Page 59 of Hannah and the Hitman

HANNAH

My hand went to my neck. I could still feel the guy’s hands, but they were gone. The cologne scent was gone.Hewas gone.

No,Iwas gone.

I spun in a circle on my sensible shoes. I wasn’t in the library. I was in Herb’s, the local grocery store. Muzak came from overhead speakers. What the actual fuck?

An older man went by, pushing a cart loaded with canned soup and cat food. He gave me a friendly, Coal Springs smile. Not the leer of the man from the plane.

I shivered and it wasn’t from the store’s AC.

Okay, I was safe. But I was also in the grocery store, not the library. It made no sense.

I breathed, I sneezed and I… teleported?

Heading past the taco fixings, I quickly made my way toward the exit.

There were two things flying through my head. I fucking teleported to the grocery store and I was almost killed by a friend of Jack’s.

I had no idea how to know how the first happened, but I definitely knew the who’d know about the second. Jack.

I stopped by the coin return kiosk and the kiddie horse ride. Wait. If the man from the plane tried to kill me, what about Jack? Was he safe? Was the other guy, the one with the caterpillar unibrow, going after him?

I patted myself down with shaky hands. I had no phone. No keys. There was no way in hell I was going back to the library to retrieve either. Although, Mr. Cologne was probably as freaked out as I was. I doubted he had someone literally slip through his fingers and disappear like I had while he’d been attempting murder. Or anything else.

Still, I didn’t want to connect with him and ask him after his half of the experience.

I needed to get to Jack.

The sliding doors of the grocery store opened, and I stepped outside.

All was normal. The sun was shining. Birds were actually chirping. People were coming and going like they hadn’t recently been in mortal danger or bent the time/space continuum.

Brittany’s dental office was a few blocks away and I speed walked in that direction, waving to a few people I knew as I went. Five minutes later, Amanda, the receptionist, pointed me to cubicle four where Brittany was working with a patient. He was tipped back in the chair, sunglasses on, dental dam in his mouth.

“Hey,” I said, catching my breath.

Brittany and Mark, one of the hygienists, looked up. So did the patient.

“Hi, Mr. Brennaman,” I said to him. He came into the library on Tuesdays to read the latest magazines. He sat in the reading nook and took his time while his wife was at Bridge Club.

“Is everything okay?” Brittany asked, her shrewd gaze raking over me. She had on blue surgical gloves, one of those bent mirrors on a stick in one hand, a big needle in the other. This wasn’t the first time I’d been to her practice during the day, but it was a first interrupting her. I was a little shaky and a whole lot sweaty. “What happened to your neck?”

I put my hand to my throat. I could only imagine the red marks that my scoop neck tee didn’t hide.

“Can I borrow your car?” I asked.

She frowned. “Um, sure. What’s going on?”

I looked to Mark and Mr. Brennaman, who were both eyeing me and waiting to hear the latest news.

I stepped close, leaned down and whispered in her ear so only she could hear. “Someone tried to kill me in the library and to get away, I teleported to the grocery store. It seems I have another superpower. I need to go see Jack and make sure he isn’t in danger as well.”

She popped to her feet, implements raised. Her wheeled stool rolled backward in her haste. Dr. Todd walked by and she stopped him. “Can you please finish up numbing Mr. Brennaman for me?”

He was in his late thirties, reed thin, and did ultramarathons for fun. He glanced between the two of us. “Sure.”

“I’ll be right back,” she told him.