Read Online Swipe by Evan Angler - Free Book Online

shadow in the reflection of a far window, and Erin thought with some alarm that her mother appeared to be wiping her eyes.
    “Mom, when are we going to be a family again?”
    “That’s up to your father, dear.”
    “No! It isn’t! It’s up to both of you! You’re in this marriage together!” And immediately, Erin was hysterical. “How could you let things come to this? Did you really think you could keep it from me? Who gave you two the right to destroy my life like this?” She went on and on, not listening to her mom’s stuttered interjections and not wanting to.
    “Erin, please!” Dr. Arbitor finally snapped, and Erin subsided. “There’s no reason to get so worked up about—”
    But Erin was worked up. And for no good reason she thought of bedtime reading and Shakespeare in pajamas, and then her heart broke in two and it sank and burned in little pieces in the acid of her stomach and suddenly she was very worked up and she said, “Are either of you even trying anymore?”
    And Dr. Arbitor said, “Of course we are,” but the words hit Erin like a punch in the gut. Because her mother’s voice was hollow. It was broken. Her mother was lying.
    “I love you, Mom,” Erin said, ending the call so fast she wasn’t even sure all the words made it out. She was not about to let her mother see her cry.
    Dr. Arbitor called her back, of course, immediately and probably frantically and surely wanting at least to say, “I love you too.” But Erin would not let her do that. She declined the call. And when she did, she saw her own reflection again in the glass of the tablet’s screen, and this time it was red and blotchy and it disgusted her. So she threw the computer into the bubble wrap of the couch, and she insisted to herself that she was disappointed when the thing didn’t break.
    It’s up to your father, dear .
    It’s up to your mother, dear .
    It’s up to the other to keep us together, dear .
    Erin paced across the room, sobbing, mocking herself. Dear. Sweetie. It’s up to your—
    And she made her way to Iggy, whom she picked up and kissed on the head.
    “I heard those pets carry disease , ” Logan had said.
    And she hoped it would give her salmonella. She hoped to puke her guts out. She kissed the lizard again. She wanted to puke her brains out and die.
    She cried and held Iggy in her lap for a long time. And it was in that odd moment that Erin found her resolve.
    She would be the one to get herself back to Beacon.
    She would be the one to pull her family back together.
    And if that meant solving the mystery of Peck and the Markless threat in Spokie herself, then that’s exactly what Erin intended to do.
    11
    At that moment, seventeen stories below, a boy named Blake ran over the shadowed sidewalks of Spokie, furious with himself and weighing the consequences of having been seen.
    Not as bad as getting caught , he concluded, darting unpredictably through side alleys and streets. Whatever they are, they’re not as bad as getting caught would be .
    Behind him, he heard the heavy breathing of the boy he was supposed to be pursuing. But that was botched. This was backward.
    What Blake had witnessed, just moments before in their showdown on Wright Street, was a new side of the boy he and the Dust had followed all these years. A latent spark in the eyes of a kid he’d always seen as broken. Perhaps it was this spark that Peck had seen all along. Perhaps that spark was the danger.

    Half a block behind and running off pure, stupid adrenaline, Logan yelled between breaths, “Just tell me what you want from me! It’s all over now! Just tell me what you want!”
    But it wasn’t over. And as houses turned to empty lots and streetlamps faded off into the far distance behind them, Logan began to lose his nerve. Slowly it dawned on him exactly where he was chasing this boy, exactly where he himself was headed, and the realization was far from welcome.
    Slog Row. The most dangerous, sordid street in all of