Chapter 27: Where is my mind
The alarm on Maya’s phone was a war crime. A cheerful, synthetic chime that felt like glass in her teeth. She slammed her palm on the screen, silencing it, and lay in the gray dawn, staring at the water stain on her ceiling that looked like a spreading bruise.
Her body felt like it was made of wet cement. Every muscle ached with a deep, psychic fatigue. She’d slept, but it was the kind of sleep you drown in, full of twisting vines and the smell of burnt fertilizer.
The routine was a ghost haunting her. Shower. Dress. The whimsical goth clothes—a lace-trimmed black top, a skirt with moth patterns—felt like a costume now, something a younger, more naive version of herself would wear. She put them on anyway. Armor of a different kind.
The medical practice was in a brownstone in the Cobblepot district, a veneer of old-world charm painted over crumbling brick. The walk there was a slideshow of familiar decay she no longer found romantic. A crumbling cornice wasn’t beautiful decay; it was neglect. A crack in the sidewalk wasn’t a place for grass to reclaim; it was a tripping hazard for Mrs. Ehlers with her bad hip.
“Maya! Thank God,” Dr. Ainsley said the moment she pushed through the frosted glass door. The doctor was a kind-faced man in his sixties, his own eyes bagged with worry. “The phones have been ringing off the hook since the news. Everyone’s having anxiety attacks. Or thinking their cough is Spore River Fever.”
Sprang River, Maya thought but didn’t correct. She hung her coat on the peg that was hers and slid behind the reception desk. The chair was still warm from the overnight temp. The computer monitor glowed, an appointment grid already packed.
She picked up the first call. “Good morning, Gotham Family Medicine, this is Maya.”
“I need a Xanax refill. Immediately.” The woman’s voice was a taut wire.
“I can see Dr. Ainsley had you scheduled for a check-in next week. I can move it to—”
“Now. I need it now. Did you see the news? They’re saying the plants ate people. What if it gets into the water supply?”
Maya took a slow breath. She pictured the woman on the other end, alone in some sleek, sterile condo, watching the same horror footage on loop. “I understand it’s frightening,” she said, her voice falling into the soothing, automatic cadence she used for crying children and needle-phobic adults. “The city has confirmed the water treatment is secure. Dr. Ainsley can’t call in a refill without seeing you, but I can fit you in at 3:45 today. Would that help?”
A shaky exhale. “Yes. Yes, please.”
She booked the appointment. The next call was an elderly man convinced his arthritis flare-up was an early sign of botanical poisoning. The next was a mother whose toddler had eaten a houseplant leaf. Maya talked them all down, her voice a calm, steady metronome in the rising panic. She scheduled, rescheduled, reassured.
It felt absurd. Inconsequential. She’d seen a woman reshape concrete with a thought, had felt the world vibrate with a green, vengeful pulse. And now she was arguing with an insurance company about CPT code 99213 versus 99214.
But then Mrs. Ehlers did come in, leaning heavily on her walker. Her hip was worse. Maya helped her from the waiting room chair, an arm under her frail elbow, and felt the bird-like bones through her cardigan. “You’re a good girl, Maya,” Mrs. Ehlers wheezed, patting her hand.
Later, a young construction worker came in, his thumb split open from a mis-swing of a hammer. He was pale, trying to be tough. Maya cleaned the grit from the wound with gentle, efficient swipes before the doctor came in for stitches. “Looks worse than it is,” she murmured. “Deep breath.” He listened, his eyes locked on hers, trusting her calm.
This was real. This was a thumb that would heal and hold a hammer again. This was a hip that, with the right shot, would carry someone to the grocery store. It was microscopic. It was bandaids on bullet wounds. But it was also the only thing she’d done in weeks that felt undeniably, unequivocally good. Not ideological. Not part of a grand, bloody reclamation. Just good. A quiet pressure on a wound. A steady voice in the panic.
She watered the sad, dusty peace lily on her desk. Its leaves were browning. “Hang in there,” she whispered to it.
Logan woke to the smell of Roman’s skin and the solid warmth of him along his back. The blackout curtains did their job, but a thin blade of mid-morning light cut across the foot of the bed, illuminating motes of dust dancing in silent chaos.
