Read Online Shattered Sky by Neal Shusterman - Free Book Online Page B

these days.”
    â€œOnly way to travel.” Lourdes ate another shrimp. The fat man in the fancy suit moaned.
    â€œLourdes, what the hell are you doing here?”
    â€œI’m on vacation,” she said, coldly. “Is that so hard to grasp?”
    â€œAnd when does this ‘vacation’ end?”
    â€œThat’s the best part, Winston; it doesn’t.” And then she gestured to the pained man in the bulging suit. “Meet Mr. Peter Marquez,” she said. “Monarch Cruise Line’s Vice-President of Operations. He just joined us yesterday.”
    The man seemed only able to move a pair of pleading eyeballs set deep within his porcine face.
    â€œWhat did you do to him?”
    â€œWe’re in the middle of negotiations,” Lourdes said. “After test-driving the Blue Horizon these past few months, I’ve decided to buy it, and redeem my outlaw status.”
    â€œAnd how can you afford a cruise ship?”
    â€œWe’re negotiating a steep markdown.” Her shrimp boy hung another cocktail shrimp before her and she took it in her mouth, chewing slowly. “Very steep.”
    The cruise executive moaned. “Please,” he said. “No more.” His voice came from deep in his throat, sounding as Lourdes’s voice had once sounded in the throes of her own obesity.
    Lourdes licked her lips. “Recently, I’ve found a depth to my appetites I never knew I had.”
    â€œAnd yet it’s the crew that gets fat,” observed Winston. “Not you.”
    Lourdes shrugged. “I eat quite a lot; all that fat has to go somewhere.”
    Winston shuddered. There was no end to the way they could abuse their powers, when they chose to—here was the proof. First it was just Lourdes’s ability to control metabolisms; put people to sleep, change the pace of their body functions. Then she found she could manipulate their muscles, as if they were puppets. And now this; she stayed slim by imposing her weight on others. A perverse conservation of matter. Winston wondered how many times her own body weight she consumed in food a day. Did she ever stop eating?
    â€œWhat happened to you, Lourdes?”
    She sat up, pushing away the hand of her shrimp boy. “I grew up, Winston. I finally realized that the only person I owe in this world is me.”
    â€œWhat about Dillon?”
    â€œTo hell with Dillon! He’s the one who screwed things up. Whether he meant to or not, he set the world on auto-destruct, and if the world is falling apart, I intend to suck every last drop out of it.”
    Winston regarded her pretty-boy twins. The dark hair and wan expression on their faces was uneasily familiar. “Your matching luggage both look like Michael,” he goaded. “Should I ask what that’s about? Or do I already know?”
    Her tanned cheeks began to flush at having been so easilyread. He could feel her anger, and perhaps a hint of shame, charging the air between them. Her feelings for Michael had been no secret—but enlisting these surrogates into her harem was a desecration of Michael’s memory, and she knew it.
    She stood suddenly, and like a petulant child grabbed the platter of shrimp and hurled it at Winston. It bounced off his chest and clattered to the ground, rolling down the steps to the pool deck.
    â€œThis is MY ship!” she screamed. “MY life, and MY reward for the hell I’ve been through!” On the dance floor, the music stopped and all eyes turned to Lourdes. “And if you had half the brains you claim to have, you’d stop taking your marching orders from Dillon, or it’ll kill you like it killed the others!”
    Then her eyes darted around to the spectators, and she realized she was, as always, the center of attention, but this time in an unflattering light. As if to add to her embarrassment, several gulls winging high over the ship cawed in the silence sounding like mocking