Monument 14: Savage Drift (Monument 14 Series) Read Online Free PDF Page B

close and puts his foul-smelling face up in mine.
    “We’re already there, sweetmeat,” Carlo murmurs.
    “Give him the sugars, Josie,” Mario directs. “Go on, now.”
    BAM, BAM, BAM goes my heart. Oh, the bloodlust is up and I want to hurt Carlo. I could hurt him so much. And Brett. Entitled, arrogant idiots. Hurt them both.
    And I see Mario there, standing next to me, a light, God help me, shining in his eyes.
    I take our sugars, most of them anyway, and shove them into Carlo’s hand.
    “See? She knows what’s good for her,” the creep Brett says with a smile.
    He slides his hand onto my hip and pulls me to his body.
    “We got a table, Uncle Mario!” chirps Heather, pushing through the crowd to us.
    I see Lori standing, craning her neck, watching us anxiously.
    “Come on,” Heather insists. I follow Mario as Heather leads us away.
    “Don’t worry, Uncle Mario,” Carlo calls. “You’re under our protection now.”
    Mario’s hands shake with the tray.
    He glances at me and sees my expression.
    “Never mind,” he says. “One less bowl of mush. Big whoop.”
    “We need the food,” I say.
    “We do what we gotta do to stay safe,” he murmurs. “Heck, maybe it’ll do us some good.”
    I let him think that and I swallow down what I know to be true: give in to a bully and he always wants more.

 
    CHAPTER FIVE
    DEAN
    DAY 31
    We like to eat early, all together. It’s funny how quickly we found a routine here—all the refugees have. When your life is utter chaos, you cling to little things like sitting at the same spot at dinner each day. Fistfights have broken out about the seating. I’m not kidding. Alex and I found the group at our regular table.
    The little kids were writing and drawing. Who knows how Mrs. McKinley got hold of the construction paper and markers. They keep saying they’re going to set up classes for the kids, but everything’s still in a state of flux.
    “How do you spell ‘celebrity’?” Chloe asked as we sat down.
    I told her and leaned over to read her letter: “Luna is famous here. Everyone loves her so much. Becawse I walk her I am basically a selle…”
    “We’re writing letters and doing drawings for Batiste!” Max said, his cowlick bobbing like a rooster’s comb.
    Batiste is at a refugee camp in Calgary. We found him at the listings. Every day, they update these thick notebooks filled with old-fashioned computer printouts with a record of the refugees at each camp. People line up for hours to pore over them, hoping to find a loved one. It felt so good to see his name printed on the register. He’s there with his mother and father. I’m glad for him. We all are.
    Ulysses’s picture showed a family playing on green grass under a blue sky.
    Max’s drawing was of a boy with spiky yellow hair, sitting on some kind of a car, being pushed by a taller figure. The boy was crying—big tears drawn as blue dashes shooting out of his eyes.
    Caroline was drawing big circle people sitting at a campfire and Henry was just sitting on his mother’s lap, twirling her hair around his index finger.
    “See, this is us around the fire at Greenway,” Caroline said. “Remember when Uncle Jake made us s’mores and cowboy soup?”
    Henry nodded, serious. “That was fun.”
    Max held up his drawing and I saw he had added red over the child’s black boots.
    “This is me when Niko was pushing me in that stroller just before we got to the bus station,” he told me.
    Jeez, I had missed a lot, holed up in the Greenway.
    “That was a good stroller,” Max said wistfully.
    Ulysses showed me his picture.
    “This is us now,” he said with his beautiful no-front-tooth grin.
    “Batiste is going to be psyched,” I told them.
    Alex took a piece of paper and started to write a letter.
    “You’re writing, too?” Caroline said, happy.
    “Of course. Batiste is my family, too.”
    “Just like all of us?” she asked.
    “Yup,” Alex said, nodding.
    Caroline looked to Chloe. “I told