Storm by Virginia Bergin Read Free Book Online Page A

actually appeared to be naked. Hard to tell with everyone dressed up, but it seemed like there might have been a lot of new people because I didn’t seem to recognize anyone much…apart from the one who had to be as old as my grandma: Granny Lycra—last seen wearing a leopard-print catsuit and now rocking a white meringue of a wedding dress.
    Sask and I, we looked at each other, eyes wide… If there’s one thing a Dartbridge girl loves, even during an apocalypse—maybe especially during an apocalypse—it’s a kicking, crazy party. (Even—and also maybe especially—when that Dartbridge girl has been scared stupid and scraped rock-bottom low and has no clue about what kind of a future there might be.) ( Bring it on! If I thought anything, that’s what I thought: Bring it on ! )
    In the blockbuster film of my blockbuster story, the next thing that happens will be a tzzzzzzzzzp! as the DJ rips the needle off the vinyl and the whole room goes silent.
    What really happened was the music got turned down a little, and out of the crowd, the only other person (apart from us) who wasn’t dressed up approached: Xar.
    I’d met him before, what seemed like years ago but was only a few months: a six-foot-something, impressively gorgeous, blond, dread-head, tree-hugging crustie—only not really a crustie. More manicured. More deliberate. More composed. Naked from the jeans up, his chest shone with dance sweat. And I got that impression again, the one I’d first had, that he was somehow their king, because everyone made way to let His Royal Hotness through.
    â€œLay-deez,” he said, pulling on a white cotton shirt as he strolled through the madness toward us.
    The music got turned down a little more, and everyone quieted down with it, looking our way. That’s how mesmerizing he was: you tuned in to his voice automatically.
    â€œAnd what can we do for you?” Xar asked.
    â€œHi,” I said, a bit too shoutily. “I’m Ruby?”
    â€œIf your name’s not on the list, you’re not coming in,” hooted Granny Lycra, pulling not a bride’s veil but a widow’s veil of black over her face. It looked weird and horrible and scary—but I ignored her. I ignored them all and spoke only to Xar.
    â€œRuby from Dartbridge? We met? Before…”
    â€œDid we,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
    â€œAnd this is Saskia,” I shouted.
    â€œAny chance of a drink?” she asked, and before Xar could answer, she was elbowing her way across the room.
    That’s Sask for you; she just does stuff, doesn’t she? And she gets what she wants. She wasn’t going to wait to be invited, so she invited herself. Xar didn’t look too pleased.
    â€œShe’s just come from the army base,” I said, hoping that would explain Sask’s party-jeopardizing behavior.
    â€œOh, has she,” he said—again, no question—and he laughed—a quick and quiet ha-ha of a laugh—and waved his hand in the air in a very royal way, which was apparently the command for the music to be turned back up, because that’s what happened.
    The music got cranked back up, everyone carried on partying, and King Xar wandered off after Saskia.
    For a moment I just stood there, like a panda/idiot—then I spied… Oooh! There was a table piled high with food. Not the kind of trash I’d been eating, but properly made stuff. Stuff that looked deliciously good. I felt my stomach growl louder than the music.
    Come to Momma! my head whispered at it.
    I barged toward it.
    â€œHi!” shouted this girl who was already at the table. Her costume was hilarious: a walrus in a furry brown onesie, her plate piled high with items that she stuffed into her mouth between the two enormous papier-mâché tusks on either side of her jaws.
    â€œYou look brilliant,” I shouted, giving her huge belly a friendly poke. It was