Dreams of the Golden Age Read Online Free

time.”
    How about avoiding getting hit at all? “That’s what we need to talk about. You need to back off.”
    “It didn’t go perfect but I did okay—”
    “You have to back off,” Anna said. “My mother knows it was you.”
    He stared. “What? That’s impossible, how could she?”
    “I don’t know, but she does. It’s her thing, she’s a control freak.”
    “But how does she know about me ?”
    “She keeps tabs on everybody.”
    “So it’s not enough that she’s president of the richest company there is, she has to spy on everybody?”
    Flustered, Anna waved him off. “I don’t know, she’s paranoid. That’s not the point right now. You need to cool it because she’s watching.”
    He thought for a minute, so grim and serious she almost laughed. “I can’t back off now. It’ll go better next time, I know it will. I need more practice.”
    “Crime’ll still be there in a month or two. You need more practice where someone isn’t trying to kill you.”
    “But that’s just it, how am I going to get practice using my powers when there’s danger if I’m not really in danger?”
    “That’s a stupid argument,” she said. “I worry about you, Teddy.”
    “Well. Thanks for worrying.” Even with the giant bruise, his gee-whiz smile lit up his face. It was hard staying mad at him.
    “Any time.”
    The warning chime sounded, a bell tone that was meant to be soothing but managed to be annoying as it echoed through the halls, because it meant they had five minutes to get to class. Anna didn’t much want to go to class at the best of times.
    She hooked her arm around Teddy’s and hauled him away from the nurse’s office. “We’ll talk about it later.”
    “What if I go out with Teia or Lew? Or Sam? We can watch each other’s backs—”
    “So you can get in twice as much trouble?”
    He brightened. “You could go with me.”
    “I’d be useless.”
    “No, you wouldn’t. You’re not useless,” he said, but the words were rote and they both knew she was right. He added, “Maybe you shouldn’t worry so much.”
    Her mother’s words from yesterday’s after-school conference echoed. Math quiz, she wished. “Somebody’s got to worry, the rest of you sure aren’t.”
    They arrived at the second floor, north wing corridor, and history. Her first class. Teddy had chemistry. What he really needed were some physics lessons—pressure, velocity, force of impact.
    “Are you saying that you want me to quit?” he said.
    “No, it’s not that. I just … you could have been killed.”
    “I could get killed crossing the street—”
    “That’s another stupid argument.”
    “We have to keep going. We’ve started this. It’s the right thing to do, isn’t it?”
    That all depended on whom you talked to. Which sounded like something her mother would say.
    “Yeah,” she said. “We have to keep going.” They didn’t have a choice. They’d already come this far.
    *   *   *
    Tom picked Bethy up from middle school first, then Anna, who didn’t have anything after school today. She could have lied about it and taken the bus home, like she usually did when soccer was on or she had a group project. But she didn’t want to push her luck. Dad might be able to tell she was lying. Or not. That was the trouble, he hardly ever let on what he knew or didn’t. He’d just let her keep digging whatever hole she started on until she hit bedrock. And he’d just stand there, his eyebrow raised, not saying anything.
    The car waited because she was late, between picking up books from her cubby and talking to friends on the way out. Tom never gave her a hard time about lingering. Bethy was in the back of the car, math book open, doing her homework. Anna shoved the book over as she slid onto the seat. “Drive on, Jeeves,” she called to the front seat.
    “Afternoon, ma’am,” Tom said, his smile amused. He was a silver-haired man who’d been working for her mother for eons. Anna couldn’t