Snowflakes & Fire Escapes (4 page)

I tried to point that out, but he interrupted my thought process.

“You look beautiful today, Gracie.”

Those words stalled me. “I’m a mess.”

He shook his head. “You’re always beautiful, but I like your hair when you wear it down like that. The curls, you know … I dig that shit.”

I smiled softly. “Thank you.”

Thank you for trying to make me feel better about the fact that I have raccoon eyes and I’m running around in ripped pantyhose and no shoes
.

He stared at me for a moment before leaning closer, his expression serious. He knew I didn’t believe him. “I mean it. You’re fucking beautiful. When you’re laughing, when you’re crying, and every moment in between. There’s
nobody
more beautiful to me. And don’t ever apologize for what just happened. When you hurt, I hurt. You don’t ever have to go through that alone, Gracie.”

I nodded, and he did the same, before he grabbed the ladder for the fire escape, tugging it back down. I started for it, but he stopped me long enough to kiss my still-damp cheek.

“You remembered,” he whispered. “That’s all that matters. Fuck him.”

***

Twelve months.

I’ve been this new girl for almost exactly a year now, and it has yet to get any easier for me. I had just turned seventeen when the Marshals showed up in the middle of the afternoon, telling me everything in my world was about to change. It was an abrupt decision, one that I certainly didn’t see coming … one that would alter my life
forever
.

Witness Protection.

The first few weeks were pure hell.

I was taken straight from my apartment in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan to a secure location outside of Washington to debrief, where I was isolated and put on lockdown. You see, being as I was a minor, I was supposed to have a guardian with me in the program, but I came in alone.

It begged the question: What to do with me?

At the beginning, I was practically imprisoned, always guarded and not allowed to roam, until Holden put his foot down, stepping up to accept responsibility. I was old enough, and mature enough, he said, to live somewhere by myself. After all, I’d practically been doing it for years. I was allowed to pick my new last name—Gracie Callaghan traded in for the equally Irish yet sort of pretentious sounding Grace Kennedy—but Holden picked the less than glamorous location.

Snowflake.

At the beginning, Holden visited every day, staying for hours, calling multiple times to check in. But as the months wore on, the visits became less frequent. Now I see him for a few minutes once a week, if that.

He has others, I figure.

Others he needs to keep an eye on.

Other
responsibilities
.

As if on cue, Holden glances at his watch from where he’s sitting on the coffee table in front of me, like he’s worried he’s already overstayed his time. “I should find a hotel for the night.”

“You can just stay here,” I say, motioning down the hallway behind me. “You know where the spare room is.”

“I shouldn’t,” he says. “There are rules.”

“Yeah, well, I’m pretty sure there are also rules against drinking and driving on the job.”

Our situation has never exactly been by the book, so nothing was ever really set in stone about how he’s supposed to deal with me. In general, inspectors and witnesses aren’t supposed to fraternize, but it’s kind of hard to keep things strictly business when he took the reins as my temporary guardian.

He stands up, but instead of heading for the door, he takes a step further into the living room, turning toward the hallway. He pauses there, staring down at me. “Why’d you cross out of the city limits this afternoon?”

I shrug. “Looking for a change of scenery, I guess.”

He doesn’t look like he buys my answer, but it’s the truth.

“Get some rest, Gracie,” he says. “Tomorrow will be a better day.”

I offer him a smile in exchange for that piece of shit advice, knowing he means well. He might even actually believe it. He reaches over and gently squeezes my shoulder in a silent sort of ‘goodnight’ gesture before making his way back to the guest bedroom.

I sit in silence once he’s gone, staring at the clock on the wall in the darkness.

It’s almost midnight.

Tomorrow
doesn’t look so promising.

***

My black comforter was spread out on the fire escape. I lay on my back on top of it, my knees pulled up, bare feet flat against the metal. Cody lies beside me, wedged against the railing. It wasn’t very comfortable, trying to lay out here together, but neither of us complained.

Out loud, anyway.

