Read Online Invincible by Amy Reed - Free Book Online Page A

you so much, I might have to kick you out of this van.”
    â€œYet it is exactly what I was afraid of,” Stella continues. “That’s why I prepared a very important lesson for you. And it is centered around this mix CD. You can’t see it because you’re tied up and looking at the windowless back door of a kidnapping van, but I am at this moment holding up a mix CD that I carefully constructed for you. Because I care about you, Evie. I care about your musical salvation.”
    â€œOkay,” I say.
    â€œThat’s it? Okay? Say it with a little more enthusiasm.”
    â€œOkay!” I shout.
    â€œLouder!”
    â€œOkay!!!”
    â€œThat’s better. Now. I know you’re familiar with angsty white boys singing about boy stuff and poppy girls with male producers showcasing their boobs instead of their brains. Right?”
    â€œSure.”
    â€œForget them,” she says with a snarl. “Listen to this. Girls in combat books and fishnets picking up guitars and making their own music. Music for us . Do you understand?”
    â€œI think so?”
    â€œNo, I don’t think you understand. Hence the need for examples. Hence the need for this mix. Are you ready?”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œWithout further ado, song number one from Stella’s Impossibly Awesome Kick-Ass Girl Mix.” As she inserts the CD into the stereo, she adds, “You’ll like this one. It’s about cheerleaders and football and shit.”
    Simple drums and a driving baseline start the song. A girl’s thin voice starts singing about a pep rally, about teenage dreams, something about white privilege. Then the guitars come in and the song really starts rocking. Stella starts singing along in her beautiful, fierce voice—about going crazy, about living big despite it all. The music is so loud I can feel it in my bones. I can feel it in my poisoned marrow.
    â€œDo you hear that?” Stella screams. “Do you hear that rage? She’s so fucking strong. She’s so fucking angry .” All I can see are the locked van doors in front of me, but I suddenly feel freer than I’ve felt in a really long time.
    When the song’s over, I realize I’m shaking. But not because I’m cold. Not because I’m sick.
    â€œThis song is, like, my anthem,” Stella says. “It’s all about questioning authority. Not believing blindly just because someone with power tells you something’s true. That’s all high school is. Doing things blindly. Following the rules. Wearing their stupid uniforms and cheering at their stupid games, as if that’s the shit that’s really important.” Maybe I’m supposed to be offended. Maybe I’m supposed to be pissed at Stella for implying I’m one of the high school sheep for being a cheerleader. But I’m too grateful to be mad at her.
    â€œI love it,” I say.
    â€œI knew you would. I knew it. That singer was in a band with Carrie Brownstein. You know Carrie Brownstein? From Portlandia ? Oh my god, I am so in love with her. Sorry, Cole, but she’s my free ticket. We each get a free ticket, right? Like, the one person we’re allowed to sleep with and we’ll be forgiven?”
    â€œMine’s my eighth-grade history teacher,” Cole says. “She had this really sexy lisp that I couldn’t get enough of. I loved it when we covered the Civil Rights era because she had to say ‘Mississippi’ all the time.”
    â€œThat’s weird,” Stella says. “But whatever.” The next song she describes as a love song, but it’s got none of the sentimental cheese you hear on the radio. It’s about the hard parts of love, the ambiguities, the complicated stuff people don’t usually sing about.
    â€œThese are real women playing real instruments making real music they wrote themselves,” Stella says. “They don’t all have perfect