Aliomenti Saga 6: Stark Cataclysm Read Online Free PDF Page B

destined to suffer a similar curse, spending decades of life without the ability to speak to his living parents.
    Still… he did have a support system. Thanks, Adam. It means a lot. Even if I struggle to show my appreciation.
    He felt Adam’s acknowledgement of his words, and both understood that their internal conversation had finished.
    School was a blur. He handed in assignments. He took a pop quiz in his history class. It was difficult to fail history when your mother had seen the Crusades in person and your “grandfather” was a witness to the birth of country he called home.
    Lunch time.
    It was the time of day he’d dreaded. He worked his way through the food line, chatting briefly with friends and acquaintances. He wanted nothing more than silence and isolation. He found an empty table, far from his usual spot, well away from the tables where the popular kids ate. Nobody wanted to be too far out of their orbit, lest their social status forever disappear with the lack of popular gravity.
    He didn’t care about soaking up their ambience. Especially not today.
    He lowered his head and began stuffing the salad into his mouth. As he chewed, he could hear the lettuce crunching in his head, felt the sharp tang of tomatoes squish in his mouth, enjoyed the spicy dressing that covered it all, and savored the warmth of the chicken nestled within the embrace of the greens.
    He felt them coming. He took a smaller bite and didn’t look up.
    “Hey Trash!” How clever of them. He figured it wasn’t really cleverness in this case. More likely, the moronic Neanderthals approaching couldn’t write the letter “k” without assistance, and certainly didn’t understand why he mumbled “potassium” under his breath when they spewed the mispronounced name. “Heard your mommy ran away from home. Finally got tired of admitting she was related to you, huh?”
    Fil continued chewing, wondering exactly how much Energy it would take to give the boy a wedgie, or to make his clothes spontaneously combust. That had to be weighed against potential detection by the Hunters. There was also the punishment to consider, the one from Adam… and the worse one from Angel.
    “What’s the matter, Trash? Cat got your tongue?”
    He stepped up closer, and Fil looked up, wondering how much he could scare the kid by turning his eyes red. He’d practiced in his room, could make the switch in just a few seconds, and…
    “Hey, I’m talking to you, loner boy!” The boy shoved Fil from the chair to the ground.
    Fil sprang to his feet quickly. Too quickly. His tormentor jumped back in surprise, apparently realizing they might have chosen the wrong target for bullying. He took a deep breath. He had to keep calm, had to avoid losing control, had to…
    “Leave him alone!”
    Fil turned to look at the speaker, whose words had been uttered with incredible ferocity. So did his tormentors.
    They saw a thick clump of long, tangled, dark hair, falling down over the speaker’s eyes. Even in the warmth of the late summer, she wore a heavy sweatshirt. The headphones covered her ears, and Fil wondered how much she’d actually heard, until he realized it wasn’t necessary to listen to music to wear headphones.
    He saw past that, however. Saw past the odd appearance of a girl he recognized but didn’t really know, a girl who, like him, seemed interested only in being left alone.
    Despite the fact that he was outnumbered by boys bigger than him, despite the fact that she’d always made it a point to stay out of the spotlight… she’d spoken up for him. He felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude. He didn’t need her help… but she didn’t know that. And she’d risked the wrath of the bullies to speak up anyway.
    The bullies looked at her. Then back at Fil.
    And then, to his great surprise, they walked away.
    He frowned inwardly. He detected no Energy in her. No special skill that could “encourage” a gang of over-muscled boys to walk away from a