Free The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black Page B

clacked against her teeth as she spoke. “We’re part of this online network for people who are planning on going to Coldtown. We used to post all the time about meeting our destiny. Claiming all the stuff that normal people don’t want. We’d talk and talk and talk, but how many of us actually did anything? We say that you’ve got to be willing to die to be different. I bet you believe that, too.”
    Winter pointed a painted fingernail at Aidan. “You don’t even know him, Midnight. He could be doing this on a total whim. He might not be serious. He could be high. He could balk. Look at him. There’s something wrong with his eyes and he’s sweating.”
    Midnight rolled her eyes, sarcasm in her voice. “That’s a nice thing to say about someone who’s offering us a ride.” She looked at Aidan. “Don’t mind Winter. He’s overprotective.”
    “So are you willing to die to be different?” Aidan asked them, and Tana heard the hunger in his voice.
    “For sure,” she said. “I wanted to go last year, but Winter didn’t want to be sixteen forever and I had to admit it was kind of lame. So we compromised. We’re going to be eighteen in a month and that seemed old enough to go.”
    Midnight and Winter , Tana thought. She knew that the names had to be fake and that the way they looked was an elaborate artifice, but they wore their strange beauty like war paint. They made an intimidating pair.
    Winter looked down at his calf-high boots, buckles running back and forth over the length of them, frowning as though he wanted Midnight to give Aidan a different answer. A long metal chain ran from his belt loop to his back pocket; he twisted it around one finger idly, in the same fidgety way that his sister bit her lip rings.
    “I’m going to blog the whole thing,” Midnight said. “That’s how we’re going to pay for stuff after our trade goods run out. I’ve got a tip jar on the site, and there are ads and stuff—my readership was already pretty good, but it’s gone through the roof since we ran away. A hundred thousand unique visitors are watching Winter’s and my adventure. We made a promise to each other—and to them.”
    “No more birthdays,” they recited more or less at the same time, then flushed and laughed a little. It was a vow, a piece of a chant, their scripture, something they took so seriously that saying it aloud embarrassed them.
    “Because you’re planning on dying and rising again?” Gavriel said from atop the car hood. They glanced at him in surprise, as if they’d forgotten he was there. His face was shadowed enough to hide his eyes, but his unnatural stillness should have unnerved them.
    “I just posted about our Last Supper,” Midnight said, taking her phone and holding it out to Aidan, leaning closer than she had to. “It’s kind of a tradition. Before you go through the gates, you eat one last meal. All your favorites. See, Winter had pizza with olives, ketchup chips, and bubble tea? And here’s the picture of mine—steak and eggs with a slice of apple pie. I was so excited that I only took a bite of each. You know, like how you get one last special meal of your choosing before you go to the electric chair.”
    Because they were hoping to die, Tana realized.
    She saw how Aidan’s gaze drifted over Midnight’s skin. She really was beautiful, with large black eyes and all that blue hair, with earrings in the shape of daggers swinging from her earlobes. He grinned as if what she’d just said was very funny.
    He was going to bite her.
    Tana got out of the car, slamming the door behind her. They all looked over, Midnight frowning at having her conversation interrupted.
    “Aidan,” Tana said warningly. “Everything okay?”
    He turned toward her, a strained smile relaxing into a real one as she got closer. He shrugged and threw an easy arm over her shoulder. “Midnight, Winter, this is my girlfriend, Tana.”
    Midnight took a step back from Aidan. Winter looked at Tana in