Doll Face Read Online Free PDF Page A

the others had gone.
    Behind her, the van pulled free and squealed out into the street.
    Headlights framed her again as it bore down on her.

 
     
     
    8
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    “Now what?” Creep said when they finally came to a stop and caught their breath. “Now what the hell do we do?”
    “We just try and mellow out,” Lex told him.
    “Oh, wonderful plan.”
    Soo-Lee shook her head. “Just shut up. We need to get a grip here and quit panicking so we can figure things out.”
    “I just want to go home,” Danielle said.
    Which was about the tenth time now that she had said that. The sound of her voice was starting to go right up Creep’s spine. He had a mad desire to slap her right across the face. He would never do such a thing, at least he didn’t think so, but he wanted to real bad. And that was partially out of rage, frustration, and annoyance, but mostly because her insipid weakness reminded him so much of his own.
    They had taken off in a blind run after that shit came down with the crazy man. Creep still wasn’t sure what to make of that. Had he really seen it? Yes, yes, of course he had. It had taken something real ugly to get them all running in the first place and it had been ugly all right. But where were they now? He wasn’t even sure. They had run down the street and around the corner and kept running. They were two or three streets away from the van now.
    Away from Chazz. No loss there.
    But also away from Ramona and Creep had a real thing for her. He hadn’t known her before tonight. He knew Chazz. Christ, he was the guy who fixed Chazz’s laptop after the idiot locked it up downloading porn. Creep did a lot of work for the boys on the team and that’s how he had hooked up with Chazz. Ramona was Chazz’s squeeze, but they barely tolerated each other and he knew for a fact that Chazz was sleeping with at least three other girls. And he was almost sure that Ramona knew it, too.
    What was her thing? Did she dig abusive relationships? Maybe. Some girls were like that.
    Chazz had thrown the whole thing together. Lex and Soo-Lee, he and Ramona, and Creep. They caught Green Day at the Garden. Danielle was some chick Ramona knew, so they brought her along as Creep’s blind date. It hadn’t worked so well. She gave him the cold shoulder and he thought she was an idiot. She was strictly the girly cheerleader type that you had to treat like a princess just to get a freaking hand-job on the fifth date.
    Not like Ramona.
    Ramona was petite with long black hair, great cheekbones and big dark eyes. Kind of olive-skinned like a Native American. And fierce. God, she was fierce and smart and in-charge. She made his blood boil.
    “Let’s just wait here a bit,” Lex said. “If things are cool, we’ll go back and look for Ramona and Chazz. My guess is that they’re hiding out, though. They probably won’t come up for air until the police get here.”
    “Shouldn’t they have been here by now?” Danielle said.
    Score one for the dizzy blonde, Creep thought.
    “Soon,” Lex said.
    “Sure,” Soo-Lee agreed, although it was obvious she didn’t believe it for a minute.
    “They’re not here because they don’t know where here is,” Creep said, which only got him stony silence.
    He peered down the street and saw only darkness.
    The glass fronts of shops reflected back cool moonlight. Shadows spilled out over the walk in murky puddles. He had no reason to believe there was any immediate danger down there, hiding and waiting to leap out at them…yet, he was certain of it. He could feel that dread certainty crawling inside his guts like looping worms.
    They were in danger.
    Incredible danger.
    He could feel it moving around them in the darkness like the cold coils of a snake. It was circling them, pressing in ever closer, grinning with long white teeth and watching them with hungry, ebon eyes.
    Just stop it. Just stop that shit.
    He swallowed it down before he lost it, before he really lost it,