"Sizemore, Susan - Laws of the Blood 3 - Companions" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sizemore Susan)

Two years since I've seen my monster.

Selena didn't want to see him. If her mom and aunt hadn't brought up the subject this afternoon, if she wasn't alone with the de facto leader of this elite little group, she doubted she'd have mentioned the frustration that built without her conscious awareness that it was there. Bitterness seeped out of the place where she hid it and leaked out her fingertips.

When does it end?

Two years!? Fyrstartr responded. Selena could feel the other person's consternation in the words on the screen. My *friend* drove me crazy with lack of attention for a year once - for my own good. Trying to save me from my fate.

Good for your *friend*.

I LIKE my fate! Nearly drove me insane. But what was decided was for my good wasn't something I had a say in. You know how that goes.

They used a lot of euphemisms in this group. Selena didn't like all the nonsense with asterisks and code terms and veiled allusions, but she went along with it for security's sake. They weren't supposed to be talking to each other like this. They weren't even supposed to be aware of each other's existence, without permission from their "friends." Where they were and who they were was something they kept as secret as possible, from the society they lived in and from each other. The society some of them lived in, Selena corrected herself. Even having found them, she was still an outsider.

She typed, My friend and I aren't friends. We have a unique relationship.

Don't we all? The response was from DesertDog, the third person to enter the chat room. Finally fessing up to having a jerk boyfriend, sweetheart?

DesertDog always came off as aggressively male, despite the rules about never being gender specific in the group. Selena worried about calling herself Layla - it sounded so feminine - but she'd explained early on about being a Clapton fan and told them that was all the aka meant. She suspected that Fyrstartr was a woman, and that she lived in California. Then again, Fyrstartr might be a bearded, potbellied biker in North Dakota that ran the chat room on Pacific time to add another layer of security. You needed security when going against the rules. They were a small band of nervous rebels lost in the land of the weird. The ones currently in the chat room, which now included Ghost and Carmlaskid, were the ones who showed up on a regular basis. Then there were Moscowknight, Canuk, and Sandswimmer, whose participation was less frequent. In fact, it had been weeks since Sandswimmer'd put in a virtual appearance. What they had in common was a resentment of the way things were. There were those who proclaimed how, when they were in power, things would be different, and those like herself and DesertDog, who wanted things to be different now!

In Selena's case, the truth was that she wanted her involvement, however tentative, with this underneath world that she still knew so little about to simply be a bad dream. One of the things that drove her nuts about the whole situation, besides the loneliness and the sicko, perverted cravings, was how little information she'd been given by the one who'd made her a part of this unnatural lifestyle. The jerk.

They're all jerks, Selena typed. We ought to do something permanent about them.

The gasp wasn't audible, but Selena felt it coming from Fyrstartr, who quickly typed, How can you say that?

'Cause Layla isn't as brainwashed as some of us, DesertDog typed back.

We're all entitled to our opinions, Ghost contributed.

Or should be. Right, Layla? Free speech for all!

Don't care about making speeches, Selena typed.

Maybe what you need is to get laid, Ghost typed back.

Maybe.

Me, too.

Will you two cut it out? DesertDog wrote. We're here to plot the overthrow of the master race, right?

I want a different way of doing things, Fyrstartr wrote. What do you want?

Not to get caught being naughty, Carmlaskid chimed in. Sorry I'm late. Has the revolution started? Why don't we do this in the daytime? It'd be safer, you know. We're gonna get in trouble for this.

Speaking of which, DesertDog wrote. I heard a rumor of trouble in Denver.

What kind of trouble? Fyrstartr asked.