His soft sighs of exasperation told me how he was feeling. The scowl on his face was deep tonight. Fall had come upon us quickly. I had to head back to school the following week—my junior year at the private all-girls catholic academy my father insisted on sending me to—while Cody started his senior year at a local high school. He should’ve graduated the year before, but a string of suspensions derailed that. He jumped from school to school, getting kicked out for fighting as soon as he got admitted, before having no option left but to resort back to public education.

Even then, they had a hard time finding one to admit him. He would have to travel to Queens every morning for classes, which might turn out for the best, considering his reputation in
this
neighborhood.

“Do you ever wonder why they call it Hell’s Kitchen?”

I wasn’t sure what prompted the question as it flowed from my lips. I could hear the bustle of the neighborhood below us. Somewhere, in those streets, my father was running loose. So was Cody’s, for that matter.

I didn’t know what they were doing.

I wondered if Cody did.

“There’s a story on the street,” Cody said, “that it got its name because the neighborhood is the worst part of Hell … the
hottest
part. Hell’s Kitchen. I don’t know how true that is, but it sure as shit fits, considering Cormac runs the place.”

I would’ve laughed, but I knew he wasn’t joking.

“So does that make my father one of Satan’s minions?”

“That’s one way to put it.”

“Is there any other way?”

He paused. “No.”

I stared straight up in the sky, mulling over his words. Cormac had probably hundreds of followers. The police called them the
Hellions
, a nickname the younger generation embraced. My father, on the other hand, scoffed at it, calling it insulting. He had been around since the beginning, since the day Cormac took control of Hell’s Kitchen. According to Cody, he was Cormac’s right hand man.

It was a dark night, cloudless and cool. It was as if a blanket of black lay above us, too. Sometimes, I thought, it was hard to feel grounded when you couldn’t recognize the world around you. My eyes searched the skies, but I felt nothing spark inside of me. It was like we were trapped in a void. “You know, I can’t remember the last time I saw a star.”

“Me, either,” Cody said. “I can’t remember the last time I actually
looked
for one.”

We lay there some more, and I knew we were both looking for stars, looking for something beyond this existence and out into the greater universe, but just like me, he came up empty. It sort of made it feel like this was all there was.

Like there was nothing outside of this life we had been given.

We both wanted more, though. Cody had told me, one of the secrets we shared in the dark on my sixteenth birthday, the first time he told me he had fallen in love with me and I whispered those words right back. He said he didn’t want to be like his father … that he didn’t want to waste his life running these streets.

He said he wanted out of Hell’s Kitchen.

I said I wanted the same.

“I guess that does it,” he said after a while. “Can’t see the Heavens so this
must
be Hell.”

“Must be,” I mumbled in agreement, giving up on stargazing to snuggle up against him. I lay my head on his shoulder as he wrapped his arm around me. He smelled woodsy, and earthy, the pungent aroma of smoke lingering on his clothes and mixing with his cologne. Closing my eyes, I inhaled deeply, breathing him in.

He smelled like a world outside of this city.

He shifted position, cupping my chin and pulling my face up toward him so he could kiss me. It was soft and sweet as always, his tongue meeting mine as his hands roamed. He caressed my face and neck before his hand drifted down to my waist, toying with the hem of my shirt for a moment. I felt his fingertips graze the bare skin along my side as he dipped beneath the fabric. He stroked my stomach, moving up, his hand slipping beneath the cup of my bra, pushing it out of the way to palm my breast.

His thumb grazed across my nipple and I gasped, savoring his touch. This was what we did, the moments I lived for, when his hands were touching me, the only hands that
ever
touched me. It never went farther than this; he never pushed for more than just a stolen embrace.

His lips found my neck, kissing lightly, running his tongue along my skin.

I shivered.

“Are you cold?” he asked quietly.

I was, but that wasn’t what gave me goose bumps right then. “I’m okay.”

He sighed. “You should probably go in.”

“I don’t want to.”

I didn’t want him to leave.

I didn’t want to spend another night by myself.

I was so tired of it.

I was only sixteen and three quarters and I was already drowning in solitude. I felt like I’d spent an entire lifetime alone. I didn’t want to be alone anymore.

“Come with me,” I whispered. “Let’s go inside together.”

