Forged: An Altered Series Prequel Read Online Free PDF

looked as endless as an ocean. “I don’t know. Hopefully soon.”
    “Are you having fun?”
    I grunted. “Not really. I’m tired. A lot. And it’s boring here without you.”
    “It’s boring here, too.”
    “Is Mom being nice to you?”
    “Yeah” was all she said.
    I wanted to press, I wanted her to elaborate, but knew it wasn’t right to ask. Anna didn’t really know how terrible our parents were, or maybe she did in an abstract sense, and I wanted to keep it that way. The more I asked, the more suspicious she’d become. And I didn’t want her frightened while I was away.
    “Well, I should probably get going. I don’t get long on the phone. I’ll call you again soon.”
    “Tomorrow?” she asked.
    “I’ll try. I love you, bird.”
    She laughed through the line. “I love you, too.”
    When we hung up, I lay back on the bed for a long time, trying not to cry.
    *  *  *
    I decided to skip breakfast the next morning. Sam wasn’t there again, and he wasn’t answering his door, and that left me annoyed and sad and miserable. I just wanted to start training to get my mind off everything.
    I went straight into the elevator, jamming my finger into the button for below-ground level two.
    When I arrived, I stepped into the hall just as a door on the left opened and a young man stepped out.
    I slowed.
    He froze.
    Immediately, I recognized the look on his face. Caught.
    He shut the door behind him and walked toward me, determined. Each step calculated, precise.
    He was taller than me by several inches, bigger too. Nothing at all like Sam. This guy was cut. Veins ran through his knuckles, up his forearms, bulging beneath the skin. Strips of muscle stood out from each other like braided rope before turning into defined biceps, before disappearing beneath the sleeves of his black T-shirt.
    I caught myself daydreaming about what he looked like without that shirt, maybe without the jeans, too, and quickly banished the thought.
    The boy gazed down at me as he passed, eyes guarded and wild, and I looked up at him, unable to tear my eyes away.
    The air crackled with awareness, as if he knew exactly who I was, as if he held the secrets to all of the things I’d been dying to know.
    He stepped inside the still-open elevator, and I didn’t realize until he looked back at me that I’d come to a complete stop in the middle of the hallway to stare.
    “Who are you?” I asked, even though several yards stretched between us now.
    He leaned into the back wall of the elevator, hands propped on the edges of the railing as the doors slid closed.
    *  *  *
    Natalia kicked my ass in training that day. She knew right away I was distracted.
    “What is going on with you?” she asked after she’d body-slammed me to the floor for the third time.
    “Nothing,” I answered.
    “Then stop doing nothing and do something.”
    She caught me with an uppercut ten minutes later and laid me out flat.
    “Shit,” I mumbled as I blinked back the fuzziness in my vision.
    She softened, but only for a second, and offered me her hand. I took it, slogging to my feet. Natalia gave me a quick break after that, but experience had taught me it would only be enough time to wipe the sweat from my forehead and grab a drink of water.
    After I’d done both, I came back to the center of the gym and stripped off my damp T-shirt. I tossed it aside.
    “Have you seen Sam lately?” I asked casually, acting as though I didn’t care about the answer.
    Natalia set her hands on her hips and cocked her head to the side. “Sam? Is that what’s bothering you?”
    I shrugged. Don’t say anymore , I chided myself. Natalia had that look on her face, like she was about to devour me for supper.
    “You’re letting a boy distract you?”
    “No. I just haven’t seen him in a while, and I was wondering—”
    “If you let your attachments get in the way of your focus, then you’ve already failed.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “You heard me.” She came within one