Halo (Blood and Fire Series (A Young Adult Dystopian Series)) Read Online Free PDF Page B

for by the time I am thirty-seven? She flings back my bedroom curtains and lets in the daylight, illuminating the sparseness of my room. The only things in here are me, the bed, a three-drawer tall boy, and the loop of red ribbon that Falin Asha gave me on match day. Whenever I see it, I feel like I’m going to choke.
    “You have to be feeling better today,” my birth mother tells me. Doesn’t look like I’m getting a say in the matter. I make a grumbling noise from beneath the covers. “You had a visitor this morning.” She makes clattering noises as she sets down my soup on top of the tall boy. The spoon makes a bright dinging sound when she knocks it accidentally against the side of the bowl. I squint at her. Her hair is braided up neatly on top of her head, not a strand out of place. I ask myself the same question I’ve been asking myself the last three days ― how can she not see what’s happened to me?
    I clear my throat so I can speak without my voice cracking. “Who visited?” I don’t care who visited, but I have to ask.
    She spreads some butter on the hunk of bread she’s cut for me while she says, “The Asha Elin ― Penny, is that right? She wanted to speak to you. I told her you were sick, but I suppose you could always go and see her if you’re feeling any better?”
    Only someone completely devoid of any emotion wouldn’t question why Penny would come to see me. She was distraught when Falin Asha died, which is hardly normal behaviour. An Elin mourning a Falin? Usually they would hardly notice he was gone. This means Penny and her brother were close, although he never mentioned her to me once. I get the feeling there are a lot of things Falin Asha didn’t discuss with me, though, and maybe this halo thing is part of his relationship with Penny. She either wants to talk to me about what he did, or she wants to kill me for what I did. I don’t know which prospect sounds more terrible right now.
    My mother finishes preparing my lunch and makes to leave. Halfway out of the door, she pauses. “Are you going to get up?”
    “Yes,” I whisper. “I’ll go and see Penny. The fresh air might make me feel better.”
    “Excellent. Your father is keen for you to start training again. He wants you to partner up with one of the Falin Belcoras.”
      The concept that my father has already been planning on replacing Falin Asha makes my stomach twist. I want to smash something, but instead I nod my head, feeling my long hair tangling into even more knots against the pillow. She leaves and I eat my soup, sensing the despair inside me shift for the first time in days. It’s turning into something more volatile and dangerous.
    *****
    The Therin looks surprised to see me standing at the front door of the Asha Household. I don’t really know if I’ve used the right protocol because I’ve never visited an Elin before. When I’ve come here to see Falin Asha, I’ve always used the back door, but today I march straight up to the front and hammer on the wood. It feels good to flout whatever I think I’m supposed to do.
    The Therin woman is docile enough, but I can tell she’s a little shaken by my presence. I can have that effect on people sometimes. I think it’s all the killing, but it’s difficult to know for sure. Technically, she shouldn’t be afraid of me at all, but it can happen. A person can sometimes sense, regardless of the drugs, that they’re in the presence of death. She goes to fetch Penny and leaves me in the entranceway, running my hand up and down the white paintwork of the doorframe. I never saw Falin Asha go in or out of here, but it still makes me feel like something is burning up in my head. My eyes are pricking when Penny appears. Her hair is drawn back in a tight bun and her face looks washed out. She waves away the Therin and pulls me by my arm into the house.
    “I was wondering how long it would take you to come,” she says. She doesn’t go up the stairs; she sets off into