Read Through Glass: Episode Four for Free Online Page A

that rough,
sharp edge away.
    I said nothing as I watched the
shadows of the fire lick the ceiling, the strips of yellow light
flickered and moved like an ocean. Pieces of shadow and light
moving in harmony as the fire burned.
    It was so different than the shadows I
had seen move around the store.
    My heart clenched in fear as the
thought I had tried to banish came back, my muscles tensing before
I pushed the thought away again. Instead, I focused on the light
that rippled over the ceiling, not on the shadows that seemed to
dwell around the corners of my vision. I lay still, focusing on the
memories that didn’t hurt, hoping that they would start to feel a
little bit more manageable.
    Before I had even thought about it, I
had lifted my arm, pulling the sleeve of my jacket down to reveal
the drawing of my own face, the lines beginning to fade a bit, the
left side obscured by a dark, purple bruise I hadn’t seen before. I
knew at once where it had come from.
    “ Do they do that to
everyone,” I asked in a whisper that echoed through the
darkness.
    “ What?” Travis asked back,
his voice just as soft, as if he was afraid of what I was going to
say.
    “ Stone them. The way they
did to me.” The words almost got stuck in my throat, the phrasing
so archaic that it felt out of place, yet I knew they were the only
words that would make sense.
    The relative calm that we had found in
our shared memories seemed to vanish into an anxious fear at my
question. It tightened around my stomach in an uncomfortable metal
band that seemed to spread all the way through me, making every
beat of my heart hurt.
    “ Yes.” His voice was tense,
the tension only adding to my fear. “They are scared. Scared of
what the world is. Scared of what you could become.”
    “ What I am going to
become…” I was careful to keep my voice controlled, not full of the
anger that I had felt rush through me so aggressively. Even though
I had tried, however, I wasn’t sure I had succeeded.
    I fought the shiver that moved through
me at the thought, pushing it from my mind as I turned toward
Travis, only to find him already turned and staring at
me.
    “ No, Lex,” Travis said
calmly, obviously hoping to calm the fear he had heard in my voice.
“I have rescued a few from holes. Houses so run down that they
shouldn’t be used as barns. Hotters so hot they weren’t even worth
saving.”
    I cringed at his words, the calm
mellow of it only grinding at my fear more, awakening it. It wasn’t
how he had spoken the words, it was what he said that cut through
me. It sliced through the steady calm and erupted inside of me, the
thought of the number of people they had destroyed, that they had
hurt, all because they were afraid.
    “ People.” I said the word
more to myself than to Travis, but it had the same
reaction.
    “ Excuse me?”
    “ They are people, Travis,
just like I am a person. Just like you are person. People that live
and breathe and are full of life—”
    “ We call them hotters for a
reason, Lex.” Travis’s voice was a growl as he interrupted
me.
    I should have been worried that he
didn’t understand, but in some ways, I wasn’t. How could I be? I
was scared of the Tar just as he was. I wanted to make them bleed.
I wanted to see the sun again. But the way they talked about
hotters was the same way they talked about The Tar. And they
weren’t the same, just as I wasn’t yet.
    Yet, I reminded myself.
    “ Is it for the same reason
that you call me a hotter?”
    “ Lexi…” He was pleading,
but I just ignored him, my words rolling on as my anger began to
grow. I knew I should stop, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t let him
justify this.
    The Tar had justified what they had
done and look where we were now.
    “ Was I worth saving if
those people weren’t?” I shrieked, my voice tight as the volume
began to increase.
    “ You are my
sister.”
    “ And a hotter.”
    “ I never said—”
    “ It’s derogatory, Travis!”
I screamed as