Free Deeper (The Deeper Chronicles #1) by Allyn Lesley Page B

would Harry get it?
    Who he’d become was in his blood, as part of him as the color of his eyes. Hell, if Afghanistan had taught him anything, it was that he couldn’t be anything else but the man who wasn’t fit to walk through Harry’s front door.
    Noah expelled a breath. “Give the guys a call. They miss you.” Then he walked away.
    I miss you.
    He dropped his head, blending in with the night.

I t was two weeks after her disastrous date with Jayson, and Avi was yet again embroiled in a self-inflicted disaster. This one couldn’t be helped though.
    “So, this bitch told me, ‘To look at you, you’d never know. You have a beautiful smile, but your roots are all bad’. Can you believe the nerve of that dentist?”
    Ouch. Avi was tempted to turn her head for a glimpse of the person who’d been sharing chunks of her personal life, and loudly too, for the last ten minutes. She knew about the woman’s cheating husband, and a cousin who was recently arrested on a parole violation. Way too much information from the woman’s life was now swimming in Avi’s head for so early on a Saturday morning.
    “Yeah, girl.”
    There was a pause, and Avi hoped the woman would have enough decency to end her call and wait for the privacy of her home before she divulged anymore of her business inside the crowded post office. The vestibule was already tight; people went to and fro from their mailboxes, while others with foresight and planning only had to slip their envelopes with the correct postage into the slots on the far wall. Avi needed the assistance of the sole postal worker ahead of her somewhere behind the thick plexiglass. Between the Chatty Cathy behind her and the line that stretched to the front doors, she was ready to leave the place.
    “And I swear, I’m not sending no more damn care packages to this prison...”
    That was Avi’s signal to tune her out. She peeped around the portly man in front of her, only to see that she was miles, or so it seemed, from reaching the front of the line. Her shoulders sagged. Who knew coming to the post office would be this involved?
    The woman behind her continued grumbling about this and that just as one of Avi’s reasons for standing in the infernal line flew out of her hand. She stooped, jostling the metal chain link to reach the envelope, yelping when her fingers were almost crushed by a passing customer.
    The letter was smeared.
    A sooty boot heel was imprinted on the front, right over her name.
    Avi pulled the envelope toward her. With quickness, she dug into her bag for something to wipe away the grit. Her hand landed on a piece of Kleenex, which she used to brush the front. It didn’t help. Whatever was on the person’s boot was now good and stuck onto Avi’s envelope. Damn. Her name was blurred and dirtied, almost unrecognizable by the time the envelope joined the rest Avi was returning to its sender.
    Of course my name would be sullied. Makes perfect sense. She didn’t know why, but her eyes glassed over the longer she viewed the letter. Pin-pricks of remorse stabbed at her heart; she never got used to them, though they’d taken up residence in her chest for the last three years. If she didn’t feel them then she’d worry. She wished the letters would stop arriving, that her silent hint would finally sink in. But, down deep, what she wished was that her cowardice would shrink and she could open one of them.
    Avi was pulled from her head by the vibration in her pocket. She slid the envelope back into place, adjusting the elastic around the rest of her package so none would escape before shoving all twenty of them back where they should have stayed: hidden and out of view. Like me.
    “Meet me at Chambers and Church.”
    Avi stared at Sofie’s text with confusion. The line began to pick up its pace, dragging her gaze from her cell’s screen. She perked up at the sight of another postal worker. Thank God, Avi thought while she typed out a response.
    After her