Anathema by Lillian Bowman Read Free Book Online Page A

his thirties looked up abruptly from his phone. His attention riveted to Noelle like a hawk’s. At my side, Noelle gave a strangled gasp, realizing way before I did just what was about to happen.
    The man reached into his shirt and drew a blade. I froze instinctively, seeing it.
    A hunter.
    My steps halted, my mind going still. Noelle gave a thin cry, “No, wait! Don’t!” And stumbled back from him.
    “Leave her alone!” The words escaped me, my throat growing tight with panic.
    “I’ll be very quick,” he assured Noelle. A kind murderer.
    She cowered down because there was nowhere for her to run—he was blocking her escape. His shadow swam across the boardwalk as he stalked toward her. I was about to see a grown man murder a helpless girl.
    A girl I could save.
    I didn’t think about it.
    “I said leave her alone.” I punctuated the words by shoving him.
    It wasn’t like I used very much force. Just my shoulder, my body weight. Had we been on the sidewalk, he would’ve fallen. He wouldn’t have cracked his head against the railing behind him.
    He wouldn’t have fallen to his hands and knees, disoriented. And Noelle wouldn’t have had time to lance forward and jam an ice-pick through his throat.
    But that’s just what she did.
    The scream escaped me. I stumbled back and lost my balance, the world upending before me. Noelle reared up from where she’d planted the ice-pick in the soft flesh under his chin, her sleeves coated in dark blood.
    “Here for an easy kill?” Noelle said maliciously. “Big mistake.”
    Horror rocked me, the world seeming to spin around me, as the hunter gurgled, clutching his throat.
    And then with one kick, Noelle sent him careening off the side of the boardwalk. Below us the rocks foamed with water. He plunged straight down. There was no cry, no scream. Maybe there was too much blood in his throat, his lungs, for that. I still have a blank in my memory, because I can never seem to recall the moment he hit.
    All I remember is staring at that puddle of blood on the boardwalk. Such a bright, vivid red. And the girl above me in the sun-washed daylight, wind whipping her clothes about her thin body.
    My hands clamped over my temples, the thought, Oh my God oh my God oh my God, beating over and over again through my head.
    “Easy there.” Her eyes riveted to me. Like a distant dream.   “Try to calm down.”
    I couldn’t. I couldn’t calm down.
    “This sucks. You really didn’t need to do that,” Noelle said. “I was just playing the helpless, scared girl so he’d get close enough for me to get to. I really wish you hadn’t done that.”
    I looked at her, in shock. She wiped off the ice-pick on her sweatshirt. Then she ripped the whole blood sodden garment off her head and tossed it into the surf below us. I saw then that her arms were knotted with muscle.
    I tried to make sense of what had happened. This girl who’d reminded me of some tall, wilting flower had teeth and venom all along. How easily she’d played the role of a frightened, helpless girl in the moments before impaling a man through the throat. Before taunting him as he died.
    And I understood then that she really had killed her father. Whatever her reasons, she was actually a killer. And I’d just made the worst mistake of my life. Citizens were allowed to shield anathemas. They were allowed to risk injury in their stead. But I’d gone beyond that. I’d committed an act of physical aggression. I’d helped an anathema kill a man. There was no excusing this. I’d interfered in a legitimate law enforcement hunt.
    I’d hurt a citizen. In public. With cameras and onlookers.
    I’d just thrown my life away.
    “I should go before more people come over here. Listen, you’re safe until an official declaration in a courthouse, so… so try not to freak out.”
    I just opened and closed my mouth, unable to understand this.
    “Good luck to you. With everything.” Noelle sounded like she felt sorry for me.
    I