Marked (The Pack) Read Online Free Page A

clothes were black and her skin was pasty white.
    Louise had her hand on the doorknob of the cabin when she turned. “Alexis, this is Celina,” almost goth girl tipped her head back slightly, “Jana,” a brunette with a well endowed chest gave a slight wave, “and Channing.” The tallest of the three arched her eyebrow. I half nodded at them but didn’t follow Aunt Louise inside. Instead I leaned against the post on the porch.
    If I had to be here, then I’d have to meet some people. I couldn’t stay locked up in that house with Louise. The very idea made me shiver. Admittedly, I’d spent all my life on the outside of the ‘in’ crowd. When I’d miraculously been taken in by the popular crowd this last year I’d learned a lot about meeting people. I hoped to put some of that knowledge to use here. City, country, how different could it be?
    The girl named Channing crossed her arms and stared. “So you’re Ms Miller’s niece. She said you’d be here soon.”
    She scratched at the polish on her perfectly manicured nail.
    I nodded. “Yeah, my mom and stepdad went to Europe, and I came here. We live in Chicago.”
    Channing rolled her eyes
    “What, you don’t have friends to stay with up there?”
    I almost gave a sigh of relief. At least this was something I could answer easily. “Well, they were kind of tied up. One was in rehab for the summer, and two others were going to some kind of camp, and another one was going to be on probation all summer. She’d have to wear a band on her leg and stay at home. That would have been way too difficult.” I used my fingers as an imaginary list to tic off each one of my friends who were having much worse summers than I was. In reality I’d have given anything to be home right now.
    Channing flipped her blonde hair over her shoulder and I could tell she was debating whether or not to believe me so I stared straight into those blue eyes. Another thing I’d learned- never let them think you really care if they like you.
    “You should stick with us this summer, if you want to have something to do. It may look like the definition of dull here, but you’d be surprised.”
    Jana and Celina smiled, nodding in agreement. I let go a small breath and relaxed a fraction. Getting in with the right crowd made all the difference in the world. Once I’d finally learned the method of mixing with the popular people, it was like following a recipe, cup of this, cup of that, stir and bake. Though I’d yet to figure out exactly what the end product of my recipe was. I was always too busy mixing it.
    Channing made a move toward the door. “I guess we better go let your aunt assign us a kiddie group to work with today.”
    I followed them inside. “You guys work at the day camp, too?” Now that was one thing my Chicago friends would never have done. Work? Really?
    Channing gave a bored smile. “Yeah, my dad says it will look good when I get ready to go to college, helping the less fortunate and all that.” She popped her gum so all of us would know she didn’t care one bit about the less fortunate.
    By lunchtime I hadn’t had a chance to dwell much on striking up a friendship with Channing and her two tag-a-longs. Who could think logically when faced with entertaining a group of six-year-olds?
    “That’s a great color blue on the top of your birdhouse, Katie.”
    The cute blonde smiled at me. “Thanks, my uncle that visits sometimes when my dad is gone to work says I color and paint really great.”
    I frowned, trying to follow the statement, but Katie made a big O with her mouth and threw a hand over it. Unfortunately, her hand still held a paintbrush and droplets of paint went flying, splattering anyone nearby.
    “I’m not supposed to tell about my uncle that visits,” she lowered her voice to a whisper, “It’s a secret.”
    I wasn’t sure if I should laugh or crawl under the table, so I wiped paint from Katie’s face with a paper towel. “It’s okay, now it’s