Read Cassidy Jones and the Seventh Attendant (Cassidy Jones Adventures, Book Three) for Free Online Page B

raved Mom. The girls agreed.
    All I could picture was a bracelet loaded with charms as I lived on and on, long after everyone I’d ever known and loved was gone.
    Don’t even go there , I advised myself, and passed the bracelet to Miriam . If anything would spiral me deeper into despair, it was the thought of immortality and knowing everyone in this room would eventually leave me. Now stop!
    Chazz approached me, a wide grin plastered on his cute, round face, and handed me a tiny gift he had clearly wrapped himself. Scotch tape covered the entire surface of what I guessed to be one of his toys, wrapped in leftover Christmas paper.
    “Well, what do we have here?” I winked at Chazz. Surprise crossed his face, and he gave me a big wink back, as if we shared a secret. He could hardly sit still as I went to work on the tape.
    “I can’t wait to see,” I told him, and meant it. His joy was contagious.
    Dad’s cell phone rang. He looked at the screen.
    I tore the first strip of tape away.
    “Excuse me,” Dad said. He answered the call as he briskly left the room. “Hello, Drake Jones here.”
    I managed to get another piece of tape off. “Chazzy, you wrap so well!” I wormed my fingers through paper and encountered hard plastic .
    Chazz giggled into his hands.
    I freed a plastic action figure from the confines of the candy-cane-striped wrapping paper and felt an unnatural smile stretch across my face. Oh, crud.
    “Oh, look!” I announced as I held up the action figure. “It’s Dash, from The Incredibles .”
    “He has super speed.” Chazz beamed.
    I waited for a wink, but it didn’t come.
    “ Super speed ,” I enunciated, looking at Emery. He was kicked back on the floor, his face sporting an easy grin. Beneath the veneer, I knew he was thinking what I was thinking: We’re doomed .
    In my mind, I called forth the image of the picture Chazz had drawn recently, captioned “The Amazing Cassidy,” depicting me in a purple spandex costume and cape. There had been other clues that Chazz suspected my secret, but there wasn’t “conclusive evidence,” as Emery had put it, so we decided to keep our eyes open, but not to tip our hand until there was no question about what Chazz knew.
    “Dash is my favorite superhero of all,” I told Chazz, hugging him.
    “Spiderman is mine,” he shared, and I hugged him tighter, figuring this was a good sign. Maybe Chazz doesn’t know. Over his shoulder, I saw Dad enter the room. He looked troubled.
    What now? I thought.
    Dad forced his million-dollar smile. “Oh, I missed Chazz’s present.”
    Chazz broke free from the hug to look at him.
    “He was so excited to give you Dash,” Dad told me, his smile clashing with the worry lines creasing his forehead.
    Emery straightened up to scrutinize my dad. From the corner of my eye, I saw Mr. Phillips watching him, too.
    “Is everything all right, Drake?” Mom asked.
    “We’ll talk later,” he told her quickly, shifting his smile to Chazz. “Are there any more gifts?”
    “Nope, they’re all opened,” Chazz said, scooping up wrapping paper and tossing it in the air.
    “Well, in that case—kids, if you don’t mind, I need to talk with the adults, in my office,” Dad said, cluing everyone in that something was amiss—everyone but Chazz, who threw more wrapping paper, since no one was stopping him.
    Mom, Serena, Mr. Phillips, and Ben promptly got to their feet. As they did, Dad added, “Emery, you too.”
    What the . . . ? Nate mouthed to me.
    Sick to my stomach, I shrugged. I had every intention of finding out what was going on.
    When the adults and Emery left the room, whispers broke out among those remaining. But the only discussion I cared about was the one happening in my dad’s office.
    I curled forward on the sofa, elbows on knees, and concentrated on the stars sparkling on my thumbs until they blurred. The voices in the room faded, and the voices down the hall, behind a closed door, became