Chosen, Christine Pope [e reader pdf best .TXT] 📗
- Author: Christine Pope
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For the first time, he glanced away from my eyes, down at the gun I held. A look of almost comical confusion passed over his puffy features. “But I want you.”
My stomach twisted, and right then I was glad I hadn’t eaten anything more than that bread and jelly sandwich a few hours earlier…or whenever it had been. I wasn’t wearing a watch, and of course the digital clocks on the appliances in the kitchen had died along with everything else when the power went out.
“But I don’t want you, Chris,” I said, and right then my voice did contain a betraying tremor that I hated, although I couldn’t do anything about it. “I told you, I don’t want to hurt you. But I will. My dad was a cop, and he taught me how to use this. And I will.”
During this little speech, Chris’s eyes grew narrower and narrower, as if he was finally processing my rejection of him. His lip curled, and he said, “You don’t have the guts,” right before he lunged at me.
Without thinking, I let my finger jerk on the trigger. At the same time, it was as if a powerful hand had grasped the barrel, pointing it away from Chris so all I did was blow a hole in the ceiling, destroying the combination light/fan fixture there and raining drywall everywhere. I blinked, sure the creep was going to come after me, now that I’d missed so heinously, but instead something seemed to grab him by the neck, squeezing so his eyes began to bulge and his feet scrabbled helplessly against the linoleum of the laundry room floor.
A few gurgling moans came from his throat, and then once again he was flung away from me, this time with so much force that he flew across the backyard, hitting the corner of the garage before tumbling in a heap into the irises that still half-heartedly grew there. Shaking, I tightened my hold on the shotgun and started down the back steps toward him, only to hear the voice say,
Stop, Jessica. There is no need.
I paused on the bottom stair. “That — that was you?”
Yes.
“And he’s — ”
Yes. I did what I should have done back at your aunt and uncle’s house.
My breath seemed to go out of me in a whoosh, and I found myself sitting down hard on the step, the concrete cold even through my jeans. Thank God at least I’d gone to bed fully dressed, except for my hiking boots. I looked over at the gun I still held.
“I wouldn’t have missed, would I?”
No. You would have killed him, had I not pushed the gun away. I did not want that on your conscience.
So…a being who would go out of his way to protect me, but didn’t think twice about killing someone else. Not that Chris Bowman was exactly a wonderful specimen of humanity, one worth saving.
“Are you an angel?” I asked abruptly.
Another of those low chuckles. Hardly. But you are safe now, so you should go back inside and try to sleep.
“You seriously expect me to sleep after that?”
Yes. You are safe now. No one else knows of your presence in this house. You can sleep here, and then leave tomorrow morning.
I knew I’d exhausted all my arguments. After pushing myself to my feet, I glanced over toward where Chris Bowman’s body lay, twisted and limp in the ruin of what was once my mother’s prized bed of irises.
I will take care of that. Go to sleep, Jessica.
Bowing my head, I nodded, then went back inside and locked the door. Even though the voice had told me I was safe, I still took the step stool and wedged it up under the knob of the back door. Maybe it was a foolish gesture, but it made me feel a little bit better.
Dutchie looked up at me and wagged her tail, teeth showing in a doggy smile. “Okay,” I said. “You get a treat for the warning.” I got out a dog biscuit and gave it to her before heading back to my makeshift bed on the living room couch, where I leaned the shotgun up against the sofa’s arm once more. Maybe I wouldn’t need it, but I knew I’d sleep better if it was there.
Assuming I slept at all, of course.
* * *
I did, finally, and awoke to bright sunshine peeking around the edges of the living room curtains. The clock above the fireplace was battery-operated, and so had no problem telling me that the time was ten minutes until eight.
When I’d laid my head down on the sofa pillow the night before, I had no idea I’d sleep in that much. The confrontation with Chris Bowman must have taken more out of me than I thought. Speaking of which….
After pushing the blankets covering me off to one side, I rose and padded in sock feet to the back door. The step stool was still there, shoved up under the doorknob. I removed it and set it to lean against the wall, then opened the door and looked outside, toward the garage. The bright morning sunlight clearly revealed the clump of smashed iris plants where Chris Bowman had landed the night before, but his body was gone. No blood, no nothing.
If I looked more closely, would there be a pile of ashes half hidden among the blade-like iris leaves? But no, he’d died from severe head trauma, not the Heat. The body had been simply…taken away.
Deciding it was best not to contemplate exactly how that had happened…or what had been done with him…I went back inside and poured Dutchie some fresh water from one of the bottles in the pantry, and gave her a good helping of dry dog food. She wolfed it down, tail wagging the whole time, so obviously she hadn’t been irrevocably scarred by the events of the night before.
I wasn’t sure I could say the same for myself, but I had other things I needed to focus on. The day before, I’d told the voice I would pack up and leave this morning, so that’s what I needed to do — assess what I would take with me, based on how much I could fit into the Cherokee. With the back seats folded down, I really could haul a good deal of gear, so I didn’t think space would be too much of a problem.
More bread and butter for breakfast, supplemented with some dried apricots I found smashed into one corner of the pantry. My mother had been a very organized woman, but Devin was a source of chaos that could defeat even the most orderly person. I started stacking what was salvageable on the breakfast bar: the rest of that bag of apricots, a pile of granola bars, an unopened bag of blue corn chips, the remnants of the dry food and the dog biscuits for Dutchie. That would get us started, and I figured I could always stock up on a few more things in the food section of the Walgreens.
Truly, you do not need that much. The voice sounded almost amused this time.
“Well, until you’re telling me how far I’m driving, I’m going to over-pack,” I said, setting the half-used flat of bottled water next to the dog food.
Jessica, do you not like surprises?
“Not particularly, no.” I surveyed the meager pile and thought I really wasn’t overdoing it by anyone’s standards. True, I could start piling up the economy-sized cans of tomato sauce and beans my mother had bought at Costco, but I could get that stuff anywhere if necessary. It wasn’t as if there was going to be a lot of competition for the enormous stockpiles of canned food left behind by the mostly deceased people of New Mexico.
Well, I think you will like this surprise.
Since that reply just annoyed me — what was I, five? — I made a noncommittal sound in my throat and headed out the back door, up to my apartment. This time, Dutchie didn’t seem too inclined to follow me. I guessed the reason why when I saw her nose around the backyard, then squat to pee. The second movement, so to speak, would probably follow shortly, but I didn’t see any need to hang around for that.
Like an idiot, I’d left the door to my apartment unlocked, but, as far as I could tell, Chris hadn’t made it up here. It was possible that he’d detected the faint glow of the candles from inside the main house and realized that was where I’d bunked down. Just as well, because I didn’t know if I could have brought any of my belongings with me if I’d known he’d pawed through them.
In my closet I had one of those airline-regulation hard-sided suitcases, the kind with wheels, as well as two largish duffle bags. I filled one of the duffle bags with underwear and bras and socks, along with a couple of sleep shirts. The other duffle bag got shoe-carrying duty — which turned out not to be much, since I only packed my trail shoes, a pair of knee-high boots with rubber soles, and one pair of flip-flops. And…well, I didn’t see where I would ever wear them again, but I didn’t want to leave behind my pretty black flats with the scallop detail, or the high-heeled sandals with the jeweled embellishment. Maybe I could just take them out from time to time and fondle them. I loved those sandals.
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