Free The Prey Bites Back: A Jesse Watson Mystery Book #8 by Ann Mullen Page A

magic.”
    The old man
shut up. Deputy Rager turned to me and smiled. I winked at her.
    “I’ll bring you
a bag of chips and a Pepsi,” she said. “Think you can eat that?”
    “That’ll be
good,” I replied. I walked over to the bars separating Percy and me, grabbed
them and shook them as hard as I could. “Hurry up, deputy. I might have to grab
a piece of this old man’s arm. I’m real hungry.”
    The look on
Percy’s face was worth a million bucks. He was terrified beyond belief.
    Deputy Rager
laughed when she left and was still laughing when she returned with my snack.
“I brought you a Twinkie to go with your chips. It’s the best I can offer.”
    “Thanks, deputy,”
I replied, looking over at Percy’s cell. “I’m so hungry I could chew that man’s
leg off.”
    “No problem,”
she said and then started to walk away.
    “What?” Percy
yelled. “I don’t get nothing?”
    “Come on over
here, Percy,” I said to him. “I’ll give you something.”
    “Stay away from
her, Percy,” the deputy called back to him. “She’ll take off your arm. She’s a
real psycho. She don’t care who you are. Did I tell you that she eats her
victims? Yeah, she was eating some guy’s arm when we caught her.”
    That was it.
Percy cringed in a corner, never said another word, and was glad when they came
for him. He was going to Orange .
    “Wife beaters
don’t fare well over at Orange ,” a deputy said to Percy, trying to scare
him as he led him out. “You might just get a taste of what’s it’s like to be on
the receiving end of a good butt-kicking.”
    “I don’t care,”
Percy replied, quickly. “I just want to get away from that crazy woman.” He
pointed to me. “She eats people. Did you know that?”
    The deputy just
smiled.
    I ate most of my
snack, drank all of my Pepsi, and then lay back down on the cot. It was going
to be a long night. I wondered who the next person would be to occupy the cell
next to mine. I didn’t have to wait long. They brought in two teenage girls who
had been picked up for stealing a car and taking it for a joyride. The car
belonged to one of the girl’s parents, but that didn’t matter. They were
arrested and held until a parent could come get them. I heard the deputy giving
them a lecture.
    I rolled over
on my side with my back to them and snickered when the deputy warned them to
stay away from the serial killer in the next cell.
    I’ll make it.
This isn’t so bad, I thought. That was, until they brought in a tall,
well-built man who had eyes like Charles Manson, and put him in the cell the
two girls had occupied earlier. He was one scary looking dude. The deputy on
duty didn’t have to warn me to stay away from him. I had no intentions of
getting anywhere near that man.
    “What you in
for?” the creepy guy asked me.
    “Killed a few
people,” I replied. That lie had intimidated others before, so why not this
time? “Got caught eating a man’s arm.”
    “You’re a
liar,” Manson eyes shot back. “I bet you got snagged for reckless driving or
something stupid like that. You’re about as dangerous as a flea.”
    I didn’t say
anything. I was too scared to go back and forth with this guy. He could’ve been
a decent looking guy if he didn’t have those eerie eyes—the eyes of a killer.
    “Got anything
left to eat over there?”
    “Just part of a
Twinkie,” I replied, scared out of my wits. I picked up the half-eaten Twinkie
and was about ready to toss it through the bars.
    “Don’t throw
it!” he insisted. “It might fall on the floor. Just hand it to me through the
bars.”
    I hesitated.
    “Come on,” eerie
eyes pleaded. “I won’t hurt you. What can I do to you through these bars?
Please. I’m starving.”
    I got up from
the cot and walked up to the cell bars. I wasn’t about to get too close, so I
stretched out my arm and handed the Twinkie to the guy through the bars. In a
flash, he grabbed my arm and jerked me to him. I could smell his