The Before Read Online Free PDF

front of the TV. I knew it was bad news because, well, for starters there hadn’t been any good news in a long time. Besides, Mom was holding Mel’s hand. If Mel needed that kind of comfort, something big had happened.
    “What’s up?”
    Mom barely glanced at me. Her eyes, red-rimmed and tear-glazed, were glued to the screen. “They’re fire—” Her voice broke and she paused before forcing out the rest of the words. “Firebombing Houston.”
    “What?” Horrified, I turned to look at the images flickering across the screen. Aerial shots of downtown Houston showed a city ablaze, buildings crumbling. I felt my knees give out. I stumbled for the sofa but didn’t make it and instead just thudded to the ground.
    Houston was the fourth largest city in the U.S. It was the home of banking and oil fortunes. And more than two million people. They couldn’t bomb Houston. There was just no way. No way.
    “Wha . . .” I muttered, barely coherent as shock raced along my nerves. As I watched, the news helicopter swooped low over the sprawling city. An image filled the screen of one of Houston’s legendary mixmaster freeways. The graceful arc of highway lay crumbled and broken, like a child’s abandoned train tracks.
    “How?” I swallowed. So much destruction. Then a burst of bile hit my throat and I swallowed again. My breath was coming in short bursts. “How? They can’t . . . When did . . .”
    “I don’t know,” Mom murmured, her eyes glued to the TV screen. I couldn’t tell if it was shock or horror in her voice. Probably both. “They started in the night, I guess. It was just”—she gestured vaguely toward the screen—“on when I turned on the TV a few minutes ago.”
    “But they only ordered Houston to evacuate two days ago.” Only two days. It had taken three days during the last hurricane. “There’s no way all those people made it out!”
    “I know.”
    “And that church!” I said, remembering something I’d seen just the previous night on TV. “There were all those people in that church who were refusing to leave! That was like two thousand people. What about them?”
    “I know.” Mom’s voice broke over her words.
    I looked over at Mom. Tears were streaming down her face. I hadn’t seen her cry. Not since our father left. Not once. Not even in sad movies. We’d watched The Notebook and she hadn’t shed a tear. But then, that was just a movie. This was real life. This was the lives of millions of people, over or changed forever.
    I looked at Mel and she met my gaze, calm and thoughtful—scared, but in control. That’s when it hit me. Mom wasn’t comforting Mel. Mel was comforting Mom.
    Mom and I were losing it. We were falling apart completely. And Mel was the one keeping it together. Somehow, staring into Mel’s eyes, I found the strength to fight my fear and panic. Not because I wanted to, but because I had no choice. We had to get our feet under us. The world was falling apart, but we had to get it together. We couldn’t be like those people in Houston who had refused to evacuate. We couldn’t just bury our heads in the sand, barricade ourselves in a church and pray for the best. This shit was bad, and we had to stick together. We had to fight for each other. We had to be smart.
    And first off, that meant turning off the TV. Cutting off the nonstop stream of fear and panic, if only for a few minutes so we could regroup.
    I pushed myself up and stumbled over to Mom, who held the remote clutched tight in her free hand. She tried to tug it back, but I pried her fingers loose and jabbed the power button.
    “But we need—”
    “What we need is a plan,” I cut her off before she could beg to turn the TV back on. At a time like this, the constant dribble of information was too seductive. It would suck us in and hold us trapped on the sofa. “We need to figure out what we’re doing next.”
    Mom blinked, her gaze slowly focusing in on me. “Yeah. I mean, yes. We do.”
    “Okay,