Traitor (Rebel Stars Book 2) Read Online Free PDF

themselves against the plastic sides with their shoes and palms. Static electricity stirred Ced's hair.
    His breath echoed in the tube. A minute later, a man muttered something. Footsteps rasped on the soft rubber surrounding the slide. Two pairs of black shoes appeared at the exit to the slide.
    "Stefen Rozaro?" a man said.
    Beside Ced, Stefen winced. "Uh…yeah?"
    "Can you come outside, please?"
    "Is something wrong?"
    "We need to talk to you, Stefen. It's about your father."
    Stefen's arms quivered. Ced understood, too. Quietly, they extracted themselves from the slide and listened to the Red Men tell Stefen about the accident that had killed his dad.
     
    * * *
     
    Ced went to the funeral with his mom, but the accident had happened in space and there was no body to see. When the ceremony finished, Ced tried to find Stefen, but his friend was already gone.
    "Where's he going to go?" Ced said once they were home. "His mom's gone, too."
    His mom sat on the couch and nudged off her shoes. "He's going to live with a relative. His cousin Mort."
    "Will I still get to see him?"
    "Of course. He might live further away, but he's not going anywhere."
    Ced stood in the middle of the room. "You're on a crew. Like Stefen's dad was. What if something happens to you?"
    She looked up, blinking. "I'm not going anywhere."
    "You don't know that. Nobody plans to get blown up!"
    "If something happens to me, Health and Safety will come for you, just like Stefen. You stay right where you are and they'll take you to your Aunt Amanda's. I know you don't always like it there. But you'll always have someone to look out for you, okay? Always."
    He sent a message to Stefen, but a day later, Ced's device said it still hadn't been opened. He wandered the streets, but Stefen wasn't there, either. No matter how far he went on the tube or his own two feet, Ced was alone.
    Six weeks later, when a girl named Kady invited him to play Crews, he said okay. They made him be the janitor. The game broke up two hours later when the captains argued about whose ship had gotten blown up until they quit yelling and started punching.
    On the days he was too bored to play Crews, he still went exploring, building out his personal map of the Locker. Alone, the city no longer felt like a secret inviting itself to be revealed. It just felt cold.
    One afternoon in Veetown, a neighborhood halfway around the city, a gang of four kids tore down the sidewalk. The oldest of them was twelve, but even grownups swerved out of their way. They wore green jackets with a diagonal yellow stripe. Ced stopped to stare. One of the boys plowed smack into him, knocking them both to the street.
    They helped each other up. Ced's palm was skinned, but he hardly noticed. " Stefen? "
    Stefen glanced past him. "What are you doing here?"
    "I sent you messages," Ced said. "Why didn't you write back?"
    "I'm with a crew," Stefen said. "They don't let me talk to other people."
    "A crew? I thought you were going to your cousin Mort's!"
    Stefen shrugged, gazing down the street. "Mort got outbid."
    "How long do you work? When you're done, you want to go exploring?"
    "I can't, Ced. I'm never done. I—"
    "Stefen!" An older girl in a green jacket yelled down the sidewalk. "Move your ass!"
    Stefen gave Ced a pleading look. "Sorry."
    He turned and ran to join the others.
     
    * * *
     
    He kept sending messages, but none of them were ever opened.
    For a while, he stopped going out as much, staying in to watch movies instead, but all the good ones cost money he didn't have. After a few days of watching crappy old stuff, he got his pack and went out to collect fruit from the parks. Without Stefen to help look out for older kids, it was tough, but he made a few bucks. Enough to watch the movies of Earth, and of people breaking out of the Solar System to explore places no one else had ever been.
    Late one afternoon, with his mom gone on a flight, he came back to Aunt Amanda's building and climbed the stairs to her