Read The Breaker's Promise (YA Urban Fantasy) (Fixed Points Book 2) for Free Online Page B

around baseline humans, have you Flora?” I asked, shooting Owen a look. “That’s what our jokes sound like.”
    Flora narrowed her eyes, scrunched her nose and looked back and forth between Owen and me quizzically. “I don’t think so,” she finally said. “I studied Logistics of Baseline Humor throughout History when I was a youngling just like everyone else, and I don’t remember any jokes sounding like that.”
    “Oh my God, that’s a class?” I asked, exasperated.
    “It certainly is,” Flora beamed. “A class that I flew through.  I’m not going to tell your secret, Cresta.” She looked from Owen to me and back again. “Any of them.” Her eyes were clear, without a hint of deceit in them; though maybe some Breakers were better about hiding that sort of thing than others. Lord knows if you’d have asked me six months ago, I’d have told you that Owen was nothing more than a cute guy from California with a pesky girlfriend and a smile that made my knees jelly.
    “For what it’s worth, I believe you,” I told her. “But I can’t take the chance.” I folded my arms and turned to Owen. With a bit of guilt pooling in my chest, I said, “Do it,” and shut my eyes tight so that I wouldn’t have to watch.
    “Do what?” he asked.
    I opened my eyes. “You know, the thing; the thing where you take pieces of her memory away, like you did with Casper.”
    Owen pursed his lips tightly. “Um, that’s not really the same thing, Cress. Casper is a baseline. His psyche was pretty much unprotected. Breakers don’t work the same way.”
    I turned back to Flora, who had a mile wide grin plastered across her face; part smugness, part delight. “You didn’t know that?” She asked.
    “Apparently, there’s a lot to stuff that I still don’t know.” I was pissed, and starting to panic. I did believe Flora. She was the type of person who was easy to know and, though she had only been at the school for a short time, she struck me as a trustworthy friend. But that only went so far. Part of what Owen and I had always been afraid of was the Council prying into our minds and stealing the secrets away. To that end, it wouldn’t matter what Flora’s intentions were. The more people who knew, the bigger the risk.  “What about my mother, or my mothers rather. They wiped a piece of my memory away, and I’m a Breaker.”
    “They did,” Owen conceded. “But that sort of precision takes years to perfect. Trying to do that inside of Flora’s mind without the proper training would be like tap dancing through a minefield and hoping we didn’t set anything off. One wrong move and the damage we’d do would be catastrophic.”
    I looked at Flora. The smile had lessened on her face.
    I guess the threat of imminent brain damage will do that to you.
    A piece of me wanted to risk it, to jump into Flora’s mind and wish for the best. But I couldn’t do that to her. She was my friend. She was innocent in all of this, and she didn’t deserve to suffer because she happened to be standing by when my lips finally loosened. To subject her to that sort of risk- Well, that sounded like something the Bloodmoon would do.
    “I won’t say anything,” Flora promised me again. She was close now. She grabbed my hand and cupped it between her own. “Maybe this is fate’s plan. Maybe I was always supposed to know; like maybe there’s a reason for it.”
    “She’s not the Bloodmoon,” Owen said from beside me. His voice was stone and left no room for contestation.
    “Okay,” Flora answered, still holding my hand, still looking into my eyes. “Maybe I can help ensure that. It’ll be like a club; like a secret club.” Her face lit up. “You know, I saw this movie once, as part of our Initiation to Baseline Cinematic Cultures class, and it was about these kids who made this club and they’d share all their dangerous secrets with each other.” She shook her head, as though someone was asking her a question. “They all