Not after the way her touch lit my skin on fire that night.
She’s already in it, with or without me thinking about her too much.
And I’m pretty sure she knows both of those facts already. She’s in it and she’s a target. Which means walking away won’t protect her anymore.
It just leaves her exposed.
“Thornton,” Mason states, pulling my attention back to him.
I exhale slowly. “I’m not pulling her out.”
He pauses for a long moment before responding. “No?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
I stare up at her dark windows, my decision settling into place. “I keep her closer. I make sure she knows enough to stay alive.”
“And the rest?”
“I handle.”
He’s quiet for too long, then, “that’s not just about the case.”
No, it’s not. “I know.”
Concern edges his voice when he speaks again. “You ever worry, that some things are just beyond your control?”
“I don’t get to step back from this,” I say finally. “Not the case. Not her.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.”
“Get over it.”
He huffs a quiet laugh. “Yeah, yeah.” He pauses again. “Just don’t lose the line.”
By the time I get back to the precinct, the main floor is as busy as nighttime normally brings but the third floor, where my desk is, is mostly empty. A few stragglers still hang around the office, finishing up whatever they’re working on, crowding the printer, and filing shit away.
Across the open space in the middle of the office area, Mason’s standing between our desks, leaning against his with his arms crossed and watching me walk over. He leans down to swipe his arm across my desk and clear a spot.
I pull Liv’s notes out of my jacket and spread them out across the bare wooden surface, and we start pouring over each case listed, gleaming what we can about the descriptions of the victims from the notes, and plotting out the locations of each one on a city map on the corkboard nearby.
A pattern quickly becomes apparent as the map fills with more and more pins. Each one signifying where an attack occurred, a near-grab happened, or was the last known sighting of a missing persons case opened in the last six months. All within a twenty-block radius… with Liv’s apartment building in the center.
Chapter 8
Liv
Another call comes in just after midnight. Scott and I were just getting back from a patient transport, a grandma fell in the bathroom. Probably a broken hip. Her seven-year-old grandson had found her. He couldn’t stop crying, poor kid.
The radio kicks on right as Scott hadjustsat down.
“Unit 12, respond priority three. Structure fire. Multiple occupants, possible entrapment.”
My entire body snaps into focus. “Copy,” I state into the radio, already moving.
We race back to the rig, adrenaline flooding our veins. He flips on the lights and sirens, and the world outside the rig blurs into streaks of red and white as we tear through the streets. It’s on the same street as my apartment but two blocks down. Not good. I’m sick of getting so many calls to my neighborhood. Our station services a few square miles yet we end up within ten square blocks it seems like three quarters of our calls.
