Pulse Read Online Free PDF Page B

doing here?
    Drifters .
    The word squirmed itself into her brain, and she was suddenly imagining a mysterious group of people living in one of the classrooms in the abandoned school.
    “Shut off your lights,” Faith whispered, and they all did. The library turned especially dark in an instant.
    “What if they see the Tablets?” Hawk said nervously. “It’s the first thing they’ll take.”
    Faith and Liz were thinking the same thing, but they didn’t say so. It would only upset Hawk even more. Maybe it had been a mistake leaving them behind like they had. They waited a while longer, but there was only silence; and they began to wonder if they’d heard anything to begin with. Maybe it had been their imaginations.
    “This has been really cool and all,” Hawk said. “But I think I’m ready to get my Tablet back. And I should probably go home before my mom starts messaging me, wondering where I am.”
    Faith lived in the neighborhood, but Liz didn’t. Her house was a fifteen-minute walk away, on the other side of the abandoned mall. Neither of them had any idea where Hawk lived.
    They decided not to turn the flashlights back on unless they had to. Their eyes had adjusted to the dim light, and they quietly padded along the slick floor of the corridor. When they came to the cafeteria door and found no one, they all felt sure it had only been the wind through the opening. They kept thinking that, laughing nervously, until they arrived at the table and they were staring at two, not three, Tablets.
    Hawk’s was no longer there.
    “Uh-oh,” Liz said.
    Hawk didn’t say anything. For once he was speechless. His emotions got the better of him, and his breath started to come in waves as he picked up the note that had been left behind. It was written on a small piece of tattered paper that had been torn off what had once been a full sheet.
    Get used to living without it.
    “I’m sorry, Hawk,” Faith said. “This is all my fault. I’m really, really sorry.”
    “Sorry won’t get it back!” Hawk yelled. He was pacing back and forth like a caged animal. He moved his hands in phantom swipes on a Tablet he no longer had, and then he began to run. He was at the window before Faith and Liz could catch him, and by the time they got outside, Hawk was far enough away that they could barely see his silhouette moving fast along the distant tree line.
    “Hawk!” Faith called out. “It’s okay, we’ll find it! We will!”
    “God, this is terrible,” Liz said. “Who would have taken his Tablet? It doesn’t make any sense.”
    They both felt uneasy about staying in the school any longer. It was too confined now, like someone could nail the plywood over the entry and seal them in for good. Faith went through the opening first, then Liz; and when the cool night air hit them in the faces, they felt a little bit better. They walked in silence, hoping the Tablet had satisfied whoever had followed them.
    “You know what,” Liz concluded as they came to the fork in the path where they would normally part ways. “This is going to be good for him. He’s too attached to that thing. I bet he’ll even thank us later.”
    Faith wasn’t so sure. They walked around the lake, and Faith thought of messaging Hawk to see if he was okay. But of course she couldn’t. He didn’t have a Tablet. And then her Tablet vibrated. A message was there, one she hadn’t expected but had been hoping for. Wade Quinn was back.
    Come see me tomorrow, gym, watch me high-jump?
    “Um, it’s Wade,” Faith told Liz. There was an awkward pause as they kept walking, and then Liz stopped.
    “Go ahead, you know you want to.”
    Liz stepped away, and their hands pulled apart like something snapping in half.
    “I think I’ll go on home,” Liz said, and before Faith could stop her, Liz was a shadow disappearing into the darkness. Faith knew better than to try to change Liz’s mind when she got this way. She tapped out a message and felt her spirits lift