The Undesirable (Undesirable Series) Read Online Free PDF

up with his warm and sweaty one. My fingers gripped his as hard as they could. He had just told me the worst news I had heard since the beginning of The Revolution, but it didn’t matter. I wanted something normal.
    Anything.
    He led me back through the crops to the road before he said anything. “Hey, I need you to keep that information to yourself.” He kept his voice low and quiet, but I saw the seriousness in his eyes.
    “But why did you tell me?” I couldn’t shake my confusion.
    “Well, you…” His eyes searched my face as his hand found a place underneath the nape of my neck. “I’ll tell you later, some other time. Listen, you can’t tell anyone I told you this stuff.”
    “I won’t tell anyone.”
    Fostino still held one of my hands, and now he squeezed it. “Just make sure, whatever you do, that they select you. Do whatever you can so they know you’ll be a good worker. Don’t be an Undesirable.”
    He leaned in to me and his warm breath brushed my face. He pulled me an inch closer and the motion intoxicated me. Even in the moonlight, Fostino’s deep brown eyes enthralled me. His expression changed. His eyes grew darker. His breath came out harder.
    “I can’t explain it right now, not now.” He unlinked his hand from mine and slid it up my arm. He gave it a gentle massage as his lips parted.
    “Okay. I will.” I stood so close to him now, centimeters away. I didn’t want to break away from his arms or turn away from his face.  
    Then it happened.
    Before either of us said any more, he leaned down and his lips found mine in a sudden, forceful kiss. Our lips touched for a short moment; the unmistakable push of his plump lower lip grazed mine with the softest of movements. No time to return the kiss. He broke away, exhaled, and looked at the roads that led to our hometown. I gawked at him, too shocked to speak.
    “Wait here about 15 minutes,” he ordered in a tone that sounded forced out of his throat. “Don’t follow the same path as me. Make sure you can’t see me when you start walking.” He sounded mathematical, linear, and unfazed from the kiss we had shared. Not me. No way. Every cell in my body amplified. I forced my legs to steady. “When you start walking, go straight to your house, but keep close to the field. If you see a Humvee coming, duck into the crops and hide.” His eyes held mine with intensity. I nodded in agreement again.
    He squeezed my hand one more. “Goodnight, Charlotte.” He pulled away and stumbled down the dark path.
    Within a few minutes, he disappeared. Before I cried, I made sure I no longer saw him. When the tears came, they didn’t stop until I made it to my front door.

CHAPTER FIVE

    I didn’t need the alarm of my new watch the next morning. I hadn’t slept. I pulled myself out of bed a half hour before The Count and stumbled into my mother’s small bedroom across the hallway of the house. I shook her awake as I rubbed my eyes. The sun streamed in from the one window near her bed and hit us both in the face with the force of a boxer.
    “Mom,” I said once she opened her eyes. “You need to get up. Get dressed. We must go down to Town Square. It’s Monday, the day of The Count. Come on.”
    I kept my words simple and straightforward. She struggled against me when I tried to pull her up, and then pushed me away. “I’m up.”
    In the morning light, I saw how much the vodka took from her. Wrinkles made track marks on her face and an old camisole did nothing to hide the sunspots and leathery skin left over from years in the sun. No one would have taken her for 46. She reminded me of a shriveled prune, and seemed at least 60. She pulled on a blue sack shift identical to mine before she asked me the question she always did once she got up.
    “Where’s my vodka?”
    My body went rigid and my hair stood on end. My hands turned cold, and I balled a fist to stop my right hand from hitting the wall next to me.
    How could she be so selfish? How