by JB Lynn
“You didn’t eat?” His tone was laden with reproach.
“It was disgusting.”
“You need sustenance to keep up your strength,” he lectured.
“I’ll remind you that the next time I bring mealworms home from the pet store because they’re out of crickets.”
He absorbed that threat for a moment and then changed the subject. “What’s the plan?”
“I want to scout out the Krout place. Get a feel for the grounds and security.”
It would have sounded like I knew what I was doing if I didn’t stumble over a tree root at that moment, pitching forward, almost dislodging the little guy.
“Watch where you’re going!” he shouted in my ear.
“It’s getting dark,” I said through gritted teeth.
“So much for your plan.”
Ignoring him, I continued to tramp through the woods in the direction I thought I should be heading.
“What’s with your roommate?” God asked.
“Dunno, but it could be worse. I could be stuck with a real talker.” I didn’t add aloud, “Oh wait, I already am,” but I thought it as loudly as I could.
“There,” he said suddenly, as though he expected I could see where he was pointing in my peripheral vision.
“Where?”
“To the left.”
I looked in the direction and saw far-off lights glinting through the trees. “That must be the Krout place.”
“Stealth and silence,” the lizard reminded me. “You can’t get caught.”
I crept in the direction of the house slowly, trying to be quiet, but branches snapped and crackled with every step. Finally, we reached a six-foot-high wire fence that separated the property of the retreat and the Krout home. I stopped and studied it.
“Afraid you can’t climb it?” God goaded. “If you’d eaten something, you’d have the energy to.”
“I’m wondering if it’s electrified. Want to be the one to test it? I’ve heard fried lizard tastes just like chicken.”
I felt him shudder. “Not funny. Cold.”
“I am a heartless, professional hitwoman,” I reminded him as I picked up a branch from the ground.
“More like a bumbling amateur,” he countered.
I tossed the stick against the fence. There weren’t any sparks, so I took that to mean it wouldn’t electrocute me. At least that was my guess, but really, I didn’t know anything about fences or electricity.
“Do you want to wait on this side?” I asked the lizard.
“Well I certainly don’t want to go on the ride while you do your best Olympic gymnast routine. That kind of thing is best observed from a distance.”
Lifting my hand to my shoulder, I let him climb onto my palm. Swiveling my wrist, I brought him in front of my face so I could look him in the eye. “Do you think that, just this once, you could keep your commentary to yourself?”
He stuck his tongue out at me.
After putting him gently on the ground, I eyed the fence, determining my angle of attack. Deciding the best approach would be to take a running leap at it, I backed up a few steps.
“The crowd waits as the high-jumper takes her place,” God mocked.
Ignoring him, I ran toward the fence and leapt into the air.
I bounced right off the fence.
I’d meant to catch it, but my fingers weren’t fast enough. I ended up lying flat on my butt, breath knocked out of me, staring up at the night sky through the canopy of trees.
The sound of chirping crickets was drowned out by God’s laughter.
“Shut up,” I groaned breathlessly, slowly getting back on my feet.
“Wait until I tell the others,” he chortled.
I surveyed the fence again. Apparently, a running start wasn’t going to help me. I’d have to climb the whole thing.
Interlocking my fingers, I stretched my hands in preparation.
“Maybe you should get a ladder.”
Pretending not to have heard him, I grabbed the fence overhead and tried to stick the toe of my sneaker between the links.
My hands already hurt and I hadn’t started pulling myself up yet, but I was determined to get over the fence.
Lifting my other foot off the ground, I started to wobble uncontrollably. Desperately, I tried to jam my shoe into the nearest foothold, but I missed.
Hands aching, arms shaking, I fell the whole four inches back to the ground.
God guffawed.
I glared at the fence. He was right. I was going to need a ladder.
But first I needed something to eat and I didn’t care who I had to kill to get it.
Chapter 19
I stalked toward my car, not caring how much noise I made. Hunger made had made me grouchy. Failing to scale the fence had left me frustrated.
“You don’t really think you’re heartless, do you?” God asked quietly.
“What?”
“Before, you said you are a heartless assassin. You don’t really believe that.”
I made a non-committal sound. Considering I was traipsing around in the woods, trying to figure out how to break into a house so I could kill one of its occupants, I obviously was never going to be considered for sainthood.
“Your problem is your heart is too big,” God opined.
I snorted my disbelief.
“No. Really.” He sighed heavily. “You got into this because you love your family so much.”
I couldn’t argue with that logic. I did agree to do crazy things to take care of my family. Still, what I’d become didn’t sit well with me, so I said, “Look, I know you’re trying to be nice, but I really don’t need a pep talk.”
“It’s not a pep talk you need,” he said slowly, implying I needed something else.
I wasn’t going to fall for that trick. I kept my mouth shut as I reached my car, opened the trunk, and pulled out my box of food. This was definitely the kind of situation that required breaking into my emergency rations.
