Playing with Fire by Tamara Morgan Read Free Book Online

from the open window above her kitchen sink. Aim was something she’d perfected over the years, and the hiss from the first two tires went unnoticed. By the time she was on the third, the guards were on the alert, and she’d seen the flash as the largest of them pulled a gun.
    Idiots. Metal got pretty hot pretty damned fast, and the guy would probably have nasty burn marks on his hands for the rest of his life. The other one dodged behind the car, giving her enough time to run down the back stairs of the building and slip, unnoticed, into Ian’s truck.
    If she’d wondered before what Patrick was doing generating the whole public fear thing, she certainly didn’t question it now. Even his guards—paid to strut around like giant penises and baseball bats—had reason to be scared of her. Everyone did. She was an unstable freak who forced bona fide thugs to hide. She might as well have Life of Crime printed on her forehead.
    But that wasn’t her—not now, and not ever. She’d fire at trees when the energy built up, and she’d dreamt of doing the same to Patrick’s face and possibly Ian’s backside. But the manila folder tucked inside her backpack, its contents a story she wished with all her heart had remained untold, would never be her. She would always be saddled with the guilt of ruining that poor man’s arm, but she didn’t set schools on fire, and she definitely didn’t kill innocent security guards.
    But it would be damned hard convincing the authorities of that. Patrick had a plan. Before he’d even arrived in Ashland, puffed up and hawking General Eagle’s tales, he’d been gathering false evidence against her, playing his cards.
    He knew her too well. And now Ian knew how awful she was, too.
    Why did that second part hurt so much more than the first?
    “I promise I won’t touch anything.” She held up three fingers. “Scouts honor.”
    Ian eyed her, not blinking. “It’s not that I don’t trust you. I mean—it is that, of course. You aren’t getting anywhere near my work until you tell me what’s going on.”
    “That’s fair,” Fiona said quickly. Just don’t make me leave .
    “I feel like I should warn you, though.”
    “Warn me? About what?”
    Just then, the door next to Ian swung open, and a blur hurtled through. At first, Fiona thought it must have been some sort of mutant human pet, like the one from the Island of Dr. Moreau, but as the limbs unfolded and the creature righted itself, Fiona realized it was someone much less pleasant.
    “Holy fucknuggets,” Neil Grantham said, letting out a low whistle. There was nothing at all subtle about the way he looked at her, his eyes traveling from tits to toes and back again, refusing to focus anywhere else. “You weren’t kidding. It really is Fingerbang.”
    No one had called her that in years. Almost a decade, actually. That didn’t make the sting of it any less painful. She breathed in through her nostrils, her temperature rising to dangerous heights.
    Fiona’s eyes widened when Neil staggered backward, coming to a stop only when he smacked into a dining room chair. He fell into a crouch, clutching his nose and howling as bright blood chugged through his fingers.
    Ian shook his hand and scowled. And for once, the scowl wasn’t trained on her.
    “I told you not to say that again,” he said, his words tight and controlled. “Apologize.”
    “What?” Fiona cried. Neil echoed the sentiment.
    “You heard me.” Ian nudged Neil with his foot. “You will treat Fiona with the respect she deserves, or you will get out of this house.” He turned to her, and the scowl softened into what might actually have been a smile. It was just a little quirk of the lips, a chip in that cool exterior, but it was enough.
    “I’m really sorry about that,” he said. “Neil’s an idiot.”
    “I’m aware of that,” she replied, suppressing a smile of her own. “It’s okay.” She felt suddenly magnanimous, as if she could pardon an entire