Agonal Breath (The Deadseer Chronicles Book 1) Read Online Free Page A

then: “Which class was that?”
    Which classes was I even in today? My brain floundered, starting to come down a little from cloud nine. I mean, I didn’t want to out and out lie to her, that wouldn’t be cool at all. But having a conversation with my mom about a girl, let alone one that I really liked… there was a very real chance that I could drop dead from the sheer embarrassment of it.
    “Um, History?” I was skirting around her recliner, headed for my room.
    “Are you asking me or telling me?” I’m pretty sure there was an amused twinkle in her eye, but I couldn’t tell because my bedroom door closed behind me before she was done talking.
    Don’t be too hard on her, Danny. She hasn’t been the same since Dad died. All she wants is for you to be happy.
    Just thinking about that made me start to tear up. Dad was an infantry sergeant in the Marine Corps Reserve. When the Corps had deployed him to Iraq, Mom and I knew there were going to be some risks, even knew that there was a chance that he might not ever come home again, at least not in one piece…but you never think it’s going to happen to your family. It’s always some other poor kid that doesn’t have a Dad any more, right?
    Until it actually is you.
    And just like that, my good mood was punctured. My vision blurred. Damn it, I was not going to cry. I had gotten all my crying out of me two years ago, when we had buried Dad in Mountain View Cemetery. The Marines had turned up in full force. Mom had gotten a flag, folded neatly into a triangle with razor-sharp creases.
    A lot of that day is still a blur to me. But I remember looking around, peeking behind gravestones and markers, looking everywhere in the expectation that I would suddenly see him standing there, wearing his best dress blues and boots so polished that you could use them as mirrors.
    But the only Marines I saw that day were as alive as I was, coming to offer condolences to Mom and to me.
    It still hurt that he hadn’t come back to see me afterward, even if it was just to say goodbye one last time. I had been so lonely in the days and then weeks after he died, and Mom pretty much locked herself in her room and cried herself to sleep every night for months. Oh, I don’t want you to think that she stopped being a good parent. Mom is an amazing parent. But back then, it was like she was some kind of robot, or working on autopilot; she went through the motions every day, cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the laundry, but it was as though the lights were on and nobody was at home behind them for a while.
    I don’t know how she did it. I just wanted to crawl into a hole and pull the earth up over my head, shut the world out and be alone with my pain. I had only had him for twelve years. Mom had been married to him for half of her life.
    We coped. Somehow. It wasn’t easy, but when you were married to a Marine, and when you were raised by a Marine, you tended to develop a “can do” mindset really fast. For as long as I could remember, Dad wouldn’t let me get away with whining or sulking whenever something difficult got in my way. “Work the problem, Danny,” he used to say. I can still hear his voice saying it now. “Work the problem. Figure out a way. A solution always exists, you just have to find it.”
    I miss you so much, Dad. Please drop in and say hi if you can.
    I wondered whether my thoughts, prayers, call them whatever you want to, were reaching him over there in the Summerland. They hadn’t worked so far, so why would I expect them to now?
    Blowing out a huge sigh, I flopped down onto my bed. The springs groaned in protest, a reminder of just how old this thing was getting. We couldn’t really afford a new mattress anytime soon though. Mom and I pretty much lived paycheck to paycheck on the money she made working at the call center.
    It felt good to be back in my happy place, what I like to call my Den of Nerd.
    . My bedroom might have been small (I mean, show me a