The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner Read Online Free PDF Page A

around and wait for the answers to inappropriate questions, too. I just stared at him.
    He sighed. The scent of his breath was nice. Everybody smelled sweet, but Diego had a little something extra—some spice like
     cinnamon or cloves.
    “I tried to stay away from all that junk. Studied hard. I was gonna get out of the ghetto, you know. Go to college. Make something
     of myself. But there was a guy—not much different than Raoul. Join or die, that was his motto. I wasn’t having any, so I stayed
     away from his group. I was careful. Stayed alive.” He stopped, closing his eyes.
    I wasn’t done being pushy. “And?”
    “My kid brother wasn’t as careful.”
    I was about to ask if his brother had joined or died, but the expression on his face made asking unnecessary. I looked away,
     not sure how to respond. I couldn’t really understand his loss, the pain it still clearly caused him to feel. I hadn’t left
     anything behind that I still missed. Was that the difference? Was that why he dwelled on memories that the rest of us shunned?
    I still didn’t see how Riley came into this. Riley and the cheeseburger of pain. I wanted that part of the story, but now
     I felt bad for pushing him to answer.
    Lucky for my curiosity, Diego kept going after a minute.
    “I kind of lost it. Stole a gun from a friend and went hunting.” He chuckled darkly. “Wasn’t as good at it then. But I got
     the guy that got my brother before they got me. The rest of his crew had me cornered in an alley. Then, suddenly, Riley was
     there, between me and them. I remember thinking he was the whitest guy I’d ever seen. He didn’t even look at the others when
     they shot him. Like the bullets were flies. You know what he said to me? He said, ‘Want a new life, kid?’”
    “Hah!” I laughed. “That’s way better than mine. All I got was, ‘Want a burger, kid?’”
    I still remembered how Riley’d looked that night, though the image was all blurry because my eyes’d sucked back then. He was
     the hottest boy I’d ever seen, tall and blond and perfect, every feature. I knew his eyes must be just as beautiful behind
     the dark sunglasses he never took off. And his voice was so gentle, so kind. I figured I knew what he would want in exchange
     for the meal, and I would have given it to him, too. Not because he was so pretty tolook at, but because I hadn’t eaten anything but trash for two weeks. It turned out he wanted something else, though.
    Diego laughed at the burger line. “You must have been pretty hungry.”
    “Damn straight.”
    “So why were you so hungry?”
    “Because I was stupid and ran away before I had a driver’s license. I couldn’t get a real job, and I was a bad thief.”
    “What were you running from?”
    I hesitated. The memories were a little more clear as I focused on them, and I wasn’t sure I wanted that.
    “Oh, c’mon,” he coaxed. “I told you mine.”
    “Yeah, you did. Okay. I was running from my dad. He used to knock me around a lot. Probably did the same to my mom before
     she took off. I was pretty little then—I didn’t know much. It got worse. I figured if I waited too long I’d end up dead. He
     told me if I ever ran away I’d starve. He was right about that—only thing he was ever right about as far as I’m concerned.
     I don’t think about it much.”
    Diego nodded in agreement. “Hard to remember that stuff, isn’t it? Everything’s so fuzzy and dark.”
    “Like trying to see with mud in your eyes.”
    “Good way to put it,” he complimented me. Hesquinted at me like he was trying to see, and rubbed his eyes.
    We laughed together again. Weird.
    “I don’t think I’ve laughed
with
anybody since I met Riley,” he said, echoing my thoughts. “This is nice.
You’re
nice. Not like the others. You ever try to have a conversation with one of them?”
    “Nope, I haven’t.”
    “You’re not missing anything. Which is my point. Wouldn’t Riley’s standard of living be a