Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 58377 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58377 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
“It’s fine.”
“You’re an unreliable narrator.” I angle her left elbow toward the light. The bruise is blooming violet beneath the skin, outlined where the assailant’s fingers clamped. Anger flares so hot my molars pulse. I rein it in and reach for the compact trauma kit clipped to my belt. Cold gel pack, wrap, small packet of topical arnica I carry because I’ve done this gig long enough to know clients bruise.
“You come standard with that?” she teases as I crack the pack and knead it alive.
“Upcharge for glitter bandages,” I deadpan.
She grins, then sucks a breath when the cold hits. “Ohhhhhh, that hurts good.”
“Keep it there for at least ten minutes.” I hold the pack in place while she leans against a high table spattered with ten thousand past colors. Up close I can count gold flecks in her irises. She smells like citrus hand soap fought with mineral spirits and lost. My thumb brushes an errant streak of red at her triceps, and I force it to stop before it wanders farther.
“Tell me something,” she says after a beat, voice gone low, almost intimate. “Why EOD?”
No one starts with the easy ones. “Because I hated bullies,” I say, surprising myself with the brevity. “And I hate unfair fights. Bombs are the ultimate unfair fight—cowards wiring shrapnel to timers, giving you no face to punch back. EOD lets you reach in and take that away from them.” I study the bruise again. “Makes it a fair fight.”
She swallows, eyes never leaving mine. “Was it scary?”
“Every time,” I admit. “You get good at compartmentalizing. Breathe, process, follow protocol. Most days the scary part comes after, when you replay what you almost triggered. You learn to respect fear without letting it drive.” I nod at her canvas. “You just did the same thing. Took the hit, processed, redirected.”
“Yeah?” She looks over her shoulder at the work-in-progress. “Feels more like tantrum art.”
“Tantrums don’t land that compositionally balanced.” I point. “You triangulated load—red anchored high left, black low right, white drawing the eye through. That’s structural.”
She smirks. “Spoken like a man who thinks in blast cones.”
“Guilty.” I lower the pack. “Where’d your art come from?”
She inhales, exhales slowly, as if sifting through boxes. “My mom painted. Not professionally. She’d spread butcher paper on the kitchen floor and give me condiments—ketchup, mustard, food coloring—and let me ‘paint dinner.’ Dad would come home, step in purple mustard, lose his mind, then laugh because she’d already photographed the mess for some charity newsletter. When she died, the kitchen got remodeled—stainless, sterile, boardroom chic. Colors disappeared.” Her mouth pulls to one side. “So I chased them. Chalk on sidewalks. Spray paint on plywood behind the garage. Oils when I could steal them. Every time Dad took me to a shareholders’ meeting I’d come home and blast another wall in color just to prove the house still breathed.”
I let that sit. “How old?”
“Fourteen.” She shrugs. “Rebellion stuck. But it turned into something bigger when I saw how kids’ faces change when they put color somewhere no one told them they were allowed to. It’s like oxygen. That’s what I want—oxygen in dead spaces.”
I look at the bruise again. Color can’t cover blood. Our perp wants to suffocate oxygen out of her world. That’s his power play.
“He picked the wrong hallway,” I say.
“Damn right he did.”
We stand close enough that her breath ghosts my throat. Her free hand lifts, and she lightly taps my sternum with a paint-wet fingertip, leaving a scarlet dot over my heart. “Target acquired,” she murmurs.
“Cam…” Warning. Plea. Promise. All tangled.
She searches my face. “If I cross a line, you’ll stop me?”
“I’ll try.” It comes out ragged.
Her smile tilts sly. “Try hard?”
“Hard is the problem.”
We hover in that charged pocket—gravity tugging, protocols bracing—until my phone vibrates sharp against my hip. I step back like I’ve been doused.
“Yeah.” I thumb accept the call. “Riggs?”
“Pulled municipal traffic cam two blocks west of the rec center,” he says. “Got a maybe-match—painter whites, mask off once he cleared the crowd, hopped an electric scooter. Frame grab inbound. Sending to Dean and you. Plate on the scooter’s rental code traces to a dummy account. Dean wants to run face through our database. Check your secure inbox.”
“Copy.” I glance at Cam, and she’s wiping the red dot off my chest with the edge of a clean rag, expression half apology, half dare. “Keep digging. I’ll review.”
The call ends. The moment, however, doesn’t.
“Business?” she asks.
“Lead.” I set the gel pack on the table. “We may get an ID.”
“Good.” She leans the bruised arm against her ribs protectively. “If you catch him, I want to see him.”
“We’ll see.” Which means if chain-of-evidence allows and you seeing him won’t land us in litigation. What I really want is to put my fist through his teeth. Not professional. Very true.