Read Online Fear Me Not (The EVE Chronicles) by Sara Wolf - Free Book Online

saccharine thing. Her wrists look glass-fragile, and she’s a little pale. Raine talks about two things - clothes and herself. She snores when she sleeps, takes up the mirror for hours in the morning, and contemptuously eyes my fashion, but she doesn’t bother me like Shadus. Doesn’t ask questions. And for that, I’m grateful.
    I sniff one of the candles on the table. Strings of paper bats flicker on the ceiling with every puff of the heating system. If I didn’t know better, I’d think they were setting someone up to be strangled. A hanging body would add to the Halloween vibe they’re going for.
    “So, let me clarify this.” Raine looks up from her compact. “Hellowinner is when human children dress up as monsters and beg for candy.”
    “ Halloween . But yeah, more or less.”
    “I understand the Hallo part, but the ‘ween’? What is a ‘ween’?”
    “Uh –”
    “And why monsters? Why not heroes, or saints, something more socially acceptable?”
    “Kids dress up as heroes all the time. Batman, Spiderman - ”
    “A man made of spiders and bats? That is truly monstrous. What were you for Halloween?”
    “Snow White. For eight years.”
    Raine purses her lips, applying a new coat of gloss. “Snow White! I remember her story. She was the one with the seven stunted humans looking after her. She cooked and cleaned and one day ate a radioactive fruit of some sort, and the creatures put her in a glass preservation tube and cried.”
    I blink. “That sounds a little different than the one I remember.”
    “Our teacher modified the story so it would make more sense in a Gutter context. The best part of the story was when she came back to life as an animated corpse.”
    “How did that happen?”
    “Instant degeneration of the vestigial nervous system combined with neuron reconfiguration surgery, as per usual. She was also kissed by a prince.”
    I laugh until my lungs are sore. The worry that was heavy on my heart dissipates into nothingness for this moment. Raine smiles, bewildered and asking what’s so funny on repeat. And the steel curtain between us lifts a little.
     
                            ***
     
    Alisa calls me the next day, and I return it at lunch. She seems positive, and better, but she always tries real hard to sound like that so I don’t worry. I’ve seen her do it with Dad. She insists she had an attack because she inhaled smoke from burned rice in cooking class, but I don’t believe that for a second. We both know she has random attacks, and with increasing frequency. She just wants to blame it on something so it doesn’t seem like she’s getting worse.
    But she is.
    I have to get that money, no matter what happens to me here at the school.
    Which is why, when the gum-smacker who picked on Dakota in PE tracks me down during break and tries to fight me, I do a whole lot of ducking.
    “We can talk this out,” I say. The girl laughs, shrilly, her two friends on either side of her blocking my escape down the hall.
    “You think so? Because I sure as hell don’t.”
    “Look, you’re mad I stood up for Dakota. That’s fine. Ever think about yourself, though? How does beating me up look to everyone else? And you have to do it with two other girls? You’ll look like a coward.”
    “I don’t care if people know I did it, or if they see, or what I look like,” Gum-smacker sneers. “You insulted me and threw a ball at my face! You walk around all high and mighty, like the bitch you are. You deserve what’s coming to you. And it’s coming right now.”
    They advance on me, smirking, and I back up to the wall.
    “Whoa, wait, wait! What if someone catches us fighting? Aren’t you afraid of being expelled? You’re gonna give up a hundred thousand dollars just to beat me up?”
    “A hundred thou? You’re getting a hundred ? Yeah right.” Gum-smacker sneers.
    “Isn’t that…” I trail off. “That’s what the EVE clinic guys tell everyone.”
    One girl to