Read The 13th: Destiny Awaits for Free Online

more, but as you can see I'm here with somebody special, and you girls are intruding. So, could you leave, please?” He grabbed a fry and popped it into his mouth
    Sandra's eyebrows descended low over her eyes, but the target of her glare wasn't Ethan but Kate. Sandra’s gaze burned holes in her, making Kate subtly roll her eyes. She slumped back against the chair in relief when Sandra wheeled around and stomped away, her subjects following.
    “What did you do to her?” Ethan stuffed himself with more fries.
    “Me?” Kate's lips narrowed into a line. Sandra was the one who had started to gossip about her mother being committed to a nuthouse. She was also the one who, after her fight with Tyler about it, had started rumours that Kate and Tyler weren’t just close friends but had hooked up behind Sandra's back while she was dating him. Kate doubted that most of her acquaintances believed that story, but combined with the news of her crazy mother and the apathy that Kate couldn't shake off, she had somehow ended up as a school outcast.
    “She hates you,” Ethan said around his mouthful.
    “It looks like it, and your 'I'm here with somebody special' didn't help. Did you see how she looked at me when you said that? Why did you even have to say it?”
    “But you are special, aren't you? You’re the Soul Reaper. And don't tell me you’re worried what she thinks of you?”
    “She can cause problems for me.” She sort of already had, since the hues floating around her had sharpened into faces, but Kate wasn’t talking about that, more the 'accidental' shoves and the name-calling. She pushed the plate with the hamburger away. Suddenly she wasn't hungry anymore. “Like I don't have enough of those already.”
    “Don't say you mean me and the whole...” Ethan's hand made a half circle.
    “What else?” She rested her elbows on the table and pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes, breathing deeply. If they would just disappear. Why couldn't she get rid of them now? Did Ethan do something to her again?
    “Look at them. They are not going to hurt you. Not unless you continue to ignore them.”
    “Can you make them go away?”
    “I'm sorry, I can't do that.”
    “You don't want to or you can't?”
    “I won't and even if I wanted to, it's not in my power.”
    She lifted her head up, and with her hands still over her face, she glanced at him between her fingers, trying to ignore the transparent shapes dancing around her. She needed to go home or to distract herself. Usually the latter didn't work, but... “Then what is in your power?”
    “Not much, I'm afraid, not with you being so weak,” he said. “And besides, my powers are more for defence than offence. I'm more like the Soul Reaper's backup than anything else.”
    “A sidekick.” She hadn't expected that. “Does that mean you have to do what I tell you to?” That would be nice. That would be very, very nice.
    “No, that doesn't mean that I have to do what you tell me to. But you are right about the sidekick thing, since in our case you are the main hero and I'm your wing-man.”
     

Chapter 5
     
    Kate padded down the stairs and into the kitchen, braiding her hair as she went. She took the elastic from her mouth and tied the braid, before she mumbled a good morning to the man sitting on a bar stool beside the counter, drinking his coffee.
    “Good morning,” her father greeted her.
    She slid onto the stool beside him. Her father still being at home before she went to school didn’t happen often, usually only when he was getting ready for a new business trip, which occurred too often for her taste and meant that he spent only a few days a month at home. “How long will you be gone this time?”
    “A week and a half.” He pushed an empty bowl, a box of cereal and a carton of milk toward her. “I already told Nan.”
    She already ate almost all of her meals at Tyler’s. Maybe he should start to tell them when he intended to be home, instead