Free Fire & Ice by Lisa Logue

front of me. I smiled at the thought.
    “I’m sorry I took so long. Austin was being an ass,” she said and sat on the counter like always .
    “I suspected as much. What are we doing now?” I looked her over. Her messy bun, pajama pants and ribbed tank top was incredibly enticing.
    “Um,” she caught my stare. “I, uh, I think we should finish the story. Can we go into your room this time?”
    I made a face, “I told you, my room is nothing compared to yours. Why do you want to go in there so bad?”
    “Maybe I want to make you as uncomfortable as you make me, for once,” she shrugged and hoped down from the counter.
    “Whatever you say,” I followed her to my room, trying desperately not to stare at her perfectly rounded bottom.
    “Stop staring as my ass,” she said over her shoulder. “Your eyes are starting to burn holes through my pants.”
    I smiled. What she didn’t know was that her clothes did little to hide her body from my vision. If I looked hard enough, I’d see everything I needed without her shedding a piece. It was very hard not to take advantage of that.
    As we approached the door to my room, I stepped in front of her. She huffed, crossed her arms, and waited rather impatiently. I debated whether it was a good idea, but decided it didn’t really matter.
    “It’s a mess, you know,” I said with a shrug.
    “I don’t really care. Open the door,” she demanded. Her eyes burned into my skin and I swore I could actually feel the heat.
    “Alright, alright, go in,” I said and stepped aside.
    She looked around at my embarrassingly disheveled room. I wasn’t normally a messy person, but I was too engrossed in my research to put anything away. We knew little about Lia’s shaman heritage and, with her grandfather’s direction , we helplessly searched for anything useful.
    “Still digging around I see,” she stated knowingly as she ran her fingers along the pages of a few open books.
    “We have to. I want to make sure we can help you to the best of our abilities. Unfortunately, there isn’t as much information as I’d hoped.”
    “What you’re looking for you won’t find in a book. Shamanism is about more than what others think it is. I’ve learned a lot about my connection to our world and the spirit world.”
    “What have you learned, exactly?” I smirked.
    “Well,” she looked down shyly. “I’ve learned that sometimes things aren’t as they seem. The good can look evil and the other way around. But there’s always a balance to things. Where something is taken away, something else will replace it.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “It means there’s a balance to everything. When things begin to shift off balance, it has to be righted. It’s not something we can physically touch, but we all play a part in that balance. One way or another, anyway,” she flipped through a few more pages through other books.
    “I still don’t follow,” my brow furrowed.
    She sighed, “Think of it this way, when you were turned it seemed bad, right?” I nodded. “Yet, for some reason you survived it. For possibly that same reason, you’re helping me now.”
    “Okay, so?”
    “So, by something bad happenin g to you -your human life ending- you are now able to project the good. You know, one door closes, another opens?”
    “So you’re saying that becoming a vampire was something bad that happened because there was an imbalance?”
    “It’s possible. I can only say that in theory,” she shrugged and twirled a stray curl around her finger.
    “Your theory seems a bit flawed. I’m not the good guy here,” I smiled.
    “If you say so,” she said as she shook her head.
    I watched her investigate my room some more, undoubtedly seeking the journal she so desperately wanted to read. Smiling, I walked to my closet and dug it out from behind several other books.
    “Is this what you’re looking for?” I waved it at her.
    “I thought you said I couldn’t read it,” she