He was on his side, Roman a solid wall of heat behind him. Roman’s arm was still a heavy, possessive band across his stomach. Logan didn’t move. He listened to the even, slow draw of Roman’s breath against the back of his neck. He felt the faint, rhythmic thump of his heart through the layers of skin and muscle and cotton.
His own hand had, in sleep, crept up. His fingers were splayed over Roman’s forearm, idly tracing the patterns of veins and the crisp line of dark hair. It was an unconscious, seeking touch. A tactile confirmation.
Roman stirred. A deep inhale that expanded his chest, pressing him more firmly against Logan’s spine. The arm around him tightened infinitesimally.
Logan kept his eyes closed. “Don’t,” he murmured, his voice scratchy with sleep.
“Don’t what?”
“Move. Get up. Start talking about hostile takeovers.” Logan slid his hand from Roman’s arm up to the bandaged side, his palm resting lightly over the dressing. A sentinel. “Just… be here a minute.”
A low, amused sound vibrated against him. “Sore?”
“No. The brace helps.” He wasn’t talking about his leg. He pressed back against Roman, eliminating the last sliver of space between them. The light crept up the bed, now gilding their tangled feet. “I just need to know you’re not going to tear your stitches because you decided to do calisthenics at nine AM.”
“I do calisthenics at seven.”
“See? This is why you need supervision.” Logan’s thumb moved in a small, slow arc over the bandage. He could feel the ridge of the healing wound beneath, a hidden fault line. The memory of Roman pale on the bathroom floor was a cold knot in his gut. The fear was different now. Not the sharp, immediate terror of the moment, but a deeper, chronic dread. The understanding that this man, for all his controlled power, was just flesh and blood. That Logan’s world had quietly reconfigured itself around that fragile fact.
Roman’s hand lifted from his stomach. He thought he’d pull away, but instead, those fingers began to trace the tattoos on Logan’s shoulder blade—an old, fading kraken he’d gotten at nineteen. The touch was contemplative, almost absent.
“The asset,” Roman said after a long silence. His voice was a morning rumble, detached. “She’s a point of access. To a unique skillset. One that’s now officially at war with several of our competitors.”
Logan’s body went very still. He’d known this was coming. The ledger. The utility. “She’s not a weapon. She’s a person who got in over her head.”
“Every weapon is a person who got pointed in a useful direction.” Roman’s fingers traced the kraken’s tentacle. “Her ideology is a vulnerability. But her connection to Isley is an asset. Her gratitude to you is a lever.”
“She thanked you. For the taxi.” Logan said it to remind him. Of the humanity, however small.
“Gratitude is a currency with a short half-life.” The hand on his shoulder blade stilled. “We protect her. We provide stability. And when the time comes, we ask for a favor. A specific, botanical favor. It’s not complicated.”
It was. It was endlessly complicated. Logan saw Maya’s red-rimmed eyes, felt the shudder of her sobs against his chest. He also saw the strategic map Roman was drawing in the air between them. Ivy was a rogue force, damaging Falcone and Maroni interests alike. Having a line to that, however tenuous, was power. Keeping Maya safe was both a genuine desire and a strategic investment.
He hated how easily the two things coexisted in his mind now.
“I’ll handle it,” Logan said, the words tasting like a concession. “I’ll keep the line open.”
“Good.” Roman’s lips brushed the knob of his spine, a whisper of contact. The subject was closed. The deal was struck.
Logan lay there, the sun warming his ankles, Roman’s breath on his neck, his own hand guarding a wound. He had everything he’d wanted. A side of the bed. A purpose. A powerful, possessive love that asked for everything and gave him a kingdom in return.
The terror was still there, a cold pebble in the core of him. Not of violence, or poverty, or the streets. It was the terror of this warmth. The terror of how badly he needed it, and how much he would incinerate to keep it.
He turned in Roman’s arms, a slow, deliberate rotation until they were face to face in the dimness. He looked at Roman—the sharp, unyielding planes of his face softened by sleep, the dark eyes watching him with predatory fondness.
