Dirty Devil (82 Street Vandals Book 4) by Heather Long

Author:Heather Long [Long, Heather]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-02-14T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 19

EMERSYN

The coolness of a cloth over my face barely penetrated the layers of fog and cotton. I kind of liked it here. It was quiet. The air was soft. No expectations. Barely anyone to talk to or who would intrude. I could float.

The floating wasn’t flying. That thought brought a twinge with it. I missed flying. Then again, if I wasn’t flying—I couldn’t fall. I was so tired of falling. Whether I hit a ledge or an outcropping, the battering hurt. It hurt even more when the pain lit me up inside and out. I was so tired of hurting.

“Dove, you don’t have to hurt anymore,” Vaughn said in that beautiful voice of his. That voice followed me everywhere. I swore it lulled me to sleep. It drifted through the air with me as I floated. “Head up, yeah? Head up and wings out.”

“I don’t know if I can anymore,” I admitted. “I think my wings are gone.”

“Clipped, maybe,” he conceded. “But if you want them to unfurl, Dove, they’ll be there. How did you learn to fly to begin with?”

“I was running away. It was the only way to be free. When I was there—when I flew—I wasn’t me.” I didn’t much like me.

“You’re more than flight, though.”

All too soon though, he wandered away and I drifted some more. The cold came and went. Sometimes it brought the white noise, other times there were glimmers of sun. The doctor wanted me to talk, but I didn’t have much to say. It was almost too much effort anyway. No one really cared what I had to say.

“Of course, I fucking care,” Jasper said with a snarl and the chair scraped against the floor as he sat down. The scent of tobacco fluttered through the air. Why was he sitting when we could float? “Because the fire is here,” he pointed out and then the cool gray resolved to the roof of the clubhouse.

The wind was icy here and it made my teeth ache. Why were we up here? Then he passed me the joint and I stared at it for a moment. Oh. Maybe getting high wasn’t flying but I wanted to escape. This was a good way to do it, right?

“Talk to me, Swan,” he encouraged me after we sat there a while just passing the joint back and forth. The soft cotton layers separating me from the world thickened. Except Jasper was right here with me. I could reach out and touch him if I wanted. In fact, I did, and our fingers brushed every time we passed the blunt back and forth.

“About what?” Did he know he needed a haircut? Not that I minded. I liked that his hair curled under his collar sometimes. I liked his beard even more.

“Yeah?” He rubbed a hand against it. The colorful tattoos on his arm pulled my attention. “You like it?”

“I like a lot of things about you.”

“Even when I make you mad?”

I grinned. The expression was almost foreign on my face.

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