Read Online The Sweet Dead Life by Joy Preble - Free Book Online

more to Casey than to me.
    I dug the heels of my boots into the scuffed tile floor. "What the hell are you talking about? I can't go. I have detention later."
    "Detention can wait," Casey said. He extricated his hand and laid that warm, peaceful palm on my shoulder--as still as a glassy pond. "Jenna, someone's been poisoning you."
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Chapter 7
    H ere is What Happened After I Found Out I'd Been Poisoned: 1) I did not go batshit crazy in front of the student body and faculty of Ima Hogg, although I did make a few panicked vowel sounds and I think a couple of nervous consonants snuck out while I was at it. It sounded like: "Uhoheepm."
    2) Dr. Renfroe earned his paycheck. (Not that we could pay him, of course. But I pictured buckets of metaphor money falling over his head.)
    BEFORE ALL THAT, Maggie caught us trying to escape the cafeteria. She dashed to follow Casey, Amber, and me.
    "I'm taking Jenna to the hospital," Casey told her. "She'll call you later." He placed that same hand on Maggie's. She looked sort of startled--like she'd seen a ghost--but then just said, "Okay."
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    She must have felt it, too. Because somewhere my brain registered that this was not at all like Mags. Unless she thought he was trying to hit on her.
    "Do you think it's from the cafeteria food?" I managed as Casey and Amber half-walked, half-dragged me out of Ima Hogg. I was feeling worse. (Maybe because I was being poisoned? Or because I thought I should feel worse now that I knew I was being poisoned?)
    Amber showed the security guard a piece of paper and he waved us on.
    This also registered in my head as strange, but I was hyperventilating so it was all I could do to keep walking. Of course it was the Ima Hogg cafeteria food. Mrs. Holtkamp had been a little shifty-eyed lately when she watched me punch in my free lunch number. Damn soft taco plate lunches.
    "Don't know," Casey said. He was gripping my left arm, Amber, my right, as they hauled me toward the visitor lot. "Dr. Renfroe needs to do more tests.
    There's some kind of toxin in your system, Jenna."
    "How did it get there? Do you have it, too?"
    "No."
    "What do you mean, no? How do you know? Did he test your blood?" A worse thought occurred to me. "What about Mom? Maybe that's what's going on with her."
    "I'm not being poisoned, Jenna," Casey stated. "I'm positive. I don't know about Mom. We thought of that, too. We'll check it out."
    "We who ?" I may have been losing consciousness, but no blackout was going to keep me from calling him on this "we" BS. "Who are you?" I demanded, glaring at Amber.
    Casey clammed up. He unlocked the Merc.
    "We'll get to that, Jenna," Amber muttered. Her Camaro was parked two cars down. "I'll follow you."
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    I narrowed my eyes at her. "Why?" I said with all the indignation a poisoned person could work up. (Knowing that someone or something had been causing my not-scabies--or whatever--made me feel like snapping heads.
    Possibly Amber's.) "Why do you have to go with us, Amber? You're not my family. I know you hauled us out of the Prius, but enough is enough. You can stop following Casey and me around now."
    Amber did not respond. She had that same odd look on her face that my brother kept getting. The one that said she knew something that I didn't. Well of course she did. We'll get to that , she'd said.
    "Just get in the car, Jenna." Casey muscled me toward the rear of the Merc.
    "We'll sort it out later."
    There was nothing to sort out. But I had used the last of my fading energy haranguing Amber. I needed to sit down and catch my breath. Casey opened the door and shoved me inside. "Lie down if you need to."
    "I'm fine," I said. I collapsed on the cluttered backseat. My nose wrinkled. My irritated gaze roved over the crap. An empty pack of Pall Malls. A Kit Kat wrapper. A margarita glass. A bunch of pictures of Mamaw and her bunko group, most of which looked like they were taken at a casino. A folded plaid blanket. And on the floor, a balled up Jack in the