Devil's Pass Read Online Free PDF Page A

mother at a funeral?
    That which does not kill us makes us stronger .
    Had his grandpa known about all the years Webb had been forced to choose between getting stronger or just giving up?
    For Webb, it began at age eleven, with simple grains of rice. White rice. Dry. Scattered on the floor at the foot of Webb’s bed.
    He’d completed his homework at the kitchen table—figuring out square roots of fractions or some other stupid thing that would be no use to him later in life—and gone upstairs to get ready for bed, knowing that his beagle, Niblet, would be there to comfort him through the nightmares that had been constant since his dad had died. At home, Niblet was always beside him. Not one single day had Niblet not been waiting at the gate when Webb came home from school.
    Webb had stopped, Niblet by his side, puzzled at the sight of the grains of rice on the gleaming hardwood.
    As Webb tried to make sense of why rice would be on his floor, a strong hand pushed him into his room and he heard a click as the door was locked.
    His stepfather—his new stepfather—had followed Webb inside and shut the door. It had been one year, three weeks and two days since Webb’s dad had died from cancer. It had been only two days since the wedding ceremony that had put a new father in Webb’s home.
    â€œSir?” Webb said.
    Looking back, Webb knew that he should have realized something was wrong within an hour after the wedding ceremony, when Elliott Skinner, who had started a successful security business after his discharge from the army, had pulled Webb aside and warned him not to call him anything but “sir.”
    Not Father. Not Dad. Not Mr. Skinner. But sir.
    â€œYou think you won, don’t you?” Elliott said. He reached down and pulled Niblet into his arms.
    Elliot Skinner was a medium-sized man, but his posture was perfect and his shoulders always square. It made him seem bigger. He was a handsome man, too, with teeth as perfect as his posture, and expensive suits that matched his smile. Perfection. It was an image everyone trusted.
    There was a reason to trust it. Elliott Skinner had been on four tours of duty overseas.
    â€œSir?”
    â€œTonight at dinner. When you convinced Charlotte to let you quit soccer and keep taking guitar lessons, you made her choose you over me.”
    The last gift Webb’s dad had given him was the Gibson guitar, a month before the cancer took him. Webb loved the guitar almost as much as he loved his beagle. He loved music too, and he loved the guitar because it had belonged to his dad.
    Guitars and rock music, Elliott had explained to Charlotte, did not build character, but instead led to drug use and worse. Soccer taught discipline and teamwork and built a growing boy’s body.
    â€œSir, I—” It bothered Webb that Elliott referred to his mother as Charlotte, not as “your mother.” It was as if Elliott wanted to break their bond.
    â€œYou will speak when I allow you to speak.” Elliott rubbed the top of Niblet’s head as he spoke. It was a scary contrast—Elliott’s open affection for the dog and his ice-cold voice. “Let me explain to you the difference between a battle and a war. A war consists of many smaller battles between two or more opposing forces. You can win a battle, but in the end, lose a war. By defying me in front of Charlotte, you declared war on me. She chose your side, which means you won the opening battle.”
    â€œSir, I—”
    â€œI want you to change into your soccer uniform,” Elliott said. “You will kneel on the rice on bare knees for five minutes. Then you will have an understanding of what happens when you engage in war with me.”
    While putting on his soccer uniform, Webb had not worried much about what it would mean to kneel on rice. But within ten seconds of placing his full body weight on the rice, the agony had brought tears to his eyes. And he