Forbidden (The Seeker Saga, #2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

and take a step back.  Somebody had obviously cranked the heat to the interior of the dorm.  It was probably the old security guard who kept watch over the foyer.  It wasn’t that the warmth was uncomfortable, merely that the contrast with outdoors was so pronounced… and unexpected.
    Slipping out of my jacket and juggling my bag in my hands while doing so, I climbed the stairs to the third level.  Passing Chris’s old room on my floor always gave me the strangest feeling of uneasy nervousness.  I always walked by it as briskly as I could.  Thankfully, the feeling tended to go away once I reached my door.
    I reached into my pocket to retrieve my room keys.  They jingled at the end of a green Oliver Academy lanyard.  Picking out the right one, I put it into the lock and twisted counterclockwise.  To my surprise, I felt no resistance from the deadbolt.  I frowned.  Had I been so absentminded that I forgot to lock my door that morning?  I wasn’t usually like that.  I tried thinking back, but all I could remember was rushing out the room only ten minutes before the late bell after snoozing past my alarm.  It didn’t seem entirely implausible that I had forgotten to lock the door in my haste.  That meant that my room had been left unlocked the entire day.
    Pushing the door open, I conducted a brief survey of my room.  Finding everything in place, I relaxed a little.  It wasn’t that I was afraid of theft, not in an isolated community like this. But I was kind of worried that someone might have thought it a good idea to play a prank on me, and done something to my room, had they known my door was open.
    I yawned as I kicked the door shut behind me and made my way to my desk.  I had a lot of homework to do for tomorrow, and promised myself I would begin catching up today.  I threw my jacket over the back of my chair and sat down.  As soon as my shoulders touched the backrest, a wave of tiredness swept over me.  It was like all the fatigue that had built up over the last week was let loose.  No wonder I had turned down Rob’s offer earlier.
    I looked longingly to my bed.  For a moment, I considered lying down and closing my eyes, just for a few minutes.  But I knew that if I did that, I wouldn’t wake up until tomorrow morning.  Instead, I reached over for the canister of cold coffee I had brought back from the cafeteria yesterday morning, took a big swig, and flipped open my laptop.
    I looked out the window while I waited for the computer to boot up.  I had rearranged my room recently so that the desk stood right in front of the window. From my vantage point, I could see most of the courtyard.  It wasn’t quite dusk yet, but the air had taken on a golden hue from the setting sun.  Light streamed through the leafless trees that lined the path leading to the main yard. Shadows from the evergreens in the courtyard stretched even farther along the ground.  It was a beautiful fall day. 
    I could see students walking to and from the dorms.  Some walked at a leisurely pace, enjoying the freedom that came at the end of a school day, while others rushed to their rooms or to extracurricular meetings elsewhere on campus.  To most of them, I thought, this was just another day of the school year. It was merely another day at an outstanding college prep school.  To some, I was sure, it was something more.  The island had become their home, loved and adored for both its beauty and its flaws. 
    For me, Oliver Academy represented something much more.  Not one of the students out there had any idea what had happened that night in the caves just a few months ago.  That night marked a watershed moment for me.  It was the time I accepted who I was and what I could do.  It was the night I stopped fearing the talent that I shared with the small group of girls who had become my close friends.  The night I had become engrossed by the crystals.
    The desktop flashed on my screen.  I sighed.  It was time to