I thought of Angel teasing me about my Apocalypse preparation and shook my head. I had a job to do. There was no reason to be thinking of a man I’d never see again. If only he hadn’t seemed so familiar…
Wrestling the box out of the trunk, I wondered if it was against retreat policy to bring in one’s own sustenance. The idea that I was bringing in contraband gave me a giddy thrill. The fact that I also had a rope ladder made me more prepared than a Boy Scout.
Sometimes, the fact I was a competent adult surprised me.
Closing up the car, I shifted the weight of the box. The ladder, stored in a cloth bag, acted as a lid for my feast, and I marched in the direction of my cabin. Even if I was breaking all the rules, who would rat on me? Gladys, who didn’t speak?
I half-expected her to be asleep when I crept back into the cabin, but she was tapping away at the screen of her phone. She put it away and looked at the box curiously.
I put it down on my bed. God scrambled down my arm, ran to my pillow and curled up on top of it.
I looked to see whether Gladys had noticed the reptile.
Considering her wide gaze and the fact her mouth was hanging open, I assumed she had.
While she was distracted, I kicked the ladder beneath my bed.
“My pet,” I explained.
She nodded like it made sense for someone to bring her pet lizard on a retreat.
Shrugging, I rummaged in my box. “I think I’ve got some crackers in here. Do you want someone?”
I dug through beef jerky, olives, peanut butter, and oatmeal cookies, but couldn’t find the crackers.
Suddenly, Gladys was standing beside me, her hand on my arm.
Startled, I shook her off. “Look,” I muttered, “I know this is probably against the rules, and I’m not acting in the spirit of the goals of this place, and you could get me tossed out of here, but I’m starving.”
She grabbed my elbow and tugged gently.
“What?” I sighed, exasperated.
She put light pressure on my arm, urging me to turn around.
I did so slowly, trying not to lose my temper and not flip a table or something. Only an idiot gets between a starving woman and her food.
Then I focused on what she wanted me to see, and I gasped.
She smiled.
“For us?” I asked, staring at a bottle of wine, a loaf of bread, and a wedge of cheese laid out on her bed.
She nodded.
Impulsively, I hugged her.
She tensed, but then amazed me by hugging back.
“You’re full of surprises, Gladys,” I told her as she poured wine into a pair of paper cups. Then I remembered the jar in my box. “I’ve got olives. Want some?”
She nodded excitedly.
Together, sitting on her bed, we feasted.
“So this is why you didn’t get any dinner?” I asked after I’d finished my first cup of wine.
She nodded.
I repeated what I’d said in the dining hall. “I like a woman who plans ahead.”
She looked at the half-eaten jar of olives. “Me too.”
She spoke so softly that I thought for a moment the wine had gone to my head. I peered at her closely. “You speak?”
“Only to people I like,” she replied shyly.
I grinned. “If only the rest of the world did that.”
And she laughed, a pretty, tinkling sound that reminded me of my mom. I felt my smile fade as a heavy pressure built behind my eyes. Looking away, I swallowed hard and blinked rapidly, but I wasn’t able to stop the tears from filling my eyes.
The face of my roommate creased with worry. “Are you okay?”
“My mom threw gelatin at me,” I gasped as the tears began to roll down my cheeks.
Gladys nodded as though she understood.
“She didn’t know who I was,” I said, dashing away the tears with the back of my hand.
“I’m sorry.” Gladys threw an arm around my shoulder and squeezed. “That must have really hurt.”
“What really hurt was when she slapped me.” I sniffled.
“When she didn’t know you?”
I nodded.
“Is that why you’re here?” Gladys asked gently. “To forgive her?”
I wanted to deny it, but I couldn’t. Not when Armani predicted I had to. Not when God wanted me to. “I don’t know,” I admitted miserably, looking at the lizard on my pillow.
He didn’t so much as twitch his tail.
I wiped away the rest of my tears. “Sorry about that. I guess the strain of the day got to me.”
Gladys nodded her understanding. “This place does that to people.”
“You’ve been here before?”
She pointed to the remains of our feast, proof that she’d endured the dining hall before.
“Why are you here?” I asked curiously.
She regarded me for a long moment, deciding whether to confide in me. “You have enough on your mind now. Maybe I’ll tell you tomorrow. Have some more wine.”
Chapter 20
As soon as Gladys started to snore, I scooped up God, snagged the ladder from beneath my bed, and headed back for the fence using my phone as a flashlight.
“Someone could see the light,” God warned.
“It’s that or I risk tripping and breaking an ankle,” I told him through gritted teeth. “I’m guessing that wouldn’t be the best for you sensitive skin.”
The trek back to the Krout estate seemed longer in the complete darkness as the woods made all kinds of strange nature noises and I found myself creeping cautiously.
“There could be bears around here,” God opined from his spot on my shoulder.
That didn’t make the job at hand any easier. “There aren’t any bears.”
“Sure there are.”
“Well they’re hibernating,” I countered, jumping as a branch snapped beneath my foot.
“Or they could be preparing to dine on whatever is in the dining hall dumpster.”
“Trust me,” I muttered, “no one wants those leftovers.”
“Well they’ll need something to eat.”
The image of being a bear’s dinner made me stop and listen more carefully to the sounds surrounding me.
