The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black Read Free Book Online

band—that would be a good name.”
    Pauline whacked her with the magazine she was reading. “I’m serious. You know what I mean.”
    Tana couldn’t explain why she kept on with it, couldn’t put into words the nihilistic thrill that came from suffering a little or the satisfaction of playing Aidan’s screwed-up game by his screwed-up rules and still winning. She was cool , and she wouldn’t be uncool no matter how much he goaded her. While Aidan sometimes seemed annoyed that she didn’t hassle him, there were other times he told her there was no other girl like her. No other girl in the world.
    “You can’t win when someone else makes all the rules,” Pauline warned her. Tana didn’t listen.
    Then one night, at another party, Aidan motioned her over and introduced her to the boy sprawled on the couch beside him. The boy’s mouth was pink, and he looked a little drunk from the bottle of tequila in front of him and from the drowsy kisses he’d been sharing with Aidan.
    “This is my girlfriend, Tana,” Aidan said. “You want to kiss her?”
    “Your girlfriend ?” The boy looked momentarily hurt, but he hid it well. “Sure,” he said. “Why not?”
    “How about you?” Aidan asked her, challenging her. “Are you game?”
    “Sure,” Tana said, her daring so tangled up with her determination that she wasn’t sure which one made her agree. Her heart hammered against her chest. It felt scary, as if she were stepping across some invisible boundary, as if she might not know herself afterward. As if she were becoming the self she’d always thought lurked just underneath her skin. Her coolest possible self.
    The boy’s lips were very soft.
    When she looked up at Aidan, the shock on his face went to her head like a shot of strong liquor. She was giddy with power. And when the boy kissed her back hungrily, she was giddy with that, too.
    Aidan leaned forward, and his expression had changed—he had a smile on his face, like they were sharing a joke, just her and him, as if he got that all the parties were games of check and checkmate—as though Aidan knew they were both doing this in the hopes that the adrenaline might blot out every shitty thing that had ever happened to them and he was glad she was with him, that they were together.
    It made her think of a year before, when she’d stood alone on train tracks and waited until the train was barreling toward her, until she could feel the heat of it, until her blood sang with fear, before she jumped out of the way.
    It made her think of another day, when she’d pressed the gas pedal down on her car and gone skidding through the night streets, slicing through icy rain.
    He smiled at her as though he really believed she was special. As though only she had ever really understood what it was to take a dare for the sake of being daring.
    But none of that turned out to be true, because Aidan dumped her three weeks and a half dozen parties later, with a message that said only, “I think we’re getting too serious & I want to take a break.”
    After that, she wasn’t sure what the game was or if she’d imagined it. All she knew was that she had lost.

CHAPTER 7
Death is a shadow that always follows the body.
—English proverb
    T ana directed Aidan to pull the car into a gas station about an hour after they’d left Lance’s house. There were no other cars in sight, and these days all twenty-four-hour marts had bulletproof-glass cashiers’ booths, so she thought it’d be safe to stop. Full dark had fallen, her arm was starting to ache from holding the tire iron, and she was pretty sure she wasn’t going to be able to keep it together much longer. Exhaustion was creeping up on her, her cuts stinging and her head throbbing. She hadn’t eaten anything since she’d woken—hadn’t even thought of eating—and each time her stomach growled, Aidan looked over at her as though her hunger reminded him of his own.
    It was hard to stay alert, hard not to be distracted