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  Pia nodded, feeling unreasonably safe, given the circumstances. She was dressed in the skimpiest of night clothes, and her compact curves captured his attention, pulling it from the life-threatening danger. He knew better than to get distracted by the female form, but in the case, he couldn’t help it. All the experience under his belt couldn’t compete with this needy beauty at the moment. But it had to.

  He grabbed a robe from a hook by the door. It scalded his hand and he wrapped it around them he looked for another way out.

  Pushing his charge around his side, he found a metal candlestick on the dresser, and carefully bashed the window. Glass exploded everywhere, slicing their skin in spite of his efforts to protect them both. Quickly, he gathered blankets from the bed and tossed them on the ground. It wasn’t a far fall, but the woman, was passed out and incapable of making the jump.

  He threw a leg across the windowsill and gathered the girl into his lap, said a little prayer to the saints his mother believed in so passionately and jumped. Rolling carefully in the air, he aimed properly so that her light form landed on him, jarring his hip into the cold ground. She shivered in the frosty air but didn’t wake up. They were both covered with scratches and tears as their blood mingled. The symbolism of saving her life and becoming connected at this elemental level wasn’t lost on him, but still. It wasn’t enough to make him stay with the sounds of sirens echoing on the small side street.

  He moved further from the blast, around to the side of the house. He wrapped the robe and the blanket around her, laying her down out of the path of danger and in the path of any of the first responders. Kissing her forehead for luck, he ran back into the woods and changed back to what he’d come to think of as his natural form.

  She sat sunning herself on the small deck. The frequency of the high-pitched squeak of the swing hit the very back of my ears. It hurt, and in a way he knew he’d feel it for hours afterwards. But still, he could not walk away. These short glimpses of her were what he lived for these days, especially moments like these when she was content. They were few and far between. Today he’d timed this particular pass by with the arrival of her mother’s car. The unmistakable purr of the Jaguar reached him on the far side of their property where he’d made a small den.

  Inevitably, her mother would come home and there would often be shouting, and sometimes crying. That was the worst. It made him wonder if her life had been worth saving. Made him worry if she, like him, felt more despondent than hopeful, more raw than healed. He hadn’t been injured in the fire. Not permanently. His burns had healed but his hatred for humanity had grown. And especially his hatred for anything that was out to hurt her, including her family. He creeped enough to know the pressure they put on her before the fire, and what they did now.

  He would feel just awful about it, he should feel awful about it. But he couldn’t. Because everyone once in a while, she would come outside and smile. Sometimes it was the sun, or a melody of a bird. And sometimes, he was sure she could feel his stare, and that she smiled at him. It almost made him want to shift, just for a chance to talk to her again. But he couldn’t shift into a man again. Not for her. Not for anyone.

  But if there was any way for him to help her, in his wolf form, the he would stop at nothing to help her get the happiness she deserved.

  The door opened without a knock, and Pia turned her face to the sound. Her parents didn’t dare to enter that way any more. Which could only mean one person.

  “It’s me. Jesus, Pia, it’s only been three weeks” the short raven-haired girl said, accepting the hug. Pia grabbed around her neck and hung on, and not for the first time, Cori recognized how different her friend was. In some ways, it was a good thing. Pia had always been so reserved, almost standoffish. They’d been friends long enough that Cori knew Pia held back because she was shy. But she also knew that it stopped her friend a little bit from fully enjoying life. That’s why Cori felt especially bad about the accident. And that’s why she was going to do everything she could to help during the short time she had back in town.

  “I know. I’m just happy to see you, is all,” Pia said, catching herself on the words. Cori smiled sadly and tightened her grip. “You’re supposed to laugh,” Pia said, sighing when her joke fell flat.

  “I did. Silently. I’ll do better next time,” Cori said, shocked at the difference in her friend during the short time she’d been gone. She sighed at the sight of Pia in the bed.

  "I heard that," Pia said. And of course she had - her other senses were better since the accident but they didn't come close to making up for her eyes.

