Free The Neo-Spartans: Altered World by Raly Radouloff, Terence Winkless Page A

Quinn didn’t know why she lied. She felt she had to.
                  “I can smell it on you. It’s that posh smell. Perfume and tasty junk food.”
                  “What are you, the nose now?” Quinn tried to distract him but it didn’t work. He was on a collision course with her and nothing was going to distract him.
                  “She makes everything alright. She told you not to be a hard-ass with your screwed-up little brother. She fed you all this nonsense that whatever I do is OK, didn’t she?”
                  Quinn remained silent. She found it hard when Gabriel was so painfully perceptive.
                  “You don’t want to be saddled with me. Yeah, Neo-Spartan life is hard, but yours is twice as hard because you have to deal with me. I ruin everything for you, Quinn. I killed Mom, Dad died because of me…
                  “Gabriel, stop. Why are you doing this? You have nothing to do with what happened to Dad.”
                  “Yeah, right. You could’ve been with him and fought with him, helped him. Instead he went alone and left you here with me. To protect me, to protect the stupid gift I have. I’m nothing but a tongue, nothing. Nobody would know what Gabriel was if it wasn’t for the damn tongue. And they don’t really need it. Everybody would be better off if I simply disappeared.”
                  He slammed the bedroom door shut in her face. Quinn tried to get in, but felt Gabriel leaning on it.
                  “Gabriel, Gabriel, open up. Please. Don’t say things like that. You know it’s not true. I need you. I don’t care about your tongue. Honestly, I do wish you didn’t have the gift, but you’re my brother. As difficult as you are, as annoying as you are, you’re still my little brother. You’re the only family I have… and I love you.”
                  Quinn laid some force into the door and this time it gave. The window was open. Gabriel was gone.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER NINE
                  Gabriel had spent the whole night out before, but it had never been cold like this. It didn’t figure, thought Gabriel: lots of times the linoleum floor of the old elevated train ticket booth had been plenty warm. He’d been glad for the wind that swept through the cracks. It used to be hot! Not this night. He hadn’t slept for beans; he was hungry and stiff.
                  He stepped into the morning light and the memory of the argument with his sister hit him like the news of an F on a test he figured he’d aced. No wonder he was worn out. Having Quinn as a sister, living up to her expectations—it would have crippled anybody. Why couldn’t they all just let him be? Yeah, his tongue was different, so what? He hadn’t asked for it. Anyway, it was just an allergy, Kilbert said, so why should they treat him differently? Gabriel’s jaw clenched. He heard Quinn in his head telling him not to clench, and he screamed from so far down deep it surprised even him.
                  Man, he was hungry. He shook out his thoughts and looked for something to eat. He found some berries on some prickly bushes, tested them—being the Neo-Spartan’s tongue did have some advantages—discovered they were okay and wolfed them down.
                  Energized, he vaulted his way onto an electrical relay box and used it to catapult himself onto a utility pole. He shimmied up it, and pushed onto the third floor of a crumbling apartment building. That got him going. There was nothing like climbing, soaring, and propelling through the air to make him forget all the bad stuff. He looked across the roofs and there, past the railroad tracks of the train depot, were his guys, his Neo-Spartan parkour crowd. Cool,