The Edge of the Shadows Read Online Free PDF Page B

acting. “I c’n be a real asshole sometimes.”

FIVE
    B ecca and Derric shared a long kiss. His hands in her hair, she lost the ear piece of the AUD box and caught
not much longer really want . . .
from him. This matched what she was thinking, so she wasn’t surprised. But she also wasn’t ready.
    It was simple for her. When she gave herself to someone, it was going to be Derric. But she wasn’t going to do it in the back of a car, on someone’s sofa, out in the woods, or half-freezing to death at night on a Whidbey beach. She wanted . . . well, what
did
she want? She hadn’t yet worked that one out. All she knew was that the time wasn’t right.
    They’d done the shopping at the farmers’ market. They’d gone from there deep into the woods to a place called Mukilteo Coffee, where roasting beans filled the air with the scent of burnt toast and where a few dollars bought them a lunch to share, out on the back deck looking into the forest. Now they were sitting inside Derric’s Forester, in Ralph Darrow’s parking area. Two other vehicles were next to them: Seth’s restored Bug and a completely un-restored, rusty, rickety-looking VW camper van. The presence of these vehicles was what put the brakes on their make-out session. Getting caught with Derric’s hand up her T-shirt . . . That would be too embarrassing.
    Becca said, “Got to go,” against Derric’s mouth and she caressed his perfect, shaven skull.
    â€œSee you tomorrow, then?”
    â€œOnly if you’re up for homework.”
    â€œYou’re killing me,” he told her, but he said it with his highwattage smile.
    A final long kiss and she scooped up the shopping bags from the back seat. She watched until his car disappeared back down the hill. Then she turned and headed for Ralph Darrow’s house.
    She saw the driver of the VW camper straight off when she peaked the hill. An older lady stood in the garden below, talking to Ralph, and when Ralph saw Becca, he gave a yell for Seth. She saw Seth then, a few moments later. He came from the pond with Gus bounding around him, in the company of a strange-looking boy. It was the sight of this boy that encouraged Becca to leave the AUD box’s ear piece out of her ear. He was projecting an attitude that made a chill run down her spine.
    She got nothing in the way of thoughts from anyone as she descended. It wasn’t until she was closer that the first of the scattered mental murmurings filtered through the air. And then it was
damn not what I thought
, which she assumed had to come from the older woman, because she was openly assessing Becca, like someone who’s looking at a horse to buy. After that came
saved by the Becca bell
 . . .
could be something good for the boy but God knows that nothing’s helped to make him
 . . .
I
can’t forget to tell her about the picture
 . . .
she
keeps her wits about her with that young man . . . would have been way cool
 . . .
what’s with the face paint . . . some half-Goth skank . . . what you’d expect . . . frigging
dumb idiot sometimes . . . besides making him run to the damn beach
.
    It was a lot to deal with all at once, but the length of the fractured thoughts pleased Becca mightily. What floated to her was still broken up by what other people would have called static, but to Becca it marked the progress she’d made in hearing more and more of what she’d learned to think of as whispers. In her earliest years the thoughts of others had come to her only as simple words. Then they’d advanced to phrases whose ownership she couldn’t identify. Now she was beginning to snatch full sentences out of the air. She wasn’t always sure who was thinking what, but often the context was enough to tell her.
    She hadn’t got far in blocking out the whispers