The Revealed Read Online Free PDF Page A

became a different man. A vengeful man. Harsh and hard. There were rumors that during the war, he had killed men with his bare hands when he and Kai needed food. Not that those rumors were rare. People became desperate when they hadn’t eaten in weeks. But with Roderick Westerfield, it was different somehow. Darker. Not born out of desperation but desire. As if he had to prove to the world that he was top of the food chain, most powerful of them all. It wouldn’t surprise me if the rumors about Westerfield were true. You just knew with a glance at him that he wasn’t a man you wanted to make angry.
    Part of me pitied Kai, but he was growing up to be just like his father. It was difficult to feel sorry for someone once they were capable of making their own decisions. I watched the auburn-haired girl’s hand creep even higher until it made me blush to keep watching. It was more difficult by the day to sympathize with him.
    By the time Kai and I found our way to prep school, we hadn’t talked to one another for years. We were strangers. He had his jock friends, and I had parents who were grooming me for an election.
    He loved being the center of attention. He had a different girl on his arm every week, model types who fawned after him. He was the son of a powerful man, and that attracted a certain desperate type of girl. He played into it though, and played them, going through almost every girl in our school.
    I avoided him, not interested in his games or the show he put on for attention. I hid from the spotlight while he reveled in it, squeezing out all he could.
    Our mutual gaze in that auditorium ended quickly. But the memories of that beach and our families still made my heart twist. Not with longing, but with sadness for things lost.
    As the bell rang, I piled my books under my arms and bolted from the room, slipping past Jeremy and not giving him time to follow. I hid under the bleachers outside and cried.
    I thought the spot I’d found was safe, but quickly learned otherwise as voices drew near.
    My cries dried in my throat. I sank deeper into the shadows, huddled amongst the dust and spider webs. Feet clanked against the stair treads. Two voices carried from above.
    “I mean, it’s pathetic really,” one boy said. It sounded like Micah.
    And then Kai spoke, and I knew I’d heard right. “She just thinks she’s too good for all of this. Did you see how she ran from the auditorium?”
    There was a snipping sound as they fired a light. Then I smelled the smoke from the cigarettes as it wafted through the crevices in the bleachers. They were smoking between classes, which was not allowed but a lot of the students did it anyway.
    “I mean, everyone knows she’s the biggest snob at the school. And in a school full of snobs, that’s saying something. Look at you, your dad’s running for president too and you still have friends.”
    “She clearly just can’t handle it. It’s her parents’ fault. You should see them outside of TV. Her mom is like this pathological liar. The woman will say anything if she thinks it’ll help her family in the polls. Her dad’s spent so much time and energy creating his career, he can’t see past that to anything else. Of course Lily’s fucked-up.”
    The boys jumped over the railing and onto the dirt. If they looked over their shoulders, they would see me.
    The boys put out their cigarettes, grinding their feet into the dirt.
    “Whatever, man, I want nothing to do with that girl. She’s weird,” Micah went on, raking a hand through his hair and spitting in the dirt.
    Kai agreed. “Weird and a snob. Not that she has a reason to be a snob. All you have to do is look at her face to see that.”
    The boys snorted laughter and their voices grew faint, but I stayed hunched in the corner. I sat in the shadows for a long time. I was too humiliated to leave before I was positive everyone else had gone home for the day.
    Kai’s comments surprised me, though I knew they