Read Online Perfected (Entangled Teen) by Kate Jarvik Birch - Free Book Online Page A

flowers. The woman was beautiful, sound asleep on the banks of a river. She looked so perfect sleeping there, except for the three spots of blood that splattered her gown and the dark figure that crept away into the woods. None of the books that Miss Gellner had read to us had pictures like this.
    Ruby ended up reading four stories to me and completely forgot about not being invited to Jayne’s party. When I left her room, images of fire-breathing dogs and talking ravens were still clouding my vision. I’d never heard stories like those before, and even though I knew they were make believe, I could already feel the way they would haunt me, as if they’d found a soft spot to make a new home inside me.
    I hurried in the direction of the stairs, hoping I could get back to my room before lunch was served. After what Rosa had said to me earlier, I didn’t want her to find out I’d been upstairs. I didn’t need to give her a real reason to dislike me.
    Across the hall, the door to Penn’s room was shut tight, but soft music wafted out from underneath it, drawing me toward the sound. It wasn’t like the music we listened to at the training center. It wasn’t Bach or Mozart, or even one of the lovely operas we used to sing during our Voice lessons.
    The voice coming from behind the door was gruff and slightly shaky, and filled my heart with an ache I’d never felt before. The pain in my chest was sudden and completely unexpected, and I leaned up against the doorframe and closed my eyes tight, trying to hold on to the sound even though it hurt me. I couldn’t tell whether it was sadness or joy pushing against the insides of my ribs, threatening to break me open.
    I didn’t even realize I was crying until the rattle of the doorknob made me open my eyes. The wetness on my cheeks startled me and I quickly wiped at it, stepping backward, but it was too late. He’d already seen me.
    “What are you doing?” he asked.
    “I… I…” I tried to catch my breath, but the music still played in the background. It wasn’t muffled by the door now and I was so distracted by the pulse of the beat, and the sorrow in the man’s voice, that I could hardly think. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I heard your music.”
    Penn looked over his shoulder, as if the music was something he could see. “Yeah?”
    “I didn’t mean to bother you,” I said, backing away. “I just haven’t ever heard anything like it.”
    “You’ve never heard Ray LaMontagne?”
    “No, I…” My voice trailed off.
    He was staring at me with the same confusing expression I’d seen on his face every time he looked at me. It left me feeling like some strange, repulsive creature. I didn’t know what reason he had to dislike me, but it was clear that he did.
    “What, they didn’t have music at the puppy mill?”
    I didn’t know what he was talking about, but the tone of his voice was hateful.
    “We had music, but it was all classical. Nothing like this. This is so…” I fought for the right word, but I couldn’t decide what to call it. “…so beautiful,” I finally said.
    His face softened slightly. “The song’s called ‘Trouble.’ It’s the title track to his first album. If you want to you can—”
    Just then, the sound of raised voices drifted up the stairwell, distracting him, and he stepped past me, moving to the landing at the top of the stairs where he could get a better view of the commotion.
    Timidly, I stepped up behind him and peered down to the foyer where the congressman’s wife stood next to the open door with her arms folded across her chest. Standing half-in, half-out of the doorway was an older-looking woman with a pinched face and untamed gray hair that stood up on top of her head. Even though their clothes were almost identical, they didn’t seem to belong in the same world.
    “I really don’t see how it’s any of your business,” the congressman’s wife was saying.
    This was obviously the wrong thing to say because the