Killing Ruby Rose by Jessie Humphries Read Free Book Online

breeze to cool down my red-hot cheeks and spinning brain as I ran. I was pissed. And light-headed. And losing control. I didn’t even care if I got in trouble for leaving school early.
    Shaking from anger and embarrassment, I climbed into Big Black and hugged his steering wheel. I immediately turned up the volume of my favorite “explicit language” rap song. I needed Big Black, I needed to be alone, I needed—a fat chocolate shake with whipped cream ASAP, and I needed to get out of this parking lot before Alana or Liam came running after me.
    As I peeled out, images of the girl in the sketch kept floating to the top of my consciousness, no matter how hard I tried to push them back down. I had to find out who she was, and who’d put the sketch of her there. It was meant for me, I was sure. Well, not totally sure. I should have checked with Alana and asked if she saw it, too, just to make sure I wasn’t having a psychotic split or mental breakdown. After all, I thought I’d seen someone who looked a lot like Martinez in that same moment, and he wasn’t there. Plus, I’d never fainted before. Not like that, anyway. I passed out once during a karate match, but that was a one-off, and the only time I’d ever allowed a roundhouse to land on my body.
    Fainting in the cafeteria was different: I’d had a visceral reaction to seeing that demon tattoo. It was the same tattoo LeMarq had on his arm. The exact same fangs and webbed wings. The exact same look of evil in its eyes.
    Whoever lured me and LeMarq to the warehouse had also delivered that sketch to my school with the Love, D. S. signature. He was toying with me, communicating with me. There was no way that drawing was a coincidence. The girl looked just like me, just like Riley Bentley. These were clues. Whoever this crazy-ass D. S. was, he was speaking to me in a language I didn’t understand.
    When I was almost at the Dairy Queen (which I personally kept in business), my phone vibrated in The Cleave. I looked down at the screen to see who the culprit was. A picture of D. A. Jane Rose’s new campaign poster winked back at me. Glamour Shots had nothing on this baby.
    I had some headshots quite similar to this one, from back in the days when my mother had ceaselessly prodded me to compete in beauty pageants. Lame. Some things never changed, and not just because Mom’s plastic surgeon kept it that way. She put a higher priority on appearance than anything else. Instead of the popularity contests, all I’d wanted was to compete in karate—something I was actually good at. If it hadn’t been for my dad’s training in negotiation and his willingness to take her bullets for me, I’d still be her beauty queen hostage.
    I declined her call. The wall between us had grown to around shoulder height even before Dad died, and now it was well over eye level. I couldn’t even see her anymore without a decent pair of four-inch Kate Spade platform heels.
    Ten seconds later she called again.
    She must have heard about what happened at school. There was no point in not answering. She’d track me down eventually, and I’d pay the price.
    “Hey, Mom.”
    “What’s going on? Where are you? I just got a call—”
    “Mom, calm down.” As a seasoned prosecutor, she should’ve been trained not to pose several compound questions at once. Very objectionable in a court of law. “I’m fine. I promise.”
    “Alana called. She told me you fainted and ran out of school?”
    Objection: Leading question.
    “Yeah, I don’t think I’ve been eating my five major food groups. I just need some protein and some rest.” I lied with a frightening ease.
    “I don’t believe you,” she said flatly. “Alana said you were upset.”
    Objection: Hearsay.
    “No, I’m not upset. Just embarrassed. I need to grab some take-out and lie down for a while.”
    “You’ve been acting very strangely lately.”
    Objection: Facts not in evidence. She barely sees me, how would she know?
    “I’m