Induction Day: Book Two in the Butterman Travel Series Read Online Free PDF

page. The holo-GIF animation of him and me is no longer front and central, instead a picture of a heavy-lidded Tristan with a sloppy smirk and his arm around some plastic looking chick with cleavage bigger than my ass commands attention. The caption under it reads, “ How many honeys does Tristan Helms have? Let’s just say he keeps the pretty ones for the fun times …” Below is a picture of me from yesterday at the shuttle-port and I’m scowling in the worst way. Underneath says, “ And stores the useful ones away in the Arctic til his social blunders need repair .”
    The air leaves my body like I’ve been punched in the gut.
    In one swift motion, the site closes down with Tristan’s sudden gesture. “Thought you were calling your parents. Don’t pull this crap up. Ever. Nothing good’ll come of it.”
    I lean back in his chair, allowing my stiff body to slacken with a bout of hopelessness. What am I doing here, mixed up in all this? What have I done?
    Tristan stoops beside me, his irises hauntingly darker than usual. “Listen, I know how you feel. I’ve dealt with this longer than I ever wanted to. No one ever explains what you’re signing up for beforehand—all anyone from the other side sees is fortune and glamour and flashy grins in spotlights.” He pauses, studying my gaze with an undeniable intent of honesty. “I should’ve made it clearer to you. This is my life, this is what you get. The bad with the good, and I don’t like it any more than you do. If you wanna leave, never see me again, I’ll understand.”
    I’m silent, marveling at the despair he must keep buried so deeply down inside of him. Never seeing him again has crossed my mind, but at what cost? The damage is already done, and why should they win?
    I kiss his cheek. “Trying to get rid of me already?”
    He cracks half a smile. “Not even close

Chapter Three
Paloot, Alaska—
     December 2, 2069
    “ N ever seen the town this busy. Ever.” Agnes Whirlwind tells us, revving the snowmobile engine outside the airport terminal beside the hangar. “Not even on Caribou Parade days. Dalton’s ready to blow a gasket. Commotion’s got the dogs spooked and howling all night, every night.”
    I climb on the snowmobile behind her lean, hunched frame—hunched from years of diner serving and Iditarod training. Tristan secures our bags in the rear compartment, then straddles the passenger seat behind me. I remind him to dial up the temperature on his parka’s thermal threading, and once our seatbelts are fastened, Agnes lifts off the ground in full hover mode. Mom warned us before our arrival that Paloot was packed with media. Ever since Tristan’s press release went live yesterday morning, the town’s been an epicenter of cameras and reporters. Having Agnes pick us up behind the airport hangar was Dad’s idea.
    “Hard to believe,” Tristan calls out. “Media this far north in the winter. They must be really hard up for stories.”
    “Probably figured it was safer being here in person, the way you smashed up that one microdrone,” Agnes calls over the wind, accelerating through the air, inches above the ground.
    Neither Tristan nor I acknowledge her comment. Even if she’s teasing—which I seriously doubt from the bite of her tone—she has no idea how it feels to be in our positions. Granted, her quiet rural home is now a media circus because of us.
    Conversation remains sparse while Agnes drives us down the one-street town of Paloot and toward Butterman Travel’s office. Bitter 10 degree wind whips past the tops of my cheeks—the only part of my face uncovered between my goggles and fur hood, and I crank up my in-seam thermal heating another notch.
    Along the main strip, outside Agnes’ Diner, parka-clad people are milling about, bundled down to their boots, save for their cylindrical hover-cams above their shoulders. All of it’s so odd, as if someone finally struck gold in some forgotten ghost town and it’s now crawling