Up in Smoke, Page 32

  Damn. She’s good. It isn’t just an eye either. Inside the pupil is where the real art begins. It’s a landscape of some sort. No, it’s here. The prison yard. Only, it’s different. The sky an apocalyptic-looking orange with brown clouds.

  I stand up to take in the bigger picture. I take a drag of my cigarette and choke out a cough when I see the blood. The bodies strewn about what looks like a prison yard turned battlefield. In the very center is a man carrying a woman.

  Holy shit. It’s me. It’s us.

  More specifically, it’s me... carrying Frankie into Hell.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “Why do they call you Smoke?”I ask.

  It’s late afternoon, and we’re sitting on the porch. We haven’t spoken in a long while and despite my anger I’m tired of the silence.

  Smoke’s drinking whiskey straight from the bottle, and I’m reading a novel I found in a container in the guest bedroom. Or I should say I’m trying to read a novel. We’ve been out here for over an hour, and I’ve read the same paragraph a hundred times without yet understanding a single word. It’s hard to focus when all I can think about is his lips on mine. The way he rocked me against him.

  The redhead.

  Smoke pulls the cigar from his lips and holds it up before my mind can wander further and before my blush has a chance to reach my cheeks. He raises his eyebrow like the answer to my question