Recalled

by Cambria Hebert

  “Need a minute?” the waitress asked.

  I glanced up to wave her away, but my gaze held when I saw who it was.

  The girl.

  The Target.

  She must’ve come from the back. I certainly knew her when I saw her, but this was more than recognition. Every memory from the last few seconds of my life came flooding back to me.

  The way the cold ground pressed into me. The way my body felt shattered and broken. The way it hurt to breathe, and then I just didn’t. The way my eyes clung to the last sight I thought I would ever see…

  Her face.

  Her beautiful face.

  Her hair was long and wavy—dark like coffee, but with lighter strands mixed in that reminded me of the swirling coffee cream I recently discovered. Her dark, catlike eyes were featured on her pale, oval-shaped face, and her slightly rounded cheeks blushed a pretty pink.

  She shifted on her feet and tapped her pen on the pad of paper in her hand, and I realized I’d been silent too long.

  “Yeah,” I said, clearing my throat and looking down at the menu I didn’t really see. “I’ll have the BLT.”

  “You want fries?”

  I nodded and she made a mark on her pad, turned, and walked away.

  I picked up the coffee and took a sip. The bitter liquid burned my tongue, but it brought me out of the memories and lent some heat to my cold body. I watched out of the corner of my eye as she worked refilling coffee, wiping down tables, and delivering food. She smiled at most everyone, but it never reached her eyes. To me, that meant she was more guarded than most people realized. Odd, I didn’t get that impression the night I robbed her.

  I don’t know how much time passed before she appeared with a plate of food and sat it down in front of me. I did a double take at the BLT… I thought I ordered a cheeseburger.

  “Do you need anything else?”

  “Coffee?” I asked as she looked right at me. I waited for some recognition in her eyes but none came.

  She came back to the table with a pot of coffee and filled my cup to the rim, then walked away silently, filling other cups as she went. I pulled out my phone and pretended to be involved with it as I ate the food one handed. Really, I was trying to hear everything she said to get some glimpse into her life.

  Turns out my guess she was more guarded than she let on was right. She kept things light and friendly, but professional, so I was only able to get a few small details about her. Like the fact she was allergic to peanuts. I’d hoped for more knowledge so it was entirely frustrating. How was a guy supposed to do recon with an uncooperative Target?

  Long after my food was eaten along with two pieces of pie and a third cup of coffee, I was the last guy left in the diner and she was finishing up her shift. The tab was already paid and I pretended to nurse my coffee when really it had gone cold long ago.

  She came toward my table with a rag in her hand and wiped down the tables beside me. I got up from my seat, figuring this was the worst night of recon ever. I drank bad coffee, ate a sandwich I didn’t understand (salad and bacon on bread… really?) and learned exactly nothing.

  I headed for the door when she stepped in front of me and slipped on some water that had spilled on the floor. I caught her around the waist as she fell.

  We both seemed to pause in the moment, standing in the center of the empty room, looking like we’d been dancing and I dipped her.

  “We keep meeting like this,” I murmured, thinking of the night she slipped on ice and I caught her. Only this time I wasn’t trying to steal her money.

  Her eyes widened and her voice was breathless. “Do I know you?”

  We both straightened and I stepped back. “Of course not. I… You just remind me of someone.” I adjusted the glasses on my nose.

  She stared at me like she was actually just seeing me for the first time all night. Then she seemed to shake herself and smile. “Thanks.”

  I nodded and went past her to push out the door into the freezing night. Outside on the sidewalk, I paused to catch my breath. What was I thinking? I couldn’t say things like that. She’d think I was a freak and stay as far away as possible. That would make it hard to kill her. Unless I did the killing from afar.

  Yeah, maybe that would be better than this recon stuff.

  I walked a few paces from the diner. When I got home, I’d make a plan on how to kill her from a distance.

  Behind me the bell on the door jingled, indicating it swung open again. I didn’t bother looking back.

  “Hey!” someone called.

  I stopped and turned.

  She was there, rushing toward me, pulling a dark-green coat around her. She had snow in her hair. I didn’t realize it was snowing.

  “Yeah?” I asked, wondering if she was really talking to me.

  Now that she had my attention, she seemed to grow a little shy. I just stood there and waited as I watched the snowflakes take up residence on her head.

  “Do you have a car?” she asked.

  I nodded and motioned down the street toward the Roadster. “Right down there.”

  She glanced at the Roadster, then at me. “Is that thing any good in the snow?”

  I shrugged. “Guess I’ll find out.”

  “Oh, is it new?”

  I nodded again.

  “Can I have a ride home?”

  My eyes snapped to her face. She wanted a ride? From some guy she didn’t know? Maybe killing her wouldn’t be that hard after all. Maybe she already had a death wish.

