Page 3 of To Match A Dragon's Fire

Where I was from, you could go for miles without seeing a single manmade building. My claustrophobia started a year or so before the earthquakes did. Moving away from my childhood home to the big city for college was my first culture shock of many.

Small towns were less crowded with better resources and not a lot of tall buildings waiting to crush you.

Willow was right. It would be safer there.

Soon.My heart started thumping harder as it always did when I thought about going back home. Logically, I knew we should’ve gone already, but there was still some time. A week or two at least.

We’d held out this long.

What was a few more days?

It wasn’t like we could leave without Riley.

I sat on the crate by the dumpster, moaning with relief as the weight came off my feet, and bit into the burger as I pulled out my phone.

Service was hit and miss most of the time with cell towers not designed to withstand the earthquakes, but I downloaded books whenever I had full signal.

As soon as I pulled up my library app, the streetlights went out, shrouding me in the dark except for the glow from my screen.

A collective groan came from inside the bar.

I took another bite of my burger and started reading right where I’d left off. Seconds later, the noise started again as the lanterns turned on.

The backdoor of McKay’s swung open. I kept reading as Brendon strolled over, enjoying my Greek mythology retelling. Hades was just about to teach Persephone a lesson when—

“You got a light?” Brendon asked.

“Why is it that everyone thinks you can interrupt a reader? If this was any other hobby, you’d wait until I was finished to bother me.” I dug into my purse.

I hadn’t smoked since my early twenties, when all my big mistakes were made, but I always had a lighter and pocket knife for emergencies. Plus a hatchet in my vehicle and my concealed carry pistol when I wasn’t on the clock.

Small-town paranoia never quite left me.

“You know those things will kill you,” I said half-heartedly as I handed over the lighter, cringing a bit when the words left my mouth.

Who was I to judge?

I’d made plenty of bad decisions at his age.

He might as well live a little while he could.

Brendon lit his cigarette. “What are you reading?”

I was definitely not going to share those details with him, so I slid my phone into my purse. “Nothing now.”

“I see.” He blew out a plume of smoke and the cloud hung heavy in the humid summer air. “Well, I just wanted to make sure you were doing all right.”

Brendon was okay. If I was into the motorcycle club look with slicked-back hair and a smooth baby face, I might’ve even thought he was cute.

It’d been a while since I’d gotten laid, which usually meant I could ignore a red flag or two, but I’dsworn off men for the time being. He was also too young and interrupting my one break of the night.

“I’m fine.” I popped a pepperoncino into my mouth.

“You know you can call me to step in before you waste my beer by dumping it onto someone’s head.” Brendon flicked the ash from his cigarette. “Marco doesn’t want another incident.”

“How close is he to firing me?” I took another bite of the burnt burger.

“So fucking close.” Smoke billowed from his nostrils as he laughed. “If it wasn’t for Sofia being April’s tía, I’m not sure you’d still be here.”

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