Forsaken Read Online Free Page B

money or their soul for her remedies. The street was fairly vacant that time of the morning on a weekday, a contrasting difference to the last time I’d stood in front of the shitty old building. I knocked a few times on the glass door before a familiar set of brown eyes met mine in the shadows of the magic shop. Or whatever it was.
    “Closed,” Lupe’s grandson—the one who still had a head—said, muffled by the door.
    “Let me see her,” I demanded. He laughed and shook his head. I felt my heart flip and my breath caught. My hand twitched with the urge to pull the gun from my waistband. “Open the door.” He shook his head again and I kicked the fucking thing. My soft Converse didn’t do much, but it rattled loudly and jarred the man on the other side of it. He didn’t seem the type to scare easily, but it seemed to me he really thought I was just some dumb valley girl in over her head.
    He shook his head back and forth while he unlocked the door. It was only open an inch and I shoved at it. He held fast, but I squeezed my fat ass through any way. “Fuck, man,” he whispered.
    “I don’t give a shit about your manhood.” He appeared to be genuinely upset I’d overpowered him and made it through his human blockade. “I want to see her,” I growled.
    “She’s busy.” He slammed the door shut and locked it with vigor. “Sign says closed.”
    “I don’t give a shit. I need her,” I said and stepped closer to the curtain, which separated the real shit from the public face.
    He grabbed me by the shoulder and stopped me. Jerking away from him, I turned to shoot him a sneer. He cautiously looked around him, checking for peepers, I assumed. “Fifty bucks,” he whispered, his tone smug.
    Fuck . “I don’t have any money.” He eyed the gold class ring I wore, and I stuffed my hand behind my back. It was my dad’s. He was wearing it when he died. I thought I’d lost it forever my senior year, but I’d found it only the day before tucked back behind my dresser.
    “Then I can’t help you,” he said with a shrug.
    I clenched my hand into a fist, squeezed until my nails dug into the skin of my palm and considered the importance of anything Lupe could give me. The stupid thing around my neck didn’t seem to be warding off all things scary and fucked; I needed something more. I couldn’t risk walking away empty-handed. My trembling fist shook against the cold stock of my gun. My ring hand twitched and opened. The dark guy stood there in his cholo uniform – khaki shorts and a wifebeater – glaring at me. Waiting for me to offer up my only form of payment, he let a crooked grin pull one side of his mouth up.
    My ring hand lifted the back of my cotton t-shirt. The steel was nearly hot to the touch. My body had left its mark in slippery sweat along the grip. I heard Lupe talking loudly to someone behind her secret curtain, and I grasped the butt of my pistol. My heart pounded. The man folded his arms over his chest and leaned against the counter. He knew I was ready to give it up, as evident by his arrogance. I tugged at the metal, which stuck to my damp skin. Pulling in a long breath, I pulled the gun from its makeshift holster.
    The man’s eyes looked like dinner plates. My barrel aimed at the center of his chest, there was a sporting chance he may have shit himself. My hand shook from an overload of adrenaline. I was sure I looked like a fucking raving lunatic, aiming a gun as payment instead of falling prey to his attempted extortion. The guy lifted his hands and shook his head softly. Mine was obviously the first gun ever pointed at him.
    I just popped his gunpoint cherry. At this rate, I should start notching my gun case.
    I took two long steps toward the counter. The man backed away from me slowly, slamming into a rack of pretty postcards. There was a growing part of me that wanted to use his fear for my gain. Until that point I’d been too cynical for my own good, but I was inherently a good