Read The Felix Chronicles: Freshmen for Free Online Page B

know—I’m not what most teenage girls consider a face man. I’m not exactly Bradley Cooper. But I think you know why I’m called the Faceman.”
    She said nothing. As her mind started to resolve itself to the fact that her alarm clock wouldn’t be saving her, her throat began spasming in panic. Her heart pounded. She felt winded, like someone had punched her in the gut.A cold layer of sweat was starting to show through her T-shirt. The sour taste in her mouth lingered.
    “Well?” he demanded.
    She nodded.
    “Was it the cop? I bet it was the cop.” He shook his head, but he seemed pleased. “I knew that was a mistake. But I have a complicated relationship with the authorities. And that cop, well, he reminded me of this guy I knew from my military days who pissed me off one too many times so I—how do I put this delicately?— I ripped his fucking head off.” He threw his head back and bellowed laughter. The sound rolled around the shed like a summer storm. Angela shrank back against the wall as the Faceman stared at his hands—hands that were without doubt big enough and strong enough to rip off a man’s head.
    Of course she knew why he was called the Faceman. Everyone did. For the past three years, a serial killer had terrorized the entire country, going from state to state, and from town to town, killing teenagers. But he didn’t just kill them—he erased their faces. Six point blank rounds with a .44 magnum. Her parents, like millions of others across the country, wouldn’t let her go out alone after dark (or out at all), and they insisted she carry pepper spray in her bag. Thenat the end of last year, a cop had pulled over a van for speeding on a country road in the Midwest. The driver climbed out of the vehicle, pointed a gun at the officer’s face, and blew his brains out the back of his head. Then he proceeded to shoot him five times in the face as he lay twitching on the side of the road. This was all caught on video from a camera mounted inside the patrol car. Every TV network in the country ran the censored footage on a loop (her parents wouldn’t let her watch it), and every newspaper and magazine from coast to coast plastered the images of the shooter’s face on their front pages. When the un-pixelated version hit YouTube, it racked up more views in one week than all of Beyonce’s music videos combined and it crashed the website for five hours. The killer’s trademark—one bullet to the head and five to the face—was unmistakable, but the country waited in breathless anticipation for the official announcement. The results from the ballistics tests confirmed what everyone was expecting: The gun that killed the cop was the same weapon used in the murders of at least fifty-seven teenagers. Two days later,the Faceman’s identity— the identity of the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history —was released: His name was Nick Blair. He was thirty-three. A former Navy Seal. A decorated war hero.
    “I didn’t always look like this, you know.” The Faceman smiled. Before Angela could consider what he was smiling about, he’d reached behind his waist and came away with a knife. She winced and jerked backward and her head cracked against the wall. This was no ordinary kitchen knife. Angela had never seen anything like it before; it was long (at least the length of his muscular, vein-bulging forearm), and she supposed it was a hunting knife, an instrument used to gut animals— big animals like elk and bear. He was still smiling as he pressed the flat side of the blade against his face. The tip rested on the side of his head. He was using it as a pointer, and what he was pointing at was so gross it was hard to look at: Where there should have been an ear, there was just a dark hole.
    “This ugly crater here was once a nice piece of cartilage. Then some shrapnel blew it off. It was just like yours. Not as petite—of course. I’ve always been rather large for my age. At fifteen, I was big