Stolen Melody (Snow and Ash #2) by Heather Knight Read Free Book Online

about that. First stop, Paris. We were at the airport in DC when they grounded all the planes.”
    “Hey, don’t bitch. You could’ve been in Denver.”
    His words awaken a barely suppressed longing. I could have been with my mom and dad. I think about them every day, and sometimes when I’m dreaming, I call out for my mother like she’s two blocks away, there’s a bat flying around in my room, and only she can save me. I guess I’m trying to call her back from the dead, but she never comes. Ever. I clench my jaw as tears punch the backs of my eyes.
    Axel flexes his neck like he realizes he said something wrong. He inhales through his nose, and the way he works his jaw, his eyes, it’s like he’s scanning for something else to talk about.
    “How the hell did you get stuck in that shit town,” he asks finally.
    “So glad you asked.”   Not. I don’t like thinking about the weeks following Yellowstone, especially not the part that took me to Sadie’s Bend.   But it’s not a secret.   Not anymore.
    “My manager was my temporary guardian, right? He had a brother in Nashville, so when things got serious, he decided to head down there. I don’t know how he got a car or how he got gas, but we set out. By then he’d run out of heroin and he was going nuts.”
    “The fuck?”
    “Seriously, I’d never driven a car in my life, but he was shaking so bad I had to. The skies were already pretty dark, and it rained constantly. We turned off the highway to find someplace to spend the night and got lost. Like, lost. Then we ran out of gas.”
    He rolls his eyes. “Of course you did.”
    I half smile, even though there’s nothing funny about it. “It’d been one terrifying event after another since the moment Yellowstone blew, what with the food riots and the murders and everything else.   I was practically numb the first half of the trip.   I remember thinking, what else could happen ?   I had this insane idea how things would be better once we got to Nashville.  
    “When the car started choking, I didn’t understand at first that we were out of gas.   It’s when I couldn’t get it started again that I got all dizzy and this welling of cold rose in my chest. Ever been that scared?”
    He cocks his head, but I can’t tell if he’s saying yes , or no , or I’m not telling you .
    “I held onto the steering wheel like it was the only thing between me and death.   At that moment, there’s no way anyone could have convinced me that I wasn’t going to be raped and killed the second we got out of the car. I was half-a-second away from going hysterical, and then I got a good look at the guy in the passenger seat.   I’ve never seen eyes so vacant, so empty of hope.”  
    If we were going to make it, it was up to me. I’ve never wanted my mother so badly, before or since.
    A glance at Axel’s frown tells me he’s listening—intently, actually—so I go on.
    “He looked like death. Sweaty, clammy, pale, rings under his eyes. But then he told me to stay with the car and he’d go get help. He couldn’t stop shaking, and I could barely understand what he was saying.”  
    “So where is your manager?”
    “He went about twenty feet up the road and around this bend and then blew his brains out.” I still picture it sometimes.   The figure lying in the mud with half a head, the rest of it in random chunks along the road.   I shudder.
    “Jesus.”
    “Yeah, that’s pretty much how I reacted, too.   Although in my case, there was some screaming involved, and a good ten minutes in a fetal position.”   He doesn’t need to know I puked out my stomach, kidneys, and lungs.  
    “Jesus,” he says again. “Did someone find you there?”  
    “No, thank God.”   I smooth my hand over my neck. “I lost it for a while, but then I grabbed what I could and started walking. The first town I saw was Sadie’s Bend, and I wasn’t sure who to go to. I didn’t see a police station, so I went to the