Damage by Anya Parrish Read Free Book Online Page B

abandoned, concrete-block houses.
    We’re farther south than I guessed, but the bar I’m thinking about isn’t far. Good thing. There isn’t much else near this part of the freeway. Just a locked-up gas station with bars on the windows and those gray buildings that used to be part of a muffler factory, if you believe the faded black sign creaking in the wind. Whatever they used to be, they’re empty now. Or filled with people as scary as the thing that’s coming for us.
    Visions of sharp claws and fangs dripping with blood flash behind my eyes. The memory of how close Dani and I came to being dead makes me shudder.
    Okay, so no homeless man or crackhead could be that scary, but it’s pointless to go looking for food in a drug den. And we need to call … someone. Trent worked the night shift last night and is probably sacked out snoring in the living room, and Traci slept somewhere else. She does that a lot after her “girls’ nights,” and I know for a fact she didn’t take her cell phone. I saw it on the kitchen table next to the overflowing ashtray and the newspapers that never get taken to the curb. But even if she had her phone, she wouldn’t appreciate a call to come pick my ass up at a bar when I’m supposed to be at school and out of her hair.
    But maybe Dani has someone. A girl like her, she probably has a lot of someones.
    “Come on, this way.” I start across the street, sort of wishing there were cars to look out for. I don’t like this place. It’s too empty and isolated. It makes it even easier to believe that Dani and I are the only people left in a world gone crazy.
    “Where are we going?” she asks.
    “There’s this biker bar a few blocks up,” I say. “I’ve been there before with my foster dad. Some of the guys look scary, but they’re cool. They’ll let us in and give you something to eat or drink or whatever.”
    “Will it be open this early in the morning?”
    “It’s always open. The night shift guys go there when they get off, start drinking at five in the morning and go home and pass out after lunch. And they’ve got a pay phone, so … ”
    “Okay, sounds good,” she says, surprising me.
    I expected more resistance at the idea of going into a bar. Dani has good girl written all over her, from her shiny, streak-free hair to her almost makeup-free face, to her choice of school uniform, a combo so modest she might as well be a nun or something.
    But her modest clothes can’t hide the fact that she’s built like a supermodel, tall and slim and graceful. If I didn’t know she was a dancer, I’d still guess it. Just the way she walks down the street is like a dance; the way she sways into me as we hurry down the cracked sidewalk makes me feel like I’m dancing with her.
    I’ve never danced in my life. Never. Not by myself, not with a girl, not even in my dreams. But for a second I wonder what it would be like to dance with Dani, to hold her close at one of those stupid school balls.
    “I have to call my dad as soon as we get there. A lot of his friends work at the hospital. I bet he’s heard about the wreck,” she says, reminding me that she’s out of my league. Way out. Her dad’s a rich, important doctor and will probably be about as thrilled about his daughter hanging out with a foster kid with an arrest record as he will be about picking that daughter up at a sleazy bar.
    Besides, I don’t do dances, or relationships. Every time I’ve tried, it’s been a pain in the ass. Girls are never satisfied with a physical connection, even if they’re the only one you’re getting physical with. They always want to paw around in your feelings, get their hands on your secrets. My feelings and secrets aren’t anything I want to share.
    For the first time since the accident, the man in the glasses with his fistful of money crosses my mind. He paid me to get Dani on that bus. That’s definitely a secret I don’t want Dani to know, but is there a chance it could be