Up in Smoke - Tessa Bailey Page 0,16

that he would give Erin whatever she needed, whenever she needed it. He’d help her battle her demons any way he could.

God help them both if his own demons came out to play.

Chapter Five

Erin lit a match and let it fall to the ground, crushing it with the toe of her boot. The bells attached to her shoelaces jingled, mingling with the passing traffic. She was late for the squad meeting. Risky, yeah. Derek hadn’t been playing around yesterday when he’d threatened to kick them to the curb if they didn’t fly straight. Not to mention, the reason for her hesitation to go inside was so stupid, she wanted to give herself a dead arm, if such a thing were possible.

Her hair. She’d dyed it back to blond this morning, having sneaked out of Connor’s apartment early to make a drugstore run. Gone were the hot-pink tresses that had acted as a warning to all who approached her that they weren’t in for a normal conversation. She’d stared at herself for too long in the mirror, torn between hating how normal she looked now and wondering if wearing her natural color for the first time in ages would force her into normalcy.

Nothing could. She knew that. Maybe that was the real issue. This job, this new hair color, it signaled a step away from how she’d been living her life since age sixteen, when she’d finally taken off on her own. Leaving the past behind in a dancing whirlwind of flames. It had followed her, that whirlwind, heaving its smoky breath down her neck, watching and waiting for her to falter. Waiting for its chance to devour her. She wasn’t scared of the flames, only the too-familiar face that stood behind them.

Now that this job had given her a function, now that she’d caved and gotten a more professional look, her barriers were gone. Her excuses. She couldn’t say fuck the man anymore and leave them eating her dust. She’d signed on for this squad because the face behind the whirlwind was closing in. Her twenty-fifth birthday had finally come to pass and she had something it wanted. Money. Money she had never asked for and didn’t know what to do with. An unexpected blessing, but an even bigger curse. Her plan had been to hunker down and prepare for the storm, but now that she was here, it felt permanent. Like a cellblock or her bedroom. She’d traded one prison for another. Even more confusing, she knew that once she got inside and saw Connor it would be okay.

She lit another match and tossed it toward the gutter. A mixture of gutter water and God-only-knew-what put it out with a sizzle. Connor. Had she conjured him out of some secret place in her mind? It wouldn’t be the first time she’d done something like that, but it would be the first time it felt so good. On the way out of his apartment this morning, she’d stopped to watch him sleeping on the couch. His big body hung partly over the side, one hand resting on the floor, far too large for the piece of furniture he’d slept on. For her. So she could have a bed near a window. Accepting favors from others sat squarely at the top of her no-no list. Being beholden to anyone made her nervous.

She didn’t feel that way with Connor. It only made her want to reciprocate. Do something to help him, make him happy, too. Yet she had no way of doing that.

He likely thought she’d been abused. She had. But not in the way he might imagine. When she’d tried to explain her fear of being touched to the prison shrink, he’d kept digging, kept pushing for the real reason. It hadn’t been enough for him that, to her, touch came before being restrained. There hadn’t been many instances in her childhood, maybe none, where touch had led to anything else. Hugs, pats on the back, encouragement. No. Touch had been a means of putting her somewhere. Keeping her there. Locking her in her bedroom so adults could argue in peace, dragging her into the closet, cuffing her and shoving her into the back of a parked car.

Then came the closeness. Air compressing in on her, like thousands of sticky hands. Cutting off her oxygen, bathing her skin in clammy sweat. Before she’d learned how to get free, the space confining her had become a representation of touch. It closed in