Page 20 of Burning Embers

Still, I find that my pace quickens as I head towards the road.

Fifteen minutes later, I’m standing on the side of the street, the darkness both cloying and suffocating. A truck idles a few feet ahead of me, its windows tinted.

I’ve just taken another step forward when a giant of a man ventures out of the forest.

I don’t even get the chance to scream before his hand is over my mouth, stifling the sound.

Seven

IZZY

Almost as soon as the hand touches my mouth, capturing my impending screech, it releases me.

Bright-blue eyes, framed by the thickest lashes I’ve ever seen, peer back at me from inside the hood of his sweatshirt. A devious smile spreads across his face.

“Jesus Christ, Grayson!” I glare. “Don’t sneak up on me like that!”

Grayson—my closest friend for the better part of ten years—simply chuckles, the low, husky sound reverberating through me.

He tugs down his hood, revealing a mane of pitch-black hair that has grown longer over the months. A few strands sweep forward and hide his eyebrow piercings from view. His large, muscular body is encased in a pair of dark jeans and a similarly colored hoodie.

He taps my nose mockingly, and I swat his hand away with a scowl.

“You’re an ass.” I push past him to move towards the truck left idling.

Another one of Grayson’s low laughs reaches me as I swing myself into the passenger seat. A second later, he joins me, his cinnamon scent surrounding me. It takes every ounce of will I possess not to breathe him in deeply, to lose myself in a smell I’ve grown to associate with comfort and security.

Muttering under my breath, I lean forward to mess with the buttons on his truck. Cold air wafts from the vents, and soft classical music begins to fill the cabin. Once I’m satisfied, I lean back in the seat with a heavy sigh.

Grayson stares at me out of the corner of his eye as he guides the car down the twining streets. His pierced brow cocks upwards, a question glimmering in his blue gaze.

“Long day,” I grouse, shifting my head so I can maintain eye contact. “I, apparently, have an over-enthusiastic foster sister.”

He chuckles in amusement and then returns to silence, waiting for me to finish speaking.

“But my new foster family seems…okay, if I’m being honest. But god, I can’t wait until I’m eighteen and can just move on with my life.” I absently fiddle with the ends of my blonde hair, gauging Gray’s reaction out of the corner of my eye.

The two of us met in one of my first foster homes. He’s one year older than me, and he exuded a confidence and lethal savagery I yearned to emulate, even at that age. He must’ve seen something in my eyes—a peek into the broken soul of a girl who has been knocked down one too many times—because he immediately took me under his wing.

Even when he got kicked out of that foster home and put into a new one, he maintained contact with me. First, it was sneaking to my various foster homes in the dead of night. Then, it was buying me a cheap flip phone so he could check up on me. Now, it’s something…darker than either of those.

I actually believe that Grayson may be stalking me.

And I don’t feel an ounce of fear over the fact.

“Ohhh! That reminds me!” I reach into my sports bra and grab out my brand-new phone.

His eyes flick to me momentarily, lowering to my chest, before immediately snapping back to my face.

“I got a phone! A real phone! A big-girl phone!” I teasingly swing the iPhone in front of his face.

He shakes his head with a wry smile twisting up the corners of his lips. He then jerks his chin towards his own phone sitting in the cup holder, indicating for me to place my new number into his.

I grab it with a happy hum and plug in his passcode. I search for my contact name—and instantly groan when I see what name he saved me under.

“Gracie? Really?” I wrinkle my nose at him. “My middle name?”

Grayson chuckles yet again. He knows more than anyone how much I hate my middle name.

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