Better Off Dead : A Lucy Hart, Deathdealer Novel (Book One)

by Alice Bello

  ~*~

  Lucy didn’t want to look like a tanning bed reject, and she didn’t want that overdone Malibu Barbie bronze. But she did want to get rid of the unhealthy pallor that working at McDonald’s for the last six months had given her. She hadn’t realized it, but going to school, and going to work, and not hanging out with any friends had really given her no time to actually spend in the sun. And she loved having a nice tan.

  Lying out in the sun made her feel like her life battery was recharging, like her body and soul were filled with sunlight and she was gleaming with its energy. She’d missed it. Screw it if it wasn’t good for her. The very air she breathed probably wasn’t good for her. Of course, looking about her at the bright, clear periwinkle sky of Four Corners, California, she had to admit that there wasn’t really any poisonous smog rolling overhead. It was really quite beautiful. There was even a thicket of trees, the beginning of a forest, right at the edge of her backyard. It was actually at the edge of every backyard on the block, but Lucy liked to think that it was more part of her backyard than anyone else’s.

  Lucy was lying out on a beach towel in the back yard, wearing a cute little pink and yellow bikini she’d picked up on her last shopping trip with Elaina. That and the most gorgeous leather coat, blood red with Italian silk lining. It came down just to the tops of her thighs, with a sweet matching belt. She looked like a freaking spy in that coat. Like Angelina Jolie in Mr. and Mrs. Smith… no, thinking back on it, she actually looked better. She looked like the absolute—accept no substitutes—goddess of spies.

  Lucy regretfully tied the straps of her bikini top around her again. She hated tan lines, especially if she was going to be wearing anything revealing. She was careful she was securely covered before she turned over—no need to be giving the neighbors a free show.

  She adjusted her straps and put on her new pair of sunglasses. Just looking through the amber lenses made the world so much prettier. They weren’t even designer eyewear, yet they were elegant looking, and the moment she’d put them on and looked through them, she’d loved them. Things that would be just too dark through black or gray shades popped out under the amber tones. She sipped her green tea and checked the time on her iPhone. Twenty more minutes and she’d head in. No need frying on her first day out.

  There was another week before the engagement party. She was just glad she didn’t have to meet the parents beforehand—which was actually kind of strange. Not that Lucy had met many of her ex-boyfriends’ parents. Usually she’d get tired of them and would have tactfully dumped them before any such meeting would be discussed. But Lucy had seen plenty of romantic movies where there was the whole meeting the future in-laws thing. And it did strike Lucy as odd that she wouldn’t be meeting the parents until the engagement party.

  Of course, if she thought it was odd, she could just imagine what they were thinking. But maybe they were just strange, or archaically traditional. Maybe they could remember the days when marriages were arranged and you didn’t meet your spouse until the day of the wedding.

  The mere thought made Lucy shiver. How horrible to have to go through such an agonizing wait, just to meet the person you had to spend the rest of your life with. She was surprised there weren’t more cases of brides-to-bes falling over dead from heart-attacks, just from the stress such a thing would cause.

  No wonder they came up with divorce.

  Just then she heard an odd scraping sound. At first it came from far off, but then she realized it was getting closer, and from the street in front of her grandmother’s house. She looked up and saw the most amazing sight coming her way. A driveway led back to the white picket fence surrounding the back yard. On the other side of the fence was a matching driveway, but no fence bisecting their yard. Skating toward Lucy on the other side of the fence was a girl about Lucy’s age… but that was the only similarity.

  This girl was on silver and black rollerblades. Blue and yellow striped socks came up to her knees, black tights under a blue and yellow catholic school girl skirt—much like the one Lucy had gotten Jeff Haas to don right before her father’s unfortunate run in with the law—and the craziest pink T-shirt Lucy had ever seen. It said “Bad Kitty!” and had a blue cartoon cat licking its bloody front paws. The rest of the T-shirt had the little feline’s bloody paw prints all over it.

  And that was just her clothes. She had pink and blue eye shadow on, too much eyeliner and mascara, and the red of her lips matched the bloody paw prints on her shirt perfectly. The hair… jet black striped with hot pink, braided into two long ponytails that trailed from the top of her head down to her shoulders.

  Before her life had imploded, Lucy might have… no, she probably would have been cruel and dismissive, making fun of this girl to her disciples on the cheer squad… but she didn’t have any disciples anymore. Hell, she didn’t even have any friends anymore, and if the last seven months had taught her anything it was that all those friends she thought she’d had weren’t her friends at all.

  That thought alone made a cool loneliness crawl across her flesh—even with the eighty-five degree sun she was sunbathing beneath. Just looking at this girl, in her ridiculous get up, with her ears plugged into her mp3 player, dancing as she twirled around on her skates with uninhibited joy, made Lucy wonder how anyone could be so happy.

