Free Chosen by Ella James

it!” Curly cried, standing on the balls of his feet. “I’m going to do it.”
    “OMG are you serious.”
    Curly sort of tensed, his face focused on the screen. “I’m doing it now, Hannah. I’m doing it. Aaaaaannnd he slips in the grass, and Derdiyok gets a chance!”
    “Amazing, Ein. Totally amazing,” the girl said, covering her mouth. “He fell. He really fell!”
    “Yes, he did.” Curly—Ein grinned.
    Julia must have been around Chosen way too much, because all she could think was would it be possible for Ein to affect an athlete from a distance? That was a frightening thought.
    The red-haired girl—Hannah—shook her head. “Faust is going to be pissed.”
    Ein shrugged and held out his right hand. “Just don’t tell him, and half the francs are yours.”
    Grinning, Hannah clasped his hand. “Deal.”
    And Julia’s heart almost stopped. There, just below Hannah’s thumb, was a starburst, about the size of two half dollars, and the same shape and color as her own.
    Holy crap!
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER SEVEN
     
    She spent all of lunch sitting on what she’d witnessed, replaying it over and over in her mind. She hadn’t seen many starbursts, but the ones she had seen—Mer’s, so big it covered most of her ribcage on her right side, and Carlin’s, a cute angel’s kiss on the bottom of her calf—looked similar: their color was a dark burgundy wine, no matter the Chosen’s skin tone; the edges waved, like an actual starburst, like a starburst sticker that said, “Wow!” inside, stuck on an A-plus test by an enthusiastic teacher. Julia knew what Chosen starbursts looked like, and by the time they reached their adjoining rooms, filed into the kitchen in the girls’ room, and watched Carlin work the cork off a bottle of sparkling juice, Julia was convinced that what she saw was real, and she was close to bursting.
    Meredith was in the middle of a story about one of her middle-school boyfriends—“had the craziest looking eyes; they were like, purple, and not fake contacts”—when she stepped a little closer to Julia, paused midsentence, then cried, “Aaaahhh, excitement! You have got to be kidding me!”
    Well, that was one way of sharing her news.
    “Kidding?” Drew asked.
    Cayne’s brows arched and Julia said, “I have news. I think this is it. This is the place.”
    “You can’t be serious,” Drew exclaimed.
    “Well…”
    She explained what she’d heard, and what she’d seen. When she finished, Meredith did a booty dance. “Holy crap, we have to know right now!”
    Carlin sighed, looking lighter than Julia had ever seen her. “I’m going to Spain,” she announced with a flourish. “As soon as I know this is the place, and Julia is safe, I want to visit my family.”
    “I’ll go to the roof,” Mer said, “since it’s still snowing too hard for Cayne to take Julia on a flyby. Wait, is there even a roof? Omigod I can’t believe this is it.”
    Cayne shook his head/ “There is a roof. But the pad is built on a platform that connects to the second floor. I saw it.” He glanced at Julia, frowning. “No tiger,” he said regretfully. “Just a top hat.”
    “Maybe it was small. I don’t think Monte ever said it was big. It’s totally worth a shot.”
    “What if you get caught,” Julia asked.
    “If I get caught, I’ll play on their feelings to get myself out of it.” At Cayne’s frown, she said, “If they’re angry, I’ll placate them. That kind of thing. Really easy.”
    “We should get Edan,” Carlin said. “He might be able to sense them.”
    Julia thought that seemed like a flimsy excuse, but apparently Meredith didn’t sense any ulterior motive. “Great idea.”
    *
    After a few more minutes of discussion, it was decided. Carlin and Drew were going to hoof it to the hostel. Or, rather, ride the swanky tram that apparently connected everything at the polka dot resort. Julia had missed that detail somehow. As Carlin put