Read Online The Girl in the Wall by Jacquelyn Mitchard, Daphne Benedis-Grab - Free Book Online

as we get closer to the doorway where an agent stands, gun at his side.
    “Um, we were told it’s okay to go to the kitchen to get something to eat,” Hudson says. I see him picking at his fingernail as he speaks.
    The agent nods and waves us through. My legs feel a little shaky as we walk down the short hall to the kitchen.
    The Barett kitchen is amazing: wide expanses of granite countertop, gleaming Le Creuset cookwear hanging from racks, state-of-the-art appliances that are so sleek they have a sports car feel to them. A skylight opens the ceiling and when I look up I see stars far off in the night sky.
    If it weren’t for the agents lurking in both doorways it would almost feel normal.
    The agent at the far doorway sees us come in. “You can eat what’s on the counter or stuff from the fridge,” she says. “No opening drawers or cabinets. Got it?”
    We both nod. The huge island in the middle of the room is covered with trays of hors d’oeurvre.
    “Should we heat some of these up?” I ask, looking at the shrimp toast and mini-quiches. My stomach is a tangle of knots and I’m not sure how much I’ll actually be able to eat.
    Hudson grabs a goat cheese and bacon roll and stuffs it in his mouth, looking like any of the guys I go to school with scarfing down a hamburger. I guess refinement doesn’t come with fame.
    “This is okay to start but I want real food,” he says. “Not just stuff to graze on.”
    “I hear that.”
    It’s Mike and he’s walking in with Trevor, Ravi, and Ella. Ella stopped talking to me when everyone else did, of course, but she lent me clothes after gym once, when mine mysteriously disappeared from my locker, and she’s one of the only girls who never sent me dirty looks or started whispering when I walked in the room in those awful early weeks. Obviously she’s not a friend—I don’t have any of those—but she’s not an enemy either. I sit on one of the stools, my arm resting across my lap, hiding the phone as the agent repeats the kitchen rules. I can eat with my other hand, if I can manage to choke something down.
    “Where’s the meat?” Trevor asks, opening the fridge.
    He is striving to sound jovial but his eyes are darting around, as though on the lookout for an agent to come haul him away. I guess we’re all kind of feeling that way.
    “I think Ariel said it was going to be sushi for dinner,” Ella says, and all three guys groan.
    “There has to at least be sandwich stuff in here,” Trevor says, poking around in the huge fridge.
    “What happened to serving steak?” Mike asks, peering over Trevor’s shoulder. “Because that’s a dinner.”
    He is doing a better job of sounding normal but I think he’s looked at the clock like ten times in the two minutes he’s been in here. I would know—I keep checking it myself.
    “A real dinner is barbeque,” Hudson says, grabbing a wedge of brie. Even his voice has the undercurrent of tension we are all feeling.
    Ravi glances at Hudson, his face slightly flushed. All the guys are talking just a bit too loudly and not quite looking at Hudson. I realize they are starstruck, which is kind of funny because they usually walk around like rock stars themselves. It’s also strange to realize that I stopped thinking about Hudson as a rock star hours ago.
    Ravi takes a mini spring roll and eats it. “These aren’t bad,” he says, his voice just slightly higher than usual.
    Ravi is one of those guys who gets off on risk, who does every extreme sport there is, and who’s broken like twelve bones. The fact that his face is tight, that his hands are shaky, makes the knots in my stomach tighten.
    “Sweet potato biscuits are better,” Hudson says to me with a grin.
    It’s almost like he knows I need distraction. Though I’m probably reading too much into it, he’s probably just starving and excited to eat.
    Ella raises her eyebrows and I see the guys exchange looks. I guess they’re surprised that of anyone he could talk