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  STRUCK

  A Phoebe Meadows Novel:

  Book One

  AMANDA CARLSON

  STRUCK

  A Phoebe Meadows Novel: Book One

  Copyright © 2016 Amanda Carlson

  ISBN: 978-0-9903928-8-0

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, events, and places portrayed in this book are products of the author’s imagination and are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Sneak Peek of FREED

  About the Author

  Other Books by Amanda Carlson

  Many Thanks

  For Mom. My biggest fan.

  1

  __________________________

  ____________

  I blinked open my eyes to find two concerned faces hovering above me. I shifted my body, and a cascade of shoeboxes tumbled around me. “What happened?” I swallowed a few times. My throat felt funny.

  “You tell us,” Sam said, hands on her hips, her blonde curls bouncing in agitation. “I was minding my own business helping a seventy-five-year-old lady cram her corns into a pair of high heels when all of a sudden what sounds like a sonic boom goes off. I run back to find you out cold, crumpled like a rag doll on top of a pile of Steve Maddens.” She extended her arm to help me up. Samantha Reed, my co-worker and recent best friend, was not amused. I grabbed on to her hand, scattering boxes and shoes as I went. “When I saw you lying here, I thought you were dead, Phoebe. Don’t scare me like that again. Ever.”

  “Yeah,” Tom echoed in his standard monotone. “Don’t scare us like that.” Tom Levine, Macy’s resident eighteen-year-old stock boy, took a few steps back so I had enough room to fully clear myself of the mess. Apparently, I’d passed out, but I had no recollection of the event at all. “But, dude, at the same time it was freakin’ awesome. I thought the whole building was going to cave in or something. There was this huge kaboom.” Both his hands went out in front of him, mimicking an explosion. The story ended with a whooshing noise out of the side of his mouth. It was the most animated I’d ever seen the guy. “Then the lights flickered and…you were lying here.”

  “Honestly,” I said, trying to smooth down my now static-frizzed hair, “I don’t remember much. I heard a noise and glanced up, right as a bolt of something shot out of the lights. It must’ve hit me, which is weird, because I didn’t feel anything and I’m not hurt. Next thing I knew, you guys were looking down on me.”

  We all tilted our heads up to the ceiling.

  Several long, narrow fluorescent bulbs hung from their fixtures at odd angles, rocking slowly back and forth. It was the only indication that my convoluted story held a kernel of truth.

  “No way.” Tom moved under one of the bulbs and tried to reach it, jumping twice, but it was too high. He glanced over his shoulder, flipping his brown hair off his forehead in a single flick. “I wish this kind of stuff happened to me. It’s boring as hell back here.”

  “I had no idea fluorescent lights could shock someone like that.” I rubbed my arms. My extremities were a little tingly, but other than that I felt fine. My throat was better after a couple of swallows. “A big store like Macy’s should insulate their lights better or check the circuits or hire better maintenance people.” I gestured to the broken fixtures. “That’s a lawsuit waiting to happen.”

  “Please, fluorescent lights can’t shock you like that.” Sam’s voice was full of authority as she marched forward to investigate. “It’s completely impossible. Electricity doesn’t arc that far at one hundred and ten volts, and even if it did, fluorescent lights are made up of electrons and gas, not wire filament. So essentially there’s no way on earth those light bulbs or that fixture”—she directed an angry finger toward the hanging bulbs that still had the audacity to rock back and forth—“shocked you from way up there.”

  Sam was an aspiring actress, but she should’ve been an engineer. Her brain was vast and held more factoids than I thought possible for one person. She was one of the smartest people I’d ever met.

  A sharp acidic smell hit the air.

  I glanced down. The hemline of my skirt was smoking.

  “Oh.” I licked my fingers and pressed them against the frayed edge, and a soft psst sounded as the tiny coal of heat was extinguished.

  Sam met my eyes, her expression shocked. “Holy crap, Phoebe!” she cried, moving in front of me. “We need to get you to the doctor right away. Your skirt is smoking. How is that even possible?” She twisted her head up toward the ceiling and then back to look at me, her face incredulous.

  “Dude, that’s freakin’ crazy.” Tom was giddy as he shuffled toward us. “I’ve never seen anyone on fire before.”

  “I’m not on fire,” I answered testily as I checked the rest of my body for any other indication that I may, in fact, be on fire. This was beyond insane. “I’m totally fine. I promise. I have a great idea. Let’s call maintenance, and they can come in and check it out and we can all go back to work. The customers are probably crawling up the walls by now, and Nancy is going to be mad we’ve both been back here so long. I can’t afford to lose my job.”

