Sneakpeak of The Ghost of You

To those of you who've forgotten, Valentine's Day is just over a week away. No need to freak out about not having a gift to give or a date to spend it with, though, because the perfect book gift/book date comes out the same day. Now here's a sneak peak.

---

I stare in horror at the test results before me.

Tests were never something that scared me. I tend to ace them without even trying.

But this, this is a nightmare. Because the one kind of test that no one wants to test positively in is when testing for an infection.

And I’ve been infected.

Dropping the ninety-nine-cent pregnancy tester into the trash can next to the other three I’ve already used; I grip the wheelchair assistance bar of this handicap bathroom stall.

Then I lean forward and wretch into the toilet.

How many others have found the same results in the disabled stall of a public bathroom in a Wal-Mart? How many have had the same reaction? How many wanted to weep and scream and laugh at the same time?

I don’t know the answer to those questions, but I do know one thing.

I’m the only one whose child came to me the way it did. With two fathers. One, whose DNA is in the child growing within me. The other, who put it there. One whom I love, and the other I’d hate if all my loathing weren’t stored for one person alone. One who I cannot let get custody of my child, and one who would despise me for sending it to him.

Straightening my back, I wonder if I’m strong enough to leave this stall to go and wash my clammy face at the sink. Wonder if I’m safe enough to leave this bathroom.

Because I almost ran into the same man in this super Wal-Mart twice. He wore his hoodie a different way each time, and didn’t make eye-contact with me.

But I still felt like I was being watched.

It has all the signs of a tail.

Stumbling out of my stall, I grip the sink counter and scan the bathroom. But it’s just like I assumed. No windows to sneak out of. Only one door out, where I’ll be vulnerable.

If I have any luck at all, the tail is a private investigator who was hired by one of my many enemies who somehow put together enough clues to find both my identity and location and all I have to do is lose him before he can report my hotel room or something.

But I have no luck— as the fact that I cannot tell a man who loves me that I’m carrying his child goes to show. There is no one here to bear this burden with me.

“Unless you are here,” I whisper to the ashen gray reflection staring back at me. Long black hair tumbles in a disarray over my just-purchased shirt that is two sizes too large. I look like a ghoul.

But it’s not the phantom in front of me that I’m addressing. It’s a different type of ghost I hope to address. “Maybe you’re an angel. Don’t good people become guardian angels, or something?”

I get no answer, no parting of heaven with the announcement of a message for one Ebony Smith. There is no familiar voice whispering in my ear from an unseen source, or even a message written in blood on the bathroom mirror.

Splashing some water on my face, I take a deep breath. “Okay, it’s okay. You don’t have to alert me to your presence, love. Just, help me. Because if that’s the Master Spy’s man out there, he’s just waiting to slip a needle into my skin. Next thing I’ll know, I’ll be in a perpetually drugged state and carrying our child in custody.”

Pushing away from the sink, I do it so fast that the cigarette lighter someone left behind shakes, but doesn’t fall over.

Turning from it, I begin to pace, grateful for the solace of the empty women’s restroom. “To be honest, I don’t know why he hasn’t done it already. Unless he’s waiting for a confirmation of some sort.”

I freeze, realizing what he’s waiting for. A confirmation that I’m pregnant.

Turning back to the handicapped bathroom stall, I clutch my stomach.

And I’ve just given it to him.

The shock of the unexpected pregnancy, all the symptoms that go with it, and the very real danger waiting outside the door almost send me crashing to the ground. Only years of training and experience in a field of work that makes balance a necessary trait to survive keep me grounded.

“Kristian, help me!” I cry out, turning to brace myself on the sink.

The abandoned lighter falls over.

I blink, my head fuzzy for a moment. But then my vision clears, focusing on that fallen lighter.

A ghost of a smile graces my face as I think of the ghost of the one who once made me smile. “Thank you, Kristian.”

~~~ 

I’m halfway to the bathroom door after finishing what I had to do, when I hear a loud knocking on the other side. A male voice calls out, “Maintenance!”

My hand reaches under my blouse, where I have a revolver I grabbed from one of my safehouses waiting. Is it an honest to goodness maintenance, or has the Master Spy gotten impatient?

I glance back at the three trash cans that are spiraling smoke. Neither would be good at this particular moment.

“Um,” I begin before lowering my voice into a husky tone, “there are several of us in here.”

“Okay, I’ll start the men’s room first.”

Carefully, I press my ear to the bathroom door, and hope that I’m not contracting anything.

Footsteps outside seem to be walking away.

I brace myself, in case he comes barreling back to use his body as a ram, but he doesn’t.

Breathing a sigh of relief, I release my gun and turn back to the long row of toilet paper I’d rolled out. Like a dynamite fuse, it stretches across a few inches of the floor where I made sure it wouldn’t touch any puddles, to a pile of all the toilet paper that I broke out of the cases, doused in cleaning fluids that were left behind during the last maintenance trip.

Lowering my new lighter, I light the end of the toilet paper on fire.

Then I turn, kick open the door to hit any potential lurkers, and burst outside.

Running at break-neck speed, I almost crash into a mother with a young girl.

I blink, startled for a moment as something happens in me that never happened before.

My heart goes soft for a strange child. Something that has never happened to me for one moment in my career.

The pregnancy hormones are really starting to kick in, I guess.

“I have to go potty,” the little girl tells her mother.

Her mother glances at me warily before turning back to her daughter. “We’re on our way—”

“Don’t!” I yell, startling the mother, daughter, and myself.

“I mean, not back there.” I gesture toward the bathroom that is about to burst into flames. “Someone made a . . . mess. Use the ones up front.”

The mother nods her thanks, grabs her daughter’s hand, and turns them back around to head toward the front of the store.

Just as an explosion rocks the building behind us.

Not looking back, I take off running again. This time, I don’t stop until I’m out of the building. Even then, I only slow slightly to grab the keys out of the hands of someone carrying several bags of groceries.

“Hey!” the woman I stole from yells.

Ignoring her, I click the button to make the car beep, unlock it, and then rush in.

I drive out fast, and make it out of the parking lot just as the first responders rush in.

Only then do I glance back and see the flames billowing out of Wal-Mart while customers and blue-vested associates alike swarm out of it.

Then, turning back to the road, I drive onto the highway. 

---

I never have called myself a saint. Sure, I never meant to get so sucked into the life of death and deceit that I chose, but there’s no denying what I did. I’d be the first to say I’m irredeemable.

But he saw something different in me. I don’t know what, but he believed in it. Believed in me. Until he died by the hands of a woman disguised as me.

Fleeing from my old handler, I’m never going back to that life of servitude. But before I can close the door on my days as an assassin, there’s just one more kill I need to accomplish. Hers. I’ll make her pay for what she took from me.

There are only two complications. One, I’m artificially impregnanted with the child of the man I loved and lost. And two, my old recruit is on the hunt for me to get some revenge of his own.

But after everything I’ve been through, everything I’ve done, I know nothing can stop me now. Not even a skeleton in my closet or a ghost from my past.

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