The Color of Rain Read Online Free

like a shining mirror. “But now I’m late. I hope to see you before tomorrow. Remember, the Blackstar Bar.”
    I find myself nodding. I’ve dragged a drunken Lo out of that seedy joint more than a few times.
    â€œAnd Rain.” He says my name like he’s already paid for it. “Remember, I have whatever you need.”
    I open my mouth, but he’s turned, his black outfit cutting against the pale cityscape. I glance at the ship he pointed to; it’s shaped like the head of an arrow with three of the largest blue thrusters that I’ve ever seen. A fast ship, no doubt, but his ship?
    â€œWho was that tasty tower?” Lo tugs Walker along behind her by the front of his jacket.
    â€œHe said”—my tongue feels thick as I watch Johnny turn a corner and disappear—“he’s a Void captain.”
    â€œNo shit,” Lo swears. “Wouldn’t that be freakin’ sweet!”
    I wet my lips. “I think he made me a kind of offer. He said, ‘I have whatever you need.’”
    â€œScrew Hallisy”—she says with a laugh—“ that’s the right guy for you.”
    I glance over my brother’s vacant face. “I don’t know, Lo. A young, rich guy like that doesn’t need to bargain for a girl, does he? And how would he have his own ship?” I finger the knotted tabs of my shirt, the proof that he was just here. That he chose to touch me. “People don’t just run into you and happen to offer what you’ve been dreaming about.”
    â€œRich people do. They can have anything.” The wind picks up, and Lo and I grip each other’s shoulders while Walker stands immobile. “Don’t overthink this one, Rain. Work what you want from him.” Her voice is twisted high with emotion, and the sudden thought that she will miss me, should I escape, makes me cold.
    I slip off Walker’s too-big jacket—Jeremy’s old bomber—and pull it on. Then I tuck my brother against me and fold the material over him as well. Lo is right. Can I really afford to doubtwhether I should bargain with a Void captain? A sexy Void captain, no less . . . even if he was a little . . . off?
    â€œLo, he looked at me like he’d already bought me.”
    â€œThey all do that.” She licks her chapped lips. “Besides, what if you were being tricked into something? Isn’t any trick worth jumping planet?”

CHAPTER
3
    T he rain is acidic on Earth City. It appears without warning, without lightning, biting into the skin on my forehead and leaving the backs of my hands itching and red. I lead Walker through it, trying to get him home before he goes completely catatonic.
    All the while, Lo’s words circle through me: Isn’t any trick worth jumping planet?
    I steer Walker around the spot on the square where that Touched girl almost fell on us, her blood halo already bleached into a pale stain by the rain. She was the exploding sun that made me see Walker’s headaches for what they really were: the first symptom of the disease. Somehow I had deluded myself into believing that it couldn’t happen to us because we were all we had left.
    I turn a corner and, like a thunderclap, run into the angry block letters on the streets’ endless graffiti of water-damaged billpostings.
    KNOW THE TOUCHED!
    Symptoms:
    1. HEADACHES
    2. SHAKES
    3. MENTAL FOG
    If you see an afflicted, call 999. Abettors are criminals.
    Do not sorrow. Fear the infection.
    My dad used to scribble the word “feel” between the “DO NOT” and “SORROW.” If they’re going to tell us how to think, they might as well use words we understand , he’d say. This always made my brothers and me laugh, but looking back, I’m not sure why.
    Still, I shouldn’t have missed Walker’s first symptom. We were working at Dex’s then, making enough money to fill our bellies, and I thought he was just