The 17 Read Online Free Page A

stupid,” Cass said as she cut her hot pocket with a fork and knife.
    “It was …” Brock spoke and paused. Zack could tell he was thoughtfully searching for the proper adjective, “a unique tactic.”
    Jenai, who had already eaten her Hot Pocket in what Zack estimated was two solid bites and a smaller nibble, added, “I’m just happy I didn’t die.”
    Zill was curiously quiet. She poked at her hot pocket with a fork.
    “What? You don’t want to give your opinion on Zacky Goody Two-Shoes?” Harness barked.
    Zill glanced up at him from her pokes of her Hot Pocket sandwich, then back down. “What does it matter?”
    “What does it matter?” Harness was livid.
    “Oh boy, here it comes,” Mizuki muttered.
    “Yeah, you’re goddamned right it’s coming. Oh, it’s coming. What a band of losers. What a crappy bunch of losers you all are. Jesus. Don’t you know we’re never getting out of here, that these stupid Hot Pockets are the best things ever? We won! We win, we get Hot Pockets and a TV and a warm, soft place to sleep. We gotta win. We gotta … we gotta … goddammit.” Harness slammed both of his muscular, thick hands onto the table. The force of his thrust rattled the dishes and the glasses of assorted colas and sports drinks.
    It also startled Zill.
    She looked at him through slit, angry eyes and she displayed a very intimidating flare of her nostrils. “Harness, you are not helping. God!”
    Harness’ face was turning red and a vein was popping and pulsating on his forehead. Zack would have chuckled if he wasn’t so fearful of his wrath.
    “If I didn’t need you guys … if I could do it by myself. … goddammit!” Harness bellowed, stormed out of the dining room and disappeared down the hallway.
    “Well, it wouldn’t be another day in paradise without a Harness outburst,” Mizuki quipped. “Hey, at least we have Hot Pockets, right?”
    Zack giggled. Mizuki glanced at Zack and chuckled, too, giving him a wink.
    It appeared Zack had made at least one friend in this hell or purgatory or alien world—wherever he and The Six, as he had begun to think of them, were. And he was grateful. He hoped he could be a friend to Mizuki as well.
    Zill pushed air out of her mouth loudly, Zack thought it an attempt to make sure everyone who remained around the table heard her. It was so loud, Zack thought sure it would rattle the crystal chandelier that hung above them.
    “Yes, Zill, we know. We know,” Cass jeered, taking a drag from her e-cigarette. “Everything is bullocks. Everything sucks. Whaaaa.”
    Zill waved her hand in front of her face and let out an exaggerated cough. “Do you have to smoke? Can you not?! God! It’s so disgusting.”
    “It’s an e-cigarette, you bloody moron. It’s just vapor, you twit.”
    “Just shut up, Cass. Just shut up!” Zill held the fork so tightly in her right hand that her knuckles began turning white. She cocked her right arm back, paused for a split second and then thrust it forward. The fork tumbled out of her hand, end over end, and just missed Cass’ right ear. It lodged in the pewter wall behind her and vibrated like a diving board after a dismount.
    Cass swiveled her head around to peer at it, and then back at Zill. Cass’ eyes were wide and her mouth agape in indignation.
    Zack feared her wrath.
    “Are you trying to kill me, skank?”
    “So what if I was? You’d just come back anyway.”
    Jenai watched with a nervous smile.
    Brock fumed in his chair, his hands clasped together with his index fingers pointed up and pressed against his lower lip. Finally, Zack supposed, he had reached the end of his tolerance. He spoke in a deep, commanding voice. “If we’re being studied, we’re not setting a good example for the human race. We bicker. We ridicule. We belittle. We are everything that is wrong with our species and we are giving our captors no good reason to keep us alive.”
    Zack knew Brock had a point, a very valid and obvious one. If they