Dead Radiance Read Online Free PDF Page B

happened to be a bit of a rich dude. Guess genetic scientists made a packet. Still, I'd have to wait until the end of the school year before I could indulge in the luxury of an iPad.
    I spent a few seconds wondering about my mother. The mother who'd abandoned me when I was five. Not a birthday card or telephone call since. Where was she right now? Did she ever spend precious moments thinking of me? I doubted it. I may see her as my mother. But she thought I wasn't good enough to stick around for. She'd even refused to take me in after my father's death. All those psychiatrist visits and my childhood tales of people who glowed had probably freaked her out.
    I glanced at Aidan again, who managed to keep up the pace without running head first into the black gums dotting the sidewalk.
    "What's so interesting?" I tried to break the silence, still thick with the memory and odor of Miss Barnes. The rich lavender scent of her perfume would give even a non-sufferer hay fever. I twitched my nose against a sneeze and waited.
    "Nothing much. Just checking the news." Aidan smiled and shut the cover, shoving the tablet into his backpack. Faced with the full impact of his arresting smile I stared, unable to string any words together.
    What an idiot.
    I was drooling too. It took one sultry stare from Aidan to reduce me to a simpering love-struck mess to rival Cherise and all her handmaidens.
    When I didn't respond he asked, "You don't like me much, do you?"
    Funny you should say that right when I am busy drooling over you. "You are an anathema." I answered out loud, shaking free of those weak female thoughts.
    "Huh?" He grinned, despite his confusion at my words.
    "You go against the grain." I bit the words out, hoping to end the conversation.
    "Sorry, you're going to have to expand on your train of thought there. I'm completely lost." He shook his head and I wondered if he'd already dismissed me as the fruit-loop of Ms. Custer's little foster house.
    "You're not the typical foster kid," I said. "Foster kids don't fit in. Not with the jocks or the science nerds or the popular kids. Nobody likes temporary inmates. But Aidan Lee is unlike any foster kid ever known. He has the popular girls already panting at his heels." A nasty, cold bite laced my words, as if a viper now controlled my voice and swayed in silence, ready to pounce.
    Aidan frowned, glancing at my face as we paused to cross a street. "I didn't ask Cherise out, if that's what you mean."
    It was exactly what I meant but hell if I was going to admit it. And what did he mean he didn't ask her? I didn't dare to request further clarification. He'd get an even more inflated ego if he knew his new foster sister was vibrating with pure jealousy a foot away from him.
    "That's none of my business. And it's not what I meant." I should have bitten my tongue. Maybe then my mouth would've stopped running loose, but things like this usually happened to me. Intention and action didn't always work hand in hand with me. Some sort of rebel I was!
    "Well then, please feel free to explain any time this millennium." Aidan grinned but it did nothing to ease the sliver of annoyance and more than slight curiosity lurking in his dark eyes.
    "You're here for one day and you're already amassing an entourage. Forgive me for not bowing and scraping along with the rest." What I'd failed to ask was why it was never that easy for me. He'd managed to insinuate himself into the student body with disgusting ease. Within a week, nobody would ever mention he was a foster kid. He'd just be one of the popular kids.
    Somewhere within the functioning part of my brain, I knew it was unfair to blame him for my failings at this popularity contest or for his sudden rise to stardom within North Wood High, and I clamped my mouth shut before another snarky comment could emerge.
    None of what I said rattled Aidan's serene composure until now. We passed under the cold shade of a huge black gum, whose wide, low branches hid what