Free Malevolent (The Puzzle Box Series Book 1) by K.M. Carroll Page B

the puzzle box and its positive emotions! I must find a more distant hiding spot for it.
    She stepped forward and held out a hand. "Friends?"
    My heart lurched as I shook her cold hand. "Friends."
    She climbed in her cart and drove away. I stood there for a long time, gazing after her and trembling.
    I must not have feelings for her. Befriend many, serve some, trust few--love none. Friendship was allowed, but not love. Never love.
     

Chapter 6
Libby
     
    On my way to the doctor's the next day, I saw a man who terrified me.
    The rain's end had brought the Tule fog back. It was noon and visibility was twenty feet. I drove gently through town in Mom's Buick, headlights on, and waited a long time at traffic lights and stop signs. I'd been driving in the fog since I got my license, and it was both annoying, and tense--another car might come screaming out of nowhere at any time. I kept the windows cracked, and listened for the swish of wheels on asphalt.
    I was sitting at a red light when I saw him.
    At first, I thought it was only a random pedestrian in the crosswalk. He was a dark silhouette in the fog, and I tracked his progress to make sure I didn't hit him when the light changed.
    But as my gaze wandered, his form smeared into shapeless blackness. When I focused on him, he snapped back into human shape.
    It had to be a trick of the fog. I looked away and back four times, and he blurred each time. It reminded me of seeing Mal's death motes. Maybe it was because the guy's poncho was wet. Or the sickness was affecting my vision now--even though I had felt better this morning.
    As the stranger drew opposite my car, he turned his head and looked at me.
    His face was a long, leather-clad skull with gleaming wet eyes in the sockets. The eyes drilled into me, the black bread-mold on my hand shivered, and so did my insides. The smeary blackness around him bled through the air toward me in long strands--then I blinked and they vanished.
    My heart tried to leap out of my chest. One hand automatically grabbed the door handle, as part of my brain screamed to jump out and run. The rest of me wailed not to leave the car.
    He had barely moved out of the way of the car when the light changed. I floored the gas, and the tires squealed on the wet street. I blazed through the intersection and up the road, gripping the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white.
    The rear view mirror showed only fog behind me. Had the man vanished? Or was the reduced visibility playing tricks on me?
    "Oh, come on," I said aloud. "You see magic once, and now you see it everywhere. Get a grip, Lib."
    I couldn't have seen a skeletal man who blurred into darkness. He was probably just an old man with cancer or something. Their faces got pretty skull-like. Still, those black eyes ... and the way his blackness oozed toward me through the air ...
    When I reached the doctor, my brain was twisted like a pretzel. I fidgeted in the waiting room, and the cheerful pictures of flowers and landscapes annoyed me. I'd come to this same office since I was born--you'd think they'd change the decorations at least every decade.
    Finally they called me back to the examining room. Doctor Sing checked my vitals, then regarded me over her laptop. "Elizabeth, your blood pressure is up. Are you upset?"
    "No, no," I lied. "Just a little tense from driving through the fog."
    "Well, calm yourself. Your air passages are clearer today than they have been in months. I think the drugs are finally working."
    And Mal's honey. And that thing he did with chalk and powder that made me feel so warm and energized. But I couldn't say any of that to Dr. Sing.
    She studied my hand, especially the red oval mark where Robert had bitten me. "What is this?"
    "A memento from my jerk boyfriend after I dumped him."
    She raised an eyebrow over her glasses, so I explained our weird little encounter. Maybe she would know about vampires ... or maybe not. She listened to the story, then gave a jerk of her head that