Endure by Carrie Jones Read Free Book Online Page B

Devyn and I have been writing. We call it the How to Survive a Pixie Attack manual. It’s everything we know so far about fighting pixies. We’ll make you all copies and then we’ll start training—”
    “Training?” Issie’s eyebrow lifts up.
    Callie says it for me. “There’s no option, is there? You’ll have to train us to fight.”
    “Not just us. Giselle too,” Paul says. “She’d want in on this, and Andrew and Brad and Tyler and Blake . . .”
    His list goes on for a while and Devyn starts typing the names into a file. I lean back and close my eyes. Fate feels like it comes spiraling in on me. I want to know where Astley is.
    “Do we start today?” Callie interrupts Paul’s never-ending list of names.
    “Tomorrow,” Nick says. “We’ll start tomorrow afternoon, meet at the Y. They have free gym time at one. Nobody’s ever in there.”
    And so our army begins.
    We’re gathering our things together when Becca explodes into the Grind and runs to me, looking like a frightened cheerleader, not the killing machine she is.
    She grabs me by the arms. “It’s Astley.”
    “What’s happened?” I knew it. I knew something was wrong.
    “They’ve poisoned him.” Her face breaks into tears. “He’s bad, really bad.”
    Running toward the doors, I yank her along with me, demanding, “Where? Where is he?”
    “At the birds’.”

WEEKLY REPORT: 12/14 to 12/21
    TROOP/UNIT: Troop J
    I tems of interest to local agencies:
    12/16: The Holiday Inn staff reported suspicious activity outside one of their guests’ ground-floor bedrooms. A woman was reportedly standing in the snow, laughing for twenty minutes. Failed to locate upon arrival.
     
     
     
    Becca gives me the lowdown as we rush to the car. She and Amelie had gone to meet Astley in his hotel room. He didn’t answer when they knocked, but they could smell him inside, so they busted down the door and found him, unglamoured and unconscious on the floor.
    “How did you know he was poisoned?” I ask, turning on the truck and yanking my seat belt into position.
    “There was a note.”
    “A note?” I pull out of the parking space way too quickly and swerve on the slushy road. I just want to get to Devyn’s house, get to Astley, find out what happened. Devyn is flying there. I wish I could turn bird and do that. It would be so much faster.
    “Taped to the outside window. It said, Poison is a fitting way for a weak-hearted king to die. ”
    “Weak-hearted?”
    She rubs at her eyes and says in a voice choked with venom, “Isla, his mother, always thought he was weak. Too willing to see the good in people, too hesitant to use his power, his authority on his subjects.”
    “So basically, he’s not an evil tyrant.” My foot pushes harder on the gas pedal and part of me wishes it was Isla’s face.
    “Exactly.” Her tone is heavy and she presses her palm against the glass pane of the window like she is trying really hard not to break it.
    The truck skids over the snow-slick road as I turn onto a side street. I ask, “And she’s the one who poisoned him?”
    “The note wasn’t signed but the word choice makes it look that way.”
    “Why would she do that?”
    “Million-dollar question,” Becca says. “Can’t you drive faster?”
    I do, zooming dangerously over the freezing roads, passing a city plow truck. I think my questions are frustrating her, or maybe it’s my ignorance plus the situation. I don’t know. All I know is that Astley is hurt, really hurt. Maybe Astley is the key to everything somehow.
    “If he dies—” Becca starts.
    “He can’t die,” I blurt.
    “If he dies, you will be our queen.”
    The thought of it makes me cringe. “A queen doesn’t usually rule alone.”
    “Some do. You would.”
    There’s a pause in her voice. “But?”
    “But,” she says, “I think this is part of the plan. Other than a few weres, we are the only ones protecting this town from Frank. If Astley is gone we weaken, especially if