HANS: Alliance Series Book Four

When the final light in her house turns off, I wait another forty-seven minutes.

She’s always asleep within forty-five minutes, but I like to be certain.

With a groan, I push out of my chair and turn off the monitors. My knives are as sharp as they’re gonna get tonight, and I have food to retrieve.

I look through the little crescent window at the top of my front door, double-checking that no new lights are on across the street, then I open the door and scoop up the rectangular glass container before shutting and locking it again.

As always, there’s a yellow Post-it note on the top of the lid.

Chocolate chip zucchini cookies.

Even as I trace my finger over the lettering, I can feel my nose crinkling.

I’ve heard of zucchini bread, but not cookies. And the bread has me skeptical enough.

Rolling my eyes at myself, I carry the cookies into my little kitchen and set them on the counter.

After carefully setting the Post-it off to the side, the lid lifts easily, and with it comes the smell of chocolate and wet vegetables.

I sigh.

Instead of looking like normal cookies, these look like damp green hockey pucks that have lost their shape along the way. But when I lift one out, it surprisingly holds together.

It’s also heavier than I expected.

“God dammit.” I curse my growing need to consume it, even as I lift the cookie and take a bite.

My mouth pulls into a frown, but I force myself to keep chewing.

It’s… not good.

I look at the puck, seeing a little clump of unmixed flour that I’ve bitten through, and I take another bite.

The overall wetness of the cookie is off-putting. But the taste is even worse.

I shove the rest of it into my mouth.

For someone who bakes so much, Cassandra is not getting any better.

I move to my fridge and pull out a stick of butter.

It’s too hard to be spreadable, so I slice off little squares and set them on top of the second cookie, then take a large bite.

Slightly better.

Another bite, and some of the cookie juice drips onto my shirt.

“Fuck,” I grumble around my mouthful of the shredded vegetable bullshit.

After shoving the rest of the butter-topped cookie into my mouth, I rip a paper towel free from the roll sitting next to the sink and wipe at my shirt.

I eye the other four cookies still left in the container.

I don’t want to eat them.

They’re hardly edible.

But I’m curious to see how Cassandra photographed them for her food blog.

It didn’t take me long to find the blog, though I was a little surprised that she only started it after moving in next door. No matter how awful the creation is, she always makes them look appealing in the photo, but since she’s gifted me a container of every item she’s ever blogged about, I know the photos lie.

I don’t want to eat the rest.

But I have to.

After moving to the cupboard on the other side of the fridge, I open the door and take out the half-empty jar of peanut butter.

I scoop out a spoonful and do my best to spread it over the top of the third hockey puck.

It doesn’t make it better.

I grab my glass of water off the counter and chug it down, trying to loosen up the peanut and zucchini concrete sealing my jaw shut.

When I finally clear my mouth, I move back to the fridge, and this time, I take out a bottle of beer.

I crack it open and alternate between pulls from the bottle and mouthfuls of cookie until the last three are gone.

My stomach protests at the last bite, but I can’t waste it. It doesn’t matter how bad her creations are, my deep-seated need to consume every bit of Cassandra won’t let me throw them away. And my tastebuds won’t let me go through this torture twice. So, this has become our ritual. Cassandra leaves me something that lands somewhere on the scale of edible, and I binge eat it while standing alone in my kitchen, staring out the window over my sink and imagining I’m eating them in her house, with her next to me.

When all the awful cookies are gone, I tip the glass container over the sink, letting the little pool of green liquid drip out. Then I wash and dry it.

Once I secure the lid in place, I leave the empty container on the counter and pick up the Post-it.

I walk across the living room, turning off lights as I go, and step into my bedroom.

The bedside lamp is on, and it illuminates my actions as I pull open the top drawer of my nightstand.

Leaning down, I carefully stick the newest Post-it on top of the last one, adding it to my little stack of yellow paper squares.

One for every delivery from the girl next door.