Brimstone Read Online Free

background whirr of her treadmill, which explained her slight breathlessness. “That’s why I called.”
    Why couldn’t I have inherited the chipper genes instead of the spooky ones?

3
    y ou wouldn’t think that a day could go downhill after dreaming you were on the roll call for Hell. But it did.
    “Have you voted for the class song yet?” A student council drone shoved a half-sheet of paper in my face. Astrobright Orange is painful at any time of day, but at seven-thirty a.m. it was vomit inducing. Also, the only thing perky I want in front of me at that hour is a coffeemaker. Since the drive-thru line at Take-Your-Bucks had stretched to Canada, I was still severely caffeine deprived.
    I voiced my preference in the life-and-death matter of Gwen versus Ashley by wadding up the ballot and throwingit over my shoulder on the way to the Coke machine. “You don’t have to
litter
!” yelled Student Council Sally. “The recycle bin is right
over there
.”
    My response to that was equally nonverbal.
    “Maggie Quinn!”
    I knew that tone. Mr. Halloran, the assistant principal, must have looked up the word
stentorian
in the dictionary on his first day at work, and practiced in the shower until he got the voice just right.
    Busted, a scant twenty feet from the Coke machine. So close, and yet so far.
    “Yes, Mr. Halloran?” I Goody Two-shoed. “May I help you?”
    The administrator stood by the doors leading from the courtyard to the front hall. He was fairly tall, with a full head of suspiciously thick brown hair. He was the type of stocky that comes when gravity turns linebacker shoulders into a desk-job gut. I would lay down money that he’d been a Biff in high school. “I’d like to see you in my office.”
    “Ooooooooo,” said the kids in the courtyard—either a taunt or the buzzing of their hive mind.
    I followed the assistant principal inside, not quite meekly. Student Council Sally smirked as I went by.
    I waved at the secretaries managing attendance and they waved back through the chaos. Halloran waited at his office door like a prison warden. I entered and stood until he closed the door and gestured for me to sit. The office windows made sure we were properly chaperoned by all the staff. Everything was correct and polite and did nothing to explain why my hair wanted to crawl off my head.
    “So, Miss Quinn. I hear you were involved in a hazing incident yesterday.”
    “Nobody hazed me yesterday, Mr. Halloran.”
    “Don’t get smart with me, Quinn.”
    This seemed like an odd thing for a school administrator to say, but since he was glaring down at me, hands on his hips, I kept my opinion to myself.
    “I have a reliable report,” he continued, “that you were witness to some students bullying a classmate.”
    By “reliable report,” I assumed he meant “rumor.” I still hadn’t had any caffeine, my head was feeling funny, and baiting the assistant principal could hold my interest only so long. “Then I don’t see why I’m here. If there was a witness to my alleged witnessing, then you don’t need me to tell you what happened.”
    He settled on the corner of the desk in an aren’t-we-buddies way. “I understand you took some photos.”
    Irritation jabbed me; I couldn’t imagine who had gone tattling to Halloran. Stanley? The Spanish Club? I guess I’d been overestimating the intelligence of the general populace. Blackmail has power only as long as it remains secret.
    I considered Stanley, and his desire for revenge. But he’d been adamant that he didn’t need my help, so I didn’t think he would tell Halloran that I had pictures of his humiliation.
    “I don’t know what photos you are talking about,” I lied. I was already on the list for Hell—what did one falsehood matter?
    “The photos of the hazing incident,” he said, getting a little red in the face.
    “I don’t have any photos of a hazing incident.” This was less of a lie. “Hazing” was making freshmen wear stupid