  “I don’t care if Nancy’s pissed or not. She can wait.” Sam placed her hands firmly on her hips. “This is much more important. Phoebe, if your clothes are smoking, that’s a pretty big indication that something calamitous just happened. People don’t just catch on fire. Something could be really wrong with you. I think we need to get you to a hospital, pronto.”

  She might be right, except I felt better with each passing second.

  In the short amount of time we’d been standing here, my body had become somehow more…energized. Like I’d downed an entire bag of Skittles, and the sugar high was kicking in. My fingers twitched, and my feet almost bounced on their own.

  “Sam, I’m fine,” I reassured her. “I feel more awake, but that’s it. I actually feel like I could go for a run right now. Whatever happened, it didn’t hurt me. It worked the opposite.”

  Sam wasn’t buying what I was selling. “It’s the middle of winter in New York City, and you hate running. You refer to runners as self-torturers who love inflicting pain on themselves. That alone means we should take you in. You’re not yourself, and this proves it.”

  “Well, hm, you might be right about the running part,” I said. “But according to how I feel right now, I might have to alter my definition of self-torture. I could be missing out by not giving it a try.” She
crossed her arms. “Seriously, Sam. I’m not lying. I feel amazing. I have no explanation for what happened, but I have no scorch marks on my body, no gaping holes in my chest, and nothing else is smoking. Let’s not make this a big deal, okay? Even though you said the noise was loud, you two seem to be the only ones who heard it. No one else is here.” I glanced at Tom. The kid had four looks: bored, ultra-bored, slightly happy, and confused. He was giving us confused now—the same expression he wore whenever we tried to explain how invoicing worked. I turned back to Sam. “Let’s get back to work. This entire thing is embarrassing, and we’ve been gone so long the customers are going to riot. Please, Sam. I can’t afford to have Nancy fire me. I can barely cover rent as it is.”

  Sam rolled her eyes, dropping her arms. “Fine, but I’m keeping an eye on you for the rest of the day. If you so much as sneeze in the wrong direction, I’m calling an ambulance. I mean it, Phoebe. I’m not taking any chances.”

  “Deal.”

  “Dude, you know”—Tom shoved his hands in his front jean pockets, tugging them down impossibly lower—“when you were lying there, you looked totally dead. I’ve only seen one other dead guy before, but you looked just like him. Kinda freaked me out.”

  “Thanks, Tom. That’s really helpful.” Judging by the artful green leaves proudly displayed all over his attire, he was a real poster boy for Sherlock Holmes. Anything could look dead if it wasn’t moving. “I was clearly breathing the entire time, since I’m standing here alive. Fainting can look an awful lot like dead. The subtle difference would be in the chest movement.” I nodded to Sam. “I’ll just clean up these boxes and meet you out on the floor.” Macy’s didn’t mess around with their shoe department in New York. It spanned two floors, and it was always busy.

  “Okay,” she relented. “If you’re not out in ten minutes, I’m coming back to find you.”

  “Got it.” I was relieved when she finally walked out of the stock room. I wanted to forget this craziness had ever occurred.

  Tom bent over to help me as I gathered up the errant shoes. “Dude,” he said, “can I touch your arm? I’ve never touched anyone who’s died before.”

  * * *

  I hurried down the block toward Penn Station, buttoning up my wool coat against the wind as I went. The temperature had dropped since I’d started my shift at nine this morning, and my cheeks were already windburned.

  Nothing else had happened during the rest of my shift, so I was chalking the entire ordeal up as a freak event, which I could add to the long laundry list of other strange New York City occurrences I’d witnessed since I’d arrived eight months ago.

  In the short time I’d been here, I’d seen more unique things than I had in my entire life: guys dressed like monsters, people who seemed to shimmer, strange animals running around without leashes.

  You name it, I’d seen it.

  Once I was inside Penn Station, my train was just rolling up, which was a gift. At the fourth stop, I exited, hurrying up the stairs, eager to finally get home.

  As I neared the top, a shoulder slammed into me.

  I managed to grab on to the handrail in time to save myself from tumbling backward down the flight of steps. “Goodness…I’m sorry,” I sputtered. “I didn’t mean to bump into you. I wasn’t watching—”

  A large face loomed above me.

  The man wore a dark blue knit cap pulled down low, almost covering his eyes. But the hat wasn’t enough to conceal the huge jagged scar that ran across his entire face, spanning from one eyelid, marring his nose, and finishing at the opposite jawline. It was grisly up close, dark pink and puckered, like something had dug in deep before it ripped free.

  He stood unmoving, glaring down at me.

  The mystery man was a good two feet taller than I was. Three at the moment, because he was elevated on the step above me. His clothes were tattered, and he stank like stale food and body odor.

  “Again…I wasn’t looking…” I stammered, trying my best to maneuver around him. People were coming and going around us, but no one seemed to notice this man had trapped me. “I promise to be more careful next time.” I managed to squeeze by him, joining someone else who was coming up on my right, barely refraining from grabbing on to the new stranger.

