Read Over My Head (Wildlings) for Free Online Page A

for that—but deep down, I kind of blame him for it all having happened to me in the first place. Not fair—I know. But some things just don't make sense, they just are.
    "You look like crap," he says.
    "I haven't seen you for a couple of weeks," I say, "and that's how you start the conversation?"
    "Well, you do."
    I get more comfortable against the headboard, stuffing a couple of pillows behind me.
    "I can't argue with that," I tell him. "What brings you around?"
    He shrugs. "Nothing much." He waits a beat, then adds, "I hear Auntie Min's looking for you."
    "She knows where to find me."
    Cory nods. "I get how you're ticked off at all of us old-school cousins, but someone like Auntie Min—she's due some respect."
    "I thought you were—how'd you put it? 'On my team.' That you weren't running errands for her anymore."
    "I am on your team and I'm not running errands. I'm just relaying some information. Word around the cousins is that you're being disrespectful by not going to see her."
    "First of all, I didn't know she was looking for me."
    "You do now."
    "Yeah," I say. "But as you can see, I'm kind of indisposed at the moment. And secondly, I thought being Mountain Lion Clan meant I wasn't expected to come running at everyone's beck and call. That it was a big deal."
    "It is. But that's something you were born into. You didn't earn it. I'm coyote. My ancestors were right here watching raven pull the whole world out of that big black pot of his. But I still give someone like Auntie Min her props. That's how it is with our people."
    I shake my head. " Your people, not mine. I don't owe you or her or any of you anything."
    "You know it doesn't work that way. Do we have to have the whole conversation again about how this is who you are now and there's no going back?"
    "See, that's where all of you are wrong," I say. "I may be a Wildling, but I'm not your people. I'm just a kid who had this mountain lion woken up inside him. Another roll of the dice and I might have gotten cancer instead. Your world, the things you people want, the expectations some of you have for me—none of it means anything, from where I'm standing."
    "But—"
    "No, I get it. I'm a Wildling. But that doesn't mean I have to be your definition of what that means."
    Cory steeples his fingers, elbows on the arms of his chair, and looks at me.
    "That's an interesting way to put it," he says.
    "What's that supposed to mean?"
    He grins. "Nothing. Everything. I just think that it might be instructional to find out what their definition of you actually is."
    "I'm still not going to—"
    He cuts me off with a wave of his hand. "It's cool. I've got this."
    He's always done right by me, but I can't help the flash of suspicion I get. I hate that I've become the guy who has trouble trusting anyone. I guess that's what happens when you get burned enough. But I try not to let any of what I'm feeling show.
    "Meanwhile," he says and gives me knowing look.
    "What? Stay out of trouble?"
    He laughs. "I'm coyote. That's not a piece of advice I'd ever give out. I'm just thinking that the next time somebody comes at you, you might want to get in a few licks of your own."
    He's out of the chair and through the window, gone into the night before I can respond.

    The next time I wake up, I'm not alone again. This time, I find Desmond sitting at my desk surfing the Net. It's daylight outside, so at least I can be pretty sure he didn't come through the window like my last visitor. He swivels the chair when he hears me move.
    "I've seen you looking better, dude," he says.
    "I've felt better."
    He smiles, but there's no humour in it. "No shit. Who did this to you?"
    "Gess and some of his buddies."
    "And you just let them."
    I don't want to go through the reasons all over again, but I do.
    Desmond shakes his head when I'm done.
    "You know this isn't over, right?" he says.
    "Of course it's over. Gess beat the crap out of me. He won. What else is he going to want?"
    Desmond sighs. "Dude, now