Terrorscape Read Online Free PDF Page B

girl. Innocent. Maybe too
innocent. Maybe that had been the problem. Maybe if
she had been more streetwise, none of this would ever
have happened.
Or maybe it was unavoidable. Determinism. Fate. (Can you feel the ties that bind us? Can you feel them
tightening?)
    She couldn't remember when she had first laid
laid eyes on him, but she remembered that encounter
in the pet store where he worked as if it were
yesterday. When he had let her hold one of the costly
toyger kittens and the little creature had scratched
her. When he had licked her blood from his fingers .
    But at the time, in her naivete, she had managed
to convince herself that it had been an illusion, a trick
of the light—anything but the truth.
And if I had known, could I have stayed away?
    Sometimes, she thought yes, yes she could. But
now, standing in the middle of the aisle for school
supplies, lost to the sea of her own thoughts, Val
suspected this was wishful thinking on her part.
    One look in those eyes, and all was lost.
“Are you finding everything okay?”
“Uh-huh.” Val nodded and turned away from the
salesclerk, hugging her shopping basket to her side.
    Even after she had known about the blood that
stained his hands, the blood that hadn't even had time
to cool—even after she knew what he was and what
he was capable of and why he wanted her—she had
still wanted those hands on her. Inside of her. And he,
he had been only too happy oblige.
    Until the end.
Something had changed at the very end.
    When he saw that spark of defiance that he hadn't
quite been able to snuff, that last shred of moral
decency, he had decided to discard her in favor of her
flaws, ever the temperamental artist.
What could not be painted out must be destroyed.
    And when he had tried to kill her, when she had
felt the water rush past the floodgates of her lungs
and the ache turned to numbness and her thoughts
turned to darkness, hadn't she felt as if she had been
justly accorded her due?
    Hadn't she thought, “I deserve this”?
“Val?”
A hand
touched
her
shoulder.
She
jumped,
scattering packs of pens and pencils.
     
“Whoa, sorry. You about ready to go?”
    Val looked down at her basket. School supplies
and foodstuffs were inside. She couldn't remember
placing them there. The only thing they had in
common was that they were all cheap.
“I think so.”
     
“Cool. We're all waiting up at the registers. My
sisters already finished.”
     
I am horrid.
    Chapter Three
Peony
    In
California,
summer
storms
were
all
but
unheard of, and people talked about them for days afterward. Here in North Point, so close to the
Olympic Peninsula, they were a common occurrence.
And a consistent annoyance.
    Val hugged herself as she walked from her dorm
to the computer lab, shivering as the water melded
with the cold August morning.
    Freshmen had to make their new school accounts
in the computer lab, before their accounts could be
linked
to
their
home—or
dorm—computers.
Val
hoped to sign up for her classes, as well, assuming
she could figure out the user interface.
    The IT on duty was a boy who reminded Val of
Blake, with his fawn-colored hair and hazel eyes and
large, wire-rimmed glasses. Thankfully their voices
were nothing alike, or she wouldn't have been able to
stand it.
    “Now enter this number,” he was saying. A name
tag on his striped shirt identified him as Pete. “That's
your assigned password. Change it to whatever you
want, just as long as it's easy to remember and
difficult to guess. Let me know when you're done.”
    He pointedly averted his head as she began to
type in her new password. She found herself growing
annoyed by such unnecessary diligence.
    “I'm done.”
Her account opened.
Klein, M. Valerie .
    “Good,” said the boy. “Now you should be able to
register for classes. Let me know if you need any
more help.” He got up to assist a girl who had been
waving her arm this entire time.
Wonder it didn't just fly off . Impatient, much?
    She stared at her