Monster Mine Read Online Free Page B

SIG
on the floor. Hatter picked it up when he got in. As Luke climbed
into the passenger seat, Hatter turned the engine over. “Who
then?”
    “ I think we should head
back up to Washington,” Luke said. “It feels like Washington
. . .”
    “ Washington? Really?” I
snapped. It was all too much. “What about Anchorage? Does it feel
like Anchorage, you freaking idiot?”
    Luke slowly turned around to look at
me. Hatter too.
    “ Uh,” Hatter said, eyes
roving between Luke and me. “You okay there, Sunshine?”
    “ Ollie’s in Anchorage.” I
glared at Luke. Divining rod my backside. “With Thad and the
halflings.”
    The guys stared back at me like I’d
grown a snout and two pointy, curved ears.
    “ How do you know?” Luke
asked, sounding more alive than he had since Ollie disappeared.
Like a flip had been switched, he hummed back to life. “How do you
know?” he repeated, seeming to vibrate in his seat.
    “ Because she just called
and gave me directions.”

 
     
     
    T H R E E
    Ollie
     
    T hey left me alone after I’d busted up Lauren’s nose. I guess
they thought I was crazy. Not that I really cared.
    They
waited .
    All that stuff with Max could’ve been
avoided. Could’ve ended so much sooner if they hadn’t
waited.
    I laughed, the sound bubbling up from
deep in my chest—my battered, screwed-up chest. Lying on my back
atop my mother’s bed, I stared up at the ceiling and laughed. Tears
trickled down my cheeks.
    Yeah, I was pretty crazy.
    Hearing Sunny’s voice after weeks had
almost sent me teetering back over the edge—the edge Max had carved
inside me. I shut down and walled myself in to keep her obvious
relief and love for me on the outside. I couldn’t feel those things
yet, not around people I didn’t trust, like Thad and Lauren, who
could use that love against me.
    I hated myself for pulling Sunny back
into a dangerous situation, but I had no one else. I needed help.
Before Max, I probably never would have admitted that. I knew
better now. I needed Sunny to hand me back the pieces of myself.
Thad and Lauren and Hex had waited to save me from Max so they
would have a broken shell of a monster to rebuild in whatever image
they deemed best. I couldn’t allow that to happen. With Sunny’s
help—and maybe even Luke’s, although I didn’t allow myself to hope
for that much—I had to rebuild myself first.
    Coldcrow had been right about this
life bending people and warping them.
    A while later, a knock on my room’s
door woke me, sending me into a temporary mind fall. I’d fallen
asleep without realizing, and I couldn’t remember where I was. A
panic so tangible I could’ve pulled it up from my throat gripped me
tightly. My breathing came in shallow pants as I swiveled my head
around, waiting for Max to materialize through the
shadows.
    But the only shadows were the ones
seeping in from behind the curtains. Nighttime had fallen, which
meant I’d slept longer than I thought.
    “ Uh, Ollie?” a voice
called from the other side of the door. “I have your dinner if you
want it?”
    I didn’t recognize the voice, but
then, I didn’t really know anyone here.
    I sat back on the bed and crossed my
arms. “Come in.”
    A boy, perhaps thirteen, came into my
room. He moved like vapor sliding about, shoulders hunched, feet
silent. In one hand, he carried a paper plate with a lumpy peanut
butter and jelly sandwich, the crust crookedly cut off, and in the
other, a glass of lemonade. He was barely more than dark skin and
bones, knobby elbows, and tufts of feathery hair so silver it
looked white. His eyes landed on my chest, where the top part of
the stitches peeked out from under my stiff cotton
shirt.
    He was checking—probably on Thad’s
orders—that I hadn’t chewed them out like a dog.
    “ Here.” He came close
enough to hand me the plate and lemonade. Surprising me, he
lingered as I took my first nibbling bite, and his glances started
sticking on me longer and longer.
    “ Why