Dust and Roses: Book Two of the Dust Trilogy Read Online Free Page A

to me anyway. We’d had that
conversation before. She’d only point out how she could count each of my ribs
so I had no idea what I was talking about. Paige wasn’t as thin as me, but she
didn’t have any weight to spare.
    She watched me for a moment, put the
cookies back into the pantry and then rushed upstairs as if she couldn’t bear
to spend another second in my presence. Quinn, the brains of the family, came
into the kitchen and grabbed a juice pouch from the fridge.
    “Hey, Quinn.”
    She jumped as if she hadn’t seen me there.
“Oh, hi. I—I gotta go do my homework. Big project due tomorrow. Huge!” Then she
sealed herself up in her room for the rest of the afternoon. Mom found a reason
to spend an hour poking through boxes in the basement, even though she hated
being in the basement and when Dad came home, he gave me a quick peck on my
forehead and then holed up in his office to make a conference call. That was
normal for us. Completely normal.
     
     
    That night as I crawled into bed, a scraping
sound came from the hallway. I opened my bedroom door to see where the sound
was coming from. Someone, probably Dad, had pushed my great-grandmother’s
antique armoire in front of my door, blocking me in. It usually stood against a
wall in the center of the hallway. That was new. Without a word I shut the door
and dialed Fletcher.
    “They’re barricading me in my room like
some kind of prisoner,” I told him as soon as he answered.
    “They have to,” he told me. “Don’t take it
personally, but they have to protect themselves. I told you, when I first went
through the changes my parents made me sleep in a cage.”
    He was right but I still felt insulted,
like they didn’t trust me. “I know. But it just seems unfair. I’ve never hurt
them. They could have at least told me first.”
    Fletcher was quiet for a moment. “Do you
want to hurt your family, Arden?”
    What kind of question was that? “Of course
not!”
    “Then let them do what they have to do.
It’s the only way they’ll be able to sleep at night. They need to feel safe.
Put yourself in their shoes.”
    “Okay,” I said before hanging up. It
wasn’t what I’d wanted to hear, but it was what I needed to hear.
    Before, I thought my parents might have
been lowering their guard when they’d cancelled the rest of my therapy sessions
with Dr. Scarlett. While it had been a relief at first, I realized they hadn’t
done it because they thought I was getting better. They stopped the sessions
because they were afraid of Dr. Scarlett learning my secret.
     I listened to my father on the other
side of the door. His voice sounded muffled because of the armoire, but still,
I heard every word.
    “I’m sorry, honey. It’s nothing personal.
I have to do what’s best for everyone.”
    I didn’t bother with a reply. I buried
myself under my covers and prayed for the animal part of me to fade away.

Chapter
Three
     
    There had been a time when home was better
than school, but it wasn’t like that anymore. Strangers treating me like an
outcast was always better than my own family treating me like one.
     Fletcher was out sick on Monday, but
thankfully, I still had Imani.
    As the two of us left the school building
that afternoon a familiar truck was parked in the front lot—a black F-150 with
orange and red flames painted on both sides. The truck belonged to Bruce Wiley
who spent his time getting high and never going to class. Any time I saw him,
he was in the parking lot, sitting in his truck.
    Earlier in the school year Wiley had
flirted with me. I couldn’t pass his truck without him leaning out of the
window and shouting something. After what had happened that January night, he
hadn’t said a word to me. Sometimes when I was leaving the school, his truck
would peel out of the parking lot so fast the tires screeched. Wiley had a very
good reason to avoid me.
    That day I was surprised when he rolled
his window down as Imani and I passed. “Hey,