Read Hunger for Free Online Page B

thirty seconds had passed, Lisa's mother sighed. "Is your father there?"
    "Sure."
    "Put him on, please. I'll see you tomorrow, dear."
    "Okay." Lisa shoved the receiver at her father, then shut off the burner with a violent twist of her hand. Her father bleated at her mother, all
Yes, dear
and
Of course, dear
, getting whittled away more and more with every token sound of acquiescence.
    Lisa fled.
    She yanked open the basement door and nearly jumped down the stairs. The finished basement was her sanctuary: by the back wall, the stationary bicycle—complete with its heart rate monitor and calorie index—waited patiently for her supplication. Exercise was her release, her retreat, her salvation. She worshiped here every day, twice a day. Lisa grabbed her iPod from its charger and coded her workout playlist, then climbed onto the exercise bike and began her ritual of sweat—to hell with her cashmere sweater and boots. It didn't matter what she wore; as long as she wore herself out, she would be fine.
    Two songs into her workout, her father climbed down the stairs. "Princess," he called out, "you sure you should be exercising if you're not feeling well?"
    "Exercise kills germs," she said over the blare of music.
    Her dad wasn't convinced. "I don't think it's a good idea for you to push yourself so hard."
    "I'm taking it easy, I promise." And she was—instead of her usual hour on the bike, she was limiting it to forty-five minutes. She had increased the level of the program, but she decided not to tell her father that part.
    Maybe he would have argued the point if he hadn't just gotten browbeaten by her mom. Instead of pushing back, he said, "Well, all right. I'm heading back upstairs. You know where I am if you need me."
    Sure—her father would be heading for a fourth vodka-rocks in a little bit. Lisa wasn't about to interrupt his buzz; God knew, the man deserved a little happiness while his wife was away.
    Thinking about her mother, Lisa gritted her teeth and kicked her workout up a notch. The fourth song came on, loud and proud, and Lisa pushed herself to go even faster. She was so into the burning feeling in her thighs that she didn't notice the temperature drop, nor the subtle change of the lighting.
    But when Death spoke, she noticed.
    "Seriously now," he said, "
this
is how you calm down?"
    Lisa jumped out of her seat from the sound of the inhumanly cold voice, and she whirled around to see the delivery man from last night's dream. She recognized him—the long blond hair that hung in his face, the soulful eyes, the scruff of fuzz that framed his mouth and jaw, emphasizing the cleft in his chin. No uniform for him tonight, though; he wore a red and black striped sweater that looked like something James's horror movie killer would sport, and faded blue jeans that showed his legs to be longer and thinner than Lisa's. Sneakers clad his feet—old-fashioned Converse high tops, untied. He was standing by the stairs, arms crossed casually, a relaxed grin on his face.
    Two thoughts struck her immediately: first, that she
knew
him, and not just from last night's dream—it was more like a nagging feeling that he looked like a movie star or a rock star, someone whose picture she'd seen before; and second, he absolutely terrified her. He looked human—actually, he looked sexy—but there was no way he was human. Deep in her heart, she knew this.
    "I mean, really," he said. "Don't you think the tea would have been the better way to go? Less smelly, for one thing."
    The insult shocked her out of her stunned fear, and she spluttered, "Who the hell are you? What are you doing in my house?"
    He laughed softly, his eyes twinkling, and he shook his head. "Really now, Lisabeth. You know who I am."
    She opened her mouth to say she most certainly did not, and never mind that he looked familiar because she'd never seen him before, not really, when suddenly it clicked. Humans have a race memory, or if you wanted to get Jungian, a collective