Payback by Melinda Metz - Fingerprints - 7 Read Free Book Online

bubble. A liquid-fil ed bubble. She could see out through its lime-green wal s, and everything out there lo oked… pretty. Pretty. And lime green. And sort of bendy. Look! There was a bendy lime-green squirrel over there. Look how its tail stretched out, out, out, bending, swaying, like it didn’t have even a thin little tailbone in it.
    The squirrel turned its head toward her. Its eyes were bendy, too. They bulged out, out, out. Until they looked like they were go ing to pop. If they popped, Rae’s bubble would pop. She knew it. Knew it. And the squirrel knew it, too. The squirrel wanted it to happen. Because the squirrel knew that if her bubble popped, Rae would die. And the squirrel, the pretty squirrel, it wanted her to die.
    Its eyes swel ed out even farther, like two water bal oons getting fil ed from a hose, ful er and ful er and squishier and squishier.
    They were going to pop. They were going to pop!
    Pop!
    Rae blinked, and the world was fil ed with color again. Mandy had her hand on Rae’s arm. She must have pulled my fingers off Zeke’s, Rae thought. From the squinty-eyed look Emma was giving her and the smirk Zeke had on his face, Rae figured she’d held his hand a little too long. Maybe a lot too long. Thank God Mandy’d broken her grip. If that squirrel had- The squirrel wasn’t real, she reminded herself.
    “I need to go to the bathroom. Come on, Rae,” Mandy said.
    “We’re heading out. So I’l see you at home,” Emma told her sister.
    “Oh. Oh, wel , Rae and I were thinking of going to get pizza at that place you like across the street. You want to-”
    “We already ate,” Emma said, her voice cold. Probably because she thinks I was flirting with her possibly soon-to-be hus band, Rae thought. “See you at home,” Emma repeated.
    “Okay,” Mandy said. She let Rae lead her to the bathroom. The second they were inside, Rae leaned over the nearest sink and splashed cold water on her face. She wanted to wash the memory of that evil, freaky squirrel out of her mind. Not that the water would make it from her face to her brain, but somehow it helped, anyway.
    Rae straightened up and grabbed a paper towel. As she dried off, she realized there was a numb spot forming over her left eyebrow. I wonder if I can get spots inside, like on my liver or my kidneys or -
    “So?” Mandy said, practical y hopping up and down with impatience.
    “So, so I didn’t get that much,” Rae admitted. She wasn’t going to lie to Mandy, even though she sort of wanted to. “I’m pretty su re that Zeke was on a pretty strong drug cocktail. Al I got was a bunch of psychedelic garbage. Sorry.”
    “It’s okay,” Mandy answered, her voice limp and her whole expression deflating.
    Rae’s chest squeezed. This girl she barely knew had done so much for her-Rae had to find a way to make sure she didn’t let her down.
    “Turn left here. Then pul into the dentist’s office parking lot,” Aiden instructed.
    Anthony fol owed the directions in silence. He and Aiden hadn’t talked during most of the trip. Aiden had basical y told him whe re to turn and nothing more. But Anthony didn’t care. Al that mattered was that Aiden was in the car, period. He stil could hardly believe Aiden had walked out of the Elbow Room, gone straight to Anthony’s Hyundai, and gotten in.
    “This is it. This is where I kept her,” Aiden said. He got out of the car. Anthony scrambled out and fol owed him to the office door.
    “Dentist office. Good cover. No one would wonder why there was screaming,” Anthony joked. Aiden didn’t crack a smile or even give a forced “ha.” He just unlocked the door and led the way inside.
    “You’re going to be disappointed,” Aiden said as he locked the door behind Anthony. “There’s nothing to see here.”
    “You didn’t think you’d left any clues when you cleaned out your apartment and bolted, remember? But al it took was one push of the redial button to start tracking you down at The