Read Online The Favorite by Kiera Cass - Free Book Online

right. She should have told you she didn’t want to go instead of telling everyone else.”
    The queen flipped her hair. “Well, I’m done with her. I’m not playing those games.”
    I squinted after her, positive she was playing a completely different game, one she would certainly win.
    â€œI’m telling you, man, we could design it.” A short-haired boy waved his hands enthusiastically at his friend.
    â€œI don’t know.” This boy, slightly overweight and scratching a patch of skin on his neck, was walking fast. He might have been trying to outwalk his friend, but his counterpart was so light on his feet, so motivated, that he probably could have kept up with a rocket.
    â€œJust a tiny investment, man. We could be the next big thing!”
    I suppressed a smile.
    When the crowds dispersed in the afternoon, I made my way to the library. Since moving to Miami, I’d gone there once or twice a week. I didn’t like to do my scrapbook research at the house. I’d made that mistake before, and Elizabeth had teased me mercilessly for being morbid.
    â€œWhy don’t you just go hunt for their corpses?” she’d said. “Or ask the Ocean to tell you their final thoughts. You want to know that, too?”
    I understood her disgust. She saw my scrapbooks as an unhealthy obsession with the people we’d murdered. What I wished she understood was the way those people haunted me, the way the screams stayed with me long after the ships sank.
    My goal today was Warner Thomas, the second-to-last person on the passenger list of the Arcatia . Warner turned out to be a relatively easy find. There were tons of people with the same name, but once I found all the social networking profiles with posts that stopped abruptly six months ago, I knew he was the right one. Warner was a string bean of a man who looked too shy to talk to people in person. He was listed as single everywhere, and I felt bad for thinking that made perfect sense.
    The last entry on his blog was heartbreaking.
    Sorry this is short, but I’m updating from my phone. Look at this sunset!
    Just below that line, the sun melted into nothing on the back of the Ocean.
    So much beauty in the world! Can’t help but think good things are on the way!
    I nearly laughed. The expression in every picture I’d found made me think he’d never exclaimed anything in his life. But I couldn’t help wondering whether something had happened just before that fateful trip. Did he have a reason to think the direction of his life was changing? Or was it one of those lies we told from the safety of our rooms when no one could see how false it was?
    I printed out the best-looking photo of him, a joke he’d posted, and some information about his siblings. Sorry, Warner. I swear, it wasn’t me you died for.
    With that complete, I was able to turn my mind to something a little more fun. I had learned over the years to balance out each devastating piece of my scrapbook with something joyful. Last night, it was looking at dresses before pasting in the last of Kerry’s pictures. Today, it was cakes. I found the culinary section and hoisted a stack of books to an empty space on the third floor. I pored over recipes, fondant work, construction. I built imaginary cakes, one at a time, indulging in the most consistent of my daydreams. The first, a classic vanilla and buttercream with pale-blue frosting and little white poppies. Three tiers. Very lovely. The next was five tiers, square, with black ribbon and costume jewelry broaches aligned vertically on the front. A bit more appropriate for an evening wedding.
    â€œYou having a party?”
    I looked up to see a scruffy, blond-haired boy pushing a cart full of books. He had a flimsy name tag I couldn’t read and was wearing the standard college-boy uniform of khaki pants and a button-up shirt with his sleeves cuffed aroundhis elbows. No one tried anymore.
    I