Intuition: The Premonition Series Page 10

  “Reed, are you okay?” I ask because the pain in his voice scares me.

  There is silence for a few moments then he says, “Yes. You?” he asks in a strained tone.

  “Yeah. I’m okkkay. I’m in Ames. I jjjust got hhhere. I’m outside of the town bbbecause I can’t get my wwwings to cccooperate yet. I’m a little cccold,” I say as I realize that my teeth are chattering.

  I hear Reed say “Ames” to someone he is with on the other end, maybe Zephyr and Buns. “Are you alone?” he asks in an efficient, military tone.

  “Yeahhh,” I reply as I quake a little from the cold.

  “Why didn’t you answer the phone?” he asks, beginning to sound more like himself.

  “It was ttturned offff. I didn’t know yyyou were tttrying to cccall mmme,” I explain with my teeth still chattering. I try to clench them so they won’t make any noise.

  “Are you sure you’re in Ames?” Reed asks me in the military voice again.

  “Yesss. It’s jjjust mmme and the hhhappy fffolk,” I say ironically, scanning the area for the happy folk and not seeing anyone walking around, probably because it’s freezing outside.

  “The what?” Reed asks, sounding much better than he did a second ago.

  “Nnnever mmmind, yyou’ll know wwwhen you get hhhere. Wwwhen are yyyou cccoming?” I inquire, shivering.

  “I’m already on the way. Zephyr and I are in your car and Buns is following us in the other car. Ames is over a hundred miles away according to our map, and there is no direct route there, so it’s going to take us around an hour at least to get there. Is there somewhere you can go to wait for us and keep a low profile?”

  It takes a minute for what he just said to register. “I’m a hhhundred mmmiles away fffrom yyou?” I ask.

  “Yes,” he says.

  “I rrran a hhundred mmiles?” I ask again for clarification and wonder just how long I have been stumbling around.

  “Yes, you are getting better at following my orders. I said ‘run’ and you didn’t disappoint me,” he replies, like he’s proud of me. “Next time, turn the phone on so that I know you’re alive,” he continues, and the strained voice is back.

  “Ssure,” I agree, feeling numb because I had no idea that I had gone that far to escape the angel chasing me. I bet if it had been on even terrain, I would be two hundred miles away and the thought floors me.

  “Evie, is there anywhere you can go to warm up? I can hear your teeth chattering,” Reed asks.

  I scan the area. “Wwell, I hhhave sort of a ppproblem. I cccan’t gget mmmy wwings to go bback in,” I inform him, switching the phone to my other hand so that I can put the other hand under my armpit to warm it up a little.

  “You just have to relax,” he replies unhelpfully.

  “Oh,” I say because it is getting harder for me to concentrate on what he is saying. “Ookay. Mmmaybe if I jjjust sssit ddown hhere ffor a mmminute.”

  “NO! Don’t sit down!” Reed almost yells into the phone. “Listen to me. You can’t sit down. You’ll get colder if you sit down,” he says in a harsh tone.

  “Okay,” I agree, feeling the icy air blowing across my exposed skin. It’s colder here than it had been in the forest. I stumble forward, trying to stay out of the glow of the streetlamp as I walk toward Ames.

  “Are you relaxed enough now?” Reed asks.

  “I don’ttt know. Lllet me tttry,” I try, but my wings don’t move.

  “Evie?” Reed asks after a while.

  “Wwhat?” I respond in confusion.

  “Did it work?” he asks.

  “Nnno,” I reply, shivering.

  “It doesn’t matter. Just find somewhere you can warm up and I will be there soon and persuade the humans that they saw nothing,” Reed says in a tense tone.

  “Mmm nnnot sssupposed ta do dat,” I reply, but it doesn’t come out the way I think it should. It sounds slurred and mumbled.

  “Evie, find someplace. Now!” Reed barks at me and I flinch.

  “Kkkay.” I agree and hang up the phone. I feel disoriented and I don’t want to be yelled at so it makes perfect sense to me to hang up. I wander toward the light down the street, but when I get near it, it turns out to be a convenience store. The florescent lights glow evilly, making my head spin with flashes of pain and fear. I have to get away from it so I stay in the shadows across the street from the store and continue walking.

