Free The Awakening of Ren Crown by Anne Zoelle

fork so that I didn't have to see his expression.
    Will’s first bite was tentative, but then he began eating in earnest, nodding appreciatively.
    I sat back, relieved.
    Relieved, until a giant, spiked tentacle, like a long, flexible branch of a demonic tree, slithered through the drapes, opening them a crack, and wrapped around the chicken and table, crushing it and dragging it away. I stared, mouth agape. Three more tentacles shot through, one toward Will and two toward me, denting the page outward. I thrust away from my desk and fell back in my chair, hitting the floor hard and breaking the charcoal pencil in two. I grabbed the exposed half-piece and scrambled up. Will was using his knife and fork to ward off tentacle one, but the other two were slithering around him menacingly.
    “Ren, are you ok?” Mom yelled.
    “Fine,” I shouted at the door, trying to block the tentacles with my charcoal tip, while hunching over my desk. It was a lot harder fighting the tentacles than fighting the stars and moon had been. This new threat seemed outside of my control.
    “Are you sure?”
    An especially malevolent looking tentacle, armed with a spike at its tip, lunged toward Will, who dove to the side. I hurriedly drew a messy rectangular shield in front of him. The creature’s spike dented the shield, then hurtled at it again.
    “Yes, Mom!”
    I tried to layer shields around Will, boxing him in and the tentacles out. One slipped through.
    “It sounded like you fell.” Her voice was closer now.
    Red splattered the black-and-white page. Will let out a silent scream that echoed deep within me. God, I couldn't let someone else die. I scribbled a wall between Will and the branch tentacles, shading it quickly with my bare fingers.
    “Ren?”
    A tentacle slithered over the top.
    “No! No, Mom!” I threw it off the wall with my pencil tip and quickly drew and shaded a higher wall. I nearly sobbed. Why hadn't I thought of creating the wall first? I frantically tried to bandage Will as the tentacles continued to batter the wall. “I'm fine!”
    Will was leaning weakly against the wall and there was blood dripping to the floor from beneath my poorly applied bandage. I drew him a sword, far too late. And a medical kit. I concentrated very hard on what would be in one as I drew it.
    “Are you sure?”
    I swallowed my sob. I had had practice. “I'm sure! I just saw something awful on the Internet.”
    One of the tentacles battered through.
    “Can I get you anything?”
    I sliced through the tentacle with my pencil. Black spewed from both ends. Like hissing snakes, the other two rose in outrage, then lunged toward me. They batted against the barrier between us, denting out the paper.
    I furiously sliced them. My eye caught on the needle and thread lying in the other corner. I sliced off the tentacles at the barrier of the drapes and quickly sewed the edges together with haphazard penciled stitches. The now-single drape rippled, as something blasted against it from the other side.
    I concentrated on retracing the stitches and closing all gaps completely. The single drape went suddenly still.
    “Ren?”
    Shaking, I stared at the wreckage inside the picture—broken table pieces and shields, sliced tentacle chunks, puddles of blood—and tried to remember what she'd asked me. “No. No, I don't need anything. I'm fine, Mom. I'll be out in a minute,” I called, my voice a little high.
    “Ok.” She sounded uncertain.
    My fingers were cramping and stained with black, and I realized I was panting.
    Will was shakily trying to open the medical kit. I held my free hand over my mouth and drew an already opened one.
    “Your Dad is asking me to make a run for ice cream. Sound good?”
    That meant she had heard the half-sob. “Yes. Please.” I watched Will sort through the supplies. I drew a bowl of water and some sterile cloths, then fixed the broken arm on his glasses.
    “Ok, I'll be back in fifteen minutes, sweetie.”
    “Ok.” She had