Read Jenny Undead (The Thirteen: Book One) for Free Online Page B

was staring at her. “What are
you doing?”
    “There's something out there,” Jenny
said. She looked back at the subway cars. They were still
again.
    “Someone's going to see you,” Lily
hissed urgently. “We're not supposed to...”
    Jenny let the tarp go and turned to her.
“Supposed to what?” she said. “It's just a
tarp.”
    “We're not supposed to talk about
it,” she said, looking down at her hands. She was back to shy
Lily again.
    “But don't you want to know?” Jenny
said.
    “Jenny,” she said, looking around.
Everyone must have been in their rooms. Only a few people were
about. A few older men sitting on the cement ledge and chattering,
a middle-aged woman who Jenny thought was called Tasha was trying
to repair her dress across the tracks, on the other side of the
eating area.
    “Jenny,” she said again, looking at
Jenny and then quickly looking down at her hands again. “Are
you okay?”
    “Okay?” Jenny said. “What do
you mean?”
    “I mean Joshua. Did he...hurt
you?”
    Jenny laughed, but stopped when she saw the
horrified look on Lily's face. “I'm fine,” she said.
“He just sort of talked to me. It was weird.”
    She nodded and looked down again. “We
should get supper ready.” She turned, but Jenny grabbed her
arm. Lily looked up at her with surprise.
    “Has Joshua done something to you?”
Jenny said.
    Lily shook her head. “No.” She tried
to turn again but Jenny held fast. Lily flinched and Jenny let
go.
    “Sorry,” she said. “I didn't
mean to hurt you.”
    Lily rubbed her arm and forgot to look away from
her. “How are you so strong?”
    “It's a gift,” Jenny said.
    Lily smiled a little, then she looked down and
frowned. “It's an honor. That's what he says. It doesn't hurt
anymore. Not really. But...” Lily looked around again.
“It's not what he does that's the worst. It's
Cora.”
    “Joshua's wife?” Jenny said.
“”
    She nodded. “She knows. I think he tells
her. And she's full of hate.” Lily was looking into Jenny's
eyes. She didn't cry. But Jenny didn't think she'd ever seen anyone
so sad.
    “Lily, where are your parents?”
    She swallowed. “Dead.” Her eyes
flicked to the tarp and back to Jenny. “My mom died in the
beginning, when the plague started. And my dad died right out
there.”
    “Out there?” Jenny said nodding her
head toward the tarp. “By the train cars?”
    Lily nodded. “The night we came here.
There was something out there. He was there one minute, and then
the next he was just...gone. Joshua found me out there, screaming.
I couldn't stop screaming.”
    “Jesus,” Jenny said. Lily winced,
then giggled nervously. “Sorry,” Jenny said. “I
shouldn't have said that.” The girl had been through more
than anyone. Jenny felt the need to protect her beyond all reason.
She was a phony here, lying about who she was, and here she was
listening to Lily's darkest secrets. Jenny was supposed to be the
one in danger. But at that moment, she wanted to rip Joshua's
throat out. And something else, too.
    She knew where Casey was.
    Cora stared Jenny down all the way through
dinner. She finished the scant amount of food on her plate quickly
and rinsed her dish in the bucket of murky, collected water.
    Jenny threw a glance back at the tarp, blue and
brown and black plastic sheeting all stitched together. Someone had
raised it back up again after the cook fire had gone out. Jenny
felt Cora's eyes burning into her as she walked back down the
subway platform to her room. It didn't matter if the queen of the
cult hated her. It didn't matter that the queen's husband seemed to
be pursuing her – thinking she was innocent and much younger,
no less. The only thing that mattered, the only thing that she
could handle thinking about right now, was that she was going to
find Casey and get the hell out of this weird shithole.
    Her rotter grandfather had been strung up on a
pole. Her grandfather had been a different kind of man. He was a
scientist