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“I’m down to one cigarette a day,” I wheezed before bending over with my hands on my knees. “I think I’m going to puke.”
Three and half hours was a new record for me. I knew all the ins and outs of my new neighborhood now. It was a big one and my new house was smack dab in the middle. I had ventured down all the streets, passing my house a few times, and when I’d started to feel like I was going to throw up I’d known it was time to stop.
“You pushed yourself too far,” my uncle admonished.
I didn’t argue. I did, however, ignore the disapproving look he was giving me as I focused on breathing. He didn’t approve of my “therapeutic methods” but wasn’t the type to dissuade me either.
“Your furniture should be here in a few hours,” he added.
Apart from a few boxes already here that held personal things like clothes, toiletries, and memorabilia from before I went into WITSEC, I’d had to order furniture to fill the rest of the house. It was scheduled to arrive later this morning.
I’d been able to purchase all of it and this house with some of the life insurance money I had received from both of my parents and my sister after they’d been killed. It wasn’t the only money that had been left to me, but I liked to pretend that money didn’t exist. It was blood money to me, and I didn’t like having it. I didn’t like having the life insurance money either, but Logan had convinced me to use it. He explained that my family had gotten life insurance for a reason and that was to make sure I was taken care of. So I compromised. I’d live off the life insurance money until I finished college and got a job. If I budgeted properly it’d last me until then and I could continue on pretending the rest of my family’s money didn’t exist.
“Why don’t you go shower and then we’ll get breakfast?” Logan suggested. “Yesterday, you said you were craving crepes. Want to go somewhere that makes them?”
I frowned. Logan was a bona fide drill sergeant. If he wasn’t ordering me about, something was up. Acting apprehensive was his tell. “If you got something to say, just say it.”
His eyes locked with mine and I instantly became nervous. I knew whatever he had to tell me wasn’t good.
“Ian called.” Ian was his superior and the only other soul who knew my whereabouts. “They got a lead. Highway patrol pulled a man over matching X’s description in North Carolina a few days ago. The cop radioed in for backup, but they didn’t get there in time. X fled. The cop was DOA. Ian’s calling me in to help.”
DOAmeantdead on arrival.My stomach churned, making the urge to throw up even stronger. North Carolina was on the other side of the country, yet it still felt like I was within his reach. As long as he was out there, I didn’t think anywhere in the world would feel safe.
I tried to appear calm. On the inside I was freaking out. “When do you leave?”
He stared at me intently, as if he could see past my fake bravado to my terrified soul. “Friday.”
That was four days from now. The following Monday was my first day at my new school. I was going to complete my senior year and if everything went as planned, I was going to try and get into a university nearby. Even though my life had been forever changed and my parents were gone, I was still determined to complete my goals and make them proud.
“I know Friday is a lot sooner than we planned, but we prepared for this,” he said.
I couldn’t tell if he was trying to reassure me or himself.
FIND ME
My furniture delivery was late. The truck didn’t get here until noon and it took them a few hours to unload everything. Logan shook his head at the purple couch I’d ordered as it was carried inside. The color reminded me of the suit the Joker wore in Batman. I might have been a closeted superhero nerd and the Joker was my favorite villain, but that was beside the point. The couch had been a bold choice—for me. I’d lived my whole life in bland colors and played it safe because I’d been too afraid to stand out. Look at what it had gotten me.
WITSEC had given me a new life. I couldn’t take it for granted. It was time to move forward and I was going to do that bravely and adventurously. Like Shayla. So if I wanted a purple couch, then I’d get the purple couch and the bright yellow armchair to go with it.
For the dining room, I might have gone a little overboard and splurged on a six-seater, turquoise-painted wood table. My mom had used to say the kitchen table was the heart of the home. Some of my best memories from growing up were of dinner time, with my parents and sister sitting around the table laughing while talking about anything and everything. Staring at my new table with its six empty chairs made my chest tighten. My mom had been wrong. It wasn’t the table that was the heart. It was the people who sat at it.
The rest of what I’d ordered filled my bedroom and the spare bedroom that Logan was using. I hadn’t ordered anything for the third bedroom. Logan was converting it into a panic room of sorts, with a rolling metal shutter on the window and a steel-reinforced door. It wouldn’t be a completely impenetrable panic room, but it would hopefully hold up until the police arrived. He was also setting up an impressive security system with panic buttons and cameras, which he was currently drilling into the walls outside the house. To anyone else, a panic room, cameras, and security system might have been excessive. After what I’d been through, it still didn’t feel like enough. Not with Mr. X still out there looking for me.
Now that my furniture was here, I needed to go shopping for everything else I would need, like linens and coffee mugs. Not to mention there wasn’t any food in the house.
Dressed in ripped, light blue jeans, a long-sleeved white shirt, and boots that had a knife tucked into the left one, I grabbed my purse and headed toward the front door. The delivery men were about to leave, and I was following them out. I had my long lilac hair pulled up into a high ponytail because it was hotter than Hades out. Sweat was already sliding down the back of my neck.
Outside, I could smell grills cooking, hear cicadas buzzing and rock music playing from my neighbor’s house to the right. I glanced in that direction. A few cars were parked in the street in front of their house and a group of guys were working on an old classic car in the driveway. I briefly scanned over them, counting six, some just standing around drinking beer and talking while a few actually hovered over the engine of the old car. They all appeared to be friends hanging out, carefree and having fun.Must be nice.
“Miss Pierce, I need you to sign here, confirming that everything was delivered.” One of the delivery guys held out a clipboard and pen.
Hearing my new last name instead of my real last name, McConnell, was going to take some getting used to. Standing in the middle of my lawn on the stone pathway leading to my car in the driveway, I read over the receipt, verifying I had indeed received everythingI’dordered. After I signed, I was handed a copy of the receipt and the delivery guys drove their truck away from my curb.
The sound of a drill made me glance back at the house. Logan was standing on a ladder in front of my bedroom window, drilling holes to install a camera.
“Logan, I’m running to the store!” I shouted as I made my way over to my car. The group of guys hanging out at my neighbor’s stopped talking and I got that feeling of being watched. My car and a short wall made up of oleander bushes that separated their property from mine was all that was standing between us.
Logan stopped drilling and looked over at me. “What’d you say, Shi?”
