Tarnished Read Online Free Page B

believe you,” I said, throwing up my hands. “You are the most selfish, inconsiderate person I’ve ever met. You came all this way just to make me feel terrible, and now you’re just going to leave me.”
    “I never said I was going to leave you. You’re welcome to come with me. I’m just not going to be a part of your stupid plan to get back to your one true love, or whatever he is.”
    “Don’t mock me.”
    Missy shrugged. Unfazed. She looked out toward the street and I could feel that she was about to leave, this time for good.
    “Please, Missy,” I begged. “I have to try. I can’t stay here knowing that Penn’s father is still controlling him. That he’s out there somewhere without me and I didn’t even try to get back to him.” I heaved in a breath. “I know it’s dangerous. If all those pets are dying because of me, how can I stay here and do nothing? If I do, they’re still controlling me. They’re controlling me just as much as if I had a chain around my wrist. More than that because I wouldn’t just let them be controlling my body, I’d be letting them control my mind, too.”
    Missy didn’t move. She stared at me long and hard. “I’m sorry,” she said finally, tightening her grip on her bag. “But this isn’t my fight.”
    “Then you might as well leave,” I said.
    Missy stared at me a moment longer. Her eyes narrowed. Did she expect me to feel bad? She was the one who was deserting me. A moment later she tossed my pillowcase at me. It flopped to the ground at my feet and she spun on her heel, heading out into the night.
    A lump rose up in my throat but I fought it back. I wouldn’t let her hear me cry. I snatched my things up off of the ground. I had everything I needed: a little money, a knife, a map. What help would she be anyway? If Missy could make her way across the border, I could, too.
    I made my way past the construction equipment and out onto the street. I hadn’t really paid attention to the direction that Missy had pulled me in as we left the refugee center and now I was all turned around. I just needed to get my bearings. I leaned up against the cold glass window of a dress shop and closed my eyes, trying to visualize the path that I was supposed to take. But it wasn’t just that I felt disoriented. Seeing Missy had shaken me up on the inside.
    The cold from the window pressed into my back, making me shiver. I dug into my bag and pulled out the stolen book. My hands shook as I flipped to the map in the front, wishing that I’d had more time to study it. The volunteers from the refugee center hadn’t found me yet, but that didn’t mean that they’d stopped looking.
    “What’s this?”
    When I looked up, Missy was standing over me. She plucked the book out of my cold hands.
    “What are you doing?” I asked warily.
    “I asked you first,” she said, tapping the book against her palm.
    “It’s a book.”
    “I know it’s a book, stupid,” she said, cocking her head. “What are you doing with it? You can suddenly read?”
    “Why did you come back?” I asked, ignoring her question.
    She studied me. “You know,” she finally said. “I liked you better when you didn’t ask questions and just did what you were told.”
    I swallowed. “No you didn’t.”
    She shrugged. “Maybe.”
    “Maybe?”
    She flipped through the book. “I’m not carrying this with me,” she said, tossing it on the ground. She kicked it a bit with her foot, shoving it further into the corner before she emptied the rest of my belongings into her own backpack.
    “You can’t just throw that out,” I said, reaching for the book.
    “I’m not carrying around a stupid book. We can’t afford to have stuff like that weighing us down.”
    “We?”
    She stared me down. There was so much power in that stare. I had no idea how she’d learned to do that. “I got down the street and I felt like crap, okay?” she said, hitting her hands against her sides like a child throwing a temper