily. “I
think it's best that you leave town for a little while Zack, until
all of this dies down. I don't want this sort of attention on the
family, on Cade. He's got a real shot now, and I want him focused on
that a hundred per cent.”

“
Leave? And go where?” I
asked quickly.

I thought about protesting my
innocence again but didn't have the energy for it. Frankly, I'd given
up caring. Maybe I should leave, turn my back on this whole fucking
mess.

“
I'll leave that up to you
Zack. Take some time away, do some traveling, I don't know. I just
want you to keep your head down and stay low for a while.”

“
But the club...I've got
responsibilities here.”

“
I've already taken care of
it.”

“
What do you mean?”

“
I've found a suitable
replacement to run the club in your absence.”

I shook my head, a little taken
aback by the abruptness of it all. I don't even know why I was
protesting. I'd grown sick of that club, sick of this place, sick of
everything. Maybe it would be better for me to just leave.

“
And that's it, just leave,
disappear?”