Page 41 of Executing Malice

LEILA

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When Joy and Evan took me in, I wondered what kind of person I was before. Every action, every decision came with an immediate second guessing. Hesitation while I contemplated if I always did things that way.

Did I like broccoli?

Did I always like the color green?

Did cottage cheese always gross me out?

Dr. Hammell did his best to calm my anxiety the older I got but never could answer me. How could he? I was a stranger to him. The best he could do was assure me I may get my memories back.

When the nightmares began, a terrifying smear of colors and distorted imagery that sent me bolting upright drenched in sweat, his only solution was medication that served to lock me in my prison until dawn. It was sheer luck that it finally stopped.

Until last night.

The bed and the hallway. The scream of voices. It’s all so familiar, but dreams are so unreliable. I can’t trust ... but what if it’s accurate? What if that was my life? What if that was my realityand the reason I’d been in those woods? Maybe that was why no one has found me in eight years because no one is looking.

I suck my bottom lip between my teeth and scribble out the incorrect daily total for the fifth time. My multiple attempts glare up at me from beneath deep scratches of blue ink and I have to resist the urge to admit defeat.

I know how to do this. It’s my job, damn it. I’ve done it a million times before. I just need to get my head on straight and...

The bell over the door jingles, disrupting my focus.

My head jerks up, brain partially relieved for the reprieve as I focus on the figure strolling in.

It’s been an unusually slow afternoon. Aside from the handful of regulars making their swing by, I’ve had a remarkably quiet day. Part of me had hoped it would remain that way until I can leave, alas, fate has other plans.

But all good feelings vanish when I find myself caught in a set of familiar, brown eyes.

My spine stiffens even as my fingers tighten around the pen gripped over my ruined paper. The need to bolt comes and goes with the realization that he’s blocking my only escape. And it’s just us in the building.

“Hello again, Leila,” he drawls in that tone that suggests he knows something.

I will my muscles to relax. I remind myself there is nothing he can do to me.

“Here to make a deposit?” I counter, barely managing to keep my voice even.

He stops on the other side of my kiosk. “I’m here because you owe me a new set of tires.”

My heart thumps in my chest. It’s cracking with the aggressive force of a war drum while I actively keep eye contact.

“What are you talking about?”

Long arms cross over my counter as he leans his body forward. The chunk of granite dividing us isn’t wide enough to keep hisOld Spicecologne from invading my space. It assaults my senses with a familiar slap that sends all the bells whistling in my skull. The acid in my stomach bubbles up my chest. My skin prickles with sweat. I’m suddenly struggling to keep my breathing in check as he bears down on me.

And I can’t move.

Every muscle is paralyzed. Coiled like a spooked rabbit too afraid to run as the snake descends.

The irrational fear tingles at the back of my skull like an itch I can’t scratch.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” he drawls with the lazy purr of a demon in the dark. “You cut my tires.”

The accusation curdles in my throat. But so does a different hum. A thicker vibration thatripples up my spine.

“That’s a serious allegation. Have you spoken to the sheriff?”