ARC: Cracked Read Online Free

orange wall paint flashes across my vision as we crash and skid across the floor. The lobby is the only inviting room in the asylum and, not coincidentally, the only room visitors are allowed to see. I find it sadly ironic that I’m going to die in the only room worth living in.
    I twist so I’m facing my captor – the man I clawed, Hawkish. He slams me into the wall, and the stud gives under my back.
    It hurts .
    He wraps his hand around my throat. Blood dribbles down his face.
    “You think you can attack me, halfling?” Hawkish leans in, his beaky nose nearly touching mine.
    I’m a halfling. Half-something. Half of whatever they are. He slowly strokes my cheek in the same place where I cut him, pulling the skin with each pass. I open my mouth to apologize, to ask the questions I’ve been dying to know the answers to my whole life.
    But his question beats mine out of my mouth, his black eyes hard on my face. “Think you can cut me, halfling?” His thumb presses into my cheek and the nail bites into the skin. The sting becomes a burn as he pushes harder. As the blood begins to crawl down my cheek, the questions of “who” and “what” shrivel and die on my tongue. He’s going to kill me.
    As if to prove my point, he jerks his thumb across my face. My steel skin parts like silk. I squeal and scramble, fighting his hold. He leans forward, menace radiating from him. Was this what my victims felt like? Powerless? Sweaty? Heart pounding?
    “Hal-Karim, we aren’t supposed to kill our own,” the leader says, stepping into the lobby.
    Yes, you can’t kill your own! Own what is suddenly an unimportant detail.
    “But accidents do happen,” my captor snarls.
    My heart stops.
    “She’s only a halfling. We’ll say she’s a traitor. That she flipped sides,” Puffy offers. Apparently he’s still pissed about Samson.
    “That might even be true,” Hawkish says and strokes the other side of my face, his nails rasping against my skin. I squirm to get away. “Why else would she pick Samson?”
    Flip from what side? I have no idea but it’s my only chance. “I didn’t flip sides! I just couldn’t resist! He attacked me first!”
    He isn’t buying and I recognize the look in his eye. Bloodlust. I often see it in the mirror. It’s too late. How ironic I learn I’m not alone as I die.
    When Mom told me I was special and unique, I thought she literally meant I was special and unique. After all, I never met any other children who could lift cars or chew on steel bolts.
    Turns out I’m only ‘mom-special’. Special like a snowflake is special. Special like a school kid on honor roll.
    There are others like me. And they want to kill me.
    That would have been good to know, Mom!
    “Please…” I won’t give up. “It’s the truth. I didn’t flip–”
    “Shhhh.” The hungry eyes gobble mine. “The truth doesn’t matter when you look so… delicious.” He leans in, breathing deep. His tongue snakes out and slithers wetly across my cheek, licking the blood trickling down my face. He sneers, he smiles. Then he freezes. His eyes widen and his tongue darts out to lick me again.
    Those wide, wicked eyes meet mine. “Are you…?”
    A loud bang echoes through the room and we all turn to face the entrance. The front door has been kicked open.
    Someone else has come to join the party.
     
     

THREE
     
    As parties go, the food is good but the hosts are complete assholes.
    The new attendee, a man, crouches in the doorway. Well, not really a man, a human teenager. One of God’s most misbegotten creatures – big like grown-ups and yet dumb like children. Selfish, moody, reckless, with a tendency to sleep too much and complain too often. I’m a teenager too, but I take exception to the human part.
    He’s around eighteen. Grungy jeans, faded black hoodie under a leather sleeveless jacket. Blond, shoulder-length hair. An attempt at a beard (fail).
    The million-dollar question – whose side is he on? Unlikely to be