Hellacious

Hellacious Hellacious: Book One Crystal-Rain Love Copyright Copyright © 2023 Crystal-Rain Love Cover Art by Gombar Sanja All rights reserved. eBooks are not transferable and cannot be given away, sold, or shared. No portion of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, faxing, forwarded by email, recording or by any information retrieval and storage system without permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law, as this is an infringement on the copyright of this work. Brief quotations within reviews or articles are acceptable. Publisher’s Note. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to a person or persons, living, dead, or undead, business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental. First Publishing; Spirit Blizzard Press: April 2023 Contents 1. CHAPTER ONE 2. CHAPTER TWO 3. CHAPTER THREE 4. CHAPTER FOUR 5. CHAPTER FIVE 6. CHAPTER SIX 7. CHAPTER SEVEN 8. CHAPTER EIGHT 9. CHAPTER NINE 10. CHAPTER TEN 11. CHAPTER ELEVEN 12. CHAPTER TWELVE 13. CHAPTER THIRTEEN 14. CHAPTER FOURTEEN 15. CHAPTER FIFTEEN 16. CHAPTER SIXTEEN 17. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 18. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 19. CHAPTER NINETEEN 20. CHAPTER TWENTY 21. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE 22. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO 23. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE 24. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR About the Author Also By Crystal-Rain Love: CHAPTER ONE What the… Where… Why… “Where the hell am I?” “Not quite Hell, dear, but it’s not the worst guess I’ve heard.” What? What did that mean? I stared at the pretty blonde woman sitting behind the gray executive desk, doing her best to ignore me while she flipped through a file folder. She was very thin and pale, her eyes an almost unearthly shade of light silvery blue, and her long nails, although nicely polished and manicured, were a little too pointy for my taste. Her no-nonsense dark gray pantsuit suggested she was a professional, but a professional what I had no idea. I looked around the office for a clue, but all I saw were gray walls and gray tiled floor. I was in a small gray cube with nothing but a desk and two chairs. The woman didn’t even have a computer or telephone, let alone a nameplate to identify her. “Where the hell am I?!” She lifted her eyes from the file, looked at me, and sighed. “You don’t remember. Don’t worry. This happens sometimes when you die really fast and unexpectedly. It’ll come back to you.” “When you—when I… what? I’m dead?!” I gripped the arms of my chair and started breathing fast, panting like an old, ill dog. “I’m… I’m going to… I’m going to hyperventilate.” “Well, it can’t hurt if you do. You’re already dead.” “Stop saying that.” I slammed my hands on the desk. “I am not dead! I’m sitting right here.” “Yes. Here in Purgatory.” “Purgatory?” My mind went blank right before it filled with images from season eight of Supernatural. Then I started laughing. “Oh, this is great. You really got me. I suppose one of my friends is going to run in here dressed like a leviathan or a vampire? Who arranged this?” The woman sighed again. This time, the sound was huffy and loaded with irritation. “Your death wasn’t arranged. You weren’t murdered.” I rolled my eyes. “I meant the prank. Who arranged this prank?” “It’s not a prank. You’re dead, Miss Malvada, and so far from what I’m seeing in your file, you don’t really have a lot of friends.” Sadness pierced my heart quick as a blade, but I shoved it down and straightened my shoulders. Then I got mad, because being angry felt better than being confused and scared. “So, then what, Candid Camera is being revived? Bring out the cameras because I’m not falling for this bullshit. I think I’d remember dying no matter how unexpected. A person should remember dying.” “They usually do, but sometimes it happens too suddenly to process right away.” She looked at me for a moment, twisted her lips in thought, and released another of those sighs. “All right, so technically you’re not officially dead yet, but you’re on your way, hence your presence here. You’re mostly dead, so I’m just going to get a head start on your paperwork if you would be so kind as to quietly sit there until your memory of what happened comes back.” “Mostly dead? Mostly dead?” I ignored the thin woman’s frustrated hiss of breath. “What is this, The Princess Bride?” “This is Purgatory,” she said in a clipped tone. “I think I have been very clear about that.” “So how did I die? I’m twenty years old and in good health, so I’m not going to buy a heart condition.” “Twenty-year-olds die from heart conditions too, dear. You, however, were hit by a bus.” Suddenly, I heard a horrible screech, and it all came rushing back. “Dunce. Dunce!” I looked at my watch while tapping my foot on the tile floor and wondered how long it took to pour coffee into a cup and add six squirts of cinnamon dolce syrup, six squirts of chocolate syrup, and six shots of espresso. I couldn’t function at my job without my morning coffee, but if I didn’t get it and get moving, I was going to miss the bus. I could not be late for work. “DUNCE!” Suddenly aware of snickering and the heat of someone’s focused attention, I raised my head to see nearly every customer in the busy coffee shop staring right at me. I quickly checked myself. My silky white button-down blouse and black slacks looked in order. My black heels matched. I’d used the mirror to put on my makeup and my dark hair had looked fine when I’d left my apartment that morning. I couldn’t have anything in my teeth because I was still waiting for my pumpkin spice muffin and coffee. “Dunce! Hey, you want your coffee or not?” The people staring continued chuckling,