Burning Midnight Read Online Free PDF Page A

which was long and black. “I’ll catch up.” She turned and jogged away. They watched her for a minute, her long strides eating up ground. She looked like an athlete.
    They turned and walked.
    “Basketball team?” Sully asked.
    “Maybe. Did you see her go after the douche who was whaling on me?”
    “
No.
She punched him?”
    “She punched him in the
throat.
”
    “I missed that,” Sully said.
    “She’s kind of cute.”
    “Sure.” One downside to having Dom as a friend was that he was immediately interested in—and quickly established dibs on—every girl they met.
    Dom pulled out his phone. “We forgot about Rob. He has no idea where we are.” Dom filled Rob in about their injuries and said he’d call him later.
    When they reached Thirty-Fourth Street, they paused. Sully had no idea where the nearest hospital was. He asked a guy wearing a fedora and a pin-striped suit, who pointed them toward a walk-in clinic.
    Dom touched the cut above his eye, looked at his fingers. “I’m gonna hurt like hell in a couple of minutes. Right now my face just feels kind of warm.”
    Sully’s nose didn’t feel warm. It hurt. He was fairly sure it wasn’t broken, though; he’d heard you knew immediately when your nose was broken.
    Behind them, a voice shouted, “Hey!”
    They waited for Mandy to catch up. She held out their coats. Sully thanked her as he pulled his on.
    “So where do you go to school?” Dom asked, falling back on the tried-and-true conversation starter.
    “St. John’s.”
    “A prepper,” Dom said. He looked her up and down. “You’re one of those smart people, aren’t you?”
    Mandy shrugged. “I guess.” She looked at Sully. “I didn’t realize
the
David Sullivan lived around here.”
    Sully rolled his eyes. “Yeah. There was supposed to be a press release. I don’t know what happened.”
    A couple of years earlier, Sully had stumbled onto an article on
Slate
while Googling himself. It was about weird fame—people who were known for things that had nothing to do with talent or ability. The article mentioned Steve Bartman, who was famous for leaning out of the stands and deflecting a foul ball that cost the Cubs a chance to play in the World Series, and Monica Lewinsky, who had an affair with Bill Clinton that almost got him impeached. And Sully, who, instead of sticking his hand in front of a foul ball, had stuck it inside a storm drain under an overpass and pulled out the rarest sphere in the world.
    —
    Warm air hit Sully as he stepped into the hallway of his apartment building. His nose was throbbing, and he was totally whipped. Starving as he was, he didn’t know if he could stay awake long enough to eat dinner.
    “Sul-ly.”
    Sully raised his head, found Mike Lea and Laurie Heath sitting crossways on the stairs to his apartment.
    Mike stood, his phone in hand. He was a year older than Sully, pitched on the school’s baseball team. Sometimes Sully and Mike were friends, and sometimes Mike acted like he didn’t know who Sully was. “Sully, man. You’re going viral on YouTube.” He turned his phone so Sully could see himself, caught in a headlock, struggling to break free.
    Evidently word spread fast. He’d turned his phone off on the way into the auditorium and forgot to turn it back on. He pulled it out and turned it on now. He had about a hundred texts.
    Mike stepped closer. “Man, your
nose.
Those goons did that?”
    Sully touched his nose. “The sidewalk did it, but the goons helped.”
    Laurie stepped closer as well, inhaling in sympathy. “You should clean that up right away.”
    Sully nodded. “I’m guessing my mom is going to run for the Bactine as soon as she sees me.”
    Laurie nodded. It had been two years since Laurie broke Sully’s heart, but there was still a slight whiff of awkwardness when they talked.
    The door at the top of the stairs opened; Sully’s mom burst out. “Sully?”
    “I’m fine, Mom.”
    As his mom came barreling down the stairs,