Tremor Read Online Free PDF Page A

didn’t reply; she just sighed and shook her head softly. She quietly went about the task of preparing a small portion of the titanium dioxide she would need to etch the white letter, and then she went to work on Faith’s wrist.
    â€œYou ready?”
    â€œYeah, I’m ready.”
    As a second pulse, Faith had to clear her mind in a certain way in order to let the needle in, and this she did.
    It wasn’t a lot of work, just a simple letter C . And it wasn’t very big, only a half inch high and thin. But Faith had never felt such a shock of pain in her life. Faith was sure Glory was digging the needle deeper than she needed to, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell her to stop. The searing pain lingered across Faith’s wrist, and, looking up, Glory saw how much pain she was inflicting.
    â€œRevenge hurts, don’t it? And not just the one on the receiving end.”
    And still Faith said nothing. She would endure this pain, even take pleasure in it, until the deed was done.
    â€œWe through,” Glory said a few minutes later. “You know the drill: keep it clean; give it some air.”
    Faith’s hand was shaking as she brushed away a tear. Her wrist felt as if it were on fire, as if the mark were burning a C -shaped hole all the way through to the other side.
    â€œI’m sorry,” Faith said. She didn’t know why she said it, but there it was. She got up and walked alone through the empty corridor of the mall, farther into the darkness, and, looking back, saw that Glory hadn’t moved at all. She looked like an angel who wasn’t quite strong enough to break through the shadows and save Faith from herself.
    Â 
    Six Flags Magic Mountain had been, at one time, one of the more popular Southern California theme parks for teens. Disneyland was fine if you were a kid, but Magic Mountain had the really badass thrill rides, the ones that made your pulse race just by looking at them. With names like Viper, Dive Devil, and Drop of Doom, these were rides with the kind of muscle that routinely turned varsity football players into babies screaming for their moms.
    As Faith flew over the wide, looping roller-coaster tracks, she wondered what it would feel like to ride the rails, looking down at the park as she screamed and laughed. It was possible. She could get the coaster moving with the power of her mind, but the risks had been deemed too high by the almighty Meredith. What if someone saw them, reported them, came looking for them? There was too much at stake to risk revealing their hidden location to take chances on something as stupid as a glorified fair ride. And so Faith had been careful not to let herself think too much about sitting next to Dylan, hanging upside down at the top of the world, holding on to each other for dear life.
    Faith landed in the park and felt an immediate surge of adrenaline that put her senses on alert. It was always dark at night in the park, and it was pushing midnight. She hadn’t seen any patrols from the white State vans in weeks, and they’d settled on the location so close to the rising tide of the ocean for a reason: no one had stayed. Valencia, and Magic Mountain along with it, were zeroed. It wasn’t people Faith was worried about; it was animals. Wolves, coyotes, packs of rabies-infested dogs, and some alarmingly huge cougars that had taken over the whole city long before Faith and the other drifters had arrived.
    â€œHere kitty, kitty, kitty,” Faith whispered, walking down the main thoroughfare of the park. There was something altogether wrong about a theme park with no lights or throngs of people, but it was also peaceful in a way that she could never quite explain. Maybe it was the idea that it was a place that should have been full of life but wasn’t that had a heightening effect.
    She felt a presence and knew, before she saw it, that she was being tracked by at least one cougar. They were stealth