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

my mom. But I don’t.
    I see Armand.
     
    My second-to-last class on Monday is by far my favorite of the day and the only other one I share today with Jo – Strength and Conditioning. I duck into my room to change into gym clothes (though dutifully pulling the pink T-shirt back on over my sports bra), then wait in the hallway for Jo. She clomps out at the last minute in her gym clothes with her wild-woman hair bullied into a ponytail. She looks vaguely ill. She doesn’t smile when she sees me, but this time I don’t think it’s my fault. While S and C is my favorite class, it’s Jo’s least.
    Poor girl, it’s the only one she doesn’t excel at.
    “Hi, Jo.” I walk next to her down the hallway.
    “Meda.” Her gaze latches onto my vilely pink shirt and her expression sours. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing.”
    I bat innocent eyes. “I don’t know what you mean.”
    “You thoroughly intend to ruin that shirt in gym so you can’t wear it the rest of the day.”
    My shock at these baseless accusations stops me in my tracks. “Who, me? Scheme like that? Jo, I’m offended.” I hold a hand to my heart.
    She rolls her eyes and presses her lips together so they can’t smile.
    I continue. “Why, I’m just following orders!” I start walking again, shaking my head.
    “Uh-huh.” We clatter down the stairs and out into the sunshine. S and C is held in a hastily renovated warehouse on the other side of the valley from the school.
    “I was told to wear this shirt, and I always do what my good buddy Jo tells me to.”
    I’m watching her out of the corner of my eye, so I notice when her smile turns a little mean. I realize I overplayed my hand just a hair before she confirms it. “Oh, good, I’m glad to hear it. I’ve got a whole stack in my room. Backups, just in case.” Her evil cat’s smirk stretches as she looks me over. “You know,” she says thoughtfully. “I’ve always thought you’d look good in yellow. A bright, sunshiny yellow.”
    At the thought, I turn faintly green. “Yellow, Jo?” My voice is a tiny thing.
    “Everyone looks happy and harmless in bright yellow.”
    “ Bright yellow?”
“Or I have a pastel. The nursery-of-a-baby-of-unspecified-gender yellow.”
    I glare at her, and her grin gets more wicked. “I think it might even have a duck on it.”
    “I hate you.”
    She swings an arm around my shoulder and grins. I fake a tragic sigh, and she laughs.
    Maybe I can live with yellow.
    Then her arm stiffens on my shoulder and I look up. We’re approaching the construction site of the new school. Jo slows and uses the arm wrapped around my shoulder to slow me as well.
    The Sarge leads a parade of people into the new building. The group is mostly Corps, some Mountain Park officers and, oddly, Professor Puchard who sticks out like a geeky thumb in an otherwise ass-kicking fist. I haven’t had much to do with him, as I’m not trusted enough to be trained to use any of the grimoires, but I recognize him as the Crusader who would have done my Inheritance ceremony had circumstances not made Jo be the one to do it.
    We wait, watching, as they disappear into the maze, leaving one Crusader at the entrance to watch. There will be one stationed at each entrance, I know. They always do that when they meet to discuss me. They don’t trust me not to spy. Which stings, as they started that before they caught me scaling the walls.
    Once they’re out of sight, Jo drops her arm from around my shoulder.
    “What are you thinking, Jo?”
    Her face instantly smooths. “Nothing.”
    “Secrets don’t make friends, Jo.”
    She rolls her eyes. “I just wish I knew what they were discussing, is all.”
    I study her suspiciously. I’ve been subjected to a thousand, maybe a million, Jo eye-rolls, and this one felt forced. She rolls her eyes again at my prolonged study (this one feels entirely natural) and starts toward class again. She doesn’t wait for me when I hesitate before