Inferno Read Online Free Page A

freak out?”
    â€œYeah, pretty much.” She looks down at her hands. Her nails are short and ragged-edged. “You’d better go,” she says. “If you’re going.”
    â€œYeah. See you around.”
    â€œMaybe.” She turns her head and blows a cloud of smoke away from me. “Usually it doesn’t take long for them to kick me off the school grounds.”
    For some reason, the thought that I might not see her again bothers me. A group of kids pushes past me, and I find myself still hanging back.
    Parker laughs. “Tempted, are you? Thinking about a jailbreak?”
    My next class is with Mr. Lawson. Another hour of being called Emily and being publicly accused of lying. Just thinking about it makes me want to run as far and as fast as I can. “Yeah,” I say. “Screw it.”
    â€œYou up for a drive?” she asks.
    â€œI guess. Where to?”
    â€œTell you when we get there.”
    I make a face at her, exasperated, but she just laughs and I’m too curious not to go. “Fine,” I say. “Whatever.”
    Parker’s car is a total beater. An ancient Honda Civic that used to be blue and is now mostly rust colored. It has a tape deck instead of a cd player. I buckle up and Parkerturns on the radio. Some guy with a British accent is interviewing a woman about terrorism.
    â€œYou can’t trust the media,” Parker says. “Most of it’s just a bunch of lies to keep us in line.”
    â€œUs?”
    â€œEveryone,” she says darkly. “To make sure we do what we’re told and don’t ask too many questions.”
    I think about that for a minute. “What about nine-eleven though? I mean, you can’t say that didn’t happen.”
    Parker looks sideways at me, pale eyes unblinking. “Who knows who did it or why. I don’t trust what we’re being told, that’s all.”
    â€œWell, there’s no way everyone can be lying.”
    She rolls down her window and sticks her arm out to signal a left turn. “Sure, but how do you know who is?” She turns on to the highway, speeds up and switches the radio to a station playing some old, heavy metal song.
    I suck on my bottom lip and watch Parker’s profile out of the corner of my eye. I wonder where the hell we are going and why I am skipping class to hang out with a crazy girl with no eyebrows. Then I wonder why it feels so alarmingly good.

FIVE
    Parker drives fast and taps
her hands against the steering wheel, totally offbeat to the music. She is wearing fingerless black gloves, thin wool ones that are frayed at the edge. She has the longest skinniest fingers I’ve ever seen. Spider hands.
    Eventually she takes an exit, makes a couple of turns and pulls into a parking lot.
    I look at her quizzically.
    â€œWhat do you think?” she asks.
    â€œOf what exactly?” I look around, trying to figure out where we are.
    Parker points at a large sign.
    â€œJuvenile Detention Center?” I read out loud.
    She turns to me with a wide grin. “Does it give you any ideas?”
    â€œUmm...” I study the square gray building. “Not really.”
    â€œOkay, picture this: all the students at your school show up tomorrow morning, bright-eyed and bushy tailed with their sunny morning faces...” She pauses, watching me.
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œAnd there, right in front of the main doors, they see... this sign. Juvenile Detention Center.”
    I shrug. “So what. No one would care.”
    â€œOh, come on. They would. You know they would. Just picture the looks on everyone’s faces.” She gives me a face-splitting grin. “It’d be great.”
    I grin back reluctantly, imagining everyone milling around, the air thick with
oh my gods
. The academics would disapprove; the elites and the athletes probably wouldn’t get it. The deviants...well, they’re a mixed group. Goths and nerds and stoners