Page 53 of Into the Fire: After
A cloud of pomegranate engulfed me. “You’re thinking some big loud thoughts over there,” Brea murmured, stroking her fingers over my collarbone. “Care to share?”
Honestly, no, I didn’t want to share my daydreams about carelessly walking out into the forest in the middle of the night with no map and no pack when I got winded going to take a piss.
So I turned to her. And I told a different truth. “I want you to kiss me.”
“Always, Teacup,” she breathed, moving closer.
I held her back. “No. I mean, I want you all to kiss me. Touch me. Love me.” I swallowed, willing myself to be vulnerable in a way I’d resisted since this whole ordeal began. “I don’t want to go home with you all treating me like glass. If we’re going home, if we’re going to be back to normal, then we all have to benormal.”I threaded my fingers with hers. “And Normal Taryn wants to fuck her pack.”
Four scents bloomed in the room, the boys having awoken without my notice. Tender caresses—comforting, not ravishing—dropped over my arms, my calves, wherever they could reach.
Lin spoke first. “We’d give you anything you want, Taryn,” he said softly.
“Then give me this,” I said. “The past is in the past. Onward we march. Whatever lame cliche you want.” There was a hand on my bicep. I grabbed it, kissed the palm. “Make me feel good. Then take me home.”
After
Twenty-two
Taryn
Allright.Dayfifty-two.Something to write on day fifty-two. Something I’m feeling or something I like or something I hate. Thinking. Thinking. Writing. Brea says to just freewrite it. How many times have I written that exact sentence because it’s the only thing that I can think to write and Ihaveto keep writing because Brea said to keep writing no matter what?
Day fifty-two back home. Gonna try gratitude again today. Already written that I’m grateful for each of my pack. Grateful for our home. Grateful everyone could slide right back into our lives from before life became a fucking circus. Can’t repeat things I’m grateful for. That’s like cheating, and we—
Oh!! I’m grateful for dirty-sounding words that aren’t actually dirty.
Like, sometimes a word will just jump straight into my head and I literally laugh out loud because it’s such a ridiculous wordto exist in our everyday vocabulary and for it tonotmean something filthy.
Likekumquat.Who looked at that stretched-out orange and decided that a G-rated name for it waskumquat?
Bratwurst. Sluice. Reticulum. Viscous. I guess that’s not so much dirty-sounding as just something to describe substances that are actu—
The bus shifted and my pen dragged a jagged line across the page.
“Son of a kumquat,” I muttered beneath my breath, closing the book in frustration. Whatever. It hadn’t been a particularly revelatory journaling session anyway.
The bus was eight minutes behind, and I had…exactly zero panic texts from Brooks! That was progress. Last week, when the bus was four minutes late, I had not only four increasingly frantic texts from Brooks, but also a voicemail from Caine and a ping from Brea tracking my location.
Since, yes, the moment we’d gotten back to town, she’d bought me a pretty necklace with a dainty sun charm…that was actually a tracking device. And, yes, I wore it every damn day. Totally for their benefit. Theirs alone.
Their hovering made sense. Still annoying as shit, and I’d reamed each and every one of them for it. But I got it.
My taking the bus—alone, with zero pack supervision—was part of our collective self-therapy since returning home at the end of summer. An exercise in venturing outside the comfort zone. Which had shrunk considerably.
For all my insistence that the others not treat me like a baby bird after we left Greysmoke, I’d spent the first month back in Farendale within the walls of the Arceneaux apartment. None of us had wanted to leave, so they’d indulged me.
But, eventually, Lin had to get back to managing his business. Brooks had to return from his hasty leave of absence. Brea had to meet with her advisor about repeating her residency and finishing her degree.
Which left Caine and me. Jennie had filled my position in the weeks I wasaway, and I hadn’t yet gathered the courage to find a different job. Bean & Leaf had been like a cozy, comfy clubhouse, Jennie like my cranky but adoring older sister who insisted that it was ano kids allowedsituation but always left the door unlocked for me.
Walking into any other place felt akin to busting through Wainwright Corp.’s front doors and handing myself back over to be stuck and prodded and tortured ‘til kingdom come.
Caine had been perfectly happy to keep me at his side as he resumed his landlording. He didn’t have to let me out of his sight, and I never had to be alone. Win-win to the extreme.
I always tagged along to his projects and duties within the complex, and anyone who so much as gave me a second look was met with a burst ofback away nowalpha pheromones. On the rare occasions wedidventure from the apartment, he was like a walking robot, eyes always scanning our surroundings.
It was kinda cute, really. My tough and rugged but actually soft as goo alpha who’d taken to calling mesunshineandsweetheartat home, all but threatening to pummel would-be (and wouldn’t-be-but-better-safe-than-sorry) harassers.
