No Angel Read Online Free PDF

sort of noise, shaking my head. Aware of all the eyes staring at me, I quickly picked up my overturned chair and reseated myself. Burying my face in my book, I waited until all the girls had turned back to Ms. Wormwood. Then I cautiously peered over the pages at Michaela.
    Her face was still hidden, but somehow she knew I was looking. “And now,” she murmured in a low, throaty voice that made every syllable sound like an invitation to a dirty weekend, “ I know everything about you .” Her knees bumped mine under the desk as she turned toward me. “Do you know what I’m going to do?”
    I maintained my smoldering, mysterious silence, mainly because my brain had utterly fused.
    Michaela pushed back her hair. Her bloodred lips curved upward, slowly.
    “I’m going,” she whispered, her black eyes burning with passion, “to kill you.”

Chapter 4
    T hat evening found me lying on my bed, flipping through stacks of old school yearbooks I’d borrowed from the library, searching for my mum. She’d always been secretive about her life before meeting my dad—“I was a different person back then” was all she’d ever said—but I knew her maiden name and the approximate dates she had to have been here. So far, though, the only mention of a “Foxglove” I’d found was an English teacher who’d apparently been at the school then. Given that the article was about her retiring due to completing twenty years’ service, that couldn’t possibly be my mum, although I did wonder if she was a relative. My mum had been completely estranged from her family, but she’d let slip once—while trying to persuade me of the importance of doing my homework—that I had generations of teachers in my unknown maternal background. “The family business,” she’d called it and then changed the subject quickly.
    With a sigh, I gave up on my research and tossed the yearbook aside. I stretched out on my rock-hard mattress, staring up at the beamed ceiling. “Michaela,” I said aloud, rolling the syllables over my tongue. Michaela Dante.
    I knew that girls pretended to be disinterested when they actually were panting for you, but when it came to playing hard to get, “I’m going to kill you” was Olympic level. On the other hand, Michaela had made a point of sitting next to me in every lesson that afternoon. That had to mean she was interested, right?
    A soft, hesitant knock on the door derailed my train of thought. I swung my legs off the bed and reached for the doorknob, a relieved grin spreading across my face. With Michaela’s glowering presence at my back all day, every other girl had treated me as if I was surrounded by an invisible force field. I’d spent all afternoon grimly trying to ignore the whispers and stares, feeling an awful lot like a zoo exhibit. At least someone was willing to come and say hello.
    By the time I realized that my late-night visitor was almost certainly Krystal, it was too late to hide. My expression frozen somewhere between welcome and horror, I peered cautiously around the half-open door.
    “Hi!” said the apparently empty corridor.
    I looked down. A blonde girl who couldn’t be older than twelve beamed up at me over the top of a fistful of large, vibrant flowers.
    “Uh . . . hi?” I said.
    “HiRaffimynameisClairewelcometoSaintMary’swe-loveyoubye!” the girl said all in one breath and thrust her bouquet into my hand. A second later, she was gone.
    “Okay,” I said, blinking. Random. Closing the door again, I jammed the flowers into my water glass and set them on the windowsill, where they added a cheerful splash of color to the otherwise grim decor. You’d think that as the only guy here, I would have been given one of the best rooms in the place, but as it was I’d been housed in a pigsty. Literally. The plaque on the front of the building said BOYS’ DORMITORY (OLD PIGGERY) . Thanks, Headmistress .
    Still, even if my room was small, at least I had it to myself. In fact, I had