CHAPTER 1
Terran
Smoke wafted into my face,carried over in my direction from the slight breeze that had been drifting through Ellington Heights ever since the sun had disappeared beyond the horizon hours ago. A shiver worked its way up my spine, my shoulders tensing while I tried to bury myself deeper into my double-layered jacket.
For it being just after the first of November, it was too fucking cold to be standing out in the damp and rainy weather like this and not huddled inside the cruiser’s heated cab.
Summer had come and gone way too quickly this year, giving me no time to enjoy the hot sun like I’d wanted to outside of my shifts. Soon enough, another holiday season would pass and this town would, once again, be ankle fucking deep in snow before I knew it.
What I hated most about winter approaching were the weeks leading up to that first snowfall. Days spent in the mid to high 50’s chased away as soon as the sun set. The rapid drops at night always had my toes tingling no matter how many socks I layeredinside my steel-toe boots, or how pure the wool blend I bought was.
I’d always been meant for sunnier weather. The kind that allowed for the luxuries of lounging next to a pool side with a margarita in hand and a pool boy coming around every half hour asking for another drink order.
Swatting the air to disperse the cloud engulfing me, a cough crawled up my throat. “You mind?”
My partner, TJ, took another long drag of his cigarette, puffing it up real good in his mouth while tilting his head back until it brushed along the brick wall we were both leaning against. His mouth yawned open lazily, letting the smoke unfurl from his lips while his expression began to grow lax the second the nicotine started to hit his system.
“Yeah, yeah,” was all he replied with.
I rolled my eyes. “I thought you were quitting? What happened to those patches Trisha finally talked you into buying?”
The scar running along his bottom lip puckered with his frown. “Tossed ‘em.”
Of course he did.
“Why am I not surprised?”
He threw me a look, sucking back another puff before letting it go in a short huff. “Ya know, kid. I don’t need the judgment. You been on the job as long as I have and you’ll pick up a few vices along the way. Mark my words.”
As much as I hated to admit it, he was probably right. So far, since joining Palmerston Police Department, I’d had plenty of cases that had me contemplating going home with a twelve pack and tossing them back one after the other while using whatever late night talk show that happened to be on as ambient lighting.
It’d certainly fit the image of a seasoned cop. Quite nicely, in fact.
The only thing stopping me so far was my house being occupied by other guests I definitely didn’t want exposed to bad habits like that.
“Think I’ll stick to the energy drinks.”
TJ shook his head at me. “Those’ll kill you faster than this can.” As he said the words, he flicked the butt from between his fingers, stomping it out with his shoe the moment it hit the pavement. “Keep at it and I’ll be peeling you off the sidewalk like we just did with Walker.”
I grimaced at the reminder of our last call—a drunk and disorderly that ended with us throwing the perp into the back of Jensen’s car, the other responding officer at the scene, while he tried to fist fight his way out of handcuffs. After giving himself a nice little semi-concussion from slamming his head against the window a few times, he’d been whisked away to spend the night in holding to sober up and hopefully knock some sense into him before his court hearing come Monday morning.
With our PD as the go-between for three different towns, Ellington Heights, Edgewood and Palmerston, there was hardly ever a dull week that didn’t end with some kind of outrageous call coming over our radios, ushering my partner and I into some weird as fuck situation that would no doubt have me driving home in silence once 6 a.m. hit and I clocked out for the day.
As a native to the city only an hour’s drive from here, I’d had my fair share of running into the ‘full moon phenomena’ from time to time, as cursed as the witching hour during October as my sister would say. The time between midnight and 5 a.m. when people threw out all inhibitions and let their preternatural impulses overdrive their regular instincts to keep up their otherwise pristine reputations.
The ironic part about relocating to a small town like Edgewood or Ellington Heights, was apparently my very naivebelief that this would be some boring, run-of-the-mill desk job that mainly had me pushing papers all day. Not chasing down rich elites who didn’t know when to take a bartender’s refusal to serve as final word and return home to their families and ritzy gated communities with whatever dignity they had left.
Though, maybe this was a small insight into how rigid those communities could truly be. How often those that were a part of them longed to be ‘wild and free’ like the rest of us working class. People like TJ and I had a certain image to uphold because of our job, sure, but nothing that demanded perfection in the eyes of a social class hell-bent on ostracizing whoever didn’t fit the status quo.
I could almost feel bad for them.
“I’m gonna grab a few snacks from inside. You want anything?” TJ nodded back toward the convenience store where our cruiser was parked.
“Your treat? Wow, how rare. Does this mean I passed your evaluation earlier?”
Almost twenty years my senior, my partner had a knack for taking my ribbing with a good amount of stride, despite the exasperated sigh that usually left him the moment I spoke.
As the newest rookie of our PD, he’d had the pleasure of taking me under his wing and trying to mold the ‘City-iot’ out of me, per our captain’s request. A monumental task, according to half of our precinct, apparently.
