Cursed: Book 1 of The Cursed Immortal Series

Chapter 2 - You've Got a Friend in Me

Jacqueline Elias – or Jackie as everyone called her – arrived at my door, wine bottles in hand.

"It sounded like a two-wine-bottle kind of day," she said as she crossed the threshold.

She was wearing a Detroit Tigers t-shirt, jeans, and gym shoes. Her usually straightened, dark hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail.

"Let me guess – you were running late for work today," I said as I led the way to the kitchen.

"I know. I'm a mess. Don't remind me. I worked late last night and slept right through my alarm this morning. On the bright side, I was in the cleanroom all day wearing a Tyvek suit with booties, so it didn't even matter." She set the bottles down on the counter.

I laughed.

"Seriously, I could've been in a clown suit today and no one would have noticed. Though, I'm not sure the booties would cover big red clown shoes," she said as we both laughed. Jackie had a quirky sense of humor and thoroughly enjoyed all things "punny."

She worked in a high-tech lab at Wayne State University. Her boss, who was well known in his field, always had people touring the labs for various reasons. Because of this, the dress code for all lab personnel was dressy casual. She had spent most of her life in school and in return had earned her Ph.D. I had no idea what kind of research she did or the type of high-tech equipment she used because it was beyond my comprehension. In a nutshell, she was brilliant.

We'd been friends forever or since high school, anyway. So I knew her before she was Dr. Jackie. I knew her serious side and fun side. I'd even been witness to the rare angry side of her. Not that she didn't get angry or complain about things but I'd rarely ever seen her get confrontational with anyone. But when she did – it was like a combination of a volcano eruption and a nuclear blast. I could count on one hand the number of times her anger was directed at me. We were best friends so of course we had our arguments, but there was one thing I knew for sure about Jackie – I could always count on her.

I put out some chips and pretzels while Jackie went to the drawer and pulled out the wine opener.

"So," she started, her back to me as she cut the foil on the bottle. "Do you want to tell me what happened? On the phone, you sounded like you'd just seen a ghost."

"Yeah well, it wasn't much different." I set the food up on the island in the kitchen.

She removed the cork from the bottle and sat in her usual place at the island next to me.

"What happened?"

"Pour." I placed a glass in front of each of us. "We're both going to need it."

She poured the wine and I explained everything. Jackie sat and listened, looking unaffected by what I was saying. We both drank and poured more wine as our glasses emptied. When I finished, I asked her what she thought of the whole deal.

"I don't quite know." She shrugged. "I told you before these are symptoms I've never heard of, Diana. Do you know your family's health history? Maybe it's something genetic?" She paused. "And your doctor said it might be anxiety?"

I nodded.

"Well, she could be right, stress does do weird things to the body. I can attest to that fact myself." She paused again, her brow furrowed, and her caramel eyes narrowed with concern. "Your heart stopped beating? Completely?"

Again I nodded. She looked down at her wine glass as if the answer was floating in it.

"I just don't know." She stood up and walked over to where she had dropped her purse. She removed a black leather drawstring bag. "I may not know – but maybe the cards can tell us something." She gave me a sly smile and walked over to the coffee table in the family room.