  Before she knew it Lucy was slipping on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt and was padding barefoot across the lawn to the peeling white picket fence that separated the two properties.

  “Hey there!” Lucy called out over the fence.

  The girl didn’t hear her, spinning with her hands held over her head, her plaid skirt swirling like a cyclone. Lucy couldn’t help but smile. And, though for the life of her she couldn’t understand why, she felt a twinge of envy. Had Lucy really ever been that happy? Even back before the FBI, courtrooms, and special sauce?

  Suddenly the girl stopped twirling, her bright green eyes locked on Lucy and her mouth fell open in a surprised O. But that only lasted two seconds. The shocked expression melted into a broad, lovely smile, as radiant as the morning sunrise. The kind of smile you expected on fairy princesses in Disney movies.

  A small, brilliant cut diamond glittered in her right nostril, making her all the more fairy-like.

  With a quick little wink, and then a yank of the earphones, she extended her hand. Nails painted half pink, half black. Silver bracelets dangled from her wrists. “I’m Abbey. Abbey Adams.” Her handshake was strong, not the limp wristed high class handshake of the privileged. This was a handshake that meant it. She rolled her eyes, tossing her head back toward the house behind her. “I live with my grandma, too.”

  “How’d you…?”

  Abbey shrugged. “Sorry… small town. And your grandma Lillian is friends with my grandma Donna May.”

  “Oh, that makes sense.” Lucy gave Abbey another long up and down glance. “I love that outfit.”

  “No, you don’t,” Abbey said with the same sweet, brilliant smile as before.

  A laugh burst from Lucy’s lips. “You’re right. I don’t, but I’ve got to respect the commitment… to personal fashion, I mean.”

  Abbey spun once on her skates as if showing off her look. “Don’t worry. Loads of people think I’m due to be committed somewhere with rubber rooms and a Thorazine drip.”

  “And straightjackets?” Lucy suddenly felt the blood rush up to her face. She hadn’t meant to say that. And now she was sure that this new possible friend would think she was just a mean bitch. Lucy opened her mouth to say something, but Abbey smiled that wonderful smile and twirled again.

  “Don’t need to go anywhere for that!” She reached out and grabbed Lucy’s hand and dragged her over to a picnic table under a tree, the kind with barely any paint left on it anymore. “Got my own hanging in my closet upstairs.”

  An image of Abbey flashed in Lucy’s mind: Abbey twirling around on her rollerblades, mascar
a running crazily down her face, wrapped from the waist up by a straightjacket, a cadre of white clad orderlies chasing after her.

  Lucy tried to shake the vision from her mind, and tried to change the subject.

  “So, what were you listening to back there?” Whatever it had been, the music had really made her happy.

  “Bad Romance, by Lady Gaga.”

  “Oh…” Lucy hadn’t meant to sound so disappointed. She had just wished they had something in common. Lucy hadn’t given Lady Gage even a second glance. Her personal fashion was truly deranged.

  “So I take it you don’t go for Lady G, huh? More of a Kelly Clarkson type?”

  Lucy knew she should be put off by this girl presuming about her. Presume much? But the chick was right. Behind These Hazel Eyes had been her ring tone… and she used to play Walk Away when she was getting ready for a hot date. “She’s totally valid. A great voice and she writes some of her own songs.”

  Abbey just sat there, her lips pulled tight over her teeth, yet a wide grin was breaking across her face. “Fine, fine. Clarkson’s not just the Idol freak. She’s…” She put her hands up to her head like she was receiving a vision. “She’s valid.”

  Now she’s just poking fun at me. “I like Pink too.” Which Lucy did. Pink rocked both musically and fashion-wise.

  Abbey’s sweet smile morphed into a wicked grin. Lucy was sure little horns were about to sprout from her scalp. “I love Pink!” Abbey pulled the earphone cord out of her mp3 player as her thumbs scrolled through her song menu. A moment later Pink was singing that she had just lost her husband, and she didn’t know where he went.

  The little mp3 player must’ve been jacked up, because it sounded more like a boom-box than the usual tinny sound hand held devices had. Even with her skates on, Abbey climbed onto the top of the picnic table and started dancing to the music.

  Lucy just sat there and smiled as she watched Abbey go to town. A moment later Abbey grabbed Lucy by the hand and hauled her up on the table with her and against her better judgment Lucy fell into dancing with Abbey, not caring who saw.

  Of course, right on cue Lucy heard her brother laugh. She looked down to find him staring up at her and Abbey with triumphant, mean little eyes: regrettably, he had hazel eyes too. His hair was the same shade of mahogany brown as Lucy’s, but he kept it in a greasy, sloppy shag cut that almost covered his eyes. He was wearing his usual uniform of worn jeans and a worn T-shirt, with the faded, peeling logo of some long defunct punk rock band across the chest.

