Free Curse of the Egyptian Goddess by Lisa Rayns

turned eighteen, I was always a kitten. Then at eighteen, I was a full grown tabby.” He looked over at me. “That week I followed you in Madison, that was the first time I turned into a tiger. Being closer to you makes me more powerful.”
    “That’s good, right?” I asked hopefully.
    “Yes. That’s very good.” He raised his eyebrows up and down. “Keeping your body safe will be great for our sex life.”
    I laughed at him. “Is that really all you ever think about?”
    “Pretty much!”
    “I guess we better start soon then,” I teased.
    “Soon,” he agreed. He fell asleep shortly after that so I stopped scanning the road for a place to pull over and tried to push the thoughts of sex out of my mind.
     
    Calvin was still asleep when we returned to my house at nine am. The birds chirped in the trees and the sun was shining, but when I turned the corner, I almost hit the gas to try to escape.
    Police cars lined half the block on both sides of the street, and a vehicle marked Coroner sat in David’s driveway. I stopped in the middle of the street and put the car into park. My legs felt shaky when Coy and Wilder approached me. They pulled my arms behind my back and immediately began reading me my rights.
    I barely noticed. I was staring at body being loaded into the van. “No, no, no!” I screamed. “It can’t be David. Not David.”
    My world started to spin while I tried to process what had happened. He hadn’t touched my necklace. He was just a friend and I was always careful around him. Why did he have to die? Had the incident with Calvin pushed him into caring about me too much?  I was doomed now. Cade would blame me for his death too, and he would lock me up and throw away the key. And I deserved it! I was a menace to society!
    When I faintly heard my name through the fog in my head, I turned around to see Calvin being held away from me by three uniformed policeman. Cade appeared out of nowhere, smiling victoriously as he put me in the back of the squad car.
    I didn’t look at Calvin again. I couldn’t stand for him to see me as the murderer I was. Everyone whose life I had touched, ended in pain and ruin because I’d led the snake to them. It was my fault and finally I would pay. Maybe they would execute me quickly and with so much haste that they wouldn’t even notice the necklace of death.
    I knew my life was over. I would never see David again and now I would be accused of two murders instead of one. There would be no sex, no running away, and there would be no end to Calvin’s curse. I would either die or rot in jail for years to come. I’d never see sunlight again. I’d never make it back to father’s house to face the ghosts I’d created there. I wanted to apologize to them now more than anything.
    All the deaths and funerals should have hardened me enough to confront my fate like an adult, but I hadn’t faced the deaths. I drank them all away and now I felt as weak and helpless as a newborn baby. After ten years, Calvin had finally given me a glimmer of hope and now that that was gone, unreachable, I crumbled inside my cold shell. 
    I closed my eyes and tried to block out the sound of Calvin’s voice. He was still calling to me but he couldn’t save me now, and there would be no happy ending for either one of us.
    When I heard a door open and close, Cade met my eyes in the rearview mirror. There were wires between the seats, making me feel caged and safe. I couldn’t hurt anyone from a cage.
    “You ready to talk?”
    I shook my head. “Just get me out of here.”
    He chuckled and started the car. “That was quite a note you left. ‘I’m really, really sorry. I’ll see you soon.’ Was that supposed to be some kind of suicide threat?”
    I looked over at Calvin. They’d calmed him down and he was sitting on my car. They were most likely telling him how lucky he was to be alive after hanging out with a murderer like me. He looked up and our eyes locked momentarily. I mouthed