Forever by Maggie Stiefvater Read Free Book Online

again and I’d caught Cole. He came with a very specific set of symptoms. Irritability. Mood swings. Shortness of breath. Loss of appetite. Listless, glassy eyes. Fatigue. Next up, pustules and buboes, like the plague. Then, death.
    I’d really thought I’d recovered. But it turned out I was just in remission.
    It wasn’t just Cole. I hadn’t actually told Sam about my father and Marshall. I tried to convince myself that my father couldn’t get the protection lifted from the wolves. Not even with the congressman. They were both big shots in their hometowns, but that was different from being a big shot in Minnesota. I didn’t have to feel guilty about not warning Sam tonight.
    I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn’t realize my rearview mirror was full of flashing red and blue lights. The siren wailed. Not a long one, just a brief howl to let me know he was there.
    Suddenly a screaming match with a cop didn’t feel like such a brilliant idea.
    I pulled over. Got my license out of my purse. Registration from the glove box. Rolled down the window.
    When the cop came to my window, I saw that he wore a brown uniform and the big weird-looking hat that meant he was a state trooper, not a county cop. State cops never gave warnings.
    I was so screwed.
    He shone a flashlight at me. I winced and turned on the interior light of the car so he’d turn it off.
    â€œGood evening, miss. License and registration, please.” He looked a little pissed. “Did you know I was following you?”
    â€œWell, obviously,” I said. I gestured to the gearshift, put it into park.
    The trooper smiled the unfunny smile my father did sometimes when he was on the phone. He took my license and the registrationwithout looking at them. “I was behind you for a mile and a half before you stopped.”
    â€œI was distracted,” I said.
    â€œThat’s no way to drive,” the cop said. “I’m here to give you a citation for going seventy-three in a fifty-five zone, all right? I’ll be right back. Please don’t move your vehicle.”
    He walked back to his car. I left the window open, even though bugs were starting to smack themselves against the strobe lights in my mirrors. Imagining my father’s reaction to this ticket, I fell back into my seat and closed my eyes. I’d be grounded. My credit card taken away. Phone privileges gone. My parents had all sorts of torture devices they’d concocted back in California. I didn’t have to worry about whether or not I should go see Sam or Cole again, because I would be locked in the house for the rest of my senior year.
    â€œMiss?”
    I opened my eyes and sat up. The trooper was by my window again, still holding my license and registration, a little ticket book beneath them.
    His voice was different from before. “Your license says ‘Isabel R. Culpeper.’ Would that be any relation to Thomas Culpeper?”
    â€œHe’s my father.”
    The trooper tapped his pen against his ticket book.
    â€œAh,” he said. He handed me the license and the registration. “That’s what I thought. You were going too fast, miss. I don’t want to see you doing that again.”
    I stared at the license in my hands. I looked back at him. “What about —?”
    The trooper touched the brim of his hat. “Have a safe night, Miss Culpeper.”

• SAM •
    I was a general. I sat awake for most of the night poring over maps and strategies of how to confront Cole. Using Beck’s chair as my fortress, I swiveled back and forth in it, scribbling fragments of potential dialogue on Beck’s old calendar and using games of solitaire for divination. If I won this game, I would tell Cole the rules by which he had to live to stay in this house. If I lost, I would say nothing and wait to see what happened. As the night grew longer, I made more complicated rules for myself: If I won but it