Love Bites Then it Sucks by Julie Steimle (best self help books to read .TXT) 📕

Looking up from my meal, I shrugged.

An amused yet crooked grin spread on her wrinkly face. “You spied on us.”

I shrugged again, continuing to eat, but not denying it either.

She laughed, pushing her cart on. “You’ll get it. You’ll get the hang of it. Asahel is wrong about you. And so was I. You’re supposed to be here.”

I hopped off the fire hydrant. “What do you mean?”

Chuckling, she merely shook her head and continued on.

“What do you mean?” I followed after her.

But in a shot of wind and light, she was gone. I couldn’t follow her without leaving my territory and getting attacked by other death angels, so I gave it up.

It had been nearly two weeks since being spirited away, just a little less than that since the drive-by shooting. And though there had not been another shooting in my neighborhood, I spent most of the time reaping those casualties from other neighborhoods at the hospital. I realized then that I had been given the heaviest reaper job in the area. It was the equivalent of being assigned latrine duty in the military. The most annoying part was that other reapers came into my territory all the time but boxed me into mine. It was an outrageous double standard. I realized it was half my fault because unlike them, I was not territorial and I didn’t get violent about it. In fact, when I had returned to the hospital just after meeting the bag lady again, there were two reapers just hanging out in the lobby, chatting.

They took one look at me and said, “Where have you been, slacker?”

Pulling out my scythe, I heavily set the end on the ground and glared at them. “Go back to your own areas. You aren’t even supposed to be here.”

One of them shook his head. “We’ve got business here.”

Both reapers were nearly identical with gray wings and wearing crisp looking, spotless uniforms. I had a feeling those clothes were angel issue and not what they wore in mortality. Their scythes were plain, almost military grade. They gave off the feeling of foot soldiers.  

“Not in my hospital,” I said, marching through them. “Unless you are guardians, you have no business here.”

My eyes took in the rest of the lobby. It was full of people waiting their turns to see a doctor. People had bandages and compresses held against their heads, arms clutched where it looked broken, swelling and rashes—the usual lot. At one end of the room I noticed Dr. Clay with his wife having a terse argument. Dr. Dowd was eying them while pretending to examine an x-ray of a patient. Nurse Gowan came in with one of the orderlies, summoning another patient while Nurse Coombs was directing someone towards oncology. No one was marked for death. What were those reapers waiting for?

Then I saw it.

In rushed four EMTs with a gurney. On it was a police officer, followed by two men whom I knew. One was the cop who could see ghosts and reapers, and the other was Matthew Calamori.

Neither saw me at first. Both were attending to the severely wounded police officer.

Up popped both reapers from their watches, charging after the wounded man. With a look at them, I instinctively jumped in their way, splaying my arms. My staff extended, blocking them.

“Let us pass!” one snarled, pulling out his scythe.

“Out of our way!” the other ordered.

The policeman who could see ghosts immediately jerked his eyes toward us. He spotted me, but most especially stared at the two stiff, crisp angels fighting to get past me. The other of the crisp-suited reapers pulled out his scythe to fight past me. The first shoved hard with his weapon. Two against one was not fair—but I was a vimp.

My wings extended, blocking their way as they tried to knock my staff aside. The one slashed at them, but I whacked him away. Then, spinning my scythe and staff as I would my color guard flag, I shoved them both back. “No. We do not reap anyone here until they are actually dead.”

That’s when Matthew looked, hearing my voice. “Eve?”

“You know her?” the ghost-seeing cop asked, surprised. “You can see her?”

“Well, yeah,” Matthew said. “She’s standing right there.”

Both reapers pulled back, hearing him also. Exchanging looks, they shoved away from me and separated, going through the walls—abandoning their intended target. I wondered if they left because they realized they had been seen, or if they realized that Matthew knew me and I had an ally.

I retracted my wings back to hand-sized and turned around, looking to Matthew especially with a relieved smile. Matthew had come into my territory. No rules were being broken now. I put away my scythe.

“But you know her,” the police officer who could see said again to him.

Nodding, Matthew followed me with his eyes as I approached. “Of course I do. That’s Eve McAllister.”

Comprehension dawned on the cop, though I had no idea how he knew about me. His eyes raked over me again, him frowning. He said to me with a chin-jerk, “What are you doing, going around running into bullets like that. Don’t you know that’s how reapers go grim?”

I stared at him. He apparently saw reapers a lot. With a shrug, I replied, “I told you, I’m still new at this.”

“How new?” the cop asked.

“Almost two weeks,” Matthew replied.

The tall cop raised his eyebrows at him, surprised Matthew knew that.

“JJ, this is Eve McAllister from California,” Matthew explained again. “She’s a friend of mine and Rick’s.”

I looked to the policeman. “You know Rick Deacon?”

The policeman seemed even more shocked, nodding at me, but wisely keeping his distance.

“Eve, this is our friend, Joshua Johnson,” Matthew said, grinning at me though silently eyeing my wounds. “He can see ghosts.”

“Obviously,” I murmured. But then I registered the name in my brain. “Did you say Joshua Johnson? Deidre Johnson’s cousin?”

