Read Online ARC: Cracked by Eliza Crewe - Free Book Online Page B

is inches from mine. We lock eyes and I watch his widen as I snarl ferociously into its face. The dog pisses itself, but is blessedly silent. I toss him back into his pen. Sometimes bad things need to be reminded they’re not the only ones who can bite. Chi turns at the dog’s sudden silence. My smile is made of spun sugar.
    Just to end a few debates, I can conclusively say dogs do have souls. Not deliciously large and filling souls like humans, but they are there. Nutritionally I’d say there’re a dozen dog souls to one human. I suppose I could make the trade and survive, but I won’t. A good dog is worth more than a bad human any day. I can also end another debate: all dogs do not go to Heaven, plenty of them are just as awful as they seem.
    Uneven footsteps come from behind me and I turn to see Jo, catching up.
    “They get caught?” she whispers. I nod. “Well, at least it’s just Fredrick. He won’t remember five minutes after it happened. Let’s just hope no one else notices.” She looks down at the dog, which is whining and scrabbling in the dirt. She scoots a step or two further away from it.
    “Ugh, I hate pets,” she mutters.
    Interesting. Most girls love animals. Pets specifically. I look at her curiously.
    “Why would anyone pay that much money for a chore ?” she whispers. Wow, she just might be less human than I am. I, at least, appreciate a good dog. Actually, I even enjoy a bad one – just not in the same way.
    We wait while Chi and Uri finish lying to Fredrick and cheerfully wave him goodbye. We hear a door close and the boys beckon us to follow. There are no more unwanted encounters as we make our way to the most dilapidated wing of the school, then around to its back, coming to a stop at a heavily rusted door. Someone slid a piece of cardboard in the doorjamb to keep the lock from catching and it opens easily at Chi’s tug. He peers in then slips through the opening, motioning for us to follow.
    And so I take a deep breath and step into the Meda-killing training facility.
    Finally. This is more like it.
    The interior is the polar opposite of the cracked and decrepit exterior. The lower windows are boarded because they wouldn’t want anyone to see what’s inside. After all, most high schools don’t include a combat training center. At least not on purpose – some inner-city playgrounds functionally qualify.
    The two-storey gymnasium looks like a typical school gym with a shiny but scuffed wood floor, white block walls and folding bleachers, except it’s filled with not-so-typical training implements – punching bags, shooting targets, a fighting cage, a boxing ring – along with the standard mats, hurdles and climbing ropes.
    But most intriguing are the walls lined with practice weapons. Wooden blades of all sorts hang from racks that most suburbanites use for garage tools, while a whole collection of real ones fill a metal cage – locked, I’m guessing. Brown clay holy-water globes fill a wire-mesh bin, stored like most gyms would keep kickballs.
    We creep across the empty gym into a hallway. I can hear kids tromping and shouting in the distance, but we don’t go that way. Instead we take a sharp left and head down another hallway. We slip into a stairwell and head up to the second floor landing. Instead of going into the hallway, Chi leads us out of a window on to the roof of an abutting wing.
    “Cool!” chirps Uri. Apparently the upperclassmen hadn’t filled him in on their escape route.
    Chi offers me a muscular forearm and hauls me up after him while Uri boosts me from below. ( So. Freaking. Embarrassing. ) Chi offers similarly to help Jo and gets a cold stare in return. Really, doesn’t he see that coming by now? Even Uri’s smart enough not to offer help. But then, I can’t imagine anyone brave enough to touch Jo’s ass uninvited, good intentions or not. Jo levers herself out, unassisted, then Uri scrambles out and we’re off across the slanted roof. We approach the