Page 1 of Penn

One

Penn

This ismyspot. It’s quiet, save for the movement of the river and chipmunks, and an occasional black bear.Secluded. Save for the aforementioned wildlife. For the last three years, almost every chance I get, it’s been my secret escape.Secret.

So why is there awomanhere?

Ribbons of meat flavor the warm, humid midsummer air. Whatever she’s cooking smells delicious. I don’t even realize my nose is dragging me over toward the source until my footsteps crunch loudly over the pile of sticks she gathered, alerting her of my presence.

“It’s kind of rude, sneaking up on me like that,” she says without looking over at me.

“I’m not sneaking up.”

From this distance, I notice her curves, and from what I can see of her profile, she’s wearing glasses.

“How’d you get here?” I ask as I take another couple of steps closer, but not so close that I’m totally in her space. We’re alone out here, I don’t want to alarm her. Even if Idowish she weren’t here and would go away. I don’t have it in me to scare her off.

“I followed the signs,” she says, still not looking over at me. I guess she doesn’t scare all that easily. Or maybe I’m not so scary.

Wait…there’re signs? Who the fuck put up signs to my hideout?

Not like you own the actual fucking land, Penn. Someday though, I might. Maybe not this exact spot, not this exact land. But someday, I’d like to have some land of my own. Sprawling and quiet and mine.

Maybe this is someone’s idea of a practical joke. God knows there’s no shortage of those at the fire station. The guys have allvariety of pranks. But how did they find out about this? They know I like to go off the grid. Just didn’t realize they knew which direction. These mountains are fucking vast. How could they just guess?

There’s a bottle of white wine at her campsite. Kind of a weird pairing with steak, but maybe that’s all they had at the store—we are kind of out in the middle of nowhere. She flips over the meat, and another blast of that delectable scent goes up into the forest air, overwhelming my senses. The fire is healthy, probably too hot. There’s a low rumbling deep below my chest. I take a few more steps closer. It’s the food,nother winding curves or those cute as fuck glasses lulling me toward her. The river is a bit low, normal for this time of year, but I can still hear it flowing nearby.

“Signs?”

“Shit,” she hisses at the meat, which I realize is starting to burn too quickly, as she turns off the flame. “It needs to be more level.” She pulls gloves out of her pocket as she peers over her shoulder, finding a spot, and in that split-second that I glimpse her eyes I swear I can read the ideas that are running through them.

“Wait, don’t try to move it.”

“It’s not that heavy.”

“It’s still gonna be hot—”

She bends down to lift with her legs, immediately tripping backward. The meat goes flying off as the scalding grate comes tumbling down on top of her. I’m on her fast but not fast enough—like I said, I didn’t want to crowd her, I only wanted to watch her.Somehow that doesn’t make any of this sound any better. It takes three or four of my longest, fastest strides to get to her. I yank the grate off of her.

I peel her melted glasses off her face and toss them. Pulling her into my arms, I carry her away from the smoke. “Stay here.Don’t try to open your eyes.” My heart works double-time to slam the oxygen throughout my body as I take off in a sprint toward the river and pull off my shirt, soaking it into the rushing, fresh water. I race back to the girl. She’s shaking and breathless when I return. I lay the wet shirt very gingerly over her face. “Shhh.”

“Ohh,” she manages a sound, which amazes me. And it’s a sweet little sound. I lift the wet shirt slowly and turn it over. Her face is so swollen that her eyes are closed, and I just can’t help but want to see her eyes.What color were they?

“My glasses,” she says weakly. I’m impressed she’s able to say anything at all. Maybe she’ll be okay. Maybe…

It’s bad, Penn. It’s fucking bad, there’s the voice of reason in my head. Fucking annoying voice.

I haven’t seen much offiressince becoming a firefighter and paramedic, but I have seen a whole hell of a lot of trauma. I know when it’s bad. But we are so fucking far away from any real help out here.

It’s all on me right now. On everything I’ve learned. God I wish Ward were here right now. Emrys, anyone. Even Dante would be welcomed company at the moment. The fuck am I supposed to do? I’ve at least got to find something cleaner to use than my shirt to dress her wounds with.

“Don’t try to open your eyes,” I tell her once again.

“It wouldn’t matter. I’m blind without my glasses.”

“You’d be literally blind if you hadn’t been wearing them.”

“That’s lucky.”

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