  As I slipped by, the scarred man’s meaty fist latched on to my forearm.

  His grip was painful, even through my woolen coat.

  Abruptly, he turned and headed up the stairs, practically lifting me off my feet as he tugged me behind him.

  Once we emerged on the street, I gasped, trying to yank my arm back. “What are you doing?” His iron grip held firmly. “Let me go!” I turned my head frantically, trying to search for help.

  People passed us on both sides, but nobody noticed my plight. Typical New York. If I’d been in my hometown, there would’ve been an uproar, with folks swarming to help me.

  Before I could shout my distress again, the man snapped me tightly to his chest. His breath carried the scent of coffee and something rancid. “New York is no longer safe,” he growled, his face not even an inch from mine. “You must get…away. They will be coming soon.”

  No crap I needed to get away! Like right now.

  “Let go of me!” I braced both hands against his chest and heaved backward. “If you need money, I have a few dollars in my pocket. I’m happy to give it to you. Just…let…me…go!” One more push, and he finally released me.

  I pivoted away, twisting into the pulse of people on the crowded sidewalk. I wove in and out manically, ducking and bobbing. Only a full block later, with many bodies separating us, did I stop and venture a glance over my shoulder. The mystery man stood where I’d left him. Even at this distance I could see his eyes were focused on mine. I had no trouble picking him out of the crowd because he was a head taller than anyone else on the entire street.

  One arm rose in some sort of salute, and his jacket cuff fell away.

  He was missing his right hand.

  “Ohmygods!” I ducked around the next corner, my breath coming in short, staccato bursts. I didn’t linger. Instead, I hurried down the street, heading for home, dodging groups of pedestrians, and checking furtively behind me at regular intervals to make sure he wasn’t following.

  When I finally arrived at my corner, I turned back and scanned the street one last time.

  It was clear.

  There was no way I was leading that guy to my doorstep.

  With relief, I rushed the last few paces to my building. I rented a small studio on the top floor of a five-story complex. I keyed the door open and raced up the threadbare steps to my apartment, unlocking my door as fast as I could.

  I slammed it behind me, tossing my purse and keys onto the small table next to the door, my back braced against the wood as I tried to catch my breath and calm down. My heart raced a million miles an hour.

  I began to unbutton my coat with shaky fingers.

  CA-CAW CA-CAW.

  2

  __________________________

  ____________

  My head snapped toward my tiny kitchen. The room was partitioned off from my main living space by a flimsy wall that rose only ten feet up.

  CA-CAW. CA-CAW.

  Holy crap!

  A cool breeze wafted by my cheeks. There’s no way I’d left my window open. It was the middle of winter. I fisted my hands at my sides. Not knowing what else to do, I crept slowly toward the kitchen. There wasn’t a door—it was just an opening that led from one space to another.

  CA-CAW. CA-CAAAW.

  I stopped just shy of the doorway, gathering all my strength. Then I leaned over and peered slowly into the tiny galley space that held a small fridge, a stove, and two cupboards. There, perched on my ugly gray Formica counter top, was the biggest raven I’d ever seen in my life.

  And I knew birds.

  You couldn’t be raised on a farm in small-town America and not know the difference between a crow and a raven—and this was no crow. This raven was so big it looked l
ike it could swallow a fat raccoon and still be hungry.

  It met my gaze, staring at me for a few beats before it cocked its head at a crazy angle and let out a big, loud CA-CAW.

  “What’ve you got in there?” a voice said behind me.

  “Argh!” I leaped back, shrieking, covering my face with both hands.

  “Sorry, Phoebe,” my neighbor Ingrid said in soothing tones. “I didn’t mean to scare you. Hey, calm down there.” Her hands patted my shoulders. I began to relax. “The door was unlocked, so I let myself in. I heard noises.”

  After a few more inhales and exhales, I managed to slide my hands away from my face. I placed one of my palms over my thumping heart and tried not to pass out for the second time today.

  I was glad Ingrid had arrived. She could help me get rid of the giant avian sitting in my kitchen. I started to tell her that very thing, but all thought left my brain once I took in her outfit. “Ingrid…what are you wearing?”

  I’d met Ingrid, who lived across the hall, the very first day I moved to New York City. She had bounded into my apartment, introduced herself, and then, without being asked, lugged box after box up five flights of stairs, assuring me that helping people she’d just met move was what she loved to do in her free time.

  But this wasn’t the Ingrid I’d come to know and love.

  This Ingrid was dressed like a gladiator in some time-gone-by era where people smote one another for a living. Or at the very least, they impaled their opponents with wicked-looking spears, like the one she held tightly in her left fist.