Unspoken: The Lynburn Legacy Read Online Free PDF Page A

something.
I
found something. And it was horrible, and the only way I know how to deal with something horrible is to do something about it. This is
my
story. And I’m not going to give it up. I’m going to see how it ends. You don’t get a say.”
    “I’m getting that impression,” Ash remarked. He uncrossed his arms and walked over to where Kami stood, still undecided. “I am worried about you, though.”
    Kami smiled; she couldn’t help it. She wasn’t used to guys looking at her with concern, or drawing near her being all conciliatory and handsome. Except Angela’s brother, of course, but Rusty hardly counted. “I guess you can be worried if you really want,” Kami conceded. She went on tiptoe and kissed Ash on the cheek. She felt him smile, then eased back down and saw him lean in toward her.
    “So, you’re okay?” Ash murmured.
    Kami wasn’t sure, despite her exhilaration over the newspaper. The police had scared her. How worried her parents were had scared her more. She kept thinking about that night, and the blood. But her secret fears were for her and Jared: she hardly knew this boy, no matter how beautiful his smile.
    She just smiled back at him. She knew her smile was not as convincing as his, but it seemed to be enough. Ash’s smile spread, brighter than before, and he leaned down closer. Kami’s breath snagged in her throat. She did not move away.
    An explosion of noise came from the stairwell: the sound of so many people running and yelling at once that it sounded like an earthquake. Kami and Ash broke apart without ever coming together.
    Kami went running down the stairs, Ash right behind her. She rounded a corner and headed down the school steps, then out the doors to the back of the school. There was a courtyard there, raised a few steps above the cricket pitch.
    The cricket pitch was chaos.
    “What’s going on?” Ash demanded behind Kami, just as Holly Prescott came rushing up the steps.
    “Your brother is fighting the cricket team,” Holly announced, flushed with excitement.
    “He’s not my brother,” Ash snapped, his cool cracking instead of just ruffling for the first time since Kami had met him.
    “Who on the cricket team?” Kami asked at once, producing her emergency notebook from her bra.
    “Sort of the whole team,” Holly said.
    Kami went forward, shielding her eyes against the sun’s rays. She could only see one person not in cricket whites. All she could make out were shoulders, and a fist going into someone’s face.
    Miss Mackenzie and Ms. Dollard were both crossing the pitch and moving fast. Kami hurtled down the stairs and got to the combatants at the same time the teachers did. Over the noise Kami yelled: “Any comment for the school newspaper?”
    Only the new boy’s head turned. The sun was still in her eyes, but she thought he grinned at her over his shoulder. His teeth were dark with blood.
    “Hell of a first day,” he said.
    Then Ash’s cousin—the other Lynburn—and four members of the cricket team were marched off to Ms. Dollard’s office.
    Kami ran back up the steps to Holly, pen at the ready. “What happened?”
    Holly looked delighted to be asked. “The way I heard it, Matthew Hughes said something and shoved him, and thenthe new guy punched him, and, well, you know how the cricket guys stick together—”
    “Who won the fight?”
    “Some of the team were still carrying their bats,” Holly said. “New boy got his ass kicked. I don’t mean to pry,” she added to Ash. “But does he have issues?”
    “Oh, Jared’s nothing but issues,” Ash said bitterly. “And the urge to take them out on other people.” He set off toward the principal’s office
    “Wait,” Kami said, and her voice caught on the word. “His name’s Jared?”
    Ash gave her an impatient glance. “Yeah, so?”
    “Nothing.”
    Ash nodded and walked away.
    It was nothing, Kami told herself. Plenty of people had that name. She just didn’t like hearing it out loud.
    It