Goddess for Hire by Sonia Singh Read Free Book Online

case of buyer’s remorse ever.

Chapter 15
    MY GAS-GUZZLER of a tank was nearly empty, and I pulled into a Chevron station near the entrance to the 405 freeway. Thankfully the gas station was deserted, and I didn’t have to listen to any male comments like, “What’s a little girl like you doin’ in a big car like that?”
    I had my comeback though. “What’s a small brain like yours doin’ in a big head like that?”
    The response was invariably the same and delivered with a sneer. “Bitch.”
    I swiped my credit card, slipped in the nozzle, then leaned back against my car to wait. I could have a mini-nap in the time it took for my H2 to fill up. Deeming it unwise, however, to nap at a gas station late at night, with my purse sitting on the front seat, I instead thought back to the events of the day.
    Why wasn’t I more Bellevue about all this? Shouldn’t I be on the shrink’s sofa, drooling into my neck? I had no way of knowing since there was hardly a support groupfor people like me. Harry Potter had a whole school of his peers. All I had was Ram.
    Maybe my reaction was normal? A lifetime spent playing video games and watching movies made the unreal acceptable.
    Hey! What if my life were a video game! A potential fortune lay with Nintendo. I didn’t think of myself as greedy, but if I was supposed to save the world, shouldn’t I at least be able to turn lead into gold or something? I mean, it was just—
    Ugh!
    An invisible blow landed on my stomach with enough force to knock me out. But no one was there, and I was still standing.
    Ugh!
    There it went again. Uneasiness crawled up my back. The weight pressed against my chest and stomach. I could barely breathe.
    I knew what was happening. It couldn’t be anything else.
    I turned around.
    Behind me two men were walking into the convenience store.
    The malevolence radiated off them.
    Ram was right. I would know evil.
    The weight continued to press against me.
    Dharma-fulfilling time.
    Shit! Shit! Shit!

Chapter 16
    THIS WAS NEW TERRITORY for me, and I thought about calling 911. But what would I tell the operator? “Umm, I just felt a really big pang in my chest…which sorta indicates evil’s around, and I’m a pretty reliable source being that I’m a goddess so…”
    I decided to follow them in.
    The clerk behind the counter saw me enter, but the two goons didn’t. They were too busy grabbing beers from the cooler. I moved past the magazines and dropped down in a crouching position behind one of the aisles, my face pressed against a packet of beef jerky.
    From that vantage point I could see the front, but no one could see me. I peered around the corner and the clerk, a middle-aged man with olive skin and an Errol Flynn mustache, stared right at me with a puzzled expression. Quickly, I ducked back behind the jerky. Okay, so I wasn’t as unobtrusive as I thought.
    I waited a few moments, but the clerk didn’t come down the aisle after me. Apparently a woman whowanted to get up close and personal with dried-up meat was no big deal. This was the night shift at a convenience store after all. There was probably someone masturbating in the bathroom right now.
    I peeked around the corner again. The two men were at the counter. I got a good look at them from behind and summed up their appearance: saggy-assed.
    One guy was white with a shaved head, his thick neck partially covered by the curling edge of a tattoo. A scorpion was my guess, but I wasn’t about to ask him to remove his shirt so I could see the design. The other guy was dark, Hispanic-looking, his hair pulled back in a braid. He had tattoos, too, mostly of evil-eyed eagles.
    Two tattooed thugs. How clichéd could you get?
    The Latino lawbreaker shoved the carton of beer across the counter, and said in a low, intimidating growl, “Empty the cash register. Fast.” His eyes narrowed as the clerk grabbed a