Instinct

35. Collateral Damage (Into the Fire)

The faint light of pre-dawn spilled down the ladder as Eric pushed open the cellar doors above them. With a grating slide of metal on metal, they fell open and slammed to the ground. Stephanie followed him to the exit. Eric offered her a hand and hauled her up the last couple of inches to the ground.

Stephanie was nearly dizzy with the information swirling around in her head. When had her life become this complicated? Murder plots and wolves killing wolves and politics and crime: it was insane. She could hardly believe that, just earlier that day, she had been sitting at home watching Liam and Lea doing a live interview and feeling sorry for herself. Now she was walking alongside Eric Bradley on the streets of New York City after realizing that Kirsten Summers was heading up an underground intelligence organization.

"I can't believe this," Stephanie said.

Eric slipped a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it, slipping it into his mouth.

"Can't believe what?" he asked.

Stephanie opened her mouth to answer before a puff of smoke blew into her face by a stray bit of wind. She coughed and wafted it out of her immediate breathing space.

"That you're such a goddamned idiot," she replied. "What? Do you think you're cool, or something? You won't be when you're dragging around an oxygen tank."

There was a faint smile on his face as he took another drag, rolling his eyes as he went.

"I didn't miss your bitching about my every move."

"Yeah?" she challenged. "What was it that you said to Susanne Bridgewater? 'She's not afraid to call me out on my bullshit'? Well, I'm calling it right now."

Eric shook his head, grinning openly as he dropped the cigarette to the ground and snuffed it out with the toe of his boot. Stephanie didn't miss the way the shadows of sunrise caught on the angles of his face and the stubble peppered across his jawline. She also didn't miss the dark circles under his eyes and the tension at the corners of his eyes, despite the levity of his gaze.

"Oh so you remember my confession on national TV now," he replied. "I was beginning to think you had a stunt double sit there while I exposed my soul to the world for you."

Stephanie blushed and looked down, bringing her shoulders up to her ears abashedly.

"Of course I remember," she whispered.

"Good," Eric said. "Because that was a pretty damned good performance if I do say so myself. I mean, I actually had to find nice things to say about you and all, and you know how hard that is."

The warm feeling coiled in Stephanie's chest warped into exasperation as she gave him a sidelong glare. He just laughed as they carried on down the street. It was suddenly all too clear to her how much she missed this. This simplicity. Up there in that apartment with elitists and celebrities... it just wasn't the pace of life she'd ever imagined for herself. She belonged down on the ground, not up there in the clouds choking on isolation and overexposure all at once. Stephanie missed her car and the anonymity she had when she was just a runaway orphan in a world that didn't know about werewolves.

"I should probably walk you home," Eric said.

Stephanie sighed, "Not yet."

The truth was that she knew Kirsten expected her to be able to do something to help their cause, but Stephanie didn't know what was actually within her power. Putting an end to an assassination plot was not in her very limited skill set. Apparently, appealing to the public enough to be respected wasn't either. So what did she have to offer to these people who put so much faith into what her family and Liam did? She didn't know.