Hector Read Online Free PDF

was.”
    “How good could he have been, Charlee?” Drew rolled her eyes. “He
got caught cheating.”
    Charlee was about to argue that he technically hadn’t been caught cheating. He was just caught with a
wireless device and headphones in his last tournament, something that was
strictly against the rules, but it was never proven he’d actually used it to
cheat. It was a bit unfair, Charlee thought. Whatever happened to innocent
until proven guilty anyway? The punishment hadn’t even fit the crime. Not only
had he automatically been disqualified from the tournament but he was kicked
off the US team and the school team, losing
his free ride to ESU. But before she could start her argument, she noticed Drew
had slowed down and was glaring at something straight ahead. No sooner had
Charlee looked up to see who she was glaring at than she regretted doing so.
    “Why is it that before last week I’d never even noticed this guy
and now it seems I see his stupid ass everywhere?” Drew asked as they walked
out the cafeteria.
    Ross and his friends were sitting just outside the cafeteria. Thankfully,
unlike for Drew, this was only the second time Charlee had seen him since the
incident the week before. The first time she’d run into him, he stared her down,
giving her a major case of the heebie-jeebies but hadn’t said anything. His
cheek still had some signs of the swelling Hector’s blow had left but nothing
like last week when his left cheek was about an inch higher than his right and
the whites of his left eye were all red.
    Charlee didn’t look at him long enough now to take inventory of
his injuries. But she may’ve looked too long because he smiled at her. It was
early in the morning. Charlee and Drew were barely on their way to their first
class of the day, but from the looks of it, Ross and his friends were already
glossy-eyed. She turned away without smiling back.
    “Just keep walking and stop looking their way,” Charlee said,
pulling on Drew’s arm.
    “Morning, Charlee.”
    Charlee nearly jumped out of her skin at the sight and sound of
Ross right next to her now. She flinched but kept walking. “Morning.” She responded, deciding ignoring him might elicit another rude reaction from
him. Her heart was already racing.
    “Can I talk to you?” He asked in a voice much nicer than last
week’s.
    “No, I’m late already.” She tugged at Drew’s arm to warn her that
she didn’t need to her to come to her rescue. Charlee could already feel the anger
radiating from her friend.
    “Maybe later then?”
    Charlee glanced at him for a second. “Maybe.”
    “What!” Drew nearly roared.
    “I gotta go.” Charlee said quickly and picked up her pace to a
near sprint, pulling Drew along with her.
    When they were far enough away and in the humanities building,
Drew stopped in front of Charlee. “Maybe? You’re not
actually gonna talk to that creep are you?”
    “No, of course not,” Charlee assured her. “I just didn’t know
what else to say.”
    “How ’bout no ?” Drew placed her fist on her hip.
    “I just said the first thing I could think of so that I could get
away from him as fast as possible. That’s all.” Drew gave her the stink eye.
“It worked, didn’t it?”
    “Yeah, well, now he’s gonna think he has the go-ahead to confront
you the next time he sees you.”
    Charlee frowned. She hadn’t thought that far ahead. Truth was
he’d spooked the hell out of her. The only thing she could think of at the time,
aside from wanting to run away like a crazy person, was to agree to anything
and get away without making a scene.
    “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it, if I ever have to.”
    She didn’t even want to think about having to talk to Ross again.
Unlike that first time, today she’d been in the middle of a crowded campus with
her best friend at her side, and she was still terrified. There was something
so ominous about him. If he ever confronted her alone again, she’d