Thief: The Scarab Beetle Series: #1 (The Academy) Read Online Free PDF Page B

bananas.” He took another doughnut, shoving half in his mouth before he reached for one of the coffees to wash it down. His gaze finally settled on my face as he drank coffee and he paused. He lifted a hand touching at my chin. “You’ve got a mark.”
    I brushed my fingers across my face, feeling the tender spot. “I’ll cover it. I’ve got some of those makeup samples leftover.”
    The corner of his mouth dipped, but he caught it. “Yeah, just don’t go looking like a cake face. There’s a bunch of girls at school that do that. Well there’s one that doesn’t—” He cut himself off.
    When I looked at his face, he was blushing.
    “You never talk about girls at school,” I said. “What’s up with this one?”
    “Nothing,” he said, but too quickly.
    “Liar,” I said, grinning, glad to have finally caught him in something. “You’ve got a girlfriend.”
    He snorted, shaking his head. “Geeks don’t get girlfriends. We die old and alone.”
    I rolled my eyes and popped him on the arm. At the same time, my heart lifted. I hoped this girl had some common sense. I’d never heard my brother talk about girls at all before. For a while, I thought maybe he was gay or didn’t know what he liked. It wasn’t something I wanted to talk about too much, but was glad he was showing interest in something other than schoolwork. “Stop talking like that. Go to school.”
    He hiked up his book bag and headed for the door. “Don’t forget,” he said.
    “Yeah, yeah,” I said, waving. “I’ll get the money to him.”
    Wil stood in the doorway a moment, staring in at me. He nudged at the edge of his glasses, where the left side frame was bent and didn’t fit well on his face.
    I stared back. “What?”
    “Don’t do anything stupid,” he said.
    His comment made me flinch. “Will you shut up and go to school?”
    “I’m serious,” he said. He shut the door behind himself.
    I rolled my eyes, shaking off the fact that my younger brother was telling me to stay out of trouble. Wasn’t I supposed to be telling him that? Except he didn’t get into trouble. He was the smart one. I shoved a doughnut into my mouth and downed the coffee, leaving the last doughnut for Wil for when he got back from school. It was a hard decision to leave food behind when we rarely got such treats, but I felt like being nice since after that, I would have to tell him about the eviction.
    I stared at Jack for a moment, disgusted that he was still on the floor. I yanked the blanket off the bed to cover him, mostly so I wouldn’t have to look at him and it kept the smell down to a minimum. I made up my bed, and cleaned up the bathroom a little.
    I picked up my two book bags, one with my supply of clothes, and the other with everything else that belonged to me. There wasn’t much to the second bag: a couple of old paperbacks Wil found left around at school, a collection of freebie makeup and other samples I picked up while at the mall. Near the bottom was an old photo album, one of the few things I still carried from our past life, the life before mom died. I hadn’t opened it in years, but still kept it with me.
    I tugged out a pair of shorts. It had been a bit warm for October and I had a ways to go if I was going to find a new place to target. I didn’t like wearing shorts while doing this sort of thing, but I didn’t have much choice this time. I only had one pair of jeans because they were too thick to carry in a bag containing everything I owned; shorts took up less space. I stretched the hem of my shorts down on my thighs, but they were still pretty short.
    I found the same bra I wore yesterday, and a dark gray tank top. I pulled on my boots, wishing I had sneakers.
    I smothered my face with foundation to try to cover the blotch of purple on my chin. Just so I didn’t look like a colorless monster, I swiped on some mascara and some lip gloss. When I wasn’t picking pockets at the mall, picking up free samples were the next