Outside, she squinted at the beam of sunlight that slanted into her eyes, and took the steps down to the sidewalk at a dead run. She dug into her purse as she turned toward the parking lot, blindly fumbling for her keys. Her only hope was to be gone before the MPs arrived. It would take them time to find her and in that time she would disappear. She’d done it before and she could do it again. Dye her hair, change her name, find a new identity and lose herself in some other city.
She wouldn’t go back to her apartment. They’d be expecting her to, but she wasn’t that stupid. Besides, she didn’t need anything from her home. She traveled light these days. A woman constantly on the move couldn’t afford to drag mementos from one place to the next. Instead, she kept a packed suitcase in her car trunk and a stash of emergency cash tucked into her bra at all times, on the off chance that she’d have to leave in a hurry.
A cold wind rushed at her, pulling her long hair free of the knot she kept it in. Slate gray clouds rolled in off the ocean and seagulls wheeled and dipped overhead. She hardly noticed. Parents were still milling around out front, picking up their kids, but Shea ran past them all, ignoring those who spoke to her.
Her car was at the far end of the parking lot, closest to the back exit. She was always prepared to run—to slip away while her pursuers were coming in the front. She was sprinting now, her heart hammering in her chest, breath rattling in her lungs. She held her keys so tightly the jagged edges dug into her palm.
The soles of her shoes slid unsteadily on the gravellaced asphalt, but she kept moving. One thought pulsed through her mind. Run. Run and don’t look back.
Her gaze fixed on her nondescript beige two-door compact, she never saw the man who leapt out at her from behind another car. He pushed her down and her knees hit the asphalt with a grinding slide that tore open her skin and sent pain shooting along her legs.
His hands reached for her as a deep voice muttered, “Gimme the purse and you can go.”
Absently, she heard voices rising in the distance as parents saw the man attacking her. Oh, God, not now, she thought as she turned over and stared up into the wild eyes of a junkie who desperately needed money. She couldn’t deal with this now. There was too much attention on her.
He pulled a knife as if he sensed she was hesitating. “Give me the money now.”
Shea shook her head, and when he reached for her again, she instinctively lifted both hands as if to push him off and away. But she never made contact with him. She didn’t need to. A surge of energy suddenly pulsed through her and shot from her fingertips. As a whoosh of sound erupted, the man in front of her erupted into flames.
Shea stared up at him, horrified by what was happening. By what she’d done. His screams tore through the air as he tried to run from the fire. But it only fed the flames consuming him and as his shrieks rose higher and higher, Shea staggered to her feet, glanced down at her hands and shuddered.
That was when she heard it.
The chanting.
Over the sounds of the dying man’s cries, voices roared together, getting louder and louder as she was surrounded. One word thundered out around her, hammering at her mind and soul, reducing her to a terror she hadn’t known in ten years.
She looked up into the faces of her students’ parents as they circled her. People she knew. People she liked. Now, though, she hardly recognized them. Their features were twisted into masks of hatred and panic and their voices joined together to shout their accusation.
“Witch! Witch! Witch!”
Shea fought for air as the mob tightened around her. There was no way out now. She was going to die. And if the crowd didn’t kill her, then the MPs would take her away when they arrived and she would be as good as dead anyway. It was over. The years of terror and dread, the hiding, the praying, the constant worrying about survival.
“Stop!” she shouted, her voice raw with horror at what she’d done. At what they were about to do to her.