Griffith, B. B - The Vanished Series [Omnibus] by Griffith B. B

Author:Griffith, B. B [Griffith, B. B]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Griffith Publishing LLC
Published: 2016-12-31T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Caroline Adams

The crows have led us to Midland, Texas. I guess Paris will have to wait.

It’s probably for the best. I’m not really the Paris type. I’ve seen too much weirdness to sit and smoke at sidewalk cafes and get in touch with my artistic side. Someone who sees colored smoke coming off people might be a little too in touch with her artistic side as it is. Plus there’s only so much espresso I can drink before my hands start to shake. And smoking kills you. Don’t even get me started on that.

I chase the bell now. I deal with the thin space between the land of the living and the land of the dead. And I’m not bummed about it, either. When the chaos things tried to latch on to me and drag me into oblivion off the highway, sure, I had a moment where I thought maybe Paris might have been a better choice. How about you take a walk down the street and then have a surprise chaos hand rip through the fabric of the air and go after your jugular? You’d be doubting your direction in life as well. But once we got on the road and the highway was sliding under us and the summer sun was shining through the window of the RV onto the front seat, I started feeling better. I love road trips. When I was a kid and couldn’t sleep, Mom used to put me in the back seat of our old station wagon and drive around the neighborhood until I conked out. It still works.

Cruising aside, it’s really Owen who calms me down. Warms me up. Helps bring me back. And he does it just by driving and giving me time. Although it helps that I can see the worry coming off of him in waves. He wants badly to comfort me. To reach out and touch me and reassure himself that I’m thawing out. There’s another color on him, too. I’ve seen it in others, and it’s different for each person. For Owen it’s a rich cream, like foamed milk or melted white chocolate. It started to tinge his smoke when he took that bullet for me back at ABQ General Hospital, when he decided he’d rather I be around than him.

There’s another word for that smoke. A four-letter word. But I don’t even want to go down that road because that’s just crazy, and it kind of breaks my heart to know Owen feels that way without him saying anything. It seems like a thing I shouldn’t know before he wants me to know. It’s a thing that’s partly made real by speaking it. So until that happens, I try not to think about what his feelings mean for us. I also try not to think about how I’d answer him if he said it—and how my answer might disappoint him. Or worse, how my answer might snuff out that beautiful color of smoke. Because the truth is, right now I’m not in a position to love anyone back.

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