AllFreeNovel
Share Us
1
CLARISSA
Ihear the click of the safety and guess it’s Hudson with the pistol over my head. It’s hard to tell when I’m broken and bruised, though, rolled up in a carpet that smells more like a burning dumpster than a proper casket. My left eye is swollen, and I know my hand is busted. Still, I hold my breath and will myself to stay calm.
Calm and dead. They think you’re dead.
“But I pride myself on following directions,” he finishes as the sound of two sets of footsteps shuffle closer.
“Are we done yet?”
I can tell by the full mouth it’s Reginald. Despite my predicament and probable concussion, I imagine the towering redhead with a beard dusted with powdered sugar and bread crumbs.
My powdered sugar and bread crumbs, I think bitterly as Hudson scoffs and lowers the gun.
It slaps against what I assume is his thigh. Or maybe Reginald’s bulbous belly, no doubt filled with more of tomorrow’s inventory.
What were the Holy Rollers thinking, doing me dirty like this? I’m a baker, for heaven’s sake. A donut artist, some would say. Not a snitch.
“Don’t talk to me with your mouth full. It’s rude,” comes Hudson’s shrill voice.
“I told him, Huds,” Greta whispers, and through gritted teeth, by the sound of it. “He’s always eating something. It’s distracting. But does he care about the job more than his addiction? No. Those things are going to kill him one day.”
“Youf didn’t say thaf,” Reginald mumbles, and it takes everything in me not to wince as I hear a loudthwackand assume it’s Greta throwing something else in my house.
“There you go doing it again. You–”
Click. Click.I blink in celebration at the sound. Anotherclick,and Hudson’s practically whisper-yelling.
“Who forgot the bullets?”
Hudson asks this like he wants to know who just tried punching him in the face and out of a dead sleep. He kicks the carpet I’m rolled in a few times, but I can’t feel it over the pounding sensation crippling my swollen face and body.
“Damn it, Reg! You made me forget!” Greta mumbled. “I had them in my key bowl ready to go and everything.”
“Why put them there in the first place?” Reginald sounds defensive.
“That’s where I keep all my important stuff!”
I know it’s Hudson snapping his fingers.
“Each of you, grab an end. I’ll get the middle.”
I feel like throwing up as they lift me and thank my last lucky star that it passes once we get to the van.
“Don’t blame me for your problems,” I hear Reginald say as they slam the van doors and walk around the side. “It’s rude, and the reason why nobody wants to work on these things with you.”
I don’t hear Greta’s reply over the sound of the engine starting. It roars to life, and I jump, suddenly upright and leaning against a tinted window cruising down the highway.
“Good morning, sunshine,” comes an entirely different voice.
I rub my head with my good hand and grin sleepily at Agent Todd. I’m in my handler’s car and blinking awake…
I must have been having another nightmare. How much of my near-death experience did the U.S. Marshal hear this time?
“What’s good about it?” I ask, sitting upright like I was just closing my eyes and nothing more.
“I don’t know. You’re alive, and the Holy Rollers don’t know that.”
