Read ARC: Crushed for Free Online

answer, so I pause the movie and try to look encouraging. Not my best expression, but it seems to work.
    “Do you ever wonder what it’s like to be…” She nods at the TV. “Like them?”
    I try to keep it light. “Like trashy BFF’s fighting over the same guy? Nope – you know Chi’s not my type.” She glares. Of course I know what she really means: normal. Do I ever wonder what it’s like to be normal. She doesn’t say the word, like she doesn’t want to admit out loud that we’re not normal. That worries me more than the rest of the question.
    “You know… kids whose biggest problem is the mean girls at school.” She’s points her face toward the TV where the pretty brunette is awkwardly frozen with her mouth open.
    “Jo,” I tease, “we are the mean girls at school.”
    She doesn’t smile. “Forget it.” She sets the popcorn on my desk with more force than necessary. She grabs a pillow and plumps it like it’s the enemy. “It’s stupid.”
    It is stupid. We aren’t normal. Not even close. And no, I haven’t ever thought about it, not once. But it occurs to me – Jo could be. Had she been born somewhere else, to people who weren’t Templars – or even who just didn’t know they were Templars. She would fit into a normal family and a normal high school (though I’ve no doubt she’d still be a mean girl).
    But I’m not that way. My different-ness is more than a matter of upbringing, it’s in my DNA. It’s not even just that I eat people; it’s that I want to. I revel in my strength, my speed, my superiority. I delight in things no normal person would – or should. I can barely wrap my mind around the idea of wanting to give that up.
    It makes me sad. Not that I’ve never thought about it, but that Jo has.
    She still isn’t looking at me, her stiff face is pointed deliberately toward the TV. In the glow of the television, she looks… fragile. No, that’s the wrong word, even now. Jo’s not fragile. Rather, she looks brittle – still strong, but like the wrong hit could send her splitting in two. I don’t know what to say, so I hide in humor. “Ohhh,” I say, as if I suddenly understand. “You mean if we didn’t have armies of demons hunting our every move.”
    “I said forget it,” Jo mutters.
    “Or maybe,” I nudge her with my elbow. “You want a BFF who’s only a man-stealing monster, instead of a man-eating one.”
    She rolls her eyes and smothers the world’s smallest smile. “Yeah, that’s it.”
    “Oh no, I know what you want.” I rise a little in my seat, as if making a pronouncement. “You want to live in a society where premarital sex is only barely frowned-upon.”
    That earns me the expected smack in the face with the pillow. I may have needled her about it a few (million) times. “Jerk.”
    I slide up onto the metal railing at the foot of my bed – out of range – before adding. “Ah, well, I won’t take that attack personally. I’ve heard sexual frustration can do that to a person.”
    I grin, bracing myself for a shove. But I miscalculated. Instead of diving at me, she grabs my feet and flips me backwards. I land on my back in a big whoosh of breath.
    Jo might not like being a monster-fighting hero, but she does have a knack for it.
    She leans over the rail I just fell from and smirks at me.
    I groan. “Ah, I get it now. I, for one, would definitely take a life where people aren’t constantly trying to kill me.”
    The smirk disappears from Jo’s face so fast, it’s hard to remember it was ever there. She falls back onto the bed, and I pull myself back up to my feet. She slides back over to her spot and faces the TV again.
    “Jo, I was kidding.”
    She looks at me. Dead serious and a little pale. “Are you?”
    Well no, not really. Monster though I am, I really don’t like people trying to kill me. Who would?
    Jo doesn’t wait for me to answer and turns back to the TV. After a long moment, very softly she says, “I just wonder what it