Logan didn’t say anything. He leaned in and kissed him, a slow, deep kiss that was an answer to every unspoken question. A promise. A surrender. A claim.
When he finally pulled back, he kept his forehead pressed to Roman’s. “One more hour,” he whispered.
Roman’s hand came up, fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of his neck. A silent agreement.
Outside, Gotham burned and schemed and feared the green. In here, in the sealed dark, there was only this: the shared heat, the slow beat of two hearts, and the quiet, terrifying peace of having chosen your anchor, knowing it would one day drag you under.
The hour bled away in a haze of quiet breath and tangled limbs. When Logan finally moved, it was with the grim focus of a soldier gearing up. He showered, the brace on his leg a plastic exoskeleton against the tile. He selected clothes with a new deliberation—dark, tailored slacks, a simple black tee that cost more than his old weekly rent, the severe gold bracelets clicking into place.
“The sapphire one,” Roman said from the bedroom doorway, already in a suit the color of a deep bruise. He tossed a velvet box. “It suggests old money, not fresh blood. Useful for the gallery opening tonight.”
Logan caught it. Inside, nestled against satin, was a pair of cufflinks. Each held a square-cut sapphire so dark it was nearly black, surrounded by tiny, sharp diamonds. They were heavy. Arresting. “Subtle,” Logan said, fastening them. The weight at his wrists was a constant memorandum.
“It’s all a presentation,” Roman said, adjusting his own cuff. “The clubs, the galleries, the charities. We are building a climate. One where people are more comfortable accepting our investment offers than questioning their origin.”
So Logan built the climate.
He showed up at The Aviary on Tuesday, a velvet-roped speakeasy where the cocktails were named after extinct birds. He wore the sapphires. He flashed the smile that didn’t touch his eyes, charming a city councilman’s bored wife into trying a “Passenger Pigeon.” He casually mentioned Roman’s new urban renewal fund, a legitimate pot of money looking for legitimate projects. “He’s so passionate about Gotham’s architectural heritage,” Logan lied, sipping something smoky. “Hates to see it rot.”
On Thursday, it was a meeting in the back room of a shipping warehouse that smelled of diesel and stale sweat. Roman sat at a scarred metal table opposite three men whose neck tattoos disappeared into their collars. They were discussing import routes, tariffs, and the specific cost of a customs official looking the other way.
Logan stood against the wall, arms crossed, the polymer brace a faint outline under his pants. He said nothing. His presence was the statement. When Roman leaned forward, a sharp, angry gesture that pulled at his side, Logan pushed off the wall.
“You want to renegotiate the percentage now?” Roman’s voice was a razor drawn slowly across stone.
One of the men, the one with knuckles like battered walnuts, shifted. “The risks have changed. With the green bitch tearing up the dockside—”
Logan was there. Not between them, but beside Roman’s chair. He placed a hand, flat and final, on Roman’s shoulder. It looked like solidarity. It was an anchor. He felt the coiled tension under his palm, the urge to lunge and dismantle.
“The risks,” Logan said, his voice conversational, “are the same as last week. Your cut is the same. The only new variable is my patience, which is currently thinner than the shit coffee you served.” He looked at the man’s knuckles, then back to his eyes. “Are we adding variables?”
The man held his gaze, then looked at Roman, who was breathing slowly, deliberately, under Logan’s restraining hand. “No,” the man muttered. “No new variables.”
After, in the car, Roman was silent, staring out at the bleeding neon of the city. “I don’t need a minder,” he finally said, the words tight.
“You need your stitches to hold,” Logan replied, texting Kato their next location. “I’m not a minder. I’m a structural support. Now shut up and let the cement dry.”
On Friday evening, between a vapid cocktail hour and a tense ledger review, Logan pulled out his phone. The text thread with Maya was stale. He pictured her apartment, the quiet green defiance of her plants, the profound silence he’d left her in.
> Logan: You breathing?
The reply came faster than he expected.
> Maya: Technically. The plants are thriving. I’m… functional. Work is a weird sort of sanctuary. How’s the leg?
>
> Logan: Brace comes off next week. Itchy. You sleeping?
