Recalled (10 page)

“Girl you’re going to collapse under those books. Come on. I parked right over there.” She pointed to the parking lot. “You can put these in there until after we eat.” She grabbed a couple books off my stack and headed toward the car. “You must really want to be a doctor, putting up with all these books.”

“You know I want to help people,”

“I help people all the time. You should’ve seen this woman today that came in for her license renew. She was blind in one eye and only had half the vision in her other eye! I have no clue how she even got a license in the first place. I refused to renew it. You know how many lives I saved by keeping her off the road?”

I snickered as she unlocked the passenger door of her Jeep Wrangler and threw in my books. After I added the rest to the pile, she slammed the door and we began walking. A strange feeling crept its way up the back of my neck and I turned back, looking over my shoulder at the parking lot. I didn’t see anything other than students heading to and from campus.

“What’s wrong?” Frankie asked.

“Nothing. I just got this weird feeling,”

Frankie looked over her shoulder too and saw exactly what I saw: nothing.

“You need sugar,” she said, pulling me along.

“So what did you find out?” I asked, trying to ignore the prickly feeling I couldn’t seem to shake. It felt like someone was drilling a hole into my back with their watchful eyes.

“Crap!” I said suddenly, stopping midstride. “I think I dumped my money in your car with my books.” I turned to face back toward the parking lot and I swear I saw a dark shape almost glide behind a nearby building. My eyes narrowed on the spot, waiting for more movement, but none came.

“Are you sure?” Frankie asked.

I shook my head and stuck my fingers into my coat pocket. The little pouch I used to carry my money was there. “Oh, never mind, it’s here,”

We started walking again. “Frank,” I whispered quickly. “Six o’clock and a little to my left. Is someone following us?”

Frankie laughed like I said something funny and threw her head back and to the side. I saw her eyes darting around. “I don’t see anyone but a couple of students walking around.”

I nodded. “I could’ve sworn I saw someone behind the building back there.”

“You’re jumpy today,” Frankie said, sliding me a look.

“I do feel a little anxious.” I thought it was because I wanted to know what Frankie would dig up about the man in the diner. Now I was wondering if that had been the real reason.

We picked up our pace toward the building that housed the food court. Students were coming in and out steadily. I glanced at my left toward a pile of snow left over from the plow and caught another dark shape duck down behind me. How had it gotten just ahead of me when only moments before it was behind?

I watched the spot, but nothing happened so I kept quiet. The building was just in front of us now with a long, clear sidewalk leading to the main doors. I pulled them open and we walked inside. The student center was three stories with us coming in on the middle landing. There was a wide open area with wide steps leading down to a bookstore and some leading upstairs toward the food court. Over to my right was a large
,
bright blue UAF tapestry with the college logo on it—a polar bear—that hung from long cables in the ceiling.

Behind it, I saw another dark movement.

Someone was definitely watching me. Someone who was incredibly fast.

I had enough. I lunged forward, quickly covering the space between myself and the tapestry, my eyes locked on the hooded figure that was frozen. He knew I saw him. He knew he’d been caught.

I made it to the side where he stood and I pulled back the tapestry, stepping behind it, reaching toward the darkened shape that now turned away. My hands closed around his arm… and went through.

I was left grasping at black smoke… my fingers trying to hold something that had no shape.

And then it was gone.

I stood there, stupefied, staring at the wall, wondering if I’d imagined the entire thing.

I felt the tapestry being yanked forward and then from behind me Frankie said, “Umm, are you having a private moment back here with… the wall?”

“I… I thought I saw someone.”

“There’s no one here,” Frankie said gently, grabbing the sleeve of my coat and pulling me toward the stairs. “Come on. You’re gonna eat some sugar whether you like it or not.”

“Yeah.” I agreed. “I think I will.”

As we went up the stairs I gazed back. The tapestry was swinging slightly from our movements, but otherwise there was nothing there.

I looked beyond that out the glass doors and onto the sidewalk. Someone was walking swiftly away from the building. Someone in a dark coat and hat. His shoulders were hunched up around his neck and his hands were jammed into his pockets. A whisper of something—recognition?—went through me before he disappeared from sight.

At least he looked solid and real, not at all like a ghost.

Chapter Thirteen

“Reject -
To refuse to accept, submit to, believe, or make use of. Fail to accept as part of one's own body.”

Dex

I turned up the heat in the Roadster as high as it would go and tried to calm my tossing stomach. My hands were shaking and I felt this weird kind of pulling sensation beneath my ribs. I took a shuddering breath and ripped off my gloves, sticking my hands as close to the heater as I could, and stared through the windshield across the parking lot of the college campus. Even parked way in the nose-bleed section, it was full. This place was full of people.

