Dangerous Destiny: A Night Sky novella by Suzanne Brockmann, Melanie Brockmann

had become terribly silent. The only sound was the canned music clinking through cheap overhead speakers. It was some terrible electronic version of an old Frank Sinatra song, complete with computerized steel drums. I swallowed hard, the smell of fish absolutely overwhelming me.
    “Look what I can do!” the woman said, and snapped her neck back around.
    “Ohhh!” the Sav’A’Buck crowd gasped. Little Miss Sunshine giggled. Her perfectly manicured hands held her head in place. She spun around to face me.
    I’ve got…youuuuuu…under my skin…
    The lyrics echoed eerily through the grocery store, and I looked down at Calvin for a second. He had turned a pale shade of green, which clashed with his chocolate-brown skin.
    “Look what I can do!” the woman repeated, her voice horribly clear, her tone singsong, as if she were reciting a nursery rhyme. She clapped her palm onto the side of her face, and I watched her jaw completely dislocate.
    “Mommy?” one of the little kids in the register line squealed, while the Hispanic lady said something fast in Spanish and fainted.
    “Look what I can do look what I can do look what I can do!” Little Miss Sunshine repeated, and this time it sounded more like “Ooook Uuut Aaah Aan Ooo” because she couldn’t close her mouth. Her eyes were wide, with a disturbing amount of white showing on the top and bottom. I watched her grab the top of her mouth and pull.
    I’ve got youuuuuu…deep in the heart of meeee….
    Four of her teeth fell out and landed on the linoleum floor, close enough to my feet so that I could see the blood.
    “Oh God oh God oh God,” Calvin uttered, and his hand on my arm was clammy.
    “On the ground!” The security guard who’d been dozing out front rushed through the sliding doors of the store. He’d drawn a Taser from his belt, and he sprinted toward the insane woman, pointing the weapon at her and blocking both Calvin and me in the process.
    “Do it! Now!” he said. He was a stocky guy with a big salt-and-pepper mustache and squeaky black boots. I was close enough to smell him—cheap cologne, stale cigar smoke, and more of that terrible fish smell.
    Instead of getting on the ground, the woman chuckled. A rivulet of red-tinged drool fell from her distended mouth and landed on the linoleum. The cop took a split second to look where it landed. And in that moment, Little Miss Sunshine high-kicked the officer in the bottom of his chin with her stiletto-heeled shoe. He fell backward, and from the way he hit the floor, I knew he wasn’t getting back up.
    The Taser bounced and skittered, and I swear that I don’t know how it happened exactly, but somehow the weapon found its way over to my feet. And then it found its way into my hands.
    “Really? I mean, really ?” Calvin exclaimed, as I held the weapon with two extremely shaky hands. I felt like I’d chugged ten cups of espresso, I was jittering so bad.
    But I lifted the weapon to point it at Little Miss Sunshine’s chest—the biggest possible target.
    Somehow I knew, despite her bloodied, disfigured mouth and saucer eyes, that she was still smiling at me. Mocking me.
    And then she knocked her jaw back into place with a horrible crunch.
    “I think you should have listened to the officer,” I said. “Get on the ground.”
    I acknowledged the cop with only a slight nod, not daring to look away from the woman even for a moment. I could see from my peripheral vision that he was completely still, in a heap between Calvin’s wheelchair and the crazy lady. I inanely wondered how long people typically remained unconscious after being kicked in the chin with a designer shoe.
    “Just pull the trigger, dammit,” Calvin urged from between clenched teeth.
    Fingers shaking, I aimed the thing and squeezed.
    Little Miss Sunshine looked down at her chest, at the hissing and sparking Taser that should have sent her to the floor. Then she plucked it from the front of her shirt, looked up at me, and