>
> Maya: Not really. The dreams are… vivid. I keep hearing the faucet drip and thinking it’s that sound. The crunching.
He read the words in her voice, that quiet intensity fraying at the edges. He saw Mrs. Ehlers’s hand patting hers. He saw the strategic value Roman saw.
> Logan: Yeah. That stuff sticks. You eating?
>
> Maya: Salad. It feels like a betrayal to eat anything with a face.
A choked laugh escaped him. Roman glanced up from his tablet.
> Logan: Christ. Don’t go full rabbit. You’ll blow away. Eat a goddamn burger.
>
> Maya: Noted. How’s… everything else?
He looked at Roman, then down at the black sapphire winking on his cuff. Everything else was a gilded cage he was diligently polishing. Everything else was the anchor he’d chosen.
> Logan: Stable. He’s healing. I’m… managing. You need anything? A distraction? I could send you a boring book on commercial real estate law.
>
> Maya: I think I’m okay with the quiet for now. But thank you. For checking. It helps.
He believed her. That was the worst part. He believed her quiet gratitude was genuine, not a currency with a short half-life. It helped. And he knew, with a cold certainty, that he was the one who would one day be asked to spend it.
“The asset?” Roman asked, not looking up.
“Adjusting,” Logan said, putting the phone away. The word felt hollow on his tongue. “She’s gardening.”
Roman hummed, a sound of dismissive acknowledgment. The subject was closed. The lever was primed.
Logan turned back to the window, watching the city blur past. He wore the uniform of power. He performed the rituals of care and control. But in the glass’s reflection, he saw only the ghost of a younger man with fake jewelry and a smart mouth, a man who used to believe his own lies, now staring out from behind a mask of very real, very heavy gold.
But in the glass’s reflection, he saw only the ghost of a younger man with fake jewelry and a smart mouth, a man who used to believe his own lies, now staring out from behind a mask of very real, very heavy gold. The car slowed. “Stop here,” Roman said, his voice a low command that severed Logan’s introspection.
They were in the Barrens, a district of hollowed-out factories and forgotten lots. The engine cut. Ahead, under a single flickering sodium light, two figures stood beside a parked van. One was Kato. The other was a man Logan didn’t know, his posture all jittery fear. The air coming through the cracked window smelled of wet brick and ozone.
“Wait here,” Roman said, buttoning his suit jacket with a sharp, final motion.
“Like hell,” Logan said, and was out of the car almost before Roman was. His leg protested, a sharp twinge that he ignored. He fell into step just behind Roman’s left shoulder, a shadow in the bruised dark.
The man by the van was skinny, his expensive jacket doing nothing to hide the tremor in his hands. “Mr. Sionis. I have the product. It’s all here, pure, just like we—”
Roman didn’t let him finish. He moved, a blur of tailored wool and violent intent. His fist connected with the man’s solar plexus, a wet, punching sound that folded the distributor in half. The man gagged, dropping to his knees.
“You sold to Maroni’s crew in the Otisburg apartments.” Roman’s voice was calm, almost conversational, as he leaned over the retching figure. “You used my routes, my protection, and you diluted my product to double your inventory. You thought the green chaos would cover your stink.”
“I—It was a mistake—” the man wheezed.
Roman straightened, glanced at Kato, and gave a barely perceptible nod. Kato stepped forward, a length of polished steel pipe in his hand. The first swing caught the distributor across the shoulders. The second cracked against his ribs with a sound like a branch snapping.
Logan watched. He didn’t flinch. He catalogued the details: the spatter of blood on Roman’s polished shoe, the way the sodium light caught the pain-etched lines of the man’s face, the efficient, brutal rhythm of Kato’s work. This wasn't the strategic violence of the warehouse meeting. This was pure, punitive theater.
A strange, warm current settled in Logan’s chest. This was his Roman. Not the convalescent in silk sheets, but this—the unassailable force, the absolute certainty in his own justice. The blood was just a necessary pigment in the painting. Logan felt his own pulse, steady and strong, in his throat where the diamond choker sat.
