Shade Me Read Online Free Page A

just curious enough to find out what kind of emergency we were talking about.

2
    I T WAS AFTER midnight, but the TV was still droning downstairs, so I knew Dad hadn’t gone to bed yet. I would have to sneak out. Not that I was too worried about it. I’d been an expert at sneaking out of my house since middle school. It wasn’t too hard to sneak out on a guy who pretty much didn’t notice what I did on a daily basis anyway.
    I crept down the stairs as softly as I could, prepared to make up something if he should catch me and grill me about where I was going on a school night.
    I have to borrow chem notes from a friend, I practiced in my head. I left something in my car. No big deal. I’ll be right back. Or how about this one: Dude, I’m eighteen, I can leave whenever I want.
    No, that would probably just open up some sort of “conversation” that I definitely didn’t want to get dragged into. When Dad wanted to “have a one-on-one conversation,” things got pretty agonizing pretty fast. Also, I didn’t like to hide things from him. Dad was mostly a cool guy who’d been dealt a really raw deal in this life. And we had a pretty easy system going. He didn’t mess around in my business, and I didn’t give him reason to want to.
    I reached the bottom of the stairs and peered around the corner into the living room. Dad’s leather recliner was empty. I could see light spilling from his study onto the wood hallway floor, could hear his fingers tapping on the computer inside the study. I grabbed my jacket and slipped through the front door, turning the doorknob so it wouldn’t click behind me. He’d have no idea I’d ever left.
    I got into my car, put it in neutral, and coasted down the hill before starting it, then took off toward the hospital.
    Driving had always been a challenge for me. If there was ever a time I was surrounded by letters and numbers, it was while driving. I’d learned to ignore most of it but still got distracted by the occasional house number or name on a mailbox. But tonight I had no time for distraction. And even if I did, I was already preoccupied enough by thoughts of what I would find at the hospital. Would the mystery girl already be dead?
    I sped through the night, talking to myself. “Okay, Nikki,this is weird. But you’ve done weird before, right? Your life’s default setting is weird, so you’ve got this.” What was I talking about—this was weirder than weird. The woman on the phone hadn’t even told me what had happened to this so-called dying patient. Was it a car crash? An accident at home? Was she mangled, missing body parts, burned, bloody? She might not live through the night —that definitely sounded bloody. Dear God, could I even do bloody? I remembered bloody. Bloody was terrifying. Bloody was life-altering.
    My phone buzzed, and thinking it might be the hospital again, I quickly hit the Bluetooth button on my steering wheel.
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œHey, Nik.” Jones. Cripes.
    â€œListen, Jones, now’s not a great time.”
    â€œI just want to talk,” he said.
    I let out a deep, calming breath. It didn’t work. I was still irritated. “We’ve talked. And talked and talked. There really isn’t anything else to say.”
    â€œYou in the car?” He sounded like he’d been drinking. A little aggressive, a little slurred. “Shit, Nikki, are you on a date? The body’s not even cold yet and you’re already with somebody else? What the fuck?”
    A shiver went down my spine. The body’s not even cold yet. I hoped that wasn’t a harbinger of what I would find at the hospital.
    I bit down on my annoyance. Part of me wanted to tell him, Yes, we’re on a date. We plan to park in your driveway and screw our brains out to that stupid Say Anything song you were always making me listen to, and then we’re going to fall in