Chapter Twelve
“Something’s off with you this week,” said Madeline, leaning against a desk pushed flush along the far wall of the station living room.
Nothing in the room matched. Not the apple green couch or the rust orange rug or the blue chair with patches on both arms. And everything, including the old stereo and two mini-fridges, and the marble statue of a cat the team had named Cadster Allen, was donated by former firefighters.
“What do you mean?” Peyton muttered before a great big yawn gripped her lips.
“You look tired, Peyton. More so than usual,” noted Madeline, scooting herself onto the table until her legs dangled over the side.
Her skinny pale ankles stuck out from her work pants.
She flicked the fringe of raven black hair out of her eyes and said, “Like exhausted. You keep yawning. I’ve seen you yawn like ten times in the last hour already.
And it’s not just today. It’s the entire week. Are you getting enough sleep?”
“Define enough,” said Peyton, stretching herself out on the couch. If enough meant fitful sleep, then the answer was an easy yes.
“At least seven hours,” replied Madeline. “Less than that, and your brain can’t repair its own tissues.”
“So, three isn’t recommended then?” joked Peyton, though health was not a joking matter.
She knew that. She prided herself on being able to fall asleep instantly.
But the last week she had been having terrible nightmares.
Every time she drifted off, she would find herself standing on the quarterdeck of a pirate ship watching Sorel at the bow, leaning dangerously over the railing.
Peyton would always shout for her to step back to safety, but her voice came out as a whisper, and when the boat smashed into a wave—it always did—Sorel would fall.
But it wasn’t Sorel plunging into the stormy ocean.
It was Josie. And even when the dream changed, when the pirate ship became a hot air balloon or a mini ocean glider, the outcome was always the same.
Sorel was always leaning precariously over something to unknown depths, but Josie was falling.
The dreams were far too real. Peyton’s mind was far too creative for its own good. And sleep. Well, sleep was hard to come by when she kept watching Josie’s lovely, soft body smash up against the waves or get eaten by a whale, depending on the dream.
She had even developed purple half-moons beneath her eyes and this morning had smeared a decent amount of concealer to cover them up.
“Maybe you should go see the doctor. Get some sleeping pills.”
“No,” said Peyton, sitting up and shaking her head. “I don’t need medication. It’s nothing serious. It’ll pass.”
“So, your insomnia has nothing to do with that Josie woman?” Madeline’s green eyes shone bright with curiosity.
If there was any person who could unearth secrets with a mere glance, it was her.
A talent of sorts. Madeline always wanted to be a researcher, one of those people traveling the world to find those lost, unknown indigenous tribes.
Instead, she took up her second calling to become a firefighter and settled for the role of knowing everything about everyone at Station 34.
“Because it looks to me like you’re sleeping issues started after that trip to Avila Beach. ”
“It has absolutely nothing to do with—”
Peyton was suddenly interrupted by Roddy walking into the living area brandishing a silvery-wrapped box in the air. “Present for you, Pey!” He then brought it to his ear and shook it vigorously.
“Hey,” moaned Peyton, peeling herself off the couch. “It might be fragile.”
“Nah. If it was fragile, I would’ve heard glass breaking when I dropped it earlier. It’s all good. Feels like a book—”
“You dropped my package?” interjected Peyton, crossing the room and snatching the box out of Roddy’s grip. It felt like a book, solid and sturdy, but not nearly as heavy as it looked.
“Hey!” he scowled. “It was accidental. Slipped out my hands. And it’s not like packages aren’t mishandled before they’re delivered, anyway.”
Peyton frowned. She hadn’t ordered anything recently and the last time she had gotten a package was a late wedding gift from Sorel’s aunt Marge. A gravy boat which she had returned immediately, along with the hundred other gifts she couldn’t bear to look at.
“Who delivered this?” she asked, not yet tearing it open. Who knew what she might find in there? “Did you see who delivered it here?”
Roddy shrugged. “No idea. Sally said someone dropped it on her table and asked me to give it to you. It’s got your name on it.
” He stepped forward and pointed to the writing on the flip side of the box.
Peyton turned it over. Her name was written in beautiful calligraphy with a rose drawn beneath it.
Apart from that, there was no sender name or return address.
“Maybe it’s from Sorel,” suggested Madeline. “She used to send you gifts all the time, didn’t she?”
