Free Gluttony by Robin Wasserman

her happiness, especially with Kane on the prowl. Beth waved the candy away. “Thanks, but—”
    “Don’t waste your time,” Kane sneered. “She’s morally opposed to … well, pretty much all of life’s pleasure’s, wouldn’t you say?”
    The guy pressed the candy bar into her hand and wrapped her fingers around it, holding on for several moments too long. “I’m sure that’s not true,” he said, and something about his tone made Beth uneasy. She pulled her hand away.
    “No, it’s true,” she assured him. “Kane’s right. You’re always right, aren’t you?” she asked, aiming for sarcasm but achieving only fear.
    “I was wrong about you, ” he pointed out.
    Not wrong enough. He’d been right to think that she was naive enough, stupid enough to fall for his sympathetic act, straight into his arms. And he’d been right to think that he could string her along for weeks, charming her with smiles and kisses and extravagant gifts and suckering her into trusting him.
    He’d just been wrong to think that when the truth came out, she’d slink away peacefully, never to be heard from again.
    “Turns out this little holier-than-thou act is just a pose,” Kane said. “Turns out she’s just as selfish, weak, and indulgent as the rest of us—she’s just not as good at it.”
    Beth thought about her single-minded pursuit of revenge against the people who’d ruined her life: Harper. Kane. Adam. Kaia. She’d indulged her rage, overruled the weak protests of her conscience, selfishly ignored the consequences. She’d done it all incompetently—and someone had died.
    Kane didn’t know it, but he was right yet again.

    Reed wished he hadn’t let her leave. The music still sucked, Fish and Hale still bugged—nothing was different without her there.
    Except him, and not for the better.
    He let Fish and Hale take off, and then he wandered off, half hoping he would find her, knowing it was unlikely. There were too many people, a crowd of strangers crushing past him. And she wasn’t answering her cell.
    Eventually Reed headed back to the practice room, knowing she would show up eventually. And for a second, when he opened the door and saw a figure inside cleaning things up, he thought he wouldn’t have to wait.
    Then he took in the dark dreads, the tattoo, the wicked smile. “Hey, Starla,” he said, leaning in the doorway. “Thanks again for the space.”
    “You remembered.” She turned to face him, and caught him staring at the pale purple snake tattoo that twisted around her waist and climbed upward, disappearing beneath the tight black shirt.
    “Tough to forget a name like that,” Reed told her, his face growing a little warm. Did she realize that they didn’t make girls like her back home? That if someone had asked him, last year, to describe his ideal woman, she would have looked like the front-woman of some rock funk punk band, moved like someone born onstage, spoke like music was pounding in her brain, and smiled like she knew a secret that was too good not to spill and too dangerous not to keep?
    He’d thought girls like that only existed in magazines and wannabe rock star fantasies. But here she was, in the tattoo-covered, multipierced flesh.
    It didn’t matter what he’d wanted a year ago, he reminded himself. He’d been a kid, and now … a lot had changed.
    But it didn’t stop him from staring at her as if she were some mythical creature he’d brought to life with the power of his mind. Maybe anything was possible. Dragons. Giants. Centaurs.
    And Starlas.
    “I was looking for you, actually,” Starla said.
    “Yeah?” Had his voice just cracked? She was surely only a year or two older than him; but he suddenly felt like he was thirteen again, covered in zits and begging his father for a real guitar.
    “I just downloaded this new song and I thought you might like it,” she said.
    “Why?” Shit, that was rude. “I mean, what made you think that I’d …?”
    “I was standing