Chameleon by Kenya Wright Read Free Book Online Page B

that way?”
    “I don’t want her to be suspicious of Wiz.” Rich laughed.
    “I’d rather you have said something like you’d be gone at the vamp arcade all night or something,” I insisted. “Or you’re going out on a date one of those bizarre chicks you tend to hang with.”
    “T ina got suspicious when you were teaching me how to read.”
    “Why would she get suspicious?”
    “I didn’t tell her you were teaching me.”
    “Why?” I groaned.
    “Come on. I know T ina. She’ll get weird about it.”
    “Ridiculous,” I muttered under my breath. “What excuse did you use then?”
    “She thought I was trying to date you or something. You know. ” Rich followed me as I climbed down. “So, I went with it and said you were cheating on Wiz with me.”
    “Wiz and I aren’t together.” I smacked his foot. “And next time give her another excuse.”
    “It’s hard to lie to Tina. It’s a twin thing,” he said. “The best way to lie to her is to let her come up with the suggestions and then I can just nod.”
    “ Idiot.”
    “ Let’s just take care of this problem and then you can call me all the names you want.”
    We climbed down in silence. My vision blurred a little. I struggled to continue my descent. Once I got to the ground, I almost yelled out thanks to the gods.
    “Okay , so where’s Wiz?” Rich lifted his head up to the sky and whistled. A small whistle sounded back down to us. The rope rose in the air.
    “ Wiz is in my dumpster with a vamp.” I averted my eyes.
    “A vamp? The one thing Wiz is out of his mind afraid of?” He rubbed his eyes and we headed off toward Cinnamon’s Meat Shack. “You’re killing me.”

Chapter 5
     
    Shango High School Band marched down Oshun Boulevard for the Remembrance Day Parade. Crimson red pants and flaming orange shirts decorated the students as they blew their trumpets, saxophones, and horns, banged on drums, and tossed orange ribboned batons in the air. The music boomed in my ears at a fast-paced tempo and drove the crowd crazy. People danced on the sidewalk. Others tossed confetti in the air. Children climbed on their parents’ shoulders and waved flags with pictures of their gods. Teens hooted and hollered. The older crowd lounged in lawn chairs and held banners that said things like:
    “We’ll always remember!”
    “You fought for us!”
    “You’re bloodshed was not for nothing!”
    “Were-bull crap!” Rich seized my hand and guided me by the partying onlookers.
    “ Don’t be so disrespectful.” I nudged his side with my elbow.
    “Come on, Cameo. They did die for nothing. We’re all living in cages.”
    Supernaturals celebrated Remembrance Day in caged cities all over the world. The day honored fallen soldiers of the Supe-Human Wars.
    Fifty years ago, during the 1970s, magical species secretly lived among humans. The government accidently discovered their existence, from intelligence observations o f the Black Panther Party. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) labeled the group as terrorists and monitored them daily. Instead of catching the party plotting against the government, CIA operatives witnessed the members shifting into various were-cats. The agents shot down most of them and captured the rest. Nevertheless, this incident proved to the humans that they weren’t the only species on earth.
    Secret probes began. The president of that time announced that the Centers for Disease Control would be testing the entire population for a new illness called Y-Positive. He claimed the tests were preventive to catch the illness before there was an outbreak. The only problem was, there wasn’t any such thing as Y-Positive. It was all a cover-up mission to find supes.
    The probes started with government employees and school children. No one knew how they figured out who was human and who was supe, but by the time the test’s true intentions were revealed, tens of thousands of supe adults and children were discovered and caged.
    After