  She seemed to know what I was thinking because she said, “I know, it’s kind of weird of me to ask… but it’s really cold and I don’t feel like walking.”

  “Don’t you usually take the bus?” I blurted, thinking back once again to the night I died. Inwardly, I kicked myself. I needed to stop saying things like that. You’d think for two people who knew each other for exactly two minutes, there wouldn’t be any history for me to keep bringing up.

  She glanced at the bus stop and then back at me. She didn’t seem to think what I said was unusual and I was relieved.

  “I don’t really like the bus,” she said quietly.

  We both stood there awkwardly for long seconds before I remembered it was my turn to talk. I pulled the keys from my pocket.

  “I’ll give you a ride. Come on.”

  And before I knew it, we were climbing into the tiny space of the two-seater.

  She glanced at me and smiled tentatively when I turned the heat on full blast and it was only then I realized I just told myself I was going to stay away from her. Far away.

  So much for that idea, I thought as I pulled away from the curb.

  * * *

  I drove slowly because once she wondered if my Roadster might not be very good in the snow, I started to wonder that too. I hadn’t had any problems up until this point so I just tried to enjoy the fact I was riding around in a car that cost more than a hundred grand. (I looked it up online). She didn’t say anything on the ride, except to give me directions, and I didn’t try to make small talk.

  She didn’t live that far from the diner and when I pulled up in front of her apartment building, I left the engine idling at the curb. She glanced out her window and upwards so I assumed her apartment wasn’t on the ground floor.

  “I almost died the other day,” she said quietly, still gazing out her window.

  My hand tightened over the gearshift when I realized she was talking about the day I got crushed by that bus. When I didn’t say anything, she turned in the seat and looked at me through the dark.

  “But I didn’t because someone saved me.”

  I swallowed, my eyes locked on hers. “Wow,” I said, not really sure how to respond. Why was she telling me this?

  “Maybe you heard about the accident? It was in the newspaper.” She continued to watch me. I couldn’t read her expression clearly because the only light in the car came from the dash as the streetlight in front of her building was burned out. Judging from the part
of town we were in, that lamp probably hadn’t had a bulb change since the nineties.

  But even in the practically nonexistent light, I could see the whites of her eyes, and they were focused directly at me.

  “I don’t read the paper,” I replied. “What happened?”

  Even though I knew what happened, even though part of me said not to even talk about it, I couldn’t help but want to know how she remembered that night.

  “I’d just gotten off my shift. It was late, like tonight…” Her voice faded and the whites of her eyes suddenly disappeared. She closed them, like the memory was painful.

  Then her eyes reopened and she said, “I was walking home and there was this guy… He was on the sidewalk too. A bus came around the corner and slid on a sheet of black ice. I froze. I knew it was going to hit me, but I couldn’t seem to move. But then he pushed me out of the way and the bus hit him instead.”

  “Wow,” I echoed again, wishing this body came with a better vocabulary. My stomach cramped as I remembered the feeling of the bus plowing into me.

  “He died right there in the snow. He didn’t have any ID. I don’t even know his name.” Her eyelids closed again and she took a deep breath.

  “Didn’t the newspaper say who he was?” I asked curiously.

  She shook her head. “I don’t even think they knew. I called the hospital, but they wouldn’t tell me anything.”

  “You called the hospital?” Why would she do that? Why would she care?

  “I wanted to go to his funeral. To at least tell someone what he did, that he saved me—a complete stranger. I wanted to tell him thank you.”

  “You did,” I replied, remembering. She said thank you that night. On the street when she leaned over me. The echo of her words whispered in the back of my mind.

  “What did you say?” she asked, her voice losing a little bit of sorrow.

  Dumbass. I mentally yelled at myself. Way to make the Target trust you. Say suspicious things so she would run every time she caught a glimpse of you.

  I pushed my hand through my hair—surprised to feel it shaking—and took a breath. There was no way she could think what I said was suspicious. There was no possible way on this earth she could know I was the guy who got flattened by the bus. To her, I probably looked like some dude who babbled stuff because he wasn’t really listening to what she was saying. I mean, this was probably the first time I ever listened to a girl talk.

  “What I meant was you did say thank you. Right now. Where ever he is, maybe he heard you.”

  She sat there for a long second, then nodded slowly. “Yeah. I hope he heard.”

  She seemed like she really meant it.

  My stomach cramped again and I felt a clammy sweat break out on my forehead. My knee started bouncing up and down, knocking the bottom of the steering wheel.

  “Are you all right?” she asked, leaning a little closer.

  I lifted my hand to adjust my glasses, and it was visibly shaking. I buried it in my lap and hoped she hadn’t seen. “Yeah, I just didn’t get that much sleep last night,”

  My knee was still bouncing up and down and all of my insides felt jittery and bouncy. Maybe those three cups of coffee weren’t a very good idea.

