Free The Almost Girl – ebook edition Page B

his thighs. The sudden sour odor of urine permeates the night air.
    I lift Charisma easily. “It’s OK; you’re safe now,” I tell her. “But you need to stay awake for just a few more minutes, OK?”
    “Mmm… OK.”
    After I file a report with school security with a condensed version of the events and accompany Charisma in the ambulance to the local hospital, where she will stay overnight – apparently, the boy had used some kind of hypnotic sedative in an excessive amount – I catch a cab back to Horrow. But the parking lot is empty, and it looks like I’ve missed the whole meet, and Caden, too.
    A sense of exhaustion overcomes me, and I rest my head against the handlebars of my bike. I want to leave this place as fast as I can. Everything about it unnerves me. I want to go back to where I belong, where I feel whole. Here, I am starting to feel broken, the natural result of living in a broken world. Although they have more landmass, water, and people than we do, I have no doubt that this world is far more lost than mine.
    Gritting my teeth, I rev the bike with one thing on my mind. Come hell or high water, we are leaving tomorrow. With a sense of rejuvenated intent, I ride to Caden’s house. I don’t let the fact that his car isn’t in the driveway or that there aren’t lights on in the house deter my new sense of purpose. I’ll wait. Throwing a jacket across my shoulders, I make my way to the front porch, but there’s already someone there.
    My heart plummets to my stomach in a free fall that is magnified by the fact that time has slowed to abnormal proportions. My blood thunders in my ears like a solid force.
    “Shae,” I breathe.
    My sister. My family. My enemy.

CONFLICT ARISING
     
    “I knew they’d send you sooner or later.”
    The breath that leaves my lips in response to the husky familiarity of her voice is deflating and harsh, taking with it every bone in my body.
    “No one… sent me. I came alone,” I manage in a shaky voice.
    Shae looks more or less the same as when I saw her last, right before she caught me off-guard, armed with a double electro-rod, except that there’s an oozing red gash across her face. Hair in blond dreadlocks, tanned face, if thinner, and eyes the color of a glacial sky. Those cold eyes were the last thing I’d seen before she’d everted.
    Seeing her now is like being dunked in a bucket of ice until my entire body feels like it’s going to peel out of my skin. I want to run to her so badly it hurts, but underneath it all her betrayal is as fresh as it was thirteen years before, and the pain just as sharp. She left me with no regrets and no explanations. The monarchy had branded her a traitor, and I had to live with her shame until I built myself into something large and powerful enough to eclipse it.
    I hate her. That isn’t going to change. Not now, not ever.
    “So you’re the one helping Caden,” I say. “I should have guessed. I learned everything I know about covering up the marks of eversion from you.”
    “And yet you found me.”
    I laugh, a hollow sound made harsh with a coil of emotions I can’t begin to unravel. “It wasn’t easy to track you, trust me. You were careful, I’ll give you that… everting and then traveling by their transportation. Smart. But my coming here was just pure luck.”
    “Luck,” Shae repeats, a small frown creasing her brow. I notice that there are more bruises and cuts along her arms, all of them fresh.
    “Maybe I sensed you in my subconscious?” I offer snidely. I can’t keep the sarcasm from my voice. “So who’s June, really? Does she know who you are?”
    “No.” Shae shrugs her shoulders, not giving up much. I raise a skeptical eyebrow, and Shae continues. “She’s part of an organization here that helps with supervised independent living until Caden turns eighteen.”
    I return her shrug, thinking of the gun I found. It makes no difference to me whether Shae’s lying about June or not. She’s not my