Recalled (Death Escorts #1)(26)
Author: Cambria Hebert

I laughed and hauled the bag of food in and shut the door, throwing the locks. “I ran out to grab the food.”

“I’m starving,” Frankie said, taking the bag from my hand and over to the coffee table, beginning to pull all the boxes out. “That witch I work for about drove me nuts today.”

I went into the kitchen to get some plates, napkins, and silverware, and when I came out she had everything out and was already eating the lo mein.

“Hey, save some for me!” I cried.

“Ya snooze, ya lose.” Then around another mouthful, she said, “Where’d you get the flowers?”

I smiled and glanced at the centerpiece of the coffee table.

“A fancy car and flowers… You don’t stand a chance.”

“Are you implying I can be bought?” I said, slightly offended.

She lowered the lo mein toward her lap. “I know better than that,” she replied. “But you have to admit it doesn’t hurt.”

“I don’t like him for his money, Frankie.”

“But you do like him.” It wasn’t a question.

I shrugged and reached for the white carton in her hand. She held it out and my hand brushed against hers when I grabbed it.

The vision came on fast, strong, and it took over everything else I was seeing and hearing.

And then it was gone.

But the devastation it left would stay with me forever.

“Piper?” Frankie said, pulling me away from the assaulting vision.

I pulled away and set the carton beside me on the table. “Sorry,” I mumbled, still caught in the pain of what I saw.

“Did you have a vision?” Frankie asked, looking at me with curiosity on her face.

I blinked and cleared my throat, forcing what I really felt down deep. “Yeah, but it wasn’t anything big.”

“Well, what’d you see?”

“You know I don’t like to talk about my visions.”

“Yeah, but your reaction just now…” Her voice trailed off and she bit her lip nervously.

I forced myself to smile. A real smile, not something fake. “It just caught me off guard like they do sometimes. I hadn’t been thinking about visions, just how hungry I am.”

Frankie nodded. “So it wasn’t anything?”

I shook my head and glanced at the daisies. They actually lessened the knot of panic in my gut. “Nope.” I looked back at my friend and grinned. “And don’t worry; you still look hot.”

She smiled and fluffed her hair. “Of course I do.” She grabbed up the container of beef and broccoli. “Let’s eat.”

I picked up the container of lo mein I’d been so hungry for just minutes before. But now, my appetite was gone. The truth was that vision hadn’t been nothing. It was something.

Something very bad.

Chapter Twenty-One

“Nightshade – Any of several plants of the genus Solanum, such as the bittersweet nightshade, most of which have a poisonous juice.”

Dex

All through my typical breakfast of bacon, eggs, and coffee I thought about what Storm said. I did need a plan. Seeing Piper’s reaction to the peanut oil had given me an idea, but I wasn’t sure if it would work or not so I pulled out my laptop and typed the word nightshade into Google.

I smiled as I read. It was possible to die from ingesting the poisonous berry, and it could cause adverse effects like dizziness, trouble breathing, and nausea. If I acted fast I could somehow get it into her system and then say she was having complications from the anaphylaxis.

Brilliant.

Now that I had a plan, all I needed was a way to get the deadly nightshade. I could probably find it online, but that would take forever to get here and I needed it fast.

There was one way…

It was in a place I never planned to go again. A place I was all too happy to be rid of.

I guess the old saying that history sometimes repeats itself was true. To get what I wanted I was going to have to go back… back to where I came from.

Back to the streets.

* * *

I hadn’t been to this part of town since I died. The streets seemed dirtier, lonelier, and colder than ever. Probably because I’d been spending all my time in a spacious, heated townhouse cleaned by my butler.

I shoved my hands deeper into my coat, wondering what I was thinking to wear such a nice leather coat. I was hoping maybe my ripped jeans and Converse sneakers would be enough to not mark me as some rich kid looking for some fun in the wrong part of town. Maybe to the watchful eyes of the people that lay in wait in the shadows, I would look like one of them who got lucky enough to steal a nice coat.

The streets here were familiar to me, but I didn’t feel like I was coming home, because even though I once lived on the streets, they weren’t my home. I hadn’t had a real home in years.

I looked at the sidewalks, which had patches of ice every couple feet. In this part of town no one bothered to lay salt. The city had long ago given up.

It seemed there was a different set of rules on this street and the few that ran beside it. The people here weren’t governed by the same laws everyone else lived by. Here it was eat or be eaten, live or die, steal or be stolen from. Yes, the police still patrolled here, the city still wanted to claim they were doing all they could to keep every street in Fairbanks safe, but the truth was even they had given up.

I passed a few places where I used to spend a lot of my time. The narrow alley between two rundown apartment buildings looked exactly the same with the shell of an old rusted out car sitting on blocks. It reminded me of all the nights that I’d climb into the front seat and use the frame to block the snow and what I could of the icy air.

There were a few people hunched around a large barrel with flames glowing out the top. I heard a few laughs and the sound of something hitting the side as they threw it into the fire to keep it going. I ducked my head and kept walking, not wanting them to see me stare. That was considered a challenge in these parts.

I walked past a small convenience store where I used to loiter, picking pockets of the unfortunate people who had to be in this part of town and hadn’t thought to get gas before they came. It smelled the same—burnt coffee and stale cigarettes with a hint of gasoline.

I saw some people I knew, people who weren’t quite my friends but might’ve wondered what happened to me when I disappeared and never came back. Not that they would’ve cared. They knew I was always looking for the next big score, my ticket out of here, and maybe they assumed I found it. That or I died trying. By now, my minimal stash of clothes and personal items had been found and raided, probably fought over and won.