Read Online Inheritance by Malinda Lo - Free Book Online Page A

characterization of the Imria—of Amber—unexpectedly stung. Reese found herself wanting to defend them, and it irritated her. “I don’t know,” she finally said. “I hope so.”

    The last portion of their interview was shot in Mr. Chapman’s old classroom, where the debate team met after school. Some of Mr. Chapman’s posters were still on the wall, and though the whiteboard had been erased, a ghostly trace of his handwriting remained in shadowed letters that could still be read:
Last debate meeting of the year: Thursday at 4
PM
.
    “This was your debate coach’s classroom, wasn’t it?” Sophia asked.
    Was.
Reese wished they had never stopped at that gas station in Las Vegas.
    “Yes,” David said.
    Sophia asked them about Mr. Chapman, and David explained how the teacher had encouraged him to join the team, and how he had paired David with Reese last year. Reese barely noticed that Sophia was nudging them toward the part of the interview she had dreaded the most.
    “You sound like a good team,” Sophia said, smiling. “And you just went through a pretty difficult situation that I think would bring a lot of friends closer together. What about you two?”
    The question was phrased more delicately than Reese had expected. There was still wiggle room; they could avoid it if they wanted. Reese glanced surreptitiously at David, forgetting that the camera was trained on her. She couldn’t read the expression on his face, and for a long, anxious moment, she was convinced he would deny that anything had happened between them.
    “We—” As she started to speak, David reached for her hand. Startled, she sensed him right there with her. He hadn’t changed his mind.
    “We’re together now,” he said, and a tentative smile reached his eyes.
    She was certain that the makeup was doing nothing to hide the splotchy red flush on her cheeks, but somehow, she didn’t care.
Yes. We are.

    While Sophia Curtis interviewed their parents in the school auditorium, Reese and David snuck up to the bell tower. It no longer had bells in it, and access was supposed to be restricted at all times, but last year someone had made a copy of the key andhidden it behind the bust of Albert Einstein outside the chemistry lab.
    When they got to the statue, Reese reached into Einstein’s bronze collar and pulled out the key. At the end of the hall she unlocked the door to the tower, and she and David slipped through into the stairwell. It always felt illicit to be up here—she had accompanied Julian to smoke a few times—but there was an intoxicating edge to sneaking into the tower with David.
    At the top of the stairs, sandstone archways framed a three-hundred-sixty-degree view of the city. She leaned against the waist-high wall and looked northeast at the downtown skyline. For the first time in a long time, she felt free. Nobody was watching her.
    David stood beside her, his arm brushing against hers. “I wonder who put that key behind Einstein,” he said.
    “I heard it was Chris Tompkins. He stole it from the principal’s office and made a copy.”
    “I heard it was Jamie Yung, and
she
stole it and made a copy.”
    Reese laughed, and the sound of it echoed faintly in the cupola. “I guess we’ll never know.”
    “Hey, my friend Eric’s having a party on Friday. You want to go?”
    She looked at him in surprise. “Like a house party?” She wasn’t really friends with Eric Chung’s group, and she wasn’t really into house parties, either.
    “Yeah.” He smiled at her, and she swore her heart skipped a beat. Who was she kidding? She would go to a party with David.
    “Sure, I’ll go.”
    “How about I pick you up at seven?”
    She gave him a puzzled look. “But Eric lives near you. Why don’t I just meet you there?”
    His eyebrows rose briefly. “Because I’m asking you on a date.”
    Her stomach flipped. She felt like a dork. “Oh, sorry. I mean, okay.”
    He shook his head slightly, as if he thought she was