Pawn (Nightmares Trilogy #1) Read Online Free Page B

jeans
pocket; daylight wasn’t going to change that fact.
    “I’m sorry, Eel.”
    “Not your fault.” I resumed trying to
pull out the sliver protruding from the bottom of my
foot.
    Devon crossed the room. “What
happened?”
    “Cut my foot in the lake,” I said
uneasily.
    “On what?”
    I shrugged. “Dunno.”
    “Well, don’t use your fingers. I’ll
get tweezers,” Devon said. She hurried to the bathroom adjoining
the bedroom, returning moments later with a pair of eyebrow
tweezers and two hand towels, one damp and one dry. She handed me
the wet one and I began gently wiping the blood away from the
wound.
    When I finished, Devon asked, “Ready?
This might hurt.” Without waiting for a response, she pulled the
sliver free in one swift motion. It hurt like hell.
    Fresh blood poured free as Devon
hurriedly covered the wound with the dry towel and applied
pressure. I winced as my foot throbbed in her hands.
    “Keep the pressure on. I’ll go find
some bandages.”
    Once I heard Devon rummaging in the
bathroom cabinets, I chanced removing the towel to examine the cut.
It was deep, the skin around the wound a mottled purple and red and
extremely tender. I prayed that it wouldn’t require stitches. My
mother would never believe that I’d hurt my foot while at the
Westwood movie theater.
    After rewrapping the towel, I examined
the sliver Devon had removed. It appeared translucent when I held
it up to the lamp on the bedside table. The color was somewhere
between blue and green, and there was an almost metallic quality to
the smooth surface. I expected the shard to be brittle, but when I
tried to break it between my fingers I couldn’t.
    “What is that?” Devon’s voice startled me
and I dropped the tweezers.
    “No clue,” I said.
    Devon retrieved the shard and tweezers
from where they’d landed on the bedside table. She held it close to
the light bulb and leaned down for a better look. “Sort of looks
like a fish scale. You know, from one of those really pretty
tropical fish that you see at the aquarium.”
    A fish scale? My stomach flip-flopped.
The lake creature hadn’t had legs, at least not that I’d seen. Was
it possible that she was some sort of…I wouldn’t let myself finish
the thought, it was too absurd. The creature in the water wasn’t
even real, and here I was hypothesizing that I’d encountered a fish
person, a mermaid. And my friends always joked that I was rational
to a fault. If they only knew the thoughts running through my mind
at that very moment! I laughed as I imagined telling Devon that a
mermaid had tried to strangle me.
    “What’s so funny?” Devon set the
tweezers down and began wrapping white gauze around my foot. Her
mother was a nurse at Westwood General, and Devon was skilled in
first aid as a result.
    “Nothing,” I said quickly. “It’s
probably just a piece of rock or something.”
    “Maybe,” Devon said, her brows
knitting together. “It looks a little exotic for Caswell Lake,
though. Normally everything that comes out of there is brown and
smelly.”
    Once Devon had swaddled my foot in so
many bandages that it was five times the size of its mate, she
grabbed a pair of pajamas from Elizabeth’s walk-in closet and threw
them to me. I changed into the plaid boxers and blue tee shirt,
neatly folding my own dirty clothing and placing it on the floor
next to the bed. Devon disappeared into the bathroom to wash the
blood from the towels.
    Outside the party was in full swing.
My friends’ voices drifted through the open window and shouts of,
“Whose hand is that?” and “Liz, where are more shot glasses?”
filled the room. Part of me longed to join them and put the
encounter in the water as far from my mind as possible. But I was
too tired; my eyelids were barely staying open.
    “Take these. They will help with the
headache.” Devon reappeared, holding two white pills on her
outstretched palm. In the other hand she held a fresh damp towel.
“To wash your