Caught Between Read Online Free Page A

she stop feeling completely out of the loop? "Required meeting. Great. That'll be fun."
    "Well, we start digging tomorrow bright and early, so Margot needs to lay down the ground rules," Amy said cheerfully, tearing a piece of flat bread in half. "You should taste the hummus, it's really good. The chef, Farris, makes an awesome hummus."
    Marya grunted, putting her head down on the table. The hummus couldn't be as good as her mother's. She'd survive without it. She looked up suddenly and asked, "Does Farris brew a mean pot of coffee as well?"
    With her second mug of coffee wrapped tightly in her hands, she followed Amy to the library after dinner, where the meeting was to take place. As she walked in, Felicity wagged her finger. "Absolutely no food or drinks in the library."
    Will this day just end already? Marya tossed back the hot, bitter liquid, draining as much of the cup as she could. She hurried back to the kitchen, deposited the mug in the sink, and jogged to the library, where the meeting had already begun. Amy waved to her from the very front, pointing to an empty seat beside her. Marya would have been perfectly happy sitting all the way in the back with her eyes half-closed, but she couldn't turn Amy's offer down in front of the entire team.
    Margot Ducharme stood at the front of the room, behind a display table that was covered with historical literature and pieces of artifacts. She acknowledged Marya's late entrance with an icy look. "As I was saying, Tell Zeynoub is the site of an Iron Age Moabite and, later, Nabataean village, dating back to 800 BC. Of course, you have all read the literature I assigned."
    There was a general murmur of assent. Ducharme seemed satisfied. "Good. Now before I show the slides of the site and summarize our findings thus far, I would like to get the technicalities out of the way." A schedule was passed around, and Marya blinked away the fatigue to read it. Ducharme continued, "You must remember that excavating is hard physical labor. Breakfast is at 4:30 am sharp. At 5 am, the bus will take us to the Tell in the highland plains. The ride will last about 25 minutes. We will spend six hours in the field every day. We will break for a quick snack at nine, and then get back to work until noon. Pottery washing and reading, processing of objects, lithics, bones and other samples take place daily, from 4:00 p.m. to 6:30, and you must attend, no exceptions. Is everyone clear?"
    Again, there was a soft murmur from the participants. Ducharme nodded. "Now I will assign teams. Each team will have a supervisor, and the supervisors are Liz, Stafford, Edward, Connie, and Aaron." 
    Ducharme began assigning students to each supervisor, and Marya waited to hear her name with bated breath. She silently prayed that she not be assigned to Liz. "And finally," Ducharme said with a smile, "Edward and Marya, our two Americans, will be the final team, and they will be working at the Iron Age Gate."
    Marya heard a book slam. She tried to look around furtively to see who this Edward guy was, the other American and Ducharme's "pet," as Amy had called him. Instead, she met the green eyes of the hoodlum Luke, who shot her a crooked smile and winked. Behind him, Liz looked flushed and... angry. Marya quickly shifted back around in her seat. I'm confused and... tired.
    The slideshow dragged on for what felt like a century. While the subject matter would have been interesting to Marya under different circumstances, she could think of nothing but her bed for the entire hour. When it finally ended, she nearly flipped her chair over in her attempt to escape the library.
    " Marya," Amy said from behind her, "do you want to hang out on the patio with the rest of the clan? We're going to chill for a bit before hitting the sack."
    "No, thanks, Amy," Marya answered, her words slurred. "I'm dead on my feet."
    Amy smiled sympathetically. "Alright. I won't make any noise coming in. And I'll set our alarm for 3:30."
    Marya