Read Halo (Blood and Fire Series (A Young Adult Dystopian Series)) for Free Online

the lower floor of the house, and I follow closely behind her. We walk past the kitchen, where voices leak out into the corridor, and Penny rushes by. I make sure to be as silent as I can, which is very silent. The lower floor of the Asha Household is even bigger than ours, and we walk by five closed doors before Penny stops and opens one, waving me inside.
    The room is simple, with a single bed and a small bookshelf above it, where three worn books rest on their side. It smells of Falin Asha in here, a smell I didn’t realise I would know absolutely anywhere until now. A pair of his shoes are pushed neatly halfway under the bed. Penny stares at them and tears creep down her face
    “I ― ,” I don’t know what to tell her. That I was just doing what I was supposed to? That I am sorry? I’m not even sure what it is I’m feeling. All I know is that it hurts more than any physical pain I can put myself through, and since my halo stopped working, I really have tried. Tried to find something that hurts more. There are open scars on the backs of my hands to prove it.
    Penny scrubs her hands over her eyes and turns to sink down on Falin Asha’s neatly made bed. I picture him here making it before he came to meet for practice on the day of the fight and my heart contracts in a way that makes my breathing uneven. I sit down on the bed with her. “Why did he do it?”
    Penny leans forward to prop herself up on her knees, and I notice the back of her neck is all freckly. Those freckles wouldn’t be visible if she was wearing a halo. She doesn’t bother asking me what I mean.  
    “Cai ― ” She winces, like saying the word causes her pain. “Cai wanted to ― ”
    “Cai?”
    “Caius. That’s the name my brother chose for himself.” She blinks at me, like she’s waiting for me to approve. Caius. Caius? That’s going to take some getting used to. Penny’s face hardens when she doesn’t see the response she’s looking for on my face.  
    “Cai wanted to set you free. I told him not to. I told him it would only lead to trouble, but—”
    “Set me free? He thought this was setting me free? I’m trapped . I need to go to the technicians and get them to fix it, but every time I think about doing it I have to come up with a good explanation as to why I haven’t gone sooner. And I can’t think of one.”
    Penny’s grey eyes darken a shade, and her eyebrows pinch together. “Cai died so you could have this. Don’t you dare throw it away.”
    “But… why? ” I can’t think of any other question, because I really don’t understand. Having my halo broken, having all these feelings rush through me, conflicting with one another, clawing at me, leaves me feeling wretched. Penny makes it sound like Falin Ash—I shake my head, trying to get to grips with such a monumental name change—she makes it sound like Caius gave me a gift.
    “Cai’s halo stopped functioning eight months ago,” Penny says, staring at the backs of the shoes on the floor between her feet. “He was always so well behaved. He never caused any trouble. He trained so hard, even when his halo stopped working. I never would have known, but he got angry one day when my father hit me and I worked it out. I kept his secret for him and we became friends. He always wanted to tell you, but I said he shouldn’t. And then, when they said you’d be fighting each other, he snapped. He told me what he was going to do but I didn’t really believe him.”
    I bite down on my jaw, feeling my teeth grate against one another. “I had no idea. We trained every day. I never suspected a thing.”
    “You wouldn’t have. He was pretty good at hiding it. Plus he didn’t want anything to change. He loved training with you. He loved ― well,” she blows out a deep breath. “He loved you .”
    I freeze on the bed, picking apart Penny’s mournful expression to see if she is joking. “He loved me?”
    She nods, saying something else, but I don’t hear her. My