Precipice (Tribe 2) by Audrina Cole Read Free Book Online Page A

are.  It pisses me off, sometimes, but it’s special.  Sometimes…sometimes I really envy you.”
    His words moved me, but my heart ached too much to let his touching sentiments penetrate beyond my pain.
    “Thanks,” I mumbled.
    “Just give it time, Em.  If he really cares about you, he’ll come around.”
    That’s the problem , I thought.  He obviously doesn’t care about me anymore.
     

Chapter 6
     
     
    I spent the rest of the afternoon crying.  Like an idiot, I listened to love songs that only made me cry harder, but I didn’t care.  I deserved the pain, anyway, for lying to Alex.  For ruining things between us.  I’d destroyed the one thing that mattered most to me, and I couldn’t seem to feel anything except agony. So I wallowed in it.  I refused to eat, refused to speak to my mother. 
    I knew it wasn’t really her fault—at least not entirely—but I needed someone else to blame besides me, and she made the handiest scapegoat. 
    My dad even tried to talk to me through the door, but I wouldn’t say a word.  Meadow came by, and tried to goad me into talking, but I just put a pillow over my head until she went away.
    I must have cried myself to sleep, because the shadows were gathering in my room when I heard a noise that startled me awake.
    “Em?”  It was River.  I could feel him standing at the foot of my bed.
    “I locked my door for a reason.”
    “Yeah.  I picked the lock for a reason.”
    “You’re an ass.”
    “Geez, is that any way to thank me?”
    Guilt niggled my brain.  He was the only one trying to support me through this.  But couldn’t he see that I just wanted to be alone?  “Tell me what you want, and then get out.”  I kept my back to him, curled up in the same position I’d fallen asleep in.
    The foot of my bed sank in as River sat on the end of it.  “I’m sorry about Alex.”
    “Yeah,” I sniffed.  “Me too.  Is that all you wanted to say?”
    “No,” he snapped.  “And stop being bitchy.  I’m trying to help.”
    “No one can help.”
    “Em, why don’t you stop feeling sorry for yourself long enough to think about Alex for a minute.  Mom just informed him that the girl he has the hots for is a vampire.”
    “Don’t say that!” I snapped.  I hated that word even more than Mom did.
    “Hey, I’m just saying—to outsiders, that’s what they think of, when they hear about blood -drinking.  That’s major.  No matter how much a guy likes a girl, that’s a lot to swallow.”
    “It’s too much to swallow.  He’ll never speak to me again.”
    “You don’t know that.  He probably just needed some time.  That’s not the kind of thing you hear and just go ‘Oh, so you drink blood? Okay.  Hey, you wanna go see a movie?’  Assimilating that in his brain takes time, you know?”
    I sat up and looked at him.  “How much time?”
    “I don’t know.  I’ve never had a girlfriend tell me she’s a monster.”
    Snatching a pillow, I threw it at his head.  “That’s not funny!”
    “Ow!”
    “And you’ve never had a girlfriend, loser.”
    “Hey, you don’t have to be mean about it.”  He tossed the pillow back at me. 
    We both laughed—though my laugh was bitter. 
    “Anyway,” I sighed, “I don’t think I’m his girlfriend.  Not anymore.  If I ever even was.”
    “I saw the way he looked at you, Em.  He’s crazy about you.  Not that I can figure out why,” he grinned, “but he is.”
    “He was .”
    “He is .  He’ll come around.  I have faith in him.  He’s different than the rest.”  River stood.  “Anyway, I brought you this.”  He picked up a pint of blood from where he’d been sitting on the bed, and tossed it to me. 
    “I don’t need it,” I said, tossing it back.
    “Don’t make me lob this at your head.  Drink it.”  He tossed it back, harder, and I barely caught it.  “I counted the pints you put back last night.  You didn’t drink enough.”
    “I did.”  I set the