Struck by Jennifer Bosworth Read Free Book Online Page A

was random, made up of guys and girls ranging in age from freshmen to seniors, popular kids to geeks like Andrew “Schiz” Buckley. Schiz as in paranoid schizophrenic, not that he was one, as far as I knew. Paranoid for sure, but maybe not schizophrenic. Schiz was a major conspiracy theorist and notorious blogger on the subject. I used to see flyers advertising his blog, Shoot the Messenger, posted around school.
    And there was someone else I knew, a tall, slender black kid Parker hung out with on occasion. Quentin something. I couldn’t remember his last name. He’d been to our house a couple times, but I hadn’t said more than five words to him. Still, something about Quentin was changed from the last time I’d seen him. It was his eyes. There was a stillness in them, a watchfulness. It was almost predatory.
    And every single one of the kids in his group had the exact same look.
    It was creepy, and what was creepier was the way they seemed to move as one, like they were connected somehow, joined by invisible puppet strings, like birds in formation.
    Quentin spoke to the line-cutters, his voice coming outloud and strong, more adult than I remembered it. “Go to the back of the line.”
    Pitcher stiffened at the sound of his voice and turned slowly, holding her food tray in front of her like a shield. “Why should we?” she challenged, but her voice no longer carried the note of arrogant assurance it had when she’d spoken to me alone.
    Quentin spread his hands, as though in a show of helplessness, but the gesture seemed anything but helpless. My eyes homed in on the center of his palm, on the perfect ring of red scar tissue, about the size of a golf ball.
    A scar like Katrina’s.
    Quentin smiled with his mouth only. “Go to the back of the line,” he said again.
    Schiz added, “You and your friends are out of order.” Schiz smoothed his Dracula-esque widow’s peak. He wore a black T-shirt with bold white letters on the front that spelled: TYRANY.
    The softball players shared a round of nervous glances, and I thought they would stand their ground. Then Pitcher shrugged and lowered her head, a clear sign of defeat. She stepped out of line and the rest of her gang followed her to the end.
    Quentin’s eyes made their way to mine, which were about as wide open as they would go.
    “Nice to see you back at school, Mia,” he said. And then he held out his scarred hand to me.
    I shook my head like he’d offered me a loaded bear trap. I wanted to back up, but I was already against a wall.
    Quentin frowned. I thought he would drop his hand, but instead he reached out to me, and his long fingerscircled my wrist. He held on gently for only a split second before grimacing and letting go. He and his group shared a look, and Quentin nodded. Then they turned in what looked like a military formation, it was so synchronized, and took their seats at an empty cafeteria table where their trays of food saved their places.
    I loaded up my tray and found a seat on the other side of the cafeteria, as far as I could get from Quentin and his motley crew. Still, I saw them glancing my way more often than was warranted. I tried to ignore them as I ate. Tried to pretend I was still hungry, but my stomach was twisting and tying itself in knots. Double knots, in fact. Or maybe hangman’s nooses.
    Parker still hadn’t shown up. I had barely touched my food when I stood abruptly and decided to go look for my brother.
    “You want the rest of this?” I asked the skin-and-bones boy sitting next to me. He didn’t hesitate to take the food off my hands. Couldn’t even say thank you, he was so busy stuffing rehydrated mashed potatoes in his mouth.
    It didn’t take long to find Parker. Maybe I’d known where he’d be all along.
    “Hey,” I said softly, coming up beside him.
    He didn’t take his eyes from the wall of the missing.
    Have you seen this person? the wall asked a thousand times.
    I felt a crawling sensation and glanced behind