Death's Awakening Read Online Free PDF Page B

grass.
    “Parrish?”
    She sat up so fast it
made her vision blur. Her heart lifted into her throat and she tried
to swallow it down. She blinked, a tall frame towering over her.
“Noah?”
    He stepped forward into
the light streaming from the porch, and Parrish’s breath
hitched in her chest. His hair was freshly washed and damp blond
curls fell across his forehead.
    “Hey,” he
said. He hooked his thumb toward Karmen’s house next door. “I
was about to head over to Karmen’s party, but I thought I saw
you here in the grass. What are you doing out here in the dark?”
    Parrish glanced over at
the neighbor’s house. Of course, he was going to Karmen’s.
Parrish hadn’t even had any idea Karmen was having a party
tonight, and she certainly hadn’t been invited.
    Not that she wanted to
go anyway.
    Just then, the first
clear sounds of her sister’s violin streamed through the open
windows. Parrish looked up at him and he smiled. She motioned toward
the window, then raised a single finger to her lips.
    There was something
truly magical about the way Zoe played. How someone so small could do
something so impossibly complex and beautiful was a complete mystery.
It had to be a God-given talent. Zoe had been playing since she was
just five years old and she’d taken to the violin like a fish
to water. As if the instrument was just an extension of her self.
    Parrish had never taken
to anything like that.
    She expected Noah to
head off toward the party, but instead, he sat down in the grass
beside her. Close.
    Her heart beat faster.
    She stretched her legs
out onto the grass and crossed one over the top of the other. She
propped her hands against the grass to keep them from trembling.
    What was he still doing
here? Did he need something from her? Or was he just wanting to hear
Zoe play?
    “Who is she
playing for?” he asked in a whisper. His eyes swept over the
line of cars down her driveway and along the street.
    She nodded and picked
at the skirt on her pink dress. She never wore pink. She was more a
black kind of girl. Weird how a color could make someone feel so
vulnerable.
    “My parents
invited all their music friends. It’s sort of a going away
thing for Zoe,” she whispered back. “She leaves on her
world tour tomorrow afternoon.”
    “Oh yeah, I
forgot about that,” he said. “I bet you’re really
going to miss her.”
    Parrish rolled her
eyes, then caught herself. She covered her mouth with her hand and
immediately wished she could take it away.
    Noah narrowed his eyes
at her. “You’re not going to miss her?”
    Parrish ran her hand
through her hair, then twirled a strand around her fingertip. “It’s
not that,” she said. She sighed. She hated telling people how
she felt about her family. The older sister being jealous of the
younger prodigy was so boring. She didn’t want to be that
person. “It’s complicated.”
    Noah nodded. “I
understand.”
    She turned to look at
him, an eyebrow raised. “You do?”
    He shrugged. “It’s
family. You’re supposed to love them and hate them at the same
time.”
    A laugh escaped her
lips and she clamped her hand over her mouth again.
    Noah smiled and looked
at her with those sky-blue eyes that seemed to see right down into
her soul. “You have a nice laugh.”
    A shiver ran through
her body and she looked away. The warm fingers of a blush crawled up
her neck.
    He didn’t look
away, sending butterflies fluttering through Parrish’s stomach.
She bit her lower lip. She didn’t like not being in control of
her emotions. She liked it better when people kept a safe distance.
    She let herself fall
back onto the grass. Maybe if she pretended to be listening, he would
leave.
    But he didn’t.
    Instead, he lay down
beside her.
    Together, they let the
music of Zoe’s violin wash over them. Parrish’s took a
deep breath in, held it as long as she could, then slowly let it out,
feeling her heartbeat finally calm as she sank deeper into the
ground. She spread