Summer Ruins by Trisha Leigh Read Free Book Online Page A

the urge to beg, even though it grows stronger with every moment closer to tomorrow. “What’s the Goblert’s name?”
    “What? Why?” Suspicion pinches his eyebrows together.
    “I don’t know. I’d like to thank him the next time he brings me something, I guess. Not that there’ll be a next time.”
    “It’s D-A-X-K but no one can say it so we call him Dax.”
    “How come he has a name no one can say? Didn’t the Others name him since he’s half-Other?” The questions escape, for a moment toppling my insecurity over Deshi’s allegiance and my fear over my looming death.
    “The Others allow the half-breed creatures to retain names from their culture. Since they’re not pure, they can’t have Deasupran names, anyway.” He sounds as though he’s quoting a textbook, not saying something he believes.
    Another smidge of hope returns. “You mean like Griffin and Greer not having Other—Deasupran—names. Their mother gave them Sidhe names.”
    “Yeah.”
    “Huh.” A realization ignites pride and fight within me. I look up and catch Deshi staring at me with his lips pursed in an annoyed expression, but it only makes me grin through the happy tears pricking my eyes.
    “What?” he snaps.
    “It’s just… so our parents named us, too. What they wanted. And probably something indicative of where we’re from.” I shuffle through my memory to the night Cadi told Lucas and I who we are and where we come from. When I remembered where Pax was from, I couldn’t recall what she said about Deshi, but now I do. “You’re from a place called China, Deshi. Your name must come from there.”
    I’m not sure whether it makes Deshi feel the same wonderful sense of family that’s crawling over me, but the expression on his face isn’t annoyed anymore. It’s maybe a little bit confused, but also pleased.
    He shakes it off. “Let’s just watch the movie.”
    “Sure, okay.” When he presses a button, pictures accompanied by music pop onto the screen.
    “That! The sound. That’s music,” I crow, grinning again at Deshi. “You know what it is.”
    Wonder lights his face. “I never had the word for it before now.”
    The volume is low, making me strain to hear, but it’s probably not wise to turn it up any higher. When Deshi sits down beside me I scoot closer, breathing in the light scent of spring. He gives me a look out of the corner of his eye, making me shrug. “I just don’t want to feel alone.”
    He doesn’t respond, but he doesn’t pull away. “You mean I’ll do since you can’t have Lucas or Pax.”
    At first I feel badly because maybe he’s right, and maybe there are even more people on that list of who I’d rather be with than him. But then I realize he’s not. “No. I mean we’re the same, Deshi. Even if you don’t want to believe it, and even if you let us all die tomorrow. We are the only people who understand you. And that makes you exactly one of the people I want to spend my last night beside.”
    For the next couple of hours we watch the movie in silence. It’s nothing like the films the Others force us all to watch every Saturday. Well, I guess technically they don’t force us, since no one else seems to mind. Still. Those are ridiculous and created only to entertain.
    It’s a Wonderful Life makes me think. Which I’m assuming is why no humans are allowed to watch it or anything similar. It makes me wonder how many movies like this one were discarded, hidden away, or otherwise destroyed when the Others invaded Earth. Are they gone forever, or, if we somehow manage to win, will people be able to recover intellectual treasures of the past?
    In the movie there’s a man who’s always dreamed of going on adventures. He didn’t want the things his friends wanted, which I think was just to go to Cell and get a good Career and a nice Partner. But those are the things the man, George Bailey, ends up with anyway. He’s sad at first, and frustrated that his life won’t turn out the