Darker London

The house smelled of blood, rank and disgusting.

The house smelled like victory, control and power.

( ... )

Josie had years of flying alone. Years of late-night waiting for the world to sleep while she sat on the roof of the house she shared with Miles, Temple Grove, or the sleepout in the back of Peter’s house. Years of disguising herself as a shadow and sprinting upwards till she was high enough that if anyone on the ground saw her, she would just be a trick of their eyes.

The cold was part of flying, and always would be. Ko told her about flying in Russia, about how he had never heard a story of anyone losing their wings from the cold but there was no greater feeling than flying on a summer’s day. Izmaylov was far from anywhere, where it was safe to fly during the day.

( ... )

You know what you need? Stephie told herself silently, lying in bed with her eyes on the ceiling. It was not her ceiling; it was the on call room at the hospital. Being treated like a real pilot meant being available if something happened in the middle of the night. Usually, being an on call pilot was boring as fuck, but Stephie had been using her boring as fuck nights to get a little paramedic training from Matt. Tonight she’d had to stop herself dragging him into the on call room with her, just to make the rest of the night go a little faster.

She was kind of annoyed at herself for talking herself out of it, even though she didn’t really want to sleep with Matt. He was just… there. It would have been… a thing.

( ... )

The last thing Harley ever expected was to see Imogene again, standing at his front door waiting to be let in. Her dark hair had been recently straightened and even more recently rained upon and was trying to escape its simple ponytail. She had a little make up left on her face but no lipstick, and under it all she looked exhausted and frightened.

Harley had never seen Imogene frightened before, so he opened up the door, and drew her back into his life.

( ... )