Blackbirds: Chuck Wendig

This was an enjoyable original story. A woman, Miriam, has the ability to see how someone dies just by touching them. This ability makes her cynical and she uses it to her advantage. Once she sees that someone is going to die in the near future, she makes she sure she is around so she can steal the money in their wallet. Like a Blackbird, she is a scavenger. She learned early on that she cannot change fate and was actually the cause in a little boy's death when she tried to save him. Her life changes drastically one day while hitchhiking. She is picked up by a trucker who, when she touches, calls out her name before he is murdered. She had grown accustomed to people dying of disease or suicide, but the gruesome murder and the fact that she is the only Miriam he knows unsettles her. She decides to distance herself as much as she can. Later that night at a bar she gets picked up by a man she later realizes has been stalking her. He wants to cash in on the dead as well. As a team they don't get very far. Miriam runs into the trucker again at a diner and uses him to escape from the stalker who is mixed up with a drug deal gone awry and is being hunted down. In the end we see how the murder evolved. It was an interesting and fast paced read.