  Pia could actually feel Cori's disappointment. When they'd parted only a couple of weeks ago, Pia had been getting up and dressed and walking around for the better part of each day. Now she was mushed under the covers with a messy ponytail on top of her head.

  She steeled her emotions and shut out the guilt that crept in after Cori had worked so hard to help her.

  "I knew I shouldn't have left you alone," Cori said, sterling her voice and gripping Pia's shoulders tightly to stare. Her voice choked on the words and when the hug came Pia felt moisture on her shirt from Cori's silent tears.

  "Stop. I was never going to let you skip your trip to Europe. You've worked too hard for that."

  "I could've gone some other time," Cori said, brushing a wisp of hair away from Pia's mouth. Dry lips and dry skin were yet another indication about how little the girl had taken care of herself.

  "We've been over this. And besides, it's not like I was alone. I had the maid," Pia said wryly, just a few seconds before the referenced help came to collect the mug and plate by her bed.

  "M' sorry ma'am," the woman whispered, apologizing for no reason.

  "Pia. Please. Ma'am is for my mother."

  "Y-y-yes Miss," the woman said, not changing tactics very much before scrambling towards the door. "I'll come by to clean in an hour," she said before heading out.

  "Hey, no, she's supposed to be doing that for herself," Cori objected.

  Pia laughed dryly and rolled her blind eyes. "Like that's going to happen. My mother won't tolerate the mess. And let's face it, I was helpless at housework, even when I could see."

  "You need to learn it if you want to get your independence and move out," Cori said, looking around the room. Every surface was empty, identical, and white. Cori wanted to think that Pia knew where everything was in her drawers, but she doubted it.

  "Didn't the home transition team come and help get you set up?" Cori asked. She'd checked in at the center and they said that they had.

  "Yes. But I broke too much crystal and china and mother dearest said they had to go," Pia said. Her mother had panicked over the smallest cut when Pia had tried to help clean up the mess and sent the training staff from the Center for the Blind away. Instead she'd bought every gadget they'd recommended and hired the maid instead.

  "So buy plastic!" Cori said, knowing as well as Pia did that would never fly in the Matthews household.

  "Yeah right. Can we forget about my mom for a few minutes? I get enough of her. Tell me everything about your trip instead," Pia said, working to keep the hopeless out of her voice. Her mother didn't want to accept that Pia's condition was permanent. Neither did Pia, but she didn't have much of a choice.

  "I'll tell you everything. On a walk. But you need to shower first. C'mon, I'll help you," Cori said, standing up and helping Pia from the bed.

  The first time Cori had helped Pia in the shower had been more than a little awkward. They'd been friends for years, going through college and medical school together. But that had gone beyond the comfort zone of their bond, for Pia at least. Cori was used to it, but then again she actually worked with patients. Pia just brought them in. She gave up being a doctor after a horrifying ER residency. She'd driven an ambulance and served as an EMT instead, and loved it. She missed it now almost more than she missed her sight.

  "Isn't that better?" Cori asked, tucking Pia's arm in hers, and handing the
walking stick to her friend. And it did. Pia knew that already. In the six months since the fire, she'd learned to appreciate little things like being clean and going outside. When she'd been at the rehabilitation center, they were ways to test her independence. But in the weeks she'd been at home, she had done very little of either. Her mother made her feel so helpless and she hated it.

  "I need to get out of there," Pia said, working to find the door handle on her own, just to prove to Cori, and to herself that she could.

  "Exactly. That's why we're going on a walk," Cori said, happier to see this side of Pia than the girl who'd been sulking in bed when she arrived.

  "No. I need to be out of there for good. I had talked them into it just before the fire," Pia said sadly. She was twenty-six and far too old to be living in her parents house. They kept her there for years under the guise of house sitting. But now that her work and her identity had been taken away, she needed something for herself, something more than a newly fixed up and professionally decorated guest suite.

  All of her belongings, her clothes, her memories, had burned in the fire. Her mother had rebuilt the rooms, and replaced everything before Pia even left the hospital. She knew how fortunate she was that materially she needed nothing. But those were all just things, and mattered very little when she didn't have any kind of a life left.

