Ring of Fire Read Online Free PDF Page B

exhausted.”
    “You could’ve said something like, ‘Guys, I’m exhausted. How about you?’ It’s called ‘pleasant conversation.’”
    “I didn’t know what to talk about.”
    “Well, how about your favorite movie, the last book you read, when your birthday is …,” Sheng blurts out, running his fingers through the lampshade’s tiny wisps of light. “In fact, I’m tempted to tell you guys when I was born—”
    Harvey cuts him off with a hoarse laugh. “Actually, my birthday’s pretty funny.”
    “Not as funny as mine,” Mistral adds.
    “Believe me. Mine’s the worst,” Sheng insists.
    “I don’t think so,” Harvey shoots back, clasping his hands behind his neck. “I was born on February twenty-ninth. Can you believe it?”
    A sort of electric charge fills the room. Elettra can clearly feel it surging down to her fingertips. It’s a shock that comes from outside, from the street, or maybe from much higher up. As if in the sky, at an infinite altitude, some ancient mechanism made of stars and ancient mysteries has switched on.
    The air echoes with silence and then suddenly becomes still and cold.
    Sheng’s hand grabs on to the dandelion lamp’s wisps. Mistral, sitting at the foot of the bed, gasps.
    Realizing he’s said something strange, Harvey sits up and asks, “Weird, isn’t it?” But there’s a note of uneasiness in his voice. “Don’t you think it’s strange? February twenty-ninth!”
    “I was born on February twenty-ninth, too,” Sheng whispers, turning to stare at him.
    The room grows even colder. And the electrical charge in Elettra’s hands grows stronger.
    “I don’t believe it,” says Mistral. “It can’t be!” Her blue eyes are gleaming with amazement. “Me too.”
    Sheng’s hands freeze completely amid the lamp’s wisps.
    “Man …,” he murmurs. “What … what a bizarre coincidence.”
    “Go figure …,” muses Harvey, sitting on the edge of the bed.
    Elettra needs to move. She’s boiling hot. Inside of her is a seething volcano. She walks up to the window and throws it open, letting in the chilly nighttime air.
How could it be?
she wonders.
    She looks up. The sky is overcast. No stars can be seen.
    But that doesn’t mean they aren’t there.
    She shuts her eyes and lets a few snowflakes land on her face. They melt into tiny teardrops. Her hands are so hot her fingertips are aching.
    When she opens her eyes again to look at the three people in her room, she notices that none of them has said a word.
    Grouchy Harvey.
    Dreamy Mistral.
    Cheerful Sheng.
    “I don’t believe in coincidences,” Elettra says, her voice trembling.
    She’s logical, rational, perfectly organized. She understands people at a single glance. She categorizes them, classifies them and always has an explanation for everything.
    Except for when she winds up burning out lightbulbs orruining mirrors. Except for when a printer goes haywire or a television screen changes colors when she walks by.
    She doesn’t believe in coincidences. Not ones like this, at least.
    Because Elettra was also born on February twenty-ninth.
    When she tells the others this, she feels the need to lean against someone. Her hand barely touches Sheng’s shoulder, and all the tension and heat she’s been keeping inside of her instantly surges out like a flooded river.
    “Aaahh!” cries the Chinese boy, feeling a burning sensation.
    The dandelion lamp in his hands lets out a burst of blinding light and shatters into a thousand pieces.

5
THE CALL

    M ANTLED IN WHITE, THE TRAFFIC IN R OME SLOWS DOWN TO A HALT like a weary animal. All alone in her yellow Mini, Beatrice tries to cancel out everything around her as she sits in the protective comfort of her car. She turns up the volume of her CD player full blast and lets the music carry her thoughts far, far away. She’s surrounded by endless lanes of cars, honking horns and glaring headlights. The statues guarding the bridges of the Tiber River stare at her