Hush, Hush #1 Read Online Free Page A

cult?” I realized too late that while I sounded surprised, I shouldn’t have.
    “As it turns out, I’m in need of a healthy female sacrifice. I’d planned on luring her into trusting me first, but if you’re ready now …”
    Any smile left on my face slid away. “You’re not impressing me.”
    “I haven’t started trying yet.”
    I edged off the table and stood up to him. He was a full head taller. “Vee told me you’re a senior. How many times have you failed tenth-grade biology? Once? Twice?”
    “Vee isn’t my spokesperson.”

    30
    “Are you denying failing?”
    “I’m telling you I didn’t go to school last year.” His eyes taunted me. It only made me more determined.
    “You were truant?”
    Patch laid his pool stick across the tabletop and crooked a finger for me to come closer. I didn’t. “A secret?” he said in confidential tones. “I’ve never gone to school before. Another secret? It’s not as dull as I expected.”
    He was lying. Everyone went to school. There were laws. He was lying to get a rise out of me.
    “You think I’m lying,” he said around a smile.
    “You’ve never been to school, ever? If that’s true—and you’re right, I don’t think it is—what made you decide to come this year?”
    “You.”
    The impulse to feel scared pounded through me, but I told myself that was exactly what Patch wanted. Standing my ground, I tried to act annoyed instead. Still, it took me a moment to find my voice. “That’s not a real answer.”
    He must have taken a step closer, because suddenly our bodies were separated by nothing more than a shallow margin of air. “Your eyes, Nora. Those cold, pale gray eyes are surprisingly irresistible.” He tipped his head sideways, as if to study me from a new angle. “And that killer curvy mouth.”
    Startled not so much by his comment, but that part of me responded 31
    positively to it, I stepped back. “That’s it. I’m out of here.”
    But as soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew they weren’t true. I felt the urge to say something more. Picking through the thoughts tangled in my head, I tried to find what it was I felt I had to say. Why was he so derisive, and why did he act like I’d done something to deserve it?
    “You seem to know a lot about me,” I said, making the under-statement of the year. “More than you should. You seem to know exactly what to say to make me uncomfortable.”
    “You make it easy.”
    A spark of anger fired through me. “You admit you’re doing this on purpose?”
    “This?”
    “This—provoking me.”
    “Say ‘provoking’ again. Your mouth looks provocative when you do.”
    “We’re done. Finish your pool game.” I grabbed his pool stick off the table and pushed it at him. He didn’t take it.
    “I don’t like sitting beside you,” I said. “I don’t like being your partner. I don’t like your condescending smile.” My jaw twitched— something that typically happened only when I lied. I wondered if I was lying now.
    If I was, I wanted to kick myself. “I don’t like you,” I said as convincingly as I could, and thrust the stick against his chest.
    “I’m glad Coach put us together,” he said. I detected the slightest irony on the word “Coach,” but I couldn’t figure out any hidden meaning. This 32
    time he took the pool stick.
    “I’m working to change that,” I countered.
    Patch thought this was so funny, his teeth showed through his smile. He reached for me, and before I could move away, he untangled something from my hair.
    “Piece of paper,” he explained, flicking it to the ground. As he reached out, I noticed a marking on the inside of his wrist. At first I assumed it was a tattoo, but a second look revealed a ruddy brown, slightly raised birthmark. It was the shape of a splattered paint drop.
    “That’s an unfortunate place for a birthmark,” I said, more than a little unnerved that it was so similarly positioned to my own scar.
    Patch casually but