  I pass by sandstone buildings with festive holiday displays still gracing the facades. The town of Ames has white, twinkle holiday lights wound in a serpentine pattern around each street lamp with wreaths gracing the tops. Golden bells and garlands are wrapped around wire and strung across the street, making a beautiful archway through the town. As I walk further along the sidewalk, I have to duck into a couple of the shadowy doorways of the closed store fronts to avoid being seen by the cars that drive past on the street. Everything seems to be closed for the night, probably because it’s New Year’s Eve and the happy folk have parties to attend.

  The phone starts ringing. Someone should answer that because it’s getting annoying, I think drunkenly, as I continue on to the center of town. I must have come upon some kind of town hall because there is a big WWII howitzer on the front lawn along with a Nativity scene, a gigantic lighted Menorah, and a Happy Kwanzaa sign. I approach the angel in the Nativity scene. It doesn’t look like anyone I know. They should get one that looks like Reed. Someone would steal it though…I would.

  Thumping sounds, coming to me from further down the street, distract me from the town hall’s menagerie of holiday spirit. As I walk toward it, I ascertain that it is music coming from a club at the end of the street. The yellow-lighted sign outside reads, “Cowboys and Cowgirls–Welcome–Dollar Drafts ‘til Midnight.”

  I duck into the alley near the front of the bar just as a laughing couple turns the corner and approaches the double wooden doors. Peeking around the corner at them, a cascade of warm air swirls outside in a rush when the man politely holds the door for his date. A sultry voice tumbles out the entrance accompanied by a hauntingly sweet guitar as they go inside. It’s a man singing something about how he has got to run so he doesn’t have to keep hiding. He doesn’t want them to catch him—no.

  I nod in silent agreement, understanding his problem. “You’ve got that right, pal,” I mutter. “I don’t want them to catch me either.” The door swings shut again and the song is muffled.

  I turn away from the bar and slip down the alley toward a parking lot at the back. Something smells good, I think, continuing down the alley and crossing over a darkened parking lot. It is the back door area of some kind of restaurant. Coming closer, it appears to be a diner. The back door is slightly ajar. I stay behind a van parked in the lot, watching an employee from the restaurant carry several large, black garbage bags to the dumpster. Heaving them in, the glass bottles clang loudly as they settle at the bottom of the dumpster. He pulls out a cigarette and lights it; smoking it quickly, he throws it away from him with a flick of his fingers as the ember glows orange.

  The man goes back to the door before yelling to someone, “Yo, I’m outta here, see ya suckas next year…Happy New Year Daryl, Happy New Year Karen…Later!” He laughs and walks out the door and around the corner to his car. He fires up an old Pontiac and wheels it out of the parking lot while a loose belt in the engine screams in protest.

  After he is gone, I walk up to the back door, feeling a trickle of warm air escaping from the portal he left ajar. It feels delicious. Pulling the door open, I am assailed by heat and the heavy odor of greasy comfort food. My stomach growls while I look around with jerking motions to see if anyone is in the back of the diner. It’s a stockroom area and it appears to be empty. I step in and lean against the door to close it behind me.

  The grill sizzles several yards ahead of me as someone flips whatever is being cooked with a metal spatula. I want to follow my impulse that is telling me to walk to the front and ask for some French fries. I resist doing that bec
ause there is a reason that I shouldn’t, I just can’t think of what that reason is at the moment. Noticing a door on my right, I push away from the one I was leaning against to open it. The door leads to some kind of employee break area with lockers, a broad laminate table with a couple of ash trays on it, folding chairs, and a small sofa that has been pushed against the far wall. Stepping into the room, I close the door just as the phone starts ringing again.

  I have to stop the noise, so I push several buttons on it and say, “Shh!” It stops ringing and I turn off the light, waiting a fraction of a second while my eyes adjust to the dark room. When I can see really well again, I sit down on the sofa, pulling my knees to my chest while hugging myself for warmth. I shiver violently as I breathe in deep gulps of warm air and exhale them haltingly. It takes me a while to realize that there is a voice speaking from the phone in my hand. I put it to my ear. Reed is saying something to me that I don’t understand because he is speaking to me in Angel, in his sexiest voice. Sitting on the sofa, I listen to his voice weave like hypnotic music, calming me like a gentle lullaby.

