Page 110 of Death is My BFF
My heart pounded incessantly in my ears.
Aunt Sarah tilted her chin up, as if she were about to shout something crude to Death, but then her brows scrunched together, and her eyes narrowed.
“What a jerk,” she said. Glancing back at Death again, Aunt Sarah grabbed my shoulder, steering me toward the Sunny Haven’s food trucks for guests. “Come on, time to eat all the fries.”
Feeling drained of energy, I decided to eat before Death ultimately sought me out. Besides feeling betrayed and angry, I was also a little scared to be alone with him again.
I ordered a huge tray of cheese fries and a slice of pepperoni pizza at one of the grease trucks, then popped a squat at a wooden picnic table. Aunt Sarah stood in a ridiculously long line at another truck to buy her veggie burger.
I’ll admit it, I didn’t wait for my aunt and attacked my large carton of cheese fries with the restraint of a ferociously hungry wildebeest.
Can you blame me? I was starving. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had the ability to eat without feeling sick from nerves.
I finished half my fries and pizza in record time. Glancing back at my aunt, who wasstillin line for her veggie burger, I shook the ice at the bottom of my soda and crushed the cardboard container, stacking it on top of my empty french fry container and paper plate.
I swung my leg out from the picnic table and leaned toward the garbage can nearby to toss my trash. Since my aunt notoriously never locked her car, I figured I’d put my apples away while I waited for her. I lifted the wooden basket beside me and headed to the back of the lot, following a family lugging their pumpkins to their car—a mom, a dad, and a little girl skipping in between them. As they crossed the dirt lot and I approached Aunt Sarah’s car, the little girl glanced back at me. Half of her face was painted like a skull.
A car honked, and I lurched back as a purple Jeep came flying past to pull haphazardly into the spot right next to Aunt Sarah’s Toyota. Pleasant Valley’s golden boy linebacker, Brody McCormick, hopped out of the car, along with Nicole Hawkins and her two clones. Brody had painted gruesome zombie makeup on his face and the three girls were dressed as cats.
“Hey, Wednesday Addams!” Nicole greeted with a sugary sweet fake smile. “Lose your sidekick again, freak?”
“Who, Marcy?” Brody asked, chewing a piece of gum like a cow.
He inspected an imaginary spot on his car and rubbed at it with his varsity jacket. “That slut’s probably getting tested for the clap as we speak.”
“I heard she hooked up with Tommy at his party and now he's sick,” Nicole added, twirling a strand of her glossy honey hair.
“Wanna bet he got it from her?”
“Sure didn’t get it from this freak,” Brody said, thumbing toward me. “Unless he’s got a hard-on for ugly goth chicks.”
“Aren’t you a little young to have a receding hairline, Brody?” I blurted before I could stop myself. “Don’t worry, I’m sure you have enough butt hair to solve the issue.”
The one cheerleader giggled, suppressing it with her palm as Nicole gave her a sharp look. Brody reddened, his zombie-painted features tightening. He raised his arm, and I flinched, thinking he might hit me. Instead, he swatted my crate with a fake severed human hand, spilling apples all over the ground. “Watch your mouth, you ugly bitch.”
My hand tightened around my mace in my pocket, ready to use it. Brody backed off and strode away. The girls trailed behind him, now laughing at my expense. Pleasant Valley. The irony kills me.
Growling, I bent down to pick up my apples, when an icy chill ran down the back of my neck.
“Happy Halloween.”
Straightening at that deep, velvety voice, I jerked my head to the side. And there he was.
“Death,” I breathed.
“The man, the myth, the legend,” he said dryly. “Sexy, aren’t I?”
The last time we were together, he’d been knocked unconscious by my crazy light beam, and my treacherous little fingers had investigated him like I was Nancy Drew. Now he was leaning against Brody’s Jeep, his tall frame angled toward me. I replayed our encounter from the night before and tried not to seek out the bulky muscles beneath his leather jacket, or the menacing shadow over his face, and instead focused lamely on the center of his chest.
“Have you any concept of time?” Death asked, when I couldn’t find the courage to speak. “I gave you explicit instructions to meet me at the barn. It’s been an hour of you futzing around.” Then he took a knife out from underneath his jacket and slashed Brody’s tire with it.
“Dude, what the heck!”
“He’s lucky it’s not his face.”
As the tire hissed out, Death prowled past me to the annihilate the next tire, when I grabbed his leather-clad shoulder. “Can youstop?”
“Little Brodywas one smart remark away from getting his head lopped off,” Death said, twirling the blade around his gloved fingers in a dangerous dance. “He knows damn well you’re beautiful.”