When Copper Suns Fall by Kasonndra Leigh Read Free Book Online

1. And if Jalen
didn’t put his illegal reader away, he’d be joining me for a real
duel instead of a practice one. The border guard made well on his
promise to humiliate me. I would be standing before the Judges on
the most popular ceremony of the year. “Don’t worry, Chela, I won’t
let them ship you off to the Barrows.” He stuffed the box back into
his vest and adjusted the sleeves on his tee shirt.
    “Okay. That’s wonderful,” I said.
    “For real, though. This isn’t good.” I wanted
him to tell me something I didn’t already know.
    I hated I couldn’t say anything about the
real reason behind my troubles. I used an old memory to change
something that happened in the present.
    Four girls strolled by us standing at the
entrance. They giggled at Jalen who didn’t glance back at them.
    “I’m messaging Lexa. We can get an idea of
which one of a thousand places she could be standing.” I pulled out
my cellereader, a card-sized thing with more attitude than me. It
was pretty much a text machine that read your thumb imprint,
another way for the Tribunal to track its youngest citizens. I
looked forward to receiving the talking version in two years.
    “Some confidence in your friends, please. I
can just go in and get her,” Jalen said in a sing-song way.
    I smirked. The idea of being in the crowded
Shack sent shivers up my spine. I’d already found too much trouble
tonight. Plus, I still felt a bit shaky since I didn’t get a chance
to use anything in the medroom. “Um, we’ll wait for her
answer.”
    Wind gusted around us. Heavy bass vibrated in
my eardrums and chest. I prepared to message Lexa.
    “Think you’ll get a signal under those?”
Jalen pointed above our heads. Lights danced in the sky like an
electrical storm with rainbow colored fingers reaching down over
the Shack’s rooftop.
    “You’re so encouraging tonight, Jalen. Remind
me to send a thank-you cake someday soon.”
    He shrugged. “Hey, I’m just making a
point.”
    “Yeah, and that point would be why we should
go in the Shack, right?” He made praying hands and tilted his face
on them. “There’s not one innocent bone in your body.”
    The cellereader’s screen blinked on and off.
Then the icons sprinkled back across it. My inbox had two new
messages. The first note came from Father and my stepmother, Bess,
certified bumblers of the memo arts. The next one was an old
message sent by Lexa earlier in the day, reminding us to pick her
up from the Cradleshack.
    “Everything all right?” Jalen asked.
    “Yeah. One is from Lexa. The other one is
from Father asking me to let my stepmother’s mush-brained daughter
in the house tonight,” I said.
    “They act like Audrina’s younger than you.
Man, I know that’s annoying.”
    “Truly an underrated word in this case,” I
said, wondering how Audrina the lollipop queen managed to avoid
getting carded, unlike me who already got one before my sixteenth
birthday.
    I’d blown Father’s be-home-by-six o’clock
request by over an hour. The odor drifting on top of the salty
smell increased. A metallic scent added to the parade of stink,
now. Life in Castle Hayne meant getting used to odors: mildew,
sewage, something like dead fish. Tonight the air contained a crazy
mix of all those smells.
    How much more drama could I handle in one
day? Micah’s movement, Dr.Van Meter’s removal notice, the detention
card in my pocket, curly blonde tourists stalking me, saving a
kid’s life, but then getting punished for it—a whole gang of
craziness.
    I sighed and glanced at the cellereader’s
blank screen. Jalen folded his arms, whistling into the air, smug
in knowing he’d won. We’d have to go in the Shack.
    Stupidity over intelligence…round ten.
     
     

Chapter Five – Shadow Knights
     
    “Okay, we go in, find Lex, leave. That’s the
plan,” I said.
    “Come on, Chela. Curfew is in a couple of
hours. This place is hot tonight.” He made a funny gesture with his
feet. Hair flipped