Guardian by Kassandra Kush Read Free Book Online Page A

rely on when they had me to care for them. We were doing fine on our own.
    I walked out into the bright, sunny day, glad we were having a nice warm fall. It was always harder to get around on foot when the weather was poor and snowdrifts blocked the sidewalks. Colton and Grace tagged along behind me obediently, and it was a pleasant walk. Cars whizzed by beside us, the sidewalks were dotted with people, and I was just beginning to think my fears were completely unfounded when I turned the corner onto Sullivant Avenue, and I knew I had been rash.
    It was as if the whole street was covered in night. Darker than the rest of downtown, no cheerfully reassuring cars drove on this street, no kindly stranger was walking here, ready to lend a helping hand. No, the only people I could see were a group of men a few blocks ahead, loitering on a street corner and smoking. Graffiti ran rampant here, much scarier, menacing, and exceedingly more vulgar than anything on my end of town.
    I instinctively reached for the small hands of my siblings. “Don’t let go of me,” I cautioned, blanching at the tremor in my own voice.
    Grace buried her face into my hip. “Sissy, I don’t think I want to go in there,” she told me.
    In the farthermost recesses of my mind, I was railing at myself for not leaving them at home, or possibly with Natalie’s mom. But what was done was done, and another secret part of me was very glad that I was not alone. Although the more rational part was saying Colton and Grace were not much protection.
    Swallowing the gargantuan lump in my throat, I tried to squeeze their hands reassuringly. My fingers felt oddly weak, my lips a little numb as I said, “We’ll be in and out in just about two minutes, I promise. Come on, the sooner we get in there, the sooner we can get out.”
    I began walking quickly down the sidewalk. Colton and Grace had to trot to keep up, and the hairs on my arms and legs had stiffened to attention, while my whole head felt alive and tingly. While we only had to walk two blocks, it seemed we attracted every single eye in the whole vicinity.
    I wasn’t an idiot, I knew why; my figure was stylishly reed thin, though it was more from lack of proper food than effort, and my long dark hair had garnered me unwanted attention in the past. I wasn’t hideous, after all. But sickest of all, I knew Colton and Grace were absolute prizes, with their identical, ethereal, cherubic looks. I breathed a sigh of relief when we reached the shop at last and were safely behind the tinkling door.
    “Stay close,” I warned. “Don’t touch anything.”
    I made my way to the back of the store, to the counter where a seedy, smelly man sat, eyeing us speculatively. I conducted my business as quickly as I could, while Colton and Grace explored the dingy shop. I had to argue vehemently, but in the end I got enough to cover the electric bill with ten dollars to spare. Smiling a little at my haul, I was placing the money safely in an inside pocket of my jumper when I turned and bumped into a man standing behind me.
    “Sorry,” I muttered. He was very tall and filthy, the hands he used to steady me coated in oil and grime. He smelled of cars and sweat, and his five o’clock shadow had come early in the day.
    “Excuse me, little lady,” he said. I tried to shrug his hands off my shoulders as his bloodshot, milky blue eyes scanned me up and down.
    “I always did like a lady in uniform,” he commented.
    My eyes must have gone round as dinner plates, for he threw back his greasy head and laughed crudely.
    “I have to go,” I mumbled, and tore away, walking very fast down an aisle filled with ticking clocks and watches. Then I was faced with a much more serious problem: where were Colton and Grace? I looked wildly all around the store, aware of the seedy owner following my every move.
    They knew better than to leave without me. I refused to think otherwise. But if so, where had they gone? The shop was small. As