Wrath of Hades Read Online Free Page A

dismissed the thought. She had bigger problems . Ethan never ignored her calls.
    Something wasn’t right.
    The zombie attack. The birds’ weird behavior. The strange coldness. The cellphone not working in the cemetery.
    Now Ethan wasn’t answering her calls.
    Something was definitely wrong—weirder than normal wrong.

CHAPTER 2
     
     
    Even when I was little, trouble seemed to be my middle name. Everywhere I went, there it was. There was no escaping it.
    Believe me, I tried everything.
    It was bad.
    If I went outside, trouble was waiting in the form of the woods which I wasn’t supposed to go into. So what did I do?
    You got it.
    Into the woods I went as fast as I could run. I couldn’t stop myself.
    I could go to the grocery store with mom and trouble would find me there. I remember walking by a huge can pyramid and the next thing I knew, I was surrounded by cans and more cans of green peas. Yeah, I hate those nasty little things, but I didn’t touch the display. I knew better, but because I was the one who walked by it…Well, you get the idea.
    Once mom and I started moving around a lot, it didn’t seem to happen quite as often. But when it did, it was huge.
    Space shuttle falling out of the sky huge!
                                --Raven Weir’s journal
     
    “Walking out of the bookstore wasn’t funny. We can’t protect you if we don’t know where you’re at,” said Leslie as soon as Raven slid into the backseat of the small blue car.
    “I just needed some fresh air.”
    “You should have said something. We would’ve gone with you.”
    “I needed some alone time to think— you know, alone.” Raven sighed.
    Bree reached over and put her hand on Raven’s arm. “We understand. Really, we do. You’ve been through a lot. But we can’t keep you safe if we don’t know where you’re at.”
    “Yeah, I know. But—”
    “No buts. You can’t leave without telling someone.” Leslie glanced in the rearview mirror, making eye contact with Raven.
    “I’ve told you before. I’m not making any promises. If I have to ditch you to keep you safe, like it or not, that’s what I’m going to do.” Raven crossed her arms after she buckled her seatbelt. “I’m just glad you weren’t with me.”
    “Why?”
    “What happened?”
    Raven rolled her eyes. In typical Ari and Bree fashion, the two spoke at the same time. “It was like a scene from a horror movie , only the main characters were me and a zombie,” she said and waited for the explosion she knew was coming.
    “A what?” Ari and Bree both asked.
    Their high pitched voices caused Raven to flinch. Her hands went up to her ears. “A zombie.” Raven shrugged her shoulders. “You know, a crawl out of your grave and walk around even though you’re dead and smelly and have rotting flesh dropping off kind zombie.”
    “No way.” Bree’s mouth dropped open.
    “A zombie? You’re just joking, right?” Ari shook her head. “We were just talking about zombies. You know books with zombies as the main characters.”
    “This wasn’t a book. If it was, I would have burned it.”
    Leslie frowned. “I thought the news reports were just exaggerated to get more people to watch the news. You know a little Hollywood pizazz to make the news more interesting so the stations could get their ratings up.”
    “I didn’t think they were real either. But tell that to Jerry Spillman,” said Raven as she rubbed her forehead. “And they definitely don’t smell anything like roses.” She wrinkled her nose at the memory. “They smell more like three day old road kill in the middle of a Texas heat wave. Believe me, the buzzards wouldn’t want anything to do with one of them.”
    A chorus of eewws filled the car.
    “And you were trying to get me to read a zombie romance?” Bree smacked Ari on the back of her head. “That’s just plain gross!”
    “Hey, not funny.” Ari patted down her blonde hair.
    “ Spillman. Spillman.”