Phoenix Read Online Free Page B

the truck and was heading across the drive when I heard a tremendous
CRASH!
    I rushed toward the house and heard what sounded like someone chopping wood inside. The chopping stopped as I reached the open door.
    I poked my head through the doorway, into the family room, but didn’t see anyone. I stepped inside, and my heart sank. Our home had been ransacked. We didn’t have a lot of things, but what we did own looked as though a tornado had ravaged it. Our furniture had been slit open. Pillows had been slashed, and feathers drifted through the room like dandelion fluff. In the kitchen, our table and chairs were upended. The contents of every cupboard and drawer seemed to be on the floor, the drawers themselves among the mess.
    Grandfather gave a muffled cry, and my heart nearly stopped. The sound came from his bedroom.
    I knew that if I was going to help him, I needed a weapon. I considered going into the garage to grab something from our practice weapons rack, but it would take too long.
    I was still wearing my mountain biking cleats, which were similar to the cleats worn by soccer players. They also had a large metal bracket mounted on the bottom at the ball of the foot for clipping into pedals. Those brackets were serious chunks of metal. I took off my shoes, letting them dangle loosely in my grip, and slunk down the hallway toward Grandfather’s bedroom.
    His door was open. Just inside the doorway was the hulking back of a man who was holding Grandfather in a tight bear hug. All I could see of Grandfather was his legs. His feet were off the ground and he was writhing like a snake, but he couldn’t seem to break free.
    Beyond Grandfather, I caught a glimpse of an ax head swinging through the air. There was a loud
CHOP
, andthe back of Grandfather’s overturned armoire splintered. The man holding the ax was Slim. The other man had to be Meathead.
    I lunged at Meathead from his blind side, swinging a shoe with all my might. The metal bracket struck him behind the ear, and the huge man dropped to his knees.
    The shoe fell from my hand as Grandfather slipped free.
    I stepped around Meathead and shouted, “Look out, Grandfather!”
    Slim had raised the ax and was coming at us. I hurled my other shoe at Slim’s face just as Grandfather dove at Slim’s raised arms.
    Grandfather managed to knock the ax free of Slim’s hands, but my flying shoe struck Grandfather in the side of the head, and he went down.
    “No!” I shouted.
    I took a step toward Slim and felt an arm wrap around my neck from behind like a boa constrictor. It was Meathead. He was still conscious. The giant began to squeeze. I felt pressure build in my head as Meathead’s forearm pressed against the side of my neck, compressing my carotid artery and cutting off the flow of blood to my brain. A flash of bright white light exploded behind my eyes, and for the second time in less than an hour, I blacked out.

When I came to, I found myself atop what remained of my bed. Like the furniture in our family room, my mattress had been sliced to ribbons. Grandfather was sitting in a dining chair beside me.
    “Phoenix,” he said. “How do you feel?”
    “Like someone tried to hang me with a noose,” I groaned, rubbing my neck. I tried to sit up, but felt dizzy and lay back down. “Ugh. How are you?”
    Grandfather pointed to a large lump beneath his long gray hair. “Perhaps you should consider giving baseball a try. You have a strong throw.”
    “I’m so sorry, Grandfather.”
    “No need to apologize. You had the right idea, only I got in the way.”
    “I still feel bad that I hit you. Did I knock you out?”
    “You did. It seems they incapacitated you, too. Thebruising on your neck leads me to believe it was a choke hold.”
    “Yeah, the big guy was still conscious. He latched on to me after you went down. Are my bruises bad?”
    “The bruising is fine. You can rub it out later with some
dit da jow
ointment. Right now, I want to take another look at