Officer Johnson looked even more shocked. “How do you know Deidre? And she’s my second cousin—”

I was right. Sighing with relief, I said, “I knew her in high school. She came to my town my junior year working as a ghost whisperer. She moved away soon after she purged a house full of ghosts.”

Officer Johnson sighed, nodding as if it made sense—sad sense which brought him mixed emotions about perhaps being in the same kind of situation as Deidre, but sense.

“Did she never get in contact with you?” I asked, wondering. “I had told her she, well, really ought to get away from her dad. I don’t know if you know, but her dad is like—”

“Like what?” Officer Johnson snapped with personal offense.

“Abusive,” I said with a peek to Matthew.

Mathew drew in a breath, hearing my thoughts. It was his gift. He could hear what people were really thinking but not saying. I had a lot more to say, but I thought it best not to. People took offense to the smallest things sometimes. And people often took offense to hard truths.

Officer Johnson peeked to Matthew also. He knew the same thing I did about him, apparently. But then of course he did, I remembered. Rick’s friend JJ was once a student of Gulinger.

“Look,” I said, holding my hands up as a sign of surrender. “I don’t want to get in the middle of a family thing, It’s just that Deidre was miserable, and—”

“She ran away,” Officer Johnson said, sighing.

I stared, my heart lifting.

He shook his head. “Her father contacted my dad and me, and tried to get us to help him hunt her down. But she was eighteen when she left home, so technically she was an adult, but we kind of looked into it. The thing is, Deidre covered her tracks, and we have no clue where she is right now.”

Immediately my heart sank. “I told her to contact you.”

With an appreciation for that, Officer Johnson shrugged. “Well, she didn’t.”

“Maybe she was afraid your father would send her back to her dad,” Matthew suggested.

I frowned more. “But I told her you might be able to get her into Gulinger Private Academy. I know Rick would have let her—”

Officer Johnson laughed, stepping from me as if to get a better look. He nodded. “Rick would have—or rather his dad would have. But Deidre obviously made a different choice.”

That did not feel good. I was immediately worried.

“Ok, different subject,” Officer Johnson said. He looked to Matthew. “How come you can see her? You could never see a reaper before.”

Blinking, Matthew replied, “You never mentioned they existed.”

The policeman rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on. I don’t mention half of the creepy things I can see.”

Matthew stared more. “No kidding. Well, you’re really good at controlling your thoughts then. I overheard nothing either.”

Officer Johnson smirked. “Thank you.”

But Matthew shook his head. “And Tom never mentioned them either.”

In that, Officer Johnson cringed. He peeked to me as he said, “No. Tom does not like to talk about most of the things he can see. But Matt, you have to know Tom’s eyes are open to the unseen world. I can’t see all he can see. I can only see things related to death.”

Matthew nodded.

“So how come you can see her?” Officer Johnson said.

I raised a hand. “I have a guess.”

They looked to me. Matthew seemed surprised, but interested.

“I took a bullet for you,” I said, blushing a little.

Matthew nodded, following my reasoning.

But Officer Johnson nodded more, his eyes raking over my wounds. “Oh… I get it. Sometimes near-deathers have their eyes opened. It’s what broke open my gift. ”

I stared, thinking about Deidre. Her gift had also been started with a death, though I was not sure she had a near death experience. “You almost died?”

He shook his head. “My mother died. But for me that was the same thing.”

Just like Deidre. Sighing, I wondered what had happened to her.

Just then I felt a rustle in the ghosts inside the hospital. So did Officer Johnson. He looked around in a minor panic. The ghosts were fleeing something, dodging around me but going fast.

My eyes widened, realizing what was coming. “I gotta go.”

My wings fluffed out and I shot through the ceiling like a rocket, soaring up three floors where I landed in a recovery room. I know I disturbed a few people on my way, but I had to get away from Matthew and Officer Johnson before I was seen talking with them. Those two reapers must have tattled.

From there I hoofed it to the chapel. It was on the same floor.

I ducked into a pew, hiding.

“This is not a place for hide and seek,” said a woman in the pew in front of me.

I lifted my head. I could see the back of the head of a woman. Her hair was tousled and in desperate need for a shower. She smelled like hospital soap, though. Next to her was an IV stand with a bag of saline solution and I don’t know what else.

She turned her head, gazing at me from the side of her eye. For a second I thought she might just be a reaper in disguise as clearly she could see me. However I could hear her heart beating. But then she said, “You are unconventional for a grim reaper.”

I blinked at her then tucked my wings down, hopping over the bench to sit next to her, pretending to pray alongside her. “And you are a medium, I presume.”

The woman chuckled, nodding. “I am.”

I glanced at her forehead. There was a mark there but faint.

“Am I dying?” she asked, glancing up also as if she would be able to see it.

I shook my head. “Not yet. I think you still have lots of time.”

She smiled, nodding to herself with a tiny snicker. “Yep. Definitely unconventional. Most reapers refuse to talk. Or they say ‘All die, even I’.”

Raising my eyebrows, I wondered with a snort if there was a book