Slow Agony Read Online Free PDF Page B

painful. Everything that occurred to me was something I shouldn’t think about. All my thoughts hurt too much. I needed to stay alert. If I let myself wallow in anything that was happening to me, I might lose my mind. So I couldn’t let these thoughts overtake me.
    Instead, I put on some music that I’d loved since I was sixteen. A band that had been popular when I was in high school. I knew all the words, and I sang it at the top of my lungs, effectively blocking out anymore thoughts. And when I started to feel guilty for singing when my best friend was dead, I just told myself to shut up.
    * * *
    I dialed Knox on my new phone. I was in the Wal-Mart parking lot, and the phone was one of those disposable kinds. The ones where you have to buy minutes for them.
    “Hello?” he said.
    “It’s me,” I said. The sun was high in the sky now. It was nearly noon, a brilliant day in the balmy month of May. I hated that the weather was so cheerful. It was taunting me.
    “This your new number?”
    “Yeah,” I said.
    “All right,” he said. “You in Cumberland?”
    “Yes,” I said. “How did you...?”
    “It was either that or Morgantown. Cumberland’s a tad closer, right?”
    “Right,” I said in a quiet voice.
    “Okay,” he said. “Here’s what you do next. You’re going to meet someone at a restaurant called D’atri. You know where that is, right?”
    “Yeah,” I said. I hadn’t been there in a while. They had the most amazing subs. It was the salad dressing they used on the lettuce, I thought. Something about it was positively delicious. But I hadn’t been there since Griffin and I— “You did call him.”
    “Leigh,” he said. “I had to.”

Chapter Three
    “Here you go,” said the waiter. “The menu you got before didn’t have the insert with the specials.” He whisked away the menu I’d been staring at and placed another one in its place.
    A piece of paper was face up, reading, “Act natural. Don’t let on you recognize me.”
    I raised my gaze slowly to the waiter. It was Griffin.
    My breath caught in my throat. He was wearing the D’Atri uniform, just like a waiter. His shoulders were still as broad and strong as they had been the last time I saw him, his chest still as muscled. His eyes were the same steely gray.
    The last time I’d looked into those eyes they’d been full of accusation and hurt. He’d called me selfish and petty and shallow. Now, they were blank and expressionless. He looked at me coolly. “Can I get you something to drink while you decide?”
    I tried to speak, but nothing came out.
    “Maybe just some water then,” he said. He tapped the piece of paper. “Make sure you read the specials carefully.” And then he was gone.
    I turned back to the “specials” and continued to read. “Wait for two minutes and then go to the bathroom. Fold this piece of paper up and put it in your pocket.”
    I read it over and over again, looking for some hint of emotion in it somewhere.
    There wasn’t any.
    Sure, I knew that I my reunion with Griffin wasn’t under ideal circumstances. People were trying to kill us. That afforded us a certain amount of leeway to ignore our feelings. But seeing him again was tearing me up inside. Didn’t it matter to him at all?
    I folded up the piece of paper. I put it in my pocket. I pretended to peruse the menu. I wasn’t expecting anything overt from Griffin. He couldn’t do anything that would jeopardize us. But I knew him pretty well, and if seeing me meant anything to him, I couldn’t tell.
    I got out of the booth I was sitting in, picked up my duffel bag, and walked to the back of the restaurant, where the bathrooms were.
    There was a woman inside, sitting on the sink and dangling her feet. “Leigh?” she said, smiling.
    I shut the door. “Who are you?”
    “I’m Sloane,” she said. She had dark hair and a wide grin. “I used to be Op Wraith like Griffin. I’m helping out.”
    “Oh,” I said.
    She pushed me into one of