Read Burn (Brothers of Ink and Steel #2) for Free Online Page B

plastic sandwich baggies filled with pot. Rolling papers lay haphazardly close by. There are also small mirrors with white powder lines—meticulously straight—across them. A razor blade is covered in the stuff.
    I’m not stupid. I know it’s cocaine. I’ve seen it before, but I’ve never tried it. The party must have switched from alcohol to drugs.
    Linda presses my face into the table and searing pain radiates over my cheekbone with the force. “If it isn’t yours, whose is it?”
    She’s got to be joking, but the pain in my face and scalp says otherwise.
    “I swear, none of it’s mine!” Why would she think it was mine? It’s obviously Marissa’s!
    Linda yanks my head up fast and flings me into the wall. “I knew you’d deny it!” she shouts.
    I turn to face Marissa, who is obviously wide awake—and obviously stoned out of her mind! She looks to me with pleading eyes.
    “I take the word of my own daughters over yours.” Linda comes at me again and slaps me across the face. “And I opened my home to you!”
    “I was sleeping!” I shout back, raising my arms in front of my body defensively. “How could I be doing drugs in my sleep?!”
    None of this makes sense to me, but then I watch Monica step to her sister’s side. And I get it; I’m the convenient scapegoat.
    “I should have never taken you in,” Linda says, seething.
    At her words, my heart breaks. I’ve known Linda since Monica and I were in elementary school. Her daughters have always been like sisters to me. And when I had nowhere to go … I’d been hoping she’d become the mother I didn’t have.
    My eyes veer to the clock, and I’m filled with the horror of being thrust back out on the city streets with no place to go. “It’s three in the morning … we have school tomorrow … can I please just stay until—?”
    “Get out!” she screams.
    “Okay … okay.” I realize I’m crying as I scoop up my few belongings. I need something to put them in.
    Marissa goes to the kitchen and comes back with a black trash bag. I mash them inside. 
    “I know where you belong, St. Anne’s,” Linda threatens me as she marches down the stairs back to her apartment.
    I’ve heard of it—Saint Anne’s, a prison for girls. It isn’t a place I want to be. I’m soft and I know it. I’d be killed.
    Monica disappears behind her mother as Marissa grabs my coat and puts it around my shoulders. She slurs, “I’m so sorry, Quinn. My mom came up here and—”
    “Yeah I get it,” I say bitterly. “You didn’t want to get in trouble.” As if on some mystical cue, thunder slams through the sky.
    Perfect, even God has it out for me.
    I zip the coat. Marissa shoves a twenty dollar bill into my hand. The gesture is way too little, way too late! It’s not even enough for a dive hotel room on the worst side of the city.
    “You need to hurry. She’s called the police.” Monica’s voice comes from behind me.
    I turn on her. “I don’t get it! I thought you were my best friend!”
    She doesn’t meet my eyes when she says, “Things changed. Guess she doesn’t think you’re so perfect after all.”
    And that’s when I get it. Monica’s been acting weird lately, making little jokes about how her mom and sister like me more than her. I can see it now in the look on her face—smug satisfaction mixed with guilt. She’s happy that her mom thinks I’m a druggie screw-up; it just makes her look that much better in comparison.
    I shake my head, dumbfounded. It’s obvious from my life that I have bad judgment when it comes to trusting people.
    I back away from them, take the steps down to the back door and run into the night.
    The sky is black as pitch. The heavy rain pelts me until it’s soaked through the layers of my coat and clothes. I run until I’m out of Monica’s neighborhood.
    I have to find a safe place to hide until morning. Truth is, there is no safe place at three o’clock in the morning for a fifteen-year-old girl.
    The wind