Read Online Mercy by Sarah L. Thomson - Free Book Online Page A

lightly around her neck from behind.
    â€œGet off!” Standing up quickly, Haley jammed her elbow back into Thomas’s ribs.
    â€œHey, ow!” Thomas let go. “I was just kidding!”
    â€œYou were just stupid,” Haley snapped.
    â€œCheck her out, she’s scary.”
    â€œWatch out, biting might run in the family.”
    â€œMaybe she wants to bite
all
of us . . . ”
    Haley felt her stomach tighten. She clutched her backpack closer. Even though it was just Thomas and his friends, Andy Chen and Kevin Christianson, acting like idiots as usual. What was she so tense about? What could they possibly do to her in the middle of a brightly lit classroom, with Mr. Samuelson right outside the door, yelling at some kid to stop running in the hall?
    â€œCome on, Haley.” Mel’s voice dripped disdain. “Let’s go.”
    But Thomas blocked Haley’s path, rubbing his ribs. She glared. He didn’t move.
    â€œHaley, you dropped this.”
    The voice was quiet. Haley turned to look at Alan O’Neil, holding out a page of her notes. She hadn’t even heard him come up behind her.
    â€œThat was really interesting,” he said calmly, and eased past Haley in the narrow aisle between the desks. Pausing, he waited for Thomas to move. He looked as if the possibility of Thomas doing anything else had never crossed his mind.
    Thomas fell back a few paces and turned, heading for the door. Andy and Kevin followed.
    Haley felt ridiculously relieved, almost shaky. “Thanks.”
    â€œFor what?” Alan looked back. “Picking up your notes?”
    â€œYeah.” Haley tried to remember if she’d ever talked to Alan O’Neil before, beyond “Excuse me,” and “What chapter are we supposed to read?” Didn’t he play basketball? Or hockey? Or something? She couldn’t imagine why he’d come to her rescue, but she thought she was even more grateful to him for pretending there’d been nothing to rescue her from than for making Thomas Jaffe back off. “Yeah, for picking up my notes. Thanks.”
    â€œNo problem.”
    She expected Alan to drift off once they reached the hallway and she caught up with Mel, but somehow the three of them stayed together into the cafeteria and through the line past pizza, chicken sandwiches, and the salad bar. Haley, her slice of pepperoni cooling on her plate, flicked quick glances at Alan’s face after they’d all found seats at one of the little round tables. He’d photograph well, that fair skin against the black of his eyes and eyebrows and shaggy, loose hair. All that contrast. Alan and Mel were talking about Lucy Williams’s great-great-grandmother, who’d survived the
Titanic
. Haley’s fingers itched for her camera.
    â€œHaley, what do you think? The Chicago fire or the San Francisco earthquake?”
    â€œWhat?”
    Mel rolled her eyes. “What disaster would you rather have an ancestor live through?”
    â€œI don’t—I don’t know. As long as they live, who cares?”
    â€œThe practical approach,” Alan said thoughtfully. He disdainfully removed the lettuce from his sandwich. “Efficient, but a little lacking in nuance.”
    â€œSo if you’re not paying the least bit of attention to what we’re saying,” Mel inquired, poking around for the bits of ham in her salad, “what are you spending your lunchtime thinking about?”
    â€œMercy, I guess.” Which was better than saying out loud that she’d been thinking about the dark lines of Alan’s eyebrows and the way his jaw moved when he chewed.
    Mel sighed. “Haley, your project’s done. You definitely got an A. Relax, can’t you?”
    Haley looked down, surprised to find half of her pizza gone. She didn’t remember taking a bite. “I know. It’s just . . . it’s just . . . I don’t get it,