He waits.
I sigh. “Yes, Chief.”
There it is again.
That tiny change in his eyes.
Then he turns and walks toward his cabin.
I close the door, lock it, and remain there with my forehead resting against the wood until I hear his own door shut next door.
Only then do I look at the lamp.
Then the covered portrait.
Then Ivy.
“I am handling this very well.”
Ivy does not agree.
An hour later, the laundry is folded, the bra has been removed from the lamp, and I am in bed trying very hard not to think about Zain Carson.
Tomorrow I have two children’s art classes at the community center, which means I need sleep. Six-year-olds can sense weakness, and the last time I arrived tired, one of them paintedanother child’s elbow green and convinced him it would never come off.
I close my eyes.
Naturally, I think about Zain.
The almost smile.
The fact that he noticed me disappear beneath the window.
The way his eyes changed when I called himChief.
I groan and roll onto my side.
“This is pathetic.”
I pull the blanket higher and force my breathing to slow.
For a while, I drift.
Then something smells wrong.
My eyes open.
I lie still in the darkness.
The scent is faint at first, hot and bitter enough to make every sleepy thought vanish.
Burning.
I sit up.
A thin haze hangs near the ceiling.
My heart slams hard against my ribs.
