Carter Read Online Free PDF Page B

neither does she. Linyah nodded and took a step toward him, and broke the connection to speak to her directly. “I’m not saying I’ll go with you, but you answered the questions right.”
    “I’m going to take you to your mom. And if you aren’t happy with what I am showing you, you do know how to get away from us, right?” Max nodded again. “Good boy. I won’t hurt you, young Max. I’m in awe of you. You and your mother are very special to my race.”
    “Yeah, heard that crap before.” Max wanted to touch the woman, to form a connection to her so he could see just how trustworthy she was. But instead, he sat down on the bench near where he’d been hiding and thought about his mom. “She’s a good person, a great mom, but I worry about her all the time.”
    “She worried for Rider too. I heard that she tossed him on his ass when he was messing around in class.” Max had heard that as well. But it didn’t mean anything. “This power that you and your mom share, do you know all the things you can do with it? What you can use to get away from me should you need to?”
    “I can kill you by taking your head from your shoulders.” Linyah nodded. “I’ve never killed anyone on purpose before. I hurt someone once, but that was an emergency. It was him or me, and I liked me a good deal better.”
    Linyah laughed. “I should like to take you back now. Your mother won’t rest, so they can’t fix her until she’s sure you’re all right. I pissed her off a great deal by not taking her with me to get you. But she was too weak and had I brought her, she would have…more than likely she would have died.”
    Max stood up and looked around. There were so many people out around them, yet they ignored them for the most part. But there were two men across the street that had been there for several minutes, and he was beginning to think they were there for him. When he looked at Linyah, she was staring at them as well.
    “Max, it’s time you and I left.” He nodded and took her outstretched hand. Before he could blink, he was standing in a hallway and there were nurses and doctors running up and down the hall. “She’s in there, but you can’t just go in there and surprise her. She’s in a lot of pain and she’ll try her best to hold you. Do you understand?”
    “Yes. You want me to be the one who holds her back.” Linyah nodded. “There is a lot of people in there with her. I know that they’re trying to help her, but she is scared. We don’t have a lot of friends, and there are too many in there.”
    Linyah told him she’d take care of it, and he walked in behind her. His mom was there, and she was sobbing. He felt his own tears fill his eyes. Crying was okay, she’d always told him, and if anyone told him he was not supposed to cry for any reason, he was to kick their asses. He sure did love his mom.
    “Mom?” The entire room seemed to have gone silent. But he didn’t care. She was looking at him now and that was all that mattered. As he moved to the bed slowly, he started talking to her. “They can’t help you if you’re squalling like a big baby. Why don’t you let them fix you up so I can hold you? I sure was afraid when you weren’t there.”
    “I was shot.” He nodded and was standing close enough that she could touch him now, and he let her, holding her hand to his face like she always did. “I was so afraid myself. I should never have left you there. I should have…we should have run when we had the chance.”
    “We did run, Mom, and we got nowhere. You know that.” She nodded and pulled him to her chest. He let her hold him until her arms fell from his body. Looking at the doctor standing there, he was ready to leap at him and hurt him when an arm grabbed him around the waist and pulled him back.
    “My name is Rider. Rider Lanning. And that is Doctor Hudson. Danny to his friends. Don’t hurt him.” Max leaned back into the man’s chest that held him, feeling safe for the