Peyton’s stomach clenched. It was true. Sorel’s love language had always been gift-giving. There were times when Peyton had gotten home late from work, Sorel already sleeping, and she would find a box wrapped up in sparkling paper on the kitchen counter.
A heat suddenly rushed to her fingers, and before Peyton knew it, she was tearing open the silver wrapping, her heartbeat thumping in her ears, paying no mind to preserve the pretty crinkly paper.
“Whoa, no need to be so violent,” teased Madeline.
“She’s like She-Hulk,” added Roddy.
Peyton shot them both a look while her hands worked fiercely to get the paper off.
If it was from Sorel—the first attempt at communication in over eleven months—she would throw the gift away, burn it if necessary.
Not because Peyton was still distraught over the ending of their relationship, broken-hearted and sad like those first few long weeks, like people expected her to be, but because she was fucking angry.
Those gooey, cushy feelings she had for Sorel were over, gone, not to be experienced again.
Time had healed her wounds, but it had also left a gaping hole she had filled up with anger.
That was it. Just a storm of bubbling anger toward the woman who had left her at the altar. Nothing more and nothing less.
Maybe that was why Josie infuriated Peyton so much.
Maybe that was why every time Josie made her laugh, said something so ridiculous it had to be funny, or glanced her way whenever she thought Peyton wasn’t looking, sometimes staring at her for seconds on end, Peyton would experience this senseless twinge of annoyance.
It wasn’t warranted. Not at all. At least not in the logical sense.
It was just that Josie had this way of making Peyton feel a little lighter, ten pounds airier.
She made that hole just a little shallower, as if Josie was standing on the edge of the pit in the ground, holding a spade and shoving dirt back into it, one scoop at a time.
The smaller the hole, the less space for that anger.
But Peyton didn’t want it to diminish. She wanted to hold on to that anger as tightly as she could. She wanted to remember the pain. She wanted that pain to fuel the fire.
Without it, she had no idea who she was. She had completely forgotten the Peyton before Sorel, before she had fallen in love, before her heart had been broken.
What if she didn’t like the new Peyton?
When the paper fell to the floor, Roddy’s mouth gaped open. His dark brown eyes widened with excitement while his dimples dug deep into his cheeks. “No way! Is that a DVD boxset of Halloween?”
“Halloween?” frowned Madeline. “You mean the horror movie? With Mike Meyers and that ridiculous white mask?” Her entire body shuddered, and she shook out her arms like she had just walked through a ghost. “I hate horror movies. They’re so pointless.”
“I love them,” muttered Peyton softly, staring so intently at the front cover of the boxset that her eyes had gone blurry.
The gift wasn’t from Sorel.
Of course not. Peyton had known the gift wasn’t from her as soon as she glimpsed the haunting image of Michael Myers in his iconic white mask, partially illuminated by a flickering jack-o’-lantern.
The only person who would send her a gift like that—a DVD boxset of Halloween: The Essential Michael Meyers Collection, complete with behind-the-scenes footage and deleted scenes—was Josie.
She blinked the blurriness away at the same time tears wedged behind her eyes and her throat clogged up. Great. Now she was exhausted and emotional. Or maybe those two things were linked, feeding off each other in a vicious cycle.
Or maybe she was just so stunned that Josie would get her the best damn gift ever. It didn’t even matter that Peyton didn’t own a DVD player. She would figure out a way.
“So?” said Madeline, nudging Peyton with her bony elbow. “Who’s it from?”
The next moment, a blare of an alarm cut through the air, followed by the dispatcher’s urgent voice crackling through the intercom. “Attention, Station 34. We have a report of a fire at 238 Rockwood Drive. Flames visible, occupants possibly trapped. Respond immediately.”
“I guess we’ll find a DVD player later, then,” said Roddy, his shoulders slumped as if he truly believed they were going to sit down and indulge in the pinnacle of horror cinema artistry.
Peyton certainly wasn’t going to tell him that he was the last person she wanted to watch Michael Myers chase hapless victims with the kitchen knife.
There was only one person who deserved the honor of breaking in a Halloween boxset.
The same person Peyton both wanted to run from and run to.
In some bizarre way, that made Peyton feel almost like Laurie Strode—except, of course, that Laurie Strode wasn’t dreaming of kissing Myers but rather killing him.
A subtle yet very distinctive difference.
“Let’s go!” shouted Madeline, already in the hallway. “We’ve got a fire to douse.”