  Maybe Abbey and he would get along, which wasn’t exactly the way she wanted this new friendship to go.

  “What the hell are you two freaks doing?” he chuckled cruelly.

  So much for the two of them getting along.

  Abbey shot him through with an acid gaze, and then she jumped off the picnic table and landed on the cracked cement of the driveway, just inches from where Seth stood. His mouth fell open, as did Lucy’s. Abbey had landed without a slip or a bobble. Perfect balance—she must live in those roller blades!

  Seth gulped as Abbey looked down on him like an angry punk rock goddess, her hands balled in fists on her hips. Seth’s eyes bugged out when she smiled.

  “Glass houses,” Abbey said in a sing-song voice.

  “W-what?” Seth stammered.

  “Well, you just called us freaks.”

  “He’s just my creepy little br—” Lucy tried to say, but Abbey cut across her.

  “You’ve heard that casting stones when you live in a glass house isn’t smart?”

  “I’m not a—”

  “Freak?” Abbey finished for him. “Then what are you?” She rolled forward, making him scamper backwards, tripping over his own feet.

  “I’m just… just…”

  “Just a kid with a big bad secret?”

  Lucy stepped down from her perch on the picnic table and walked toward the two of them. The look on her brother’s face was bothering her. He suddenly looked terrified.

  “What are you talking about?” he said, his voice cracking.

  “You know. That secret you’ve been praying no one would find out about. The one you’ve been praying would just go away.”

  “You don’t know shit!” Seth sounded angry now instead of scared. Lucy was about to tell Abbey to let it go, but then Abbey looked around at the air around Seth’s head like she was reading something only she could see. The smile that crossed her lips wasn’t pleasant at all. Her hand came up and she snatched something from the air, her eyes closing as delight radiated all over her face.

  “Josh,” Abbey said rapturously.

  Seth turned so white the freckles on his cheeks and nose stood out like ink.

  Abbey opened her eyes and smiled down at Seth, genuine empathy in her eyes. “He doesn’t even know, does he?”

  Seth started shaking his head violently.

  “More like he doesn’t even know you exist, right stone-boy?”

  Seth looked about to puke when he spun around and ran for the house like he was being chased by a pack of wolves.

  When the back door slammed shut behind him, Abbey turned and smiled her beautiful, brilliant smile again. “Sorry,” she said. “I just can’t stand people calling me a freak.”

  “Yeah,” Lucy said, still looking after Seth with amazement. “I got that.”

  “Funny thing to get bent out of shape about,” Abbey said as she rolled toward the picnic table again. “Especially when you dress and look like this.” She flourished her hands around her indicating her ensemble.

  Lucy just stood there, still shocked to see her brother looking so afraid, and the actual gist of the conversation Abbey and he had just had. Was Seth gay?

  Lucy looked at Abbey and shook her head. “Are you some sort of psychic or something?”

  “Witch, actually.”

  “Oh.” She was starting to feel pretty stupid saying that over and over.

  “But I didn’t need any magic powers to see through him.”

  “Really?” Lucy shook her head again and looked after her brother again. “I had no idea.”

  “Sometimes strangers can see things clearer than people close to you.” Abbey’s expression turned, only for a moment, very sad. “And he had Josh’s name written on the inside of his palm, with a heart framing it.”

  Lucy raised an eyebrow, smiling. “So, you’re a grifter?” Lucy had always wanted to use that word in conversation.

  Abbey shot her a cocky smile. “I’ve picked up a lot just watching people at school, on the bus… wherever I am. One good thing about not having any friends, you get to really pay attention to those around you.”

  Lucy sighed. “Too bad. Having a witch as a friend could come in handy.”

  Abbey set a level gaze at Lucy, the smile drifting from her face. “You must think I’m crazy. There can’t really be witches… magic… it’s just too crazy…”

  “I didn’t say that.” Lucy plopped back down on the picnic table. “I’m just saying it’s not stupid or lame to believe in stuff. I’m sure witches and a ton of other things are actually real… except for the Easter Bunny.”

  Abbey snorted. “And Santa Claus.” She plopped down on the picnic bench right beside Lucy. “They’re both just capitalistic propaganda.”

  Lucy smiled, remembering back to a certain Christmas present she found under the foot of her bed when she was eight. A present that no one in the world knew she wanted: a harmonica. Her mother wrapped everything in glossy paper with sparkly ribbons and bows. That package was covered in plain red paper, no bows or ribbons. She’d known immediately that it had come from Santa Claus.

  “No. There really is a Santa Claus.”

  Abbey looked at her like she was crazy now, and then shook her head. “Okay, there’s a Santa Claus.”

  Lucy smiled. “But definitely no Easter Bunny. A giant Bunny hiding candy and pastel colored hardboiled eggs around the house. I
t’s just too creepy!”

  They nodded their heads in agreement.