Page 77 of Fire Fight

No Subject

I see you, but so do too many other people. Broad daylight is such a bummer. I much prefer darkness illuminated by the glow of a flame. But don’t worry, little cockroach. Soon enough I’ll catch you alone, and I can finish what I started.

My fingers trembled so violently, I could barely hold onto my phone, so I stuffed it in my pocket in favor of studying my surroundings. Sweeping my eyes around the area, I took mental snapshots of all the people in my vicinity.

The man holding his young daughter’s hand.

The woman in a smart suit, phone pressed to her ear as she ate up the sidewalk.

The two women, clearly mother and daughter, exiting the diner with take-out containers in their hands.

The man standing on the corner a block ahead, hat pulled low over his face, shoulders hunched as he waited for a car to pass so he could cross the street.

I stepped into the street, the blare of a car horn barely penetrating my haze as I rushed to the other side, eyes locked on the man who passed from view around the side of a building.

By the time I got there, though, he was long gone, seemingly vanished into thin air.

I spun in a slow circle, searching for any sign of him, but to no avail. Eventually, I gave up and got behind the wheel of Black Betty to head home.

Too freaked out over the email and disappearing, I skipped right over the part where I started thinking of Crew’s house ashome.

The man himself waited for me on the front porch when I pulled to a stop in the driveway, hands on his hips and a pissed off expression on his face. I hopped out of my car, grabbed the pizzas from the back, and walked toward him.

“Oh, come on,” I groaned. “You can’t be that mad.”

“All you had to do was text me. I was about to send out a goddamn search party.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m fine, hotshot. Ginny pulled like fifty yearbooks, and it took me ages to go through them all. Honestly, what could be safer than a library?”

“The house, for starters,” he grumbled as he followed me through the living room and into the kitchen. “Libraries have no security at all.”

I sighed. “You’re exhausting.”

“And you’re a brat.”

I’d barely slid the pizzas onto the counter when he grabbed my shoulders and turned me to face him.

That worry in his eyes was back, the same expression I’d seen the last time I’d gone MIA for a few hours.

I fucking hated that look—had seen it on my parents’ faces too many times over the last seventeen years. The last thing I wanted was to stress anyone out unnecessarily.

Before he could start raging at me, I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around his waist, sinking into his warmth, as well as the freshness of his detergent layered with the smokey scent that always clung to his skin. I was growing far too familiar with that particular blend, and after the filthy things I’d mentally conjured to get myself off inhistub the other day, this hug waslikely the worst idea I’d ever had. But when his arms banded around my shoulders, somehow pulling me even closer, I couldn’t find a single cell in my body that cared.

Since my ordeal, mostly all physical contact had pained me. I wasn’t a fan of unwanted touch in particular, as it reminded me too much of the worst offenses I’d suffered at other people’s hands.

None of that bothered me with Crew. Ilikedhaving his hands on me, more than I cared to admit. Not only because I knew his hands were that of a protector, and that he’dneverraise then against a woman in anger, but also because he calmed me. My negative thoughts and horrific memories quieted when he touched me.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured against his shirt, which was so soft against my cheek, I could damn well curl up there forever.

Crew relaxed against me, his rough exhale brushing against the top of my head.

“It’s okay. I just want you to be safe.”

“I get that,” I said, pulling away. “But you can’t fly off the handle every time I take a bit to respond to a text. You have to remember I’ve spent a long time on my own, and I’m still navigating having anyone give a fuck where I am or what I’m up to.”

“Your parents do.”

“That’s different.”