Free The Reaping of Norah Bentley by Eva Truesdale Page A

he’ll leave a message.”
     
    “Yeah. Maybe.” I doubted it, though. Luke hated leaving messages. He always felt awkward talking to no one, he said.
     
    Eli sat up again, his eyes fixed on the flat silver phone in my hands.
     
    “How well do you know that boy?” he asked. Something about his tone didn’t make me feel any better about ignoring Luke’s call.
     
    “That boy is my best friend,” I said.
     
    “For how long?”
     
    “I don’t know. Pretty much since the day he moved here, I guess? Right before we started fifth grade. Why?”
     
    “Just wondering.” He glanced up at me for a split second, then back to the phone. “And you trust him?”
     
    “Of course I do.” The phone vibrated, actually lighting up with a new voicemail message. I stared at Eli, confused for a second, but then turned my full attention to the phone and started jabbing at the keys.
     
    “What kind of a question is that, anyway?” I said, putting the phone up to my ear. “I’d trust Luke with my life.” At the voicemail lady’s prompt, I entered my password, pressed pound, and in a second heard Luke’s rambling voice:
     

     
    “Yeah, it’s me…Um, I don’t know why you’re not answering…maybe you don’t have your phone with you or something. I know you’re out, because I saw you walking by the house, and I just…I mean I’m not trying to be nosey or anything but I was wondering why you…I mean, that doesn’t matter. Well anyway, just wanted to say sorry for all the texts earlier. I’m worried though, so just call me back or something. …Or you know maybe we should meet up? I mean because I can’t sleep either and I need to talk to you, and I was thinking about taking a walk myself, so…um…I guess I’ll just head the way you were heading, and maybe we’ll— beep!”
     

     
    The voicemail lady came back on and gave me my options.
     
    “To save this message, press one. To delete this message, press two…”
     
    I hit ‘end call’ and slid the phone down the side of my face, let the hand clutching it fall to my lap. I’m not sure why, but there was a sinking feeling settling in my chest. Luke hadn’t sounded especially upset— he’d just sounded like he really wanted to see me. So why did the thought of going to meet him fill me with dread? The thought of Luke complicating things was weird; he was always the one who untangled all the knots I managed to get myself tied up in. But this time the sound of his voice alone somehow managed to pull the knot tighter.
     
    “Norah?”
     
    “Luke is looking for me,” I said quietly. “He saw us when we passed his house.”
     
    Eli nodded but didn’t say anything right away. He got to his feet and held out his hand, which I took.
     
    “He must be worried,” he said, his voice devoid of emotion. “We shouldn’t keep him waiting.”
     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

CHAPTER 5
     
     

     
    Eli trailed a little behind me on our walk back into downtown, but still close enough that his fingertips brushed my elbow every now and then with a light touch of reassurance. My walk was more like a march again, one foot and then the other, and in my head I was trying to sort things out, trying to rehearse what I would say. I kept messing up my lines, though. Forgetting them. Changing them. It was all pointless, really; Luke was the actor, not me. I was going to mess this up no matter how many times I rehearsed it.
     
    That thought alone was enough to make me eye the dumpster of McAlister’s Café that we were walking by, and seriously consider running and hiding behind it. There was so much going on that I didn’t understand, with me, and with them—with Eli and Luke. There was tension there, anybody could see that; I didn’t get it but I perceived it. And it was enough to make anyone want to run and hide the first chance they got.
     
    “Is this the only way he would have come looking for you?”
     
    Eli’s