  Reed pauses in his recitation. “Wwhat’d yyyaa sssay?” I ask haltingly, because the violent shaking of my body is making it difficult to speak.

  “Evie!” Reed sighs like he is vastly relieved about something. When I don’t answer he asks, “Are you there?”

  “Uh huh,” I manage to say as another violent bout of shivers runs through me.

  “Where are you?” he asks.

  “Yyyou…ffirst,” I reply.

  “I was telling you all of the reasons I have for loving you,” he says rapidly. “Now where are you?”

  “Dinerrrr,” I reply. “Ssnuck in ttthe bbbaack rrrrooomm.”

  “Is it warm?” he asks, sounding almost happy.

  “Yesss,” I say.

  “I’m coming. Just stay there. We’ll find you, do you understand?” he asks.

  “Uh huh,” I nod.

  “How much charge does your phone have?” Reed asks.

  “One bbbarr,” I say after I look at the phone, noticing that it’s nearly out of power.

  “We will have to hang up then to conserve the battery, just in case we need it later to locate you,” he says in frustration. “Just stay put, okay? I’m coming,” he says again, and I know that this is somehow way worse for him than it is for me, since he is safe and I’m not.

  “Sstaying pput. Sssee yyaaa ssooonnn,” I say before hanging up the phone.

  “Are you cold, honey?” a feminine voice next to me asks. I jump in fear, springing up off the sofa and turning to see who had spoken to me. Just for a second, I thought it was the Power who had chased me down the hill and across country, but I realize that if it had been her, I would never have heard her speak. I would probably already be dead.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you, dear. You go on and sit back down, I’m not going to hurt you,” the older lady sitting in front of me smiles. She isn’t that old, maybe in her fifties, with thin brown hair streaked with silver all pulled back in a French twist. She is wearing the restaurant diner attire of blue jeans, a black top, and a short black apron that has convenient pockets in the front to hold the order forms.

  I just stare at her. She smiles again and pats the seat where I had been sitting. I want more than anything to sit back down where she indicated because my legs are shaking and I feel weak. “You’re an angel,” she says, more as a statement than a question. I nod. “You’re wings gave it away,” she says, pointing to my crimson appendages that I can’t hide. “We don’t get many like you around here,” she says, and the twinkle in her brown eyes makes me relax a little. “There is usually a blanket in the last locker on the right,” she says, indicating the locker by pointing to it. “You should get it. We use it when we do double shifts and there is enough of a lull to take a nap. I’m Brenda, by the way.”

  I stumble over to the locker Brenda had indicated, finding a folded blanket on the shelf. Pulling it down, I wrap it around me. It smells like French fries, which makes my stomach growl again. “You remind me of my daughter, Jenny. She works here, too, and she is never prepared for the weather either. I tell her she shouldn’t leave the house without a coat, but she’s young,” Brenda says with a shrug of her shoulders. “Here, you have to sit down before you fall down, honey,” Brenda says, scooting farther away down the sofa so that I have more room to sit. Tentatively, I sit down on the couch next to her. “Do you have a name?” Brenda asks pointedly.

  “Evie,” I say, snuggling further into the blanket.

  “That’s a pretty name,” Brenda says. “I never knew anyone with that name. My ex-husband liked the name Jenny…I think he had an old girlfriend with that name, he was kind of a jerk like that,” she says, shrugging again. “But that’s okay. I like the name Jenny, too. Do you have an ex?” she inquires.

  “No,” I manage to say without stuttering. I’m warming up.

  “Was that your boyfriend? On the phone?” she asks.

  I nod.

  “Is he coming to get you?” she asks in concern.

  I nod again.

  “Why were you out alone on a night like this, if you don’t mind me asking?” she asks me warmly.

  “It was kind of not my choice.” I say in relief that I can answer her now without my teeth chattering. “I sort of have a few problems,” I add honestly.

