The Hollow Kiss by Moores M.J

Author:Moores, M.J.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Infinite Pathways Press
Published: 2023-12-11T00:00:00+00:00

20

Bloody Walls

I squeezed my eyes shut tighter. The hot sun bathed my face, its rays slicing under my lids. I rolled over. Paper crinkled and a pencil jabbed me in the gut. I rolled back again and straightened my body out, arms and feet dangling sideways over my bed. Tossing one arm over my forehead to block the light, I pried open my eyes.

The blood coated my walls—again. Something in its magical makeup had affixed to the luminol and continued to glow even in the daylight. All that red paint for nothing. Grabbing the small spiral notebook and pencil lying on the bed, I rolled over again and cradled my head with one arm before looking at the list of names I’d transcribed from the app. Not a spell or randomly scrawled magical words as I first thought, but a series of names repeated over and over again—vertical, horizontal, diagonal, you name it. Three were crossed out… my first victims.

These were my assassin hits; my reaper to-do list assigned by the maniac wizard who did this to me… and Scarlett, the half-phoenix, nearly paid the price for my ignorance. Someone had forced me to change into a reaper to cover their personal agenda. I was sure of it—why else have these names repeat? There was more to this than random vengeance; fifty names, most of them unrecognizable. I’d have to pay another visit to Shawn.

Hauling my ass out of bed, I changed out of yesterday’s work clothes. I slipped my shirt up over my head, and something scratched my scalp. Dropping the shirt to the floor beside Char’s scarf, I reached up with both hands to shake my hair over the trash can. A few particles of glass fell to the floor and bounced. As I kneeled to pick up the pieces, a larger shard just under the edge of the scarf caught my eye. I tugged it out, but the scarf followed—it had snagged part of the fine lacework that ran between the dark strips of silk.

“Blood.” I removed the silver-dollar-sized piece from the fabric that had been abused to no end last night. I chucked the glass into my trash can and checked myself over. I couldn’t see any scratches. The blood has to be mine. Planting myself in front of the dresser mirror, I checked again. There it was, just above my left elbow on the back of my arm—a scratch nearly the length of my pencil.

“Oh, shit.”

If I’d left traces of blood at the scene, they’d have me. I had a record for smoking pot… another bad choice, this time friend-related, but at fifteen I just wanted to feel like I belonged. And then the E six months later. When the cops crashed Yvonne’s party, my folks had given me a mild chastising, but after the ecstasy incident, I got the ultimatum of a lifetime. Since then, other than continually picking the wrong boyfriend, I’d been clean… and disconnected.

I looked in the mirror at my washed-out

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