Blackout Read Online Free PDF

Besides someplace where people don’t give a shit about their hair.”
    Since he had answered my one unspoken question, Do you know me, have you seen me around before? I owed him … nothing—not a damn thing. This was my life. I couldn’t afford a misstep. But it didn’t matter, because what I gave him was nothing anyway. “Cal … ,” I said, glumly starting to supply one of my fake names, but I became stuck on which was the least offensive, the least god-awful. And I was stumped. Calvin, Calvert, Calhoun—what a trifecta of bad choices.
    It didn’t come to that. Lew, the friendly barber, made the choice for me. “Good to meet you, Cal.” A hand shoved my head forward and there was more metallic clicking. “What brings you to the Landing?”
    Cal was better than the full version of any of my fake names and it might not have been a coincidence that they all began with Cal. If you were going to choose fake names, how much better would it be if you could genuinely answer to a fake name because part of it was true?
    “Just roaming around,” I answered easily. “I was taking care of my grandma, but she died last month. She raised me.” I shifted my shoulders in the most minute of shrugs. I didn’t want those scissors spearing me in the scalp or neck. “She always told me I should travel when she went. Find who I was besides her, hell, nurse, I guess. See where I fit in. Not that she dragged me down. She never did. She took me in when I had no one else and made the best damn double-chocolate-chip cookies in the world. But she wanted me to travel, and I’m traveling, looking for that place I fit in. It would’ve made her happy.”
    It was the biggest load of bullshit ever, and I had no problem spinning it as naturally—more naturally than if it were true. And so much talking at one time almost made my throat sore, but not only was it a massive amount of bullshit I’d so easily shoveled up, it was absolutely perfect bullshit. Dead granny, all alone in the world, I was practically a lost puppy. It covered a number of sins, such as looking ratty and homeless or being a smart-ass. Poor widdle guy lost all the family he had in the world. He’s hurt, wounded, sad. Pat pat. Give him a Milk-Bone. Monster killer, liar—I was beefing up my resume fast. I wondered if it was wrong to be proud of talents like those.
    Probably.
    “And you think the Landing might be where you fit in?” Lew asked dubiously. “That wouldn’t have been my first guess.”
    “Why?” I shot back. “Am I not good enough for your sweater-loving town?”
    He snorted. “Seriously, Cal, my friend, are you kidding? There’s a shitload of crazy in little towns. Big cities can’t hold a candle to us. And that’s what I’d have pegged you for—big city all the way.” Lew and I agreed there. “Dressing all in black. And your hair, again, Lord, I’m sorry, but Jesus Christ himself lived two thousand some years ago and he had a better conditioner than you. With hair that bad, you probably come from someplace where no one knows your name or cares enough to tell you to get thine ass to a barber. That smells like big city to me.”
    He didn’t give me a chance to reply, to say I’d cut it myself, or to ask what the hell conditioner was. He towel-dried my hair vigorously, combed it again, and said, “There you go. Minimum fuss. I figure you’re a minimum-fuss guy. Wash it, comb it, and you’re done.”
    This time I risked the mirror to see hair that was now an inch above my jaw. No more ponytails for me. I dropped my gaze. Mirrors—I was never going to like them. As I moved my head, my hair flopped in my face like a frigging Labradoodle. No, they were curly, weren’t they? Like a sheepdog, then. A pissed-off sheepdog. Damn annoying either way. “I’m glad you don’t want money for this,” I bitched.
    “You look like a damn rock star.” I could hear the wide grin in his voice without needing to see it. When I grunted, less than