  “Who doesn’t, honey?” she asks conspiratorially. “Is this boyfriend of yours part of the problem, or is he helping you with it?” she wonders aloud.

  “He’s trying to help me with it but…” I trail off.

  “But what?” her eyebrow arches.

  “But I don’t know if he can. The problem might be bigger than he is capable of handling and the closer he is to me, the more danger he is in.” I reply, and being so honest with another person and hearing myself say the words aloud brings tears to my eyes. I remember watching Reed exit the gondola today to face the assassin that would have welcomed him with open arms, had it not been for me. I make them enemies. I make him suspect.

  “I can’t believe that you’re the problem,” Brenda says kindly.

  “Believe it,” I mutter. “I know what I should do to protect him, I’m just not sure I’m strong enough to do it.”

  “What do you think you should do?” she asks in confusion.

  “I should leave him. I should go somewhere that he can’t find me so that he will be safe from me. He would never willingly let me go, so I would have to run from him, too,” I whisper, and the thought of doing that fills me with a sickness from which I’m not sure I will recover.

  “Leaving him would protect him?” she asks, probably for clarification.

  “Yes,” I state. “At least, he would survive. I don’t know if he would live though.” If he feels half of what I feel for him, he may survive, but he will never live again.

  “Honey, I don’t pretend to know your situation, but if you want my advice, I’d be prepared for anything. You may never have to choose the option that you just agonized over, but if the day came when it became necessary, you would have a plan in place to execute and save the one you love,” Brenda advises. She tries to rest her hand on my knee in a comforting way, but her hand goes right through my leg like an icy blast of air. I am so off guard that I can only sit and stare at Brenda.

  “I tried to do that, you know, at the end. But, I didn’t tell Jenny about my plans for her, so she never knew before I died,” Brenda explains. “I made a will and left her the house, but my second husband didn’t tell her. He kept my house and kicked her out.”

  I gasp as I realize what she is telling me. Brenda is a soul. She’s dead, why didn’t I realize it? I must be really out of it, I think, staring at Brenda. Of course she’s a soul. I’m sitting in the dark talking to someone who wouldn't be able to see me otherwise. She acted so casual when she realized that I’m an angel, probably because she’s seen us before.

  “You didn’t know I’m dead, did you, dear?” Brenda as
ks. I shake my head. “Are you new at this?” she asks with sympathy in her voice. I nod my head.

  “Do you have a copy of your will somewhere?” I ask her, trying hard to recover.

  “Yeah. I didn’t trust my second husband, not after what the first husband put me through. I had more than one copy of it and put it in my locker here at work,” she says excitedly, pointing to one of the lockers in the corner. “They didn’t find it when they cleaned out my locker because it’s stuck between the shelves in the back. Crystal took over my locker, that’s her padlock on it. You probably can’t get it open,” she says disappointedly.

  Getting up from the sofa, I drag the blanket with me over to the locker that Brenda indicated. The padlock is a combination. “Do you know her combination?” I ask. Brenda shakes her head in remorse. “Oh well, I guess Crystal is gonna have to make a trip to the hardware store, huh?” I say, before I yank hard on the lock, feeling the metal latch release from the casing without much resistance.

  The rest of the lock looks smashed when I open my hand and I smile a little, seeing how strong I’m getting. Opening up the locker, I reach my hand to the back, feeling around until I locate a curled edge of a piece of paper. Gently, I dislodge it from the back of the locker without tearing it. Pulling it out, I scan the legal document, noting it is the last will and testament of Brenda Wilson.

  “Which locker belongs to Jenny?” I ask. Brenda points to the one a few lockers down. “Should we leave a note on it?” I ask, looking around for a pen to write with. There are several in a plastic cup on the round table in the middle of the room. Plucking a pen out of the cup, I flip the will over to write on the back of it. I look at Brenda who watches me poised to write whatever she wants me to.

  “Please write: Dear Jenny, Mommy loves you from the first day to the last and everyday in between, in this world and in the next.” I write it on the back of the document. I go over to Jenny’s locker and slip it in through the vent at the top of the locker door. I turn back to Brenda. Smiling broadly, she says, “Thank you.”