by Jessica King
Even more than the mention of his mother, it was this that convinced her. He was already trying to figure out who his future employer was. He was searching for a name, a face, anything that could help him track down the man who oversaw the killing of Nancy Caughman.
“We’ll think about telling the detective,” Cassiopeia said. “But I don’t want to go running there right now when I’m still unsure,” she said, and Aleah nodded in agreement. “I’ll finish this, and then I’ll pray to the Female Goddess and perform the Blessing of Wisdom. I would appreciate your help with that.”
“Of course,” Aleah said, always eager to help every chance she got, even though she had a dissertation due at the end of the semester.
“Thank you,” Cassiopeia said, stitching carefully.
She didn’t want to tell Aleah she was scared, but that was the thing she loved about Aleah. She knew how to disappear. By the time the tears began to fall from Cassiopeia’s eyes, Aleah had vanished into thin air. It would be a helpful trait to her later on with nearly three hundred Kingsmen on the loose, Cassiopeia thought mournfully. Not all witches hid so easily, and she feared for the people she loved so dearly.
She laid the new rug on the floor carefully. She didn’t want to look for another home. This had been her favorite so far, with its sun-soaked kitchen and open floor plan. It was perfect for The Protection. And taking pictures of all the writing on the floors, erasing it well enough that a future owner wouldn’t understand what had once been recorded on the surfaces of their home, and then recording it all again was a long, arduous process.
THE FINAL CHAPTER
Monday, February 26, 2017, 6:12 p.m.
Lee Patterson had become accustomed to life in prison. More importantly, he’d become accustomed to the meals. After growing up with a mother who prepared traditional, cook-all-day Italian dishes and then marrying a professional chef, he’d grown used to consistently delicious food that he often had a say in, regularly offering himself up as a taste tester before the meals were fully prepared. This lifetime of delicious food had given him a sophisticated palate.
Prison didn’t serve fresh vegetables often. Sometimes they’d show up on his plate in some boiled form, and he’d learned to spice food solely using hot sauce. He’d never liked hot sauce, and he still didn’t. But what he did like was feeling some sort of flavor on his tongue and the warmth in his stomach and throat.
It’d be another twenty years before he was released, and by then, he’d be over fifty. When he did get out, he would do nothing but eat. He missed thinking that something was delicious. He and ramen had come to an understanding in the past year, which was what made Lee think prison had actually broken him in some sort of irreversible way.
What he wasn’t going to do was return to the Kingsmen website, or ever see the man who’d dragged him into that life ever again. He wondered if the man would still even be alive when he was released. It was possible, he supposed, but that man would be the type of old no one wanted to convict or harm.
Lee cracked his neck. He’d be old when he finally got out of here. Not old by the general consensus of society, but old for someone who hadn’t experienced a long marriage or gotten to visit Italy to see if his mother’s recipes held true to the real thing. He’d be old for someone who hadn’t reached above an entry-level in a job. He’d be old for someone who hadn’t had kids.
It was likely he wouldn’t have any kids, ever.
Lee didn’t look anyone in the eyes as he walked through the line that left him feeling like cattle, but by the end of it, he had a pile of rice and dry chicken that he’d smother in hot sauce. Whoever prepared this meal at least attempted some sort of marinade on the chicken. Probably watered-down hot sauce, he thought.
He took his tray to one of the cafeteria-style tables and sat. He stuck his fork into the chicken without bothering to cut it and bit into it.
The chicken was chewy in a way that he thought was quite inventive of whoever had made it, but at least it gave his teeth something to do. He hadn’t realized how tasteless meat could be without the assistance of herbs and spices until he’d arrived here, and it had upset the order of his world in a way he found disturbing.
He took another bite. The marinade was tasteless. Of course, it was.
He turned the bottle of hot sauce upside down over his rice and tapped at the glass with a knife. It was nearly down to the dregs, and the bottle clinked emptily against the knife.
He coughed, something scratchy in his throat. If he was allergic to the tasteless marinade, he was going to find some sort of way to complain to one of the guards. They’d taken all the good things from mealtimes, being allergic to what they gave him was a step too far, even for a murderer.
The numbness worked its way into his nose, and he coughed again, but this time he tasted iron. He spat into his rice, blood covering the white mass.
He tried to call for help, but his throat had closed completely. Instead, he banged a fist on the table and fell out of his seat. He rolled onto the ground, his brain going numb now, as several prison guards rushed toward him, three shaking him and asking him questions, two holding back the other curious prisoners.
“Lee, hey, Lee!” one of the guards yelled, grabbing his chin and shaking it back and forth. “Talk to us, dude.” He looked at the guard next to him, panic on his face. “His mouth is foaming,” he whispered. “What do we do?”
The guard next to him called in for the medic. “Keep breathing for us,” he said. “Did you choke on something?”
The cement floor beneath Lee was cold. He knew that; he was sure of it. And while he felt the presence of the floor beneath him, a thick slab of solid stone beneath his body, it didn’t feel cold at all. He felt that he was sinking into it, actually. Like in moments, he’d become a part of the cement and other prisoners would walk over him on their way to the dinner line.
The numbness had settled everywhere now, including his lungs and his heart; he couldn’t tell if he was still breathing, if his heart was still beating, but something told him they’d stopped. He wanted to close his eyes. It’d been so strange to see the woman he killed because her eyes were still open when she’d fallen to the floor.
He was being killed right now. He didn’t know why, and he didn’t know who, though he could certainly take a guess. He told his eyes to close, begged his eyelids, but they wouldn’t budge. A guard shook him again, and the shouts of the prisoners who demanded to see what was happening and to be told who was on the ground, hidden by the bodies of prison guards, echoed around the room in a symphony of curses. But he couldn’t stop staring at the ceiling far above him, at the lights that made everything look green and yellow even during the brightest summer days coming closer and swallowing him.
The End
But To Be Continued…
**
There is more to come from Ivy Hart in her next adventure (available for pre-order now) entitled “The Poison Of Ivy”.
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Jessica K!
She thought the nightmare was over, but she couldn’t be more wrong...
Detective Ivy Hart of the LAPD thought she had brought down the Kingsmen, a conspiracy organization that kills women they believe to be witches, but when several women begin showing up dead at a chillingly fast pace, Ivy realizes the nightmare is far from over.
Accompanied by her partner, Detective Vince Benton, Ivy dives deeper into the dark and insidious world of the Kingsmen, only to be kidnapped and tortured by them as they believe she is a reincarnation of the witch, Mary Caste. Seriously injured, Ivy manages to escape, learning that the Kingsmen are aided by a shady businesswoman who has declared herself as the Prophetess of Witches but is luring innocent, unsuspecting women to their deaths instead.
Battling her trauma, Ivy races against the clock to save the next victim before it’s too late. Will she overcome her demons and beat the Kingsmen once and for all, or will the dark
ness be too much for her to handle?
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