Gods of the Dead (Rising Book 1) Read Online Free PDF

her arms forward as though testing her speed. Stretching and flexing.
    “Any day now,” Chris drones.
    She grins faintly before her hand dashes forward. The cheese flies out of the trap onto the table as the snare slams shut and Zoe yanks her fingers back away from it. It doesn’t touch her.
    She smiles triumphantly. “Yeah!” she cries, throwing her arms in the air.
    Chris frowns. “What are you so happy about?”
    Zoe picks up the piece of cheese and shoves it in Chris’ face. “I win.”
    “No you don’t!”
    “Yes, she does,” I correct him.
    He gapes at me indignantly. “How? How is that winning?”
    “Does she have the cheese?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Did she get caught?”
    “No.”
    “Then she wins.” I shrug, spinning the trap idly on the table. “You said it yourself. The rules are simple.”
    “And beating the system is even simpler,” Zoe sings, still smiling.
    “That’s cheating,” Orsen protests.
    “It’s still winning.”
    “You want to win like that?” Chris asks, obviously annoyed, but I think it’s more at the fact that she managed to outsmart him than anything else.
    “Beats having broken hands,” she says, standing to leave. “You’ll have to get someone else to churn your butter for you for a while.”
    “How’d you hear that?”
    “Because my hearing is almost as good as Trent’s. And you’re loud. Really loud.”
    “And you’re a cheater!”
    “I know,” she laughs. Her dark eyes settle on mine. “You coming, Trent?”
    I’m already rising to follow her. “Yes.”
    “Where are you guys going?” Orsen asks suspiciously.
    “To get caught up.”
    “Which one?”
    “ Majesty .”
    “Bleh,” Chris groans in disgust. “That show is boring.”
    “Good thing no one invited you to come watch,” Zoe calls as she leads the way out of the room.
    I follow behind her down the hall and up the stairs to the classroom. There’s a lone computer sitting on a desk in the far corner that we only use on rare occasions. It’s supposed to be blocked from accessing too much of the internet, but Orsen has a way with technology. He didn’t have to work too hard to break past the walls they set up. Now we have access to anything we want. Some of it, mostly the things Chris finds, are not my style. He’s really into sports and naked women. The sports I don’t understand the thrill of at all and the naked women I understand the thrill of all too much. I have to share a very small space with my dad where you can hear every hiccup, every fart, and the last thing I need is excess images of beautiful women dancing in my head while I try to sleep three feet away from him.
    Zoe shakes the mouse to wake the computer up. “What episode were we on?”
    “Twelve,” I remind her, sitting back in my seat and crossing my arms over my chest. “The priest had just smuggled the princess’ son out of the city.”
    “Right. I hope Killander gets back in time to save her from her brother.”
    “He won’t.”
    She winces. “Why would you say that?”
    When she opens the web browser the screen fills with a site covered in news articles and weather information. Rain clouds for the next five days. Great. We have a leak in the roof, a hole in the fence from the wolf attack, and no good time to fix any of it.
    “Because it’s true,” I answer her. “With the baby in play she’s expendable to the plot. If the baby had died she’d survive. She and Killander would grieve together. But with the baby alive she’ll die before he gets there and he’ll go on a quest to find their son because it’s the last piece of her in the world.”
    “That’s kind of romantic.”
    I shake my head, not sure where she’s getting that from. “It’s more dramatic than anything.”
    “What the…” she trails off. “Trent, are you reading these headlines?”
    I wasn’t. “Which ones?”
    “All of them.”
     
    NEW OUTBREAK IN TACOMA
    RIOTS REACH SEATTLE
    FEVER SUSPECTED ON FLIGHT TO UTAH
     
    I sit