Hit by Delilah S. Dawson Read Free Book Online Page A

either, because I killed his dad this morning and his hormones are overriding his brain. I guess this isn’t a situation you can plan for.
    I realize for the first time that what my biology teacher said is actually true: no matter what we think or what we say or what we hope to become, at the root of everything, we’re only animals.
    He finally clears his throat and scoots back, shifting his shirt over the telltale bump in his britches. I sit up and scoot back, too, pulling my knees up and clutching the old quilt to my chest for real now, knowing that the cool air, thin shirt, and bizarre rush of closeness are giving me headlights that he can’t help staring at.
    â€œSo,” I say.
    â€œSo,” he says, and to his credit, his voice doesn’t break.
    â€œWell? You attacked me. You go first.”
    â€œWhy’d you do it?” He looks away. “You owe me that much.”
    â€œIf you read the card, you know why. That’s why there’s a card.”
    I sweep sleep-sweaty bangs away from my forehead. It suddenly occurs to me that I’ve gone to bed with white zit paste speckled across my chin, and I mentally curse myself for being the world’s vainest, most idiotic bounty hunter. That doesn’t stop me from rubbing my chin against the quilt, hoping it will flake off.
    But why do I care if I look like a freak? Why am I letting him get to me at all? He’s just an assignment, and an easy one at that. My pity should have fled with his embarrassment. I could still end it, right now. My finger twitches on the gun under the quilt, the one he’s apparently forgotten about. He edges off my legs and sits on the end of the bed, feet firmly on the floor.
    â€œMy dad was a dick, and he did a lot of bad things,” he says, his eyes cutting to the ceiling and walls of the truck, where tape and putty hold my favorite band posters to the dinged-up white metal. He smiles, but only for a second, barely a flash of teeth in the cloudy darkness.
    â€œYeah, and your dad should have read the fine print when he took out credit cards from Valor Savings,” I shoot back, surreptitiously wiping my chin with the back of my hand and frowning at the grit of the zit cream that’s stubbornly left behind.
    â€œBanks don’t kill people,” he says confidently, like he’s not used to being wrong. Something about his pompous surety makes me lash out before I can stop myself.
    â€œYou’re right. Banks don’t kill people,” I say. “They make otherpeople do it for them in exchange for not setting their houses on fire, shooting them, and letting their mothers die a long, slow death by cancer.”
    He sucks in a breath, and I know immediately that I’ve said too much. It’s more than I’m allowed to say, more than I meant to say.
    â€œShit,” I mutter under my breath, hoping the camera/mic in my shirt is wadded up tightly enough under the front seat to keep me from getting in serious trouble. The Valor guy didn’t mention that button at all, and the references in the paperwork are random and worded with purposeful confusion. “Constant surveillance” and “limited monitoring” and “unrecorded kills will not satisfy contract requirements.” I have no idea what that button is capable of. Just as they have no idea what I’m capable of.
    But Maxwell Beard doesn’t know about the button. He just knows more about me than he should.
    â€œI’m so sorry,” he says, and I’m mad at him, and I’m mad at myself, and it’s all because I can’t fathom how to be angry at my broken mother and the new corporate government that’s shaking me like a rag doll. I’m not used to pity from supposedly rich guys, and I don’t like it.
    â€œPiss off, Max,” I say.
    Confusion passes over his face.
    â€œYou called me that before. But Max is my brother,” he says. “I’m