The Chosen Ones Read Online Free PDF Page B

leave. They’ve found
our base,” Will said, leaping over the desk with the agility of a guy who’d
been running his entire life. “It’s time to move before they return with
reinforcements.”
    He and Tony started back toward
the main room, dismissing me and the killings. It was back to business. This
was my new normal. I had no friends, no family. I had nowhere to go but with
them.
    “Congrats.” Kelly grinned, helping
me over the desk. “Not only did you save a room full of kids, you also killed
your first beautiful one.”
    I didn’t respond. As we made our
way down the hall I couldn’t help but glance back. I couldn’t see the bodies,
but I knew they were there. Like ghosts, they followed me.
    How quickly my life had changed.
They’d murdered Sally, and now I had gotten back at them. An eye for an eye—I
supposed I finally understood that saying. It had taken the death of a
beautiful one to bring me back to life. This was what revenge was all about. So
why, then, didn’t I feel any better?

 
 
    Chapter
3

 
 
    They burned the bodies.
    To make sure there were no
remains, no evidence, Kelly had explained. I said nothing as I watched the
corpses fry; my throat hurt too much to speak. But even the overwhelming scent,
so repulsive that I thought I might vomit, didn’t deter me from watching. Who
would have thought something so beautiful could have smelled so badly?
    As ill as I felt, I stayed
because I too wanted to make sure they were truly gone. I wanted them dead. Hated
them with a burning passion that matched the heat of the flames before me. It
was the only feeling that kept me in the here and now. Yet, seeing their
perfect faces burn, the skin practically melting from their skulls, was
something that would give me nightmares for years, if I lived that long, and I
found I couldn’t look away from the grotesqueness of it all.
    “Well, we got to stay here for
two months,” Kelly sighed. “Longer than most places.”
    She wasn’t watching the bodies
burn; the common sight didn’t concern her in the least. Instead, her gaze was
focused on the building in the background. The place where we’d been living
only an hour earlier. Smoke trailed from the open windows in thick, black
clouds, the scent heavy in the air. I realized how close we’d been to burning
like the beautiful ones.  
    Disconcerted, I tore my gaze
from the smoke and refocused on the fire. But killing them made little
difference. I still felt their presence, hidden within the shadows, waiting for
me to sleep. They followed me like the scent of smoke clinging to my clothing. The
weight of my sword nestled in the leather sheath Kelly had given me made me
feel somewhat better, but not much. Somehow we had survived, but would we next
time?
    I watched with a cold detachment
as two of Will’s men tossed the body of yet another beautiful one into the
flames. The fourth and last. Amazing how so few vampires could do so much
damage.
    “Are you all right?” Kelly asked,
resting a hand on my shoulder.
    Her touch startled me from my
stupor, and made me uncomfortable. I stepped away, avoiding eye contact for
fear she’d see the unease in my gaze and know that I hadn’t returned to normal
after all.
    “Yes.” And I was well enough. At
least I could move, I could speak, I might be able to eat without getting ill. I
was certainly better than I’d been in the last two weeks. But I was still
numb…so numb inside and out, deep within my bones. I didn’t think the feeling
would ever truly go away. I was like early spring when the ground looked soft
and thawed. Yet, if you tried to dig deep you’d find it hard and frozen.
    “It…seems sacrilegious in some
way, killing something so beautiful.”
    “Sacrilegious?” Tony laughed, as
he sidled up next to Kelly and threw his arm over her shoulders.
    Will merely studied me
thoughtfully from the opposite side of the bonfire, his eyes unreadable. I
admit a part of me wondered what he thought. Was