Shadow Hills Read Online Free PDF Page A

to his iPod. A familiar-sounding song came from the headphones that lay on either side of his neck, instead of in his ears.
Strange
. I stepped a little closer, trying to identify it. The violin portion was very distinctive, and it took me only a few seconds to realize the song was “Wonderlust King” by Gogol Bordello.
    As I observed Zach, I noticed that several packages on the shelves were tilting out toward him, as if they were being pulled by some invisible force. On the shelf below, the spiral bound notebooks stuck an inch off the shelf farther than the notebooks beside them.
Well, that’s definitely not normal
. Only the metal objects, like compasses and packages of silver tacks, seemed affected by the weird antigravity.
    Zach must have felt me watching him because when he turned his head and saw me, he didn’t seem all that surprised.
    “Hey again.” He nodded.
    “I love that album.”
    “Huh?”
    “Super Taranta.”
I raised my eyebrows. “The album you’re listening to.”
    “Wow. Good hearing.” He frowned. “Usually I’m the only one who can hear it like this.” He gestured at the earbuds hanging around his neck.
    “Did they go to Boston on their last tour?” I questioned.“I saw them a few months ago. They put on an amazing live show.” My voice was getting higher and louder, like it did when I got excited. I clapped my mouth closed.
    “I don’t know.” Zach scratched the back of his neck. “I’ve actually never been to a concert.”
    I stared at him, not sure I’d heard correctly. “You mean you’ve never seen Gogol Bordello live?”
    He shook his head. “I mean, I’ve never seen
any
band live.”
    “Seriously?” I had been going to all-ages shows since I was in middle school, and by high school my sister and I were going to every twenty-one and up show we could talk our way into.
    “Shadow Hills isn’t exactly a music mecca.” There was a restlessness evident in Zach’s tone, but I was pretty sure it had more to do with being stuck in a small town than it did with our conversation.
    “Boston’s not that far. Why don’t you go there?” I couldn’t imagine what it would be like never to have seen a show, never to have felt that surge of adrenaline.
    “Haven’t had the chance.” Zach shifted his weight, leaning to the side, causing all the metal objects in the aisle to pull toward him even more.
    Now he was uncomfortable, and it definitely had something to do with me. I’d let my elitist-music-snob attitude rear its ugly head, probably making Zach think that I saw him as some kind of hick. When nothing could have been further from the truth. In fact, I had never been so intrigued by someone I’d just met—and I was certain I’d never seen anyone else have a physical effect on metal.
    “Sorry, that was rude. It’s really not any of my business.” I wanted to ask him about his seeming magnetism, but I didn’t need to come off as any nosier than I already had.
    “I’ll write it off as the L.A. influence.” Zach flashed me a smile. “Too much paparazzi exposure.”
    I laughed, accidentally letting out a snort.
    “Well, that wasn’t humiliating or anything,” I said from behind my hand.
    “No.” He was grinning widely at me now. “It was cute.”
    “Zach. There you are.” Corinne swept past me, totally ignoring my existence. “You haven’t gotten your notebooks yet?” She stared at him in exasperation before reaching for a three-ring binder. The metal items swung like a pendulum away from her.
Apparently Zach
isn’t
the only one who has a physical effect on metal
.
    “What are you looking at?” she practically barked at me.
    I tore my gaze from the things that now hung at an opposite angle from the way they’d been a moment ago.
    “Don’t you have somewhere you need to be?”
    “I was looking for the bathroom, actually,” I told her coolly.
    “It’s at the end of the next aisle over.” Corinne gave me a fake smile.
    “You’re so