When the man was a sobbing, broken heap on the asphalt, Roman knelt. He didn’t get blood on his pants. He was precise, even now. He grabbed a fistful of the man’s hair, pulling his head up. “You are a receipt,” Roman whispered, the words only for the broken man. “A message they will find in the morning. My city. My rules. My climate.”
He released him. The man’s head hit the ground with a dull thud. Roman stood, pulling a monogrammed handkerchief from his pocket to wipe a single fleck of blood from his knuckle. He turned, and his eyes found Logan’s in the dark.
There was a question in that look. A challenge. See what I am?
Logan met his gaze. He felt a smile, real and unbidden, touch his own lips. He gave a slow, deliberate nod. Yes.
They walked back to the car in silence, the only sounds their footsteps and the wet, ragged breathing fading behind them. Logan slid into the leather seat, the adrenaline singing in his veins. Roman got in beside him, the car filling with the scent of his cologne and the faint, metallic tang from outside.
“The gallery opening,” Roman said, as if they’d just come from a business lunch. “We’ll be late.”
“Fashionably,” Logan agreed, leaning his head back. He watched the city slide by, but the ghost in the window was gone. In its place was a man who understood the price of the gold on his wrists, and who, in the darkness of a ruined street, had found he didn’t mind the cost.
Maya’s weekend was a carefully constructed cage of normalcy. She repotted the Monstera. She scrubbed her tiny bathroom until it smelled of chemical lemon. She did not jump at every creak in the old building’s bones.
On Sunday evening, out of soil, she trekked to the all-night bodega three blocks over. The fluorescent lights inside buzzed like angry insects. She chose a bag of potting mix, a packet of thyme seeds she didn’t need, and a terrible chocolate bar. The clerk nodded, his eyes glued to a small TV playing a cacophonous game show.
The bell on the door jingled as she stepped back into the damp night. The street was quiet, just the distant wail of a siren and the drip of a faulty drainpipe.
“You look tired.”
The voice came from the alley mouth beside the bodega, a smooth, vegetative whisper that bypassed Maya’s ears and vibrated directly in the marrow of her spine. She froze, the bag of soil suddenly heavy as a corpse.
Poison Ivy leaned against the brick, a vision of cultivated wildness. She wore a gown of living moss and twisted silk, her hair a cascade of autumn-red leaves. She looked ethereal. She looked like the root system of a cancer.
“Did you get in over your head, little gardener?” Ivy asked. Her head tilted, a predator studying a trembling bird. “The soil of good intentions is so shallow. I saw you running. I felt your horror through the roots.”
Maya’s throat was sand. She clutched the bag to her chest, a pathetic shield. “You killed people,” she whispered.
“I pruned.” Ivy pushed off the wall, taking a step closer. The air around her grew thicker, sweeter with the scent of night-blooming jasmine. “They were a blight. You understood that once. You preached it to your photosynthesizing friends in your little concrete pot.”
“I didn’t preach murder.”
“Semantics.” A vine, thin and questing, slid from Ivy’s sleeve and traced a crack in the sidewalk. “The city is an infected wound. You wanted to help it heal. I am the surgeon. You flinched at the sight of the scalpel.” Her green eyes, luminous in the dark, held Maya’s. “The man who pulled you out. The silver-tongued ghost. He serves a different kind of poison. One that slowly paralyzes the host. You know that, don’t you?”
Maya did know. The knowledge was a cold stone in her gut, right beside the memory of Logan’s hands holding her together. She said nothing.
Ivy smiled, a slow, beautiful unfurling. “When you tire of his gilded cage, of putting bandaids on a corpse, the soil is waiting. The work is not done.” She reached out, not touching Maya, but brushing her fingers over the plastic bag of potting mix. A vibrant green shoot, a single perfect leaf, sprouted instantly from the sealed top.
Then she was gone, melting back into the alley’s darkness as if she’d never been there. The jasmine scent lingered, cloying and false.
Maya stood on the sidewalk, shaking. She looked down at the bright, impossible leaf growing from her bag of sterile, store-bought soil. It was a promise. It was a condemnation.
She turned and walked home, her footsteps too loud in the silent street. The leaf quivered with every step, a tiny, green, ticking heart.