  "I still wake up choking on smoke. I can still smell it," Pia said, opening the door and taking in the warm air. "Getting away from it is the only reason I come outside anymore."

  "We'll get you out of here. I'll figure it out," Cori said, silently promising to herself to make it happen.

  Pia knew there were just a couple steps from her front door to her patio, and managed that on her own, taking refuge on the patio furniture when the rooms got to be too much. She'd even slept there a few times. But then there were more steps to deal with and those were harder for her.

  "C'mon. Use the cane like we showed you," Cori said, adjusting Pia's grip and waiting until the tip was steady on the ground.

  Pia moved her foot cautiously, navigating the flat surface. The second step sent her tumbling over the cane.

  "God damnit! I hate this thing," Pia yelled, throwing the offensive stick on the ground.

  "It's hard. You're learning how to walk again. But c'mon. Get up." Cori was sympathetic but not about to let her friend quite. "Try the stairs with your hands on the rails and just use your feet. There are five steps."

  Before the fire, or BTF as Pia thought of it in her lighter moments, she would have said she could get around her parents property with her eyes closed. Now that she was blind, that couldn't have been further from the truth.

  She got down the first three steps just fine. But then misplaced her foot on the fourth one, falling forward in to a warm pile of fur.

  "What? What the hell?" Pia yelled, heart beating twenty times faster than it should have been. She had expected to fall flat on her face but somehow she hadn't. She grabbed at the fur, but it moved beneath her, gently freeing itself and running away.

  "Oh my god Pia. Are you ok???" Cori said, running down the stairs.

  "Fine," Pia said, rubbing at her wrist. That had been the only thing to hit ground. "Somehow. What even was that?" she asked, listening for footsteps and hearing nothing.

  "I don't know. Some sort of dog, I think. It came out of nowhere. And then disappeared." Cori offered a hand to help her up and Pia grabbed it.

  "A dog?" Pia asked, confused. They didn't have dogs on the property. Her mother claimed allergies, but Pia knew it was just because they were messy.

  "A big one. It was reddish, I think. It moved so fast I barely saw it." Cori grabbed her friends hand and investigated. "Just a scrape. You’re good. Let's go in a wash it off."

  "No. I don't want to go inside right now. There's a sink by the garden. Let's go there, and then go for that walk. Clearly I need the practice," Pia managed to joke.

  Cori smiled and grabbed her elbow, tucking their arms. "You worry about your feet. I'll take care of everything else. Like a guide dog," Cori said, giggling.

  "I put myself on the list for one," Pia said, as they moved towards the garden.

  "You did? I thought your mother said no way?" Cori cleaned the cut carefully, pleased to see there wasn't any blood under the dirt. A guide dog was just one of the many things she had fought with Mrs. Matthews about since Pia had gone blind.

  "She did. I figured it might get me out of the house," Pia smirked. "Unfortunately it takes months to come up on the list. I even dropped your name. It didn't help," Pia said.

  "Why would you think it would?" Cori said, winding around the path of roses just starting to bloom. The Matthews had won awards for them for generations.

  "You work a the rehab center? You're a doctor? I don't know. I even talked my dad into making a donation, even though I didn't tell him why. That didn't help either," Pia said, getting into the rhythm of Cori's step.

  "And knowing you that made you love the organization, and now you want one even more. Am I right?" Cori asked. "Garden or woods?"

  "Woods. My running trail please," Pia said with a sigh. She hadn't been on it months.

  "You can run you know," Cori said, taking them across the clearing and into the place where the trees split. She wasn't a runner like Pia but they'd hiked along the trail enough on visits before the fire.

  "Yeah. On the treadmill," Pia said. "You know how much I hate that."

  "It might be better than nothing," Cori said.

  "But not better than a guide dog."

  "True. There are some private facilities that I've heard about. I'll put out some feelers, see what I can do."

  Want to read more from BLIND TRUST by Raci Ames? It’s available as of November 12 from Amazon

  You can find Raci at www.raciames.com.