Shade Me Read Online Free PDF

wasn’t a child anymore. In recent months, she’d gone from sweet little rich girl to punk rocker with a trust fund. She wasn’t Hallmark-card cute anymore, but she also wasn’t rehab-scandalous. Translation: too boring for the gossip pages. She was still queen of our high school, though—popular, head of Drama Club and Choral Group, but she was also popular for other things now, too, like hosting epic parties at her house—a place all of us knew as Hollis Mansion. Most notably, she was lead singer for Viral Fanfare, an underground garage band that played at pretty much every A-list party in Brentwood. Not that I was an A-list partyer by any stretch. But when Peyton Hollis wasinvolved, everyone in the free world had to know all about it. Including no-listers like me.
    I knew who she was, but I didn’t know Peyton. We weren’t friends. We weren’t even in the same stratosphere—the weirdo flunk-out and the ruler of all that is high school. Yet my number was the only number in her cell phone? It didn’t make sense.
    I didn’t need this shit. Not right now. Not with Jones hassling me and with trying not to fail my senior year. Not when I’d finally gotten to a place where I didn’t think about my mother’s murder every day.
    I should’ve told the nurse who called me that this wasn’t my problem, that my phone number being in that phone was a mistake. I should have stayed on my window ledge, where I was happy with my crisp air and cigarettes. Peyton Hollis had so many friends. So many other people to be there for her. People who would fall all over themselves to keep vigil in that pulsing crimson room. What was I supposed to do here, anyway? I couldn’t stop someone from dying. It’s not like Peyton would help me if I were dying. She was royalty and I was no one.
    I opened my eyes and started to get up. Fuck it, I’m out, I said to myself. Let the Hollis family deal with their own problems.
    But before I could make a move, the cop reappeared,holding a Styrofoam cup in my face. “Here,” he said. “I brought you some water.”
    â€œI’m fine. Just leaving, actually. I’m not the one who should be here.” But he didn’t budge, and I couldn’t get up with him blocking me. “Excuse me?” I said pointedly.
    â€œJust have a drink first,” he coaxed. “You looked like you were about to pass out over there. I don’t feel good about you getting behind the wheel of a car just yet.”
    Impatiently, I grabbed the cup and sipped from it as I studied his police badge. Detective Chris Martinez. Kind of cute. Definitely young, maybe early twenties. Close-cropped black hair, muscles, stubble. Something behind his eyes looked wounded, or maybe just jaded, not that I could fault him for it. I was the most wounded and jaded person I knew. Hell, I was so wounded and jaded I was about to bail on a battered girl. But there was something about the erect way he stood—important and eager—that made me think of sparkling gold. His badge numbers came across as bright yellow. If my instincts were right, he believed in the whole serve-and-protect thing, heavy on the protect . Too bad I didn’t need his help, because this was not my problem. Peyton needed his help. I needed a cigarette and some distance. Let Detective Martinez handle the Peyton situation.
    â€œYour color is looking better,” he said, and at first I was confused, thinking maybe he had synesthesia, too, and whatwere the odds. But then I realized he was talking about the color of my face. My hairline was ringed with cold sweat, but the burning in my cheeks had stopped.
    â€œGreat,” I said. “So I’ll be going now.” I started to get up again, but he still didn’t move.
    â€œJust curious, what had you so rattled in the first place? You looked like you’d seen a ghost.”
    I squared my shoulders and tried to