Chaos (Kardia Chronicles) (Entangled Teen) Read Online Free PDF Page A

of some giant orderly holding my grandmother down and me coming up behind him and draining the life from him until he was nothing but a blubbering sack of puke.
    “They have patients who have dementia just like her. They’ll give her medicine and they can help—”
    I kept on. “They don’t have anyone like her, and you don’t even know what medicines like that might do to her. They could kill her. You just want her out of your hair so you can bury your head like you always do. Well, guess what? Just because you hide it so you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there.”
    I reached out and closed my hand over a fat green apple that sat in a bowl on the countertop. I released the emotional valve just a hair and the tiniest flicker of an image, more like a memory, flitted through my mind. A tree full of leaves and other apples. Then the apple exploded in my hand…
    “Enough!” Mom whispered furiously, her horrified eyes locked on a pulpy chunk of fruit that stuck to the front of my shirt like it was a severed head. “I told you, the more you hold it in now, the easier it will be to bind you later. Those displays won’t be tolerated. Go upstairs and don’t come out until you’ve cooled off. And believe me, this mess you’ve made will be waiting for you when you come back.”
    I pulled a Marcia Brady and stomped off toward my room, ignoring the hurt on my mother’s face as I passed her. Deep down, I knew this thing with Gram was breaking her heart as much as it was mine. More, maybe. But at that point in time, it all felt like another betrayal. She wouldn’t help me. She wouldn’t help Gram. All she cared about was herself and her “fragile state.” I was sick to fucking death of it.
    More stomping, then I slammed my bedroom door behind me. I flopped onto my bed face-first and screamed into the pillow. That poor pillow. It had taken a lot of crap from me in the past six months. My brain whizzed back like a reel on a fishing pole and snagged the memory it seemed to gravitate toward every time I had a still moment. The night everything changed.
    It had been blacker than Echo Lake in the middle of a moonless night last spring. I’d gone to sleep stressed about a test in the morning and the next thing I knew, I woke up levitating in my bed. I started screaming and hadn’t stopped until my mother busted into the room and managed to drag me back to the mattress again.
    “What’s happening to me?” I asked her, shaking and terrified.
    My mother’s frantic eyes searched my face. “It’s not supposed to be now.”
    “What’s not supposed to be now?” I screamed.
    My voice was raw from it by that point. It took her about ten minutes to calm me down enough to even hear her, but I learned a few things that night. One: houses in New Hampshire are far enough apart that no amount of screaming is going to help you if you’re getting murdered by a serial killer. Two: I can scream for a realllly long time. And three…
    I’m a semi-god. A distant descendant of the goddess of love, Aphrodite.
    Finding out had been a total mindscrew. I grew up like a regular kid, playing house with my teddy bears and Bink. I wanted a pony, although I’d put in a request with Santa for one that flew because if not, why bother? I loved to eat junk food—still do. And my mom was my hero. But that all changed six months ago, including the last part.
    I love her the same, but I’ll never trust her again. Not like before.
    Sounds harsh, but when a girl finds out the past sixteen years have been a lie, it’s tough to be nice. And when her mom won’t even try to help her through the craziest time in her life? It’s even tougher.
    I tried to talk to her about it. To press for more details because what she told me could fit onto a single sheet of paper. Letter sized. Double-spaced. Comic Sans, size eighteen.
    We’re…different.
    That was how she’d started the convo. It was kind of hilarious. I mean, that sounds like the beginning