Her disbelief turned to rage.
“Warm! You put this girl in mortal danger because she’s fucking warm? Everyone’s fucking warm! What is wrong with you?”
“No, not everyone is warm. I’m not. I’m freezing all the fucking time. It’s cold. I’m fucking cold. Then I touched her, and I was warm. The ice in my veins melted and my heart beat easier not having to pump mostly frozen blood through my body. She came into my life like a hurricane, flipping everything I knew upside down. And she made me fucking warm.”
Her rage turned to shock. She knew how much I struggled with isolating myself. Beforethe incidentI was a very touchy person. It was comforting—hugs and touches of reassurance—after the childhood I had. Thenthe incidenthappened and no one—not even my best friend—could stand my touch.
“The day she met Weave, she said you were warm. I hadn’t… I hadn’t thought what that meant for you.”
“Eva, I don’t know how to let her go.”
“Let’s get through this list. Let’s get you free. Then you don’t have to.”
15
THE VOLUNTEER
Stupid imagination.Stupid dream. Stupid brain for constantly replaying the stupid dream every waking second of the last week. After all the teasing I did about Avalanche thinking about me all night, it was me who thought about him. The love interest from the book I was reading a couple of weeks ago reminded me so much of him and when he’d brought it up again…
It had been over two weeks since that unknown number sent…whatever that was. I’d received over a dozen messages since. Each was more unhinged than the next. I was going to talk to Weave about it, but the more messages I received, the more I was likewhatever.
Two weeks ofYou’ll be oursandHe’ll never stop us. He who? What’s the threat? Maybe if I knew what they wanted from me, I might have let myself freak out about it. But it was just dumb at this point.
So instead of thinking about that, I was replaying the dream about Avalanche my imagination decided to torture me with. I was in the shower and he was watching me in the mirror. Then he was joining me and it was a little disappointing that his clothes stayed on. I mean the guy wore all that leather and it was so tight, the least my imagination could have done was fill in the blanks.
I didn’t have scars like the main character from my book, but I did have tattoos and his eyes were glued on one in particular. It was so ridiculous. I was worried that my dragon might melt the longer I avoided him. I wanted to remember it, so I’d worked with an artist on turning it into a tattoo. She did a phenomenal job capturing every detail. I got it day eight into my self-imposed Avalanche ban. I spent the whole appointment trying not to cry and run.
Stupid heart overriding my stupid brain.
Whatever, I didn’t regret it. No one but me needed to know that the placement was because he owned my heart anyway. I could keep that to myself indefinitely. Even if it was just a dream, hearing that he liked it, in his voice, was oddly reassuring.
It wouldn’t stop.
My brain just kept playing it over and over.
Maybe I was a little bit obsessed with him.
“V? Hello, Earth to Violet.” Amber was waving her hand in front of my face.
I wondered how long I’d been staring at my door, day-dreaming.
“What’s up?”
That was when I noticed the flowers she’d put at the corner of my desk.
“Officer O’Neill stopped by a few minutes ago, dropped these off at reception. I said I would deliver them personally.”
I groaned. I hated violets. Seriously, just because of my name guys thought they were being cute. No, they were being unoriginal and lazy. And Amber knew that.
“Throw them out.”
“It’s the thought that counts, V.”
“Not when the thought is lazy. If he’d?—”
She pulled another bouquet out from behind her back—pink and purple roses with little white accents.
“He left you a card on these ones.” She placed them down before skipping out of my office with a giant grin on her face.