He pulled away to look at me, surprise on his face as he stared into my eyes. He never went inside. It was just the way it was. Cody had broken every rule ever forced upon him, even broken a few laws in his young life, but this rule he followed. Maybe it was a matter of respect. Maybe it was fear.

Or maybe it was just because I’d never asked him to break it.

Maybe that was what he had been waiting for.

An invitation.

Because he gave it ten seconds then—ten seconds of silence, of contemplation—before he removed his hand from my shirt. I thought he was going to leave, that he was going to send me in alone. His expression was so serious.

It made my insides curl.

Cody motioned toward the open window. I climbed through, bringing my blanket with me as he got to his feet. I stood in the living room, straining my ears as he paused again. Ten more seconds. Ten seconds of silence. Ten seconds of contemplation. I listened for the sound of the rattling fire escape, expecting him to disappear. Instead, after those ten seconds passed, he came toward me, climbing through the window.

His feet hit the wooden floor, and something inside of me sparked, what I couldn’t feel outside. Like we belonged …

He stood there, looking around. My place was nowhere near the size of his. The Morans lived in a fancy apartment in the newest building in the neighborhood, the kind of place without rusty old fire escapes and creaky windows.

For the first time in my life, standing in front of him, I was actually
nervous
.

I wringed my hands together, biting my bottom lip, unsure of what to say, or do, or what we were even doing anymore, but as usual Cody knew.

Cody always knew.

Reaching over, he grabbed my hands, stopping my anxious fidgeting. Wordlessly, he pulled me from the living room, leading me straight back to my bedroom, not even asking me which one it was. “How do you know—?”

“Just because I’ve never been inside doesn’t mean I don’t know the layout,” he said. “I see your shadow moving around the apartment when you’re alone.”

From most people, that would probably sound creepy as fuck, but coming from him, it made my heart soar. He was always looking out for me, even when I didn’t realize it.

My room was typical for someone my age, I supposed—clothes everywhere, shoes all over the floor. Shades of pink mixed with the darkest black, the walls covered in posters and things cut out of magazines. I didn’t have movie stars or singers—no, I had places. Places I wanted to go. Things I want to see. My walls were a visual bucket list of dreams.

Cody’s eyes scanned them in the darkness. It was all things he knew. I told him everything. But still, I was nervous.

Cody pulled me to him before I could start to fidget again. “You have nothing to worry about. It’s just me.”

“I know.”

“We don’t have to do a thing.”

Again, I knew, but I wanted to, and that was what made me nervous. I wrapped my arms around his neck, my fingers lacing through the messy hair at his nape as he kissed me. He didn’t rush me, didn’t push me, but he didn’t force me to take the lead, either. Even though we both knew there was no reason for it, he could sense my anxiety. He pulled me over to my bed, laying me down on it. His hands roamed, slipping beneath fabric and exploring bare skin, as he kissed me.

And kissed me.

And kissed me some more.

He kissed me until I was breathless, until every inch of me was on fire from the inside out. My clothes were tugged off, one-by-one, discarded along with his shirt, until I was laying there in nothing but my underwear. My nerves intensified along with the rampant beat of my heart as his mouth traveled everywhere. Pleasure mingled with an edge of fear, adrenaline like never before coursing through my veins, making me tremble beneath him. His lips traveled down my chest, between my breasts, before trailing along my stomach. He moved along my sides, leaving kisses on my hips. I writhed, my hands running through his hair, as his tongue swirled around my navel before going lower …

Lower …

Lower …

He rubbed against me, teeth nipping around the black cotton of my underwear. Even with the fabric separating us, the spark of pleasure that rushed through me was intense. I arched my back, gasping, gripping tightly to his hair as his mouth explored that one place he had never been before. His hands grabbed the sides of my underwear, pulling them down, leaving me completely naked beneath him before I even had a chance to wrap my brain around the fact that this was actually happening. His gaze trailed along my body as he made his way back up, hovering over top of me. He met my eyes, a smile slowly overcoming his lips, wiping away that harsh scowl. Laugh lines and dimples nearly rendered his scar invisible.