But that wasn’t why I didn’t go through with my plan.

And it had been a good plan.

A college shooting was practically a normal occurrence these days. Apparently, violence wasn’t regulated to just the streets of the ghetto anymore. According to the news on my flat screen, this world was going to hell in a hand basket. Guess I wouldn’t be lonely when I got there.

I figured I could fire a couple wild shots around and “accidentally” hit Piper with a bullet. In all the chaos, I could get away, call Mr. Burns like he asked, and collect my raise and my body.

But that was before I saw she was being followed. By someone that wasn’t me.

I managed to catch up with her minutes before the girl in the red coat appeared, following her with ease until I noticed the dark shape that darted in and out behind her and then appeared seconds later yards in front of her. It was odd. And it kind of pissed me off.

No one was taking out this Target but me. I had too much on the line here. I wanted my body back, I wanted to keep my car and my house, and I wanted a pay raise so I could buy whatever I wanted. So I followed and I watched.

It was interesting to me that she figured out she was being followed. This girl was no pushover. She seemed to be aware of things that no one else would be… even when she appeared deep in thought.

I watched her when her shoulders stiffened slightly, when she scanned the parking lot and then stopped to look over her shoulder. At first I was worried she’d made me. But she kept looking where the other guy was; she seemed to catch on to his quick movements. Clearly, sneaking up on this girl wasn’t an option.

I followed her and the girl she spoke to, the weight of the gun reminding me of my job the entire time, all the way to the building with the double glass doors until they went inside. Then, because I couldn’t help myself, I walked as close to the doors as I could and peered inside.

I saw the stalker peek out from behind that oversized blanket. I saw her see him. I wanted to laugh when she went after him, instead of running. I watched her tear back the blanket, saw her arm shoot out, and could imagine her spinning him around and demanding an explanation.

Better him than me,
I’d thought.

Except then she came back out with this weird look on her face. It looked a lot like disbelief. And then her friend was leading her away, up the stairs, like she was a psych patient that needed care. I watched the blanket; I waited for the stalker to reveal himself.

But he never did.

It’s like he hadn’t been there at all.

Yet I saw him.

So had Piper.

My hands were shaking uncontrollably at that point. I felt like I was going to barf all over the sidewalk, yet there was this urgency inside me that seemed to push me… but I had no idea where it wanted me to go.

So I got out of there.

I had to.

And now here I was, sitting in my car with the butt of a gun digging into my back.

Did someone else want Piper dead?

I yanked the gun out of my waistband and stared down at it in my hands. There would be no shooting today. Something else was going on here and I wanted to know what it was. I leaned forward and opened up the glove compartment and tossed the gun inside. I was glad to get it away from me. Maybe shooting her wasn’t the way to go. Even still, I would keep it. Just in case.

As I leaned back into my seat, something caught my eye. Something red. I ducked down, thinking maybe they’d seen me after all and her friend in the red coat was coming after me. But after long minutes of no one appearing beside my car, I rose, peeking over the dashboard to look across the parking lot.

He was there. Walking among everyone else. But he was different.

Why did no one notice? Why did no one turn to stare?

The guy was completely surrounded in red, almost as if the very air around his body had been stained with the bright color.

He had his hands stuffed into a black coat, a hat on his head, and his chin tucked into his chest. I guess he looked pretty ordinary, if you didn’t count the flaming ring of color. I watched him for long moments; I watched the people around him. He didn’t speak to anyone and no one spoke to him. No one paid him any attention at all. It was like he was just another student hurrying to class. I blinked my eyes, thinking they were playing tricks on me. But no matter how hard I blinked, the red was still there.

I watched him until he was completely out of sight, and then I noticed my hands were still shaking and I still felt sick. I swallowed, turning on the car, and with one last glimpse where the man had been, I pulled away. I drove slowly, staring at everyone through the windshield, watching for someone or something else bathed in red. But everything looked normal. When I turned out of the parking lot and onto the main road, the cramping in my stomach loosened and my shaking hands began to steady.

What was wrong with me? Was I going crazy? Or could the nagging feeling, my illness, and now my eyes playing tricks on me be linked to Piper? Or was it something else? What if it was this body? Maybe it was somehow rejecting me. I didn’t know if it was possible, but after everything I’d experienced since I died, it wasn’t that far of a stretch.

Chapter Fourteen

“News -
interesting or important information not previously known or realized.”

Piper

“Tell me already,” I begged Frankie as I sipped the hot tea, into which she dumped half a bottle of honey.