  “You don’t look too good,” she said, reaching across the small interior of the Roadster to brush her hand across my forehead.

  I jerked and grabbed her wrist, pulling her closer toward me.

  My sudden movement startled her and she fell forward when I yanked her. Her hair fell over her shoulders and brushed against my hand. She wiggled, trying to pull away, and I realized I was squeezing her.

  I let go and she moved back into her own seat, rubbing at her wrist.

  “I have to go,” she said, reaching for the door handle.

  “Yeah. Sorry about that. You just took me by surprise.” I swallowed back the rising bile. What was wrong with me all of a sudden?

  She pushed open her door and cold air rushed inside. I didn’t realize how hot it was in the enclosed space until the frigid air slapped me in the face.

  “Thanks for the ride,” she said, completely out of the car but leaning down to speak.

  I nodded and she shut the door, stepping onto the sidewalk toward the stairs of her building.

  I didn’t hang around to watch her. I was still jittery and my heart hammered in my chest. I sped down the street, not thinking about the icy roads or my car. I didn’t even look in the rearview mirror to see if she made it into her building.

  It wasn’t my job to keep her safe.

  As the voice in my head so boldly reminded…

  It was my job to kill her.

  Chapter Ten

  “Vision - the ability or an instance of great perception, esp of future developments.”

  Piper

  I shut the door and leaned against it heavily, trying to calm the swirling emotions inside me. Of all things, that was the last thing I expected to happen to me today. Or any day for that matter.

  He was just a regular guy—another customer in the diner, no one I would’ve normally paid any attention to.

  Then he touched me.

  The vision was so fast, so swift it would’ve knocked me on my butt if he didn’t have a hold of me. Ironic, really, because the only reason I had the vision at all was because he was holding on to me. It was just like before, exactly the same. It was an abrupt vision—more of an image really—of a man with very dark hair and dark, serious eyes. Those eyes were in direct contrast to the smile he wore on his face. It was a beautiful smile, full of joy.

  And that was all of it.

  So simple and I wouldn’t have thought twice about it if I had it any other time.

  But there was nothing simple about this.

  Because this vision belonged to someone else. To the man who died.

  The fact that I had visions was something I understood as being different, an ability that not everyone (okay, no one) else had. I had my first visualization at the age of fifteen and I really didn’t know what it was at the time. And then I saw it happen in real time about two weeks later. I didn’t understand how it worked and it took me a while to realize I only had a vision when I touched someone. It took so long to figure out because it didn’t happen every time… just sometimes. The visions were always about the person I touched and they were always a piece of something that was going to happen to them in the future.

  Until now.

  Right before he got hit by the bus, the man touched me—he caught me when I slipped. The vision came over me and the next thing I knew I was hitting the sidewalk. When my sight cleared, I saw him lying in the street, clinging to his last breath of life.

  Yes, I was studying to be a doctor and I understood death. I accepted it as a part of life. But watching the life drain from a man who was too young to die, watching his eyes, unfocused with pain, trying to focus on something—anything—was heart-wrenching. I’d never felt that kind of loneliness before sitting there in the ice and the snow, knowing there was nothing I could do for him. Knowing his last moments on Earth were full of pain and probably confusion.

  Why? Why did he push me—someone he didn’t even know—out of the way like that? It was the most selfless thing anyone could ever do, and his heroic action was rewarded with death. Maybe that’s why the heroes of the world were becoming few and far between.

  I hadn’t even thought of the vision until much later, when I was home and the numbness of what happened began to wear off. It was over a steaming mug of Lipton Ginger Twist tea that I saw his smiling face again and I was caught off guard. How could that possibly be his future when he was dead? Why was I seeing him smile with happiness?

  Since then, the vision haunted me. I saw it in my dreams. I saw it when I was awake. It was never far from the surface of my mind. Sometimes I clung to it, pretended it was a memory so I could think of the man who gave his life for me as someone other than the broken body I saw upon the ice. I almost convinced myself that the vision had been m
y mind’s way of protecting itself, a way to give me something to hold on to after he died. After all, it was much easier to accept his death when I thought of his smile rather than watching the life drain out of his eyes and seep into the cold street where he lay.

  But then the vision came to me again. Not as something I remembered, not as something I thought about, but as a true vision prompted by touch. Except this time I was touching the wrong man.

  How could that be? What did it mean?

  I had no idea, but when he walked out of that diner tonight, I had to follow. I had to know more about him. What was his connection to that man on the street? Did he know him? Were they friends? I’d never seen him at the diner before, and I was certain I would’ve remembered him. Maybe he knew his friend died on that street. Maybe it was his way of remembering. Maybe he knew where the body was.