Page 4 of Bad Seed
Accepting and dreading my fate in the same breath, I scratch my nails over Astin’s head. He leans into it at first before suddenly turning on a dime.
“What is it?” I whisper. Silently, I tug open a drawer. Reaching past the spoons, I slip my hand around a revolver.
Astin’s locked onto something I can’t see in the dark. It could be any one of them. Faces flash before my eyes. So many that’d be happy to take me out. So many I once called friend.
With a great meow, Astin leaps. I wrench the gun out. Spoons fly into the air as I take aim. Astin hits his reflection in the fridge door.
As he slides to the floor, hissing at his own shadow and gouging the stainless, I take a deep breath. I’d nearly shot a hole in my refrigerator. Holding the revolver feels as familiar as clutching the Epipen. Two tools for two very different jobs.
Pushing on the safety, I move to put the gun back. “I should probably do one more patrol. Just in case.” After sliding into my jeans, I slip my holster on over my shoulder. A part of me is tired of this. Of never knowing when the final bullet will come. Of wishing this could all be over.
But I wasn’t raised to quit. And if Mr. Ato really wants to take me out, then he’ll die doing it.
Unaware of the danger, my partner in crime chases a plastic milk ring across the floor. As I open the door to the backyard, he knocks it under the fridge and wails at the cruelty of this world.
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CHAPTER THREE
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SADIE
“Everyone, start your engines!” the emcee shouts above the flock of kids. Rather than gun said engine, they all make ptbptbptb noises with their mouths while holding their eggplant cars above the big drop.
“On the count of one, two…” He pauses, gazing into their wide eyes, before the flag drops. “Three!”
The eggplants fly. It’s a purple blur as the vegetables skid down the ramp toward the finish line. But alas, vegetables were never meant to race. One’s wheel pops off, sending it careening to the left where it hits another. Soon, both are twirling not down but in a circle, taking out every other “car” along the way. Stems pierce purple flesh, tearing eggplants to shreds. Wheels drag through the white pulp, leaving a trail of seeds behind.
The kids are a sea of pale faces and wide eyes watching the vehicles they spent five whole minutes making tear each other to pieces. In the end, gravity picks the winner as the remains of eggplants gloop down the ramp to cross the finish line.
“Number five!” the emcee shouts, waving his checkered flag. He picks up the glob of pulp from the winning eggplant and hands it to the owner who’s grinning ear to ear despite his vehicle being diced then pulverized.
The crowd cheers, because what else is there to do at the Loomis Eggplant Festival? Tourists from Sacramento flock to the old Train Depot every year for the music, the food, and their free eggplant. There’s a quaint county fair feel to the whole thing where someone can pet a llama, get their face painted, eat so much cotton candy they hurl on the tilt-a-whirl, then pass out in the beer garden. I’d love every second if I didn’t fear that with one wrong turn, I could put myself into anaphylactic shock. Again.
Oh, my parents were not happy when I called them about needing a new Epipen. “Beti, don’t you know what these cost?”
Yes, Dad.
“You need to stop being so careless with your health.”
It was an accident, Mom.
I’d love to not need to blow hundreds of dollars every year on something I might need so I don’t choke to death on a dip or pasta dish, but here we are. After I got out of the hospital, I felt like a bloated tomato. I’d convinced myself that I’d invented a ridiculously hot man holding me when I looked like a dog that tried to fetch a beehive. But my friends constantly asking if I knew the guy who saved me punctured through that delusion.
So I may have, even though I almost died there, spent every happy hour at the Taphouse just waiting. To see if he was there. So I could thank him, of course. Maybe with a card, or some flowers, a home-cooked meal. Very wholesome things that don’t involve that huge hand of his tearing off my pants to administer his shot elsewhere.
“That’s terrible, even for you,” I whisper to myself.
“Sadie.” Across the crowds, Lucy waves to me with two eggplants.
I offer my excuses, feeling like an elephant in a maze as I try to navigate around the crowds. They’re all pressing for the beer garden or the rides while I have to move toward the stage and my friends.
This is all Ann’s idea anyway. I wanted to stay home where there weren’t any vegetables that could send my immune system into a nuclear meltdown.
“Here.” Lucy drops one of her eggplants into my hands. I wince. Even though I’m only in trouble if I eat the damn things, it’s hard to not think of my skin bubbling up in hives. Just as I picture them exploding like the veggie cars, she switches the eggplant out for a purple drink.
I move to take a sip before I pause and look around. “What’s in it?”
