Frostfire Read Online Free PDF Page B

contents of its hard drive in seconds.
    Now she sat down with the laptop in the dented, slightly rusted folding metal chair she’d rescued from a Dumpster, and clicked on the Internet icon, waiting patiently for her dial-up to connect her. Vulcan thought she was crazy not to install high-speed, but she actually preferred the lag. It gave her time to think, and if for any reason she needed to break the connection, she could simply yank the phone cord out of the wall jack.
    No one was in the protected chat room they used, but Lilah knew as soon as she signed on, alerts would go out to the rest of the group. Sure enough, an avatar with a bubbling beaker appeared a few moments later.
    Del, everything all right?
    Lilah smiled sadly before she began to type. Not really. Bad day here. One problem after another.
    Paracelsus typed in a sad face and Anything I can do?
    She knew some of her Takyn friends were wealthy; while they kept their real-life identities and locations confidential, and never bragged about their situations, they sometimes let things slip. She knew Paracelsus collected antiques and lived part of the year somewhere on the beach. He was always the first to offer funds to anyone in the group who was in trouble. She was also fairly certain he and the others knew she wasn’t rolling in it, as her most frequent request was for advice on how to fix things she couldn’t afford to replace, like the laptop, her water heater, her transmission....
    Del? Serious problems?
    She bit her lip. Losing her job and her car in one day was probably nothing more than bad luck and a lousy coincidence, but she couldn’t shake off the sense of unease. And if she’d learned anything since her ability had manifested, it was to trust her instincts. I’m not sure, but I think I need to take off for a while. Go visit some of the family.
    He knew she was, like all the Takyn, an orphan. When are you leaving?
    The only place she could rent a car tonight was the airport, and she didn’t have enough cash on her to cover the cab fare. Tomorrow morning, first thing. I’ll probably be on the road for a couple days. Hopefully her credit card limit would hold out for as long as it took to find a new place to live.
    You’ll check in, let me know how you are?
    They always kept tabs on one another, especially when they relocated. It wasn’t a matter of friendship as much as it was survival. But as uneasy as she was, Lilah doubted anyone was coming after her now. From what Jezebel and Aphrodite had told her about GenHance, they shot first and never asked any questions. If the bastards at the biotech firm had discovered what she was, they would have grabbed her, not her car.
    Absolutely , she typed.
    Once she signed off, Lilah went to the kitchen and made a peanut butter and banana sandwich and a mug of hot chocolate, both of which she carried back into her bedroom. She switched on the Weather Channel and curled up on her bed, nibbling at the sandwich as she watched Jim Cantore offer details on a massive snowstorm moving inland from the Rockies, and the various ways in which the residents of six different states would be affected by it.
    “You should tell them to move to Florida, Jim,” she said to the television. “Just don’t mention the hurricanes, the tornadoes, or the floods.”
    The ancient chenille bedspread she’d found at a church rummage sale kept her warm, and the hot drink and the food made her drowsy. Although Lilah suspected her sleepiness was more from depression and mental stress than real exhaustion, she resisted it. She still had some chores and lockup to do before she went to sleep. She didn’t know why she felt so exhausted, but her body didn’t even want to twitch, much less move.
    She still had . . .
    The dreams she had that she remembered were sometimes a little odd but never frightening; if Lilah had ever had a nightmare, she’d forgotten it the moment she woke. Mostly she dreamed of walking through different places,