“Can you speak bear?” God asked curiously.
“I don’t know. I haven’t tried.” I sent up a silent prayer that I’d never find out.
“You should go to the zoo.”
I stumbled. “What?’
“You should go to the zoo and see what you can and cannot talk to. Like penguins. Don’t you want to be able to talk to penguins?”
Instead of asking why I’d want to talk to penguins, I shouldered on, shifting the ladder from one hand to the other.
“And snakes,” God continued. “It’s important to know whether you can talk to snakes.”
Despite my better judgment, I asked, “Why?”
“It reveals what kind of person you are,” God replied matter-of-factly.
I considered that for a moment. “You’ve been watching movies about a certain boy wizard, haven’t you?”
The lizard didn’t reply.
I seriously considered revoking his television-viewing privileges.
Reaching the fence, I peered across the great lawn toward the Krout house. A single light flickered through a second-floor window.
“Wait here,” I told God, putting him down on the ground before slinging the ladder upward so I could scale the fence.
“Be careful,” the little guy warned.
“Always,” I replied flippantly, securing the end of the ladder to my side of the fence.
“Sometimes that’s not enough,” he reminded me.
Ignoring him, I went about the ungainly task of lurching up the swinging ladder.
I felt like I’d climbed Mt. Everest by the time I reached the top, dragged it over so that it hung on the Krout side of the fence, and climbed down..
Since I wasn’t particularly worried about being spotted in the dead of night, I strolled across the lawn like I didn’t have a care in the world.
Keeping half an eye on the flickering second-floor window, I surveyed the house. It was old, but well-maintained. Definitely an old-money kind of place. I circled the building slowly. Even though there were no alarm system stickers on the windows, I was sure there was one.
I wished Patrick had decided to give me some breaking-and-entering lessons, since I had no clue how I was supposed to get into the mini-fortress. He’d given me shooting lessons, a modified self-defense course, and taught me how to tail someone, but not how to get around an alarm system.
Suddenly, a light flared to life in a nearby ground-floor room. I ducked down and held my breath, afraid I’d somehow done something to alert the Krouts to my presence. When I didn’t sense any other activity, I slowly straightened and tiptoed toward the light.
I could tell from the intermittent flashing that someone was watching TV in the otherwise darkened room. Cautiously, I peeked inside, hoping the viewer’s attention was on the screen and not directed outside.
It took my eyes a second to focus on what I could see. Then I wished I could bleach my brain as I realized Wayne Krout was watching porn. Kiddie porn.
Bile burned my throat as a wave of revulsion made me stumble backward. I covered my mouth. Both to prevent myself from vomiting and to keep from screaming as anger engulfed me. I wanted to smash through that window and choke the life out of the sick monster with my bare hands.
I looked around, but there was nothing nearby to use to break the glass. My whole body shook. I was overwhelmed with disgust and impotent anger. The world began to spin.
Putting my hands on my knees, I forced myself to take a couple of breaths; otherwise, I would have passed out. As oxygen reached my brain, so did logic.
I couldn’t kill Wayne Krout then. I didn’t have a plan and I couldn’t afford to get caught.
Vowing to return, I turned and stalked toward the fence. Fueled by loathing and anger, I
climbed the ladder without hesitation, flipped it to the retreat side, and clambered down, filled with determination.
I retrieved the ladder and repacked it with tight, jerky movements.
“I tried to warn you,” God said.
I jumped a little, having forgotten he was waiting. “Warn me about what?”
“That the other guy was there.”
“Krout?”
“No, him. Look,” the lizard ordered.
I looked toward the house and saw a shadowy figure unsteadily circling the house the way I had.
“Looks like someone else is going to do the job.”
I nodded, not sure I felt about that. I don’t like killing, but if ever there was someone who deserved it…
I held my breath as the man pulled something from his pocket and aimed it at the window where Wayne Krout sat, pleasuring himself. I waited to hear the sharp report of a gunshot.
“The early bird gets the worm,” God said.
“Don’t insult worms,” I muttered. “They’re way better than this guy.”
There must have been a silencer on the gun since I didn’t hear the explosion when the guy pulled the trigger. I did however hear the ear-splitting alarm that filled the night air.
I stood for a second, watching as the assailant aimed again, rooting for him.
I wasn’t aware of the lizard scampering up my body until he shouted in my ear, “You’ve got to get back.”
Knowing he was right, that the alarm was probably disturbing everyone at the retreat and it would be noticed I was missing, I grabbed the ladder and took off at a dead run through the woods, unconcerned about bears as thoughts of a worse kind of predator chased me.
Chapter 21
I was sound asleep when someone, I’m pretty sure it was Shirley, the activities director, started ringing a ridiculously loud bell and shouting, “Time for morning question. Morning question. Morning question.”
Groaning, I covered my head with my pillow and scrunched my eyes closed, hoping the rude awakening was just the latest in the vivid dreams I was plagued by. It had taken forever for me to fall asleep after I’d snuck back into the cabin the night before, grateful Gladys slept with ear plugs.
My roommate tugged my pillow off my head. “We have to go.”