Awaken by Skye Malone Read Free Book Online

you being obstinate, and that
ends now. We know what’s best, Chloe. You need to learn to obey us
on these things.”
    I glared at her, my skin crawling at the
word. Obey. They loved that one.
    “Also,” Dad added. “We’re moving.”
    My glare faltered as my jaw dropped. “Wait… what ?”
    “Moving,” my mom repeated. “Baylie has
obviously been a bad influence on you. Her whole family, for that
matter. We think it would be better if we didn’t live next to them
any longer.”
    “No,” I protested. “No, I am not –”
    “Yes, you are. We’ve already spoken with a
realtor on the phone, and we have appointments to see houses in
Salina when we get back.”
    “You’re leaving town ?”
    “ We are,” Mom corrected. “I don’t know
what you expected here, Chloe. You ran away from home ,
thanks in no small part to that girl. There are consequences to
that kind of behavior.”
    I couldn’t believe this. It was like some
bizarre nightmare where people told you things more horrible than
you could have imagined in your waking hours, all while acting as
though those things were somehow completely acceptable to say.
    “You can’t do this.”
    They didn’t respond. Mom just turned around
to face the front and Dad kept driving like nothing had
happened.
    I stared. They didn’t care. They thought they
were right, and that was all there was to it. Yet surely that
couldn’t be all, because there was no way they’d move simply
because I’d–
    But of course they would, I realized. Of course they would. They were insane. Utterly, completely,
and all otherwise insane.
    And now they were going to take me away from
one of the only friends I had in the world.
    I looked back out the window, my mind reeling
as I tried to figure out what I was going to do now.

Chapter Six

Zeke

    From the bushes by the edge of the yard, I
watched as a man and woman loaded the girl into a car and then sped
away like they were fleeing a tidal wave. Whipping around the turn
of the drive, they barely slowed as they reached the main road, and
in only a few heartbeats, they were gone.
    And on my list of bizarre things in the past
day, that ranked pretty high.
    Not that it mattered.
    I muttered a curse. Weirdness upon weirdness,
and now she was gone. I didn’t know how to follow or where to
search for her next, either. I’d managed to find her here only
because it seemed a safe bet the humans would return to the place
they’d been the day before, and because she’d gone on a walk with
that blond guy and another girl in the park. She’d never left their
company though, meaning I’d had no chance to ask her what was going
on.
    I looked to the house, but the humans hadn’t
come back outside. And it wasn’t like it’d do any good to ask them
about her. She’d been hiding what she was from them, and I was a
stranger. I didn’t even know the girl’s name.
    There was no way they’d volunteer her
whereabouts or have answers about what happened today.
    Frowning, I left the bushes and walked back
the way I’d come. I should have just interrupted her. Gone over and
asked to speak to her privately or something. But when she’d
spotted me on the far side of the park, fear had come into her
eyes, as if the sheer sight of me terrified her. It’d gotten better
after I moved to another location where I couldn’t be spotted as
easily, but still, she’d looked really shaken.
    And as with everything else, that made no sense, and left me with even more questions than
before.
    I scowled. There was nothing for it. Mystery
or not, she was gone.
    And I’d put off looking for Ina long
enough.
    I headed into the park. People shot past me,
wheels on their feet that it took me a minute to remember the name
for, and others walked along, being led on ropes by dogs. The sun
was bright overhead, and hot too, and it cooked against the t-shirt
and shorts I’d retrieved from my stash of supplies farther up the
coast.
    “Hey!”
    I turned to see Ina jogging