Unknown (Unknown Series Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

to drag him away with me, but instead I nodded and gave his mom a nod good-bye too. Then I turned and jogged back into the potato field, all the way home to our manicured lawn, which looked and smelled more pristine than ever. Everything was wrong. I sat on the porch steps—the perfectly shaped and painted wood steps that I suddenly felt guilty to have. Mom peeked out the door at me.
    “Why are you sitting out here in the dark? Are you okay?”
    “I’m fine.”
    I wrapped my arms around myself, jumbled up inside. Behind me, I barely registered Mom tossing out my jacket and me sliding my arms in. An hour and a half passed before I saw Rylen’s shadowy figure trudging through the field toward me. When he got closer, he stopped and surveyed me a few seconds, then came and joined me, sitting by my side in silence.
    “I don’t think I’m better than you,” I finally whispered. “I would never think that.”
    He pulled his earlobe, a nervous gesture. “She wasn’t talking about you.”
    She clearly had been. Hadn’t she? If not me, then what other girls was she talking about? Rylen didn’t have a girlfriend. Never had, that I knew of. There were always girls flanking him. Maybe she was talking about all girls, in general. I wanted to tell him she was wrong, but I didn’t want to make him more uncomfortable.
    “Who was that man?” I asked.
    “Don’t know. There’s always men in and out of the house.” He turned his head away and I couldn’t see his expression. Rylen always seemed strong, but he had to be hurting inside. I slid my hand into the crook of his arm and leaned against him.
    A whoosh began in the distance, getting louder. Rylen looked up into the starlit sky. My grip on his arm tightened as a fighter jet zoomed over head, shaking the ground beneath us. Two more followed, filling my ears with their blasts of sound. Fighter jets flying low over our county was a normal occurrence, living so close to Nellis Air Force Base.
    Rylen stared wistfully upward until it was silent again. He pulled his arm closer to his body, thereby pulling me closer too, and put his hand on top of mine. Together, we stayed like that a long time until Mom told us to come inside for bed.

T ater was brooding at dinner. Again. He kept shooting glares across the table at Rylen, who was surely aware, but chose to ignore him and take a third helping of tamales.
    “Dude, the team needs you,” Tater said. “You took a whole year off already.”
    “Jacob.” Dad leveled him with a hard look. “That’s enough.”
    Abuela unwrapped another tamale and put it on Tater’s plate, covering it in her rich, dark mole sauce, then patted his hand. He sighed down at it.
    Rylen said quietly, “I’m sorry.”
    Those two words seemed to blanket the dining room in thick sadness, because he truly did sound sorry. Regretful. Stuck.
    “You don’t need to be sorry,” Mom told Rylen. “And just a heads up . . . we’ve got a surprise for you tonight.”
    “What is it?” Tater asked with his mouth full.
    “You’ll see.” She smiled and took a bite. We ate in silence, but a bit of the tension had seeped away and been replaced by curious excitement.
    The silence was broken by three hard knocks on the door. We stared around at one another as Dad got up and opened it, and two sets of feet walked back in. A blast of air slid into my lungs. Lenard Fite filled the entrance, as large and bearded as ever. Rylen leapt from his chair and sprinted through the space. The two of them collided in a hard hug, burying their faces in each other’s necks, clinging with tight fists. Moisture crept into my eyes. I looked at Mom’s beaming face and realized this was the surprise.
    “Are you out? For good?” Rylen asked.
    “I’m out, son. And I ain’t going back.”
    When Rylen and his father became aware of all of us watching, they broke away, looking down, bashful. We all stood to welcome Len back. He nodded, appearing uncomfortable with all the kindness.