Read Online Nowhere Safe by Nancy Bush - Free Book Online

appliances had come to die. She had a room that jutted out the back of the house from the garage, which had been turned into a greenhouse/storage room of sorts for Mr. Blue’s various herbs and plants and other items for sale of varying degrees of legality. There was a bathroom just inside the main house from the garage that was mostly for her use; Mr. Blue’s rooms were at the opposite end of the three bedroom ranch. Sometimes Lucky didn’t see the man for days because he kept himself burrowed in his rooms with his books and computer. Other times, they met in the middle and shared meals together and short conversations about what he needed her to do, or what she might need from him. Neither of them was much of a conversationalist and they appreciated that about each other.
    She literally owed Mr. Blue her life as he’d effectively saved it after she’d been brought to his doorstep, burned, feverish, and exhausted. Those weeks of him spoon-feeding her herbs and broths and then applying salves to her back were a misty haze of pain and gratitude.
    She wasn’t sure what he would think of her mission to rid the world of abusers and pedophiles who crossed her path. He might applaud her, but he might also think her methods too dangerous and turn her out. Once or twice it had been on the tip of her tongue to tell him about her special ability to sense an abuser, how brushing up against them sent her a message so loud it was almost as if the guy had blurted out his guilt in a scream. But she wasn’t certain he would believe her, and she had no explanation for her “sixth sense,” the same sense that told her time was running out. The hourglass had been turned over and the sands were slipping through. The showdown was coming. She was either going to die soon or be arrested, and if it were a choice, she would take the former.
    To that end her mission was everything to her. Before she was through she planned to take out as many perverted bastards as she could.
    Which was why she was still mulling over her decision to let the sick fuck who’d tried to nab the girl at the mall live. The weather wasn’t cold enough for him to die. She’d left him with an admission of his guilt hung around his neck, but that was only part of it. The humiliation. There would be lots of questions directed at him, too many for him to come up with answers for.
    But she should have killed him. She should have. She’d done it before, and she was undoubtedly going to do it again before her mission was complete. So, why had she left Harmak alive?
    The scent.
    Climbing out of the truck, the memory made her nose twitch. It wasn’t a true scent exactly. It was more a feeling. She’d had to drag Harmak’s dead weight to the basketball pole outside the school and she’d been glad it was pitch black because it was hard work and took longer than she’d suspected. With Ballonni, she’d just pulled up to the flagpole, dumped him out and tied him up, but with Harmak she’d had to traverse the basketball court and some grounds before she got him where she wanted him.
    It was then the scent distracted her. She’d been tired and breathing hard and hurrying back to Harmark’s van when she’d become aware of it. A feeling of . . . well, there was no other word for it: evil. It almost had an odor, something of rot and sickness. She’d turned her nose toward it and realized it wasn’t from Stefan, though he certainly gave off the same vibe. But this one was different. More fully developed? And it was coming from around the school. If she’d had more time, she would have searched it out right then and there, but she couldn’t risk it. And then it had dissipated and she’d had to jump in the van and leave fast, before anyone was about or Harmak woke up.
    Now, she unlocked the man-door to the garage and crossed to her room, registering the musky and dry and sometimes pungent scents of the herbs, plants, mushrooms, and various substances inside that comprised