Dark Before Dawn Read Free Page A

to Covington High," he said.
    "Thanks." Dawn stood awkwardly behind him.
    Renee glared at Dawn, her brow squelched up and eyes beady, resembling one of Cinderella’s ugly stepsisters. As she turned back to the remaining students, her annoyed expression cleared and once again she was Cinderella at the ball. "I’m not picking Candace, so I guess I'll take Laurie."
    Dawn stayed out of the way during the basketball game, hanging back and letting her teammates do the work. Scott scored basket after basket, high-fiving his friends between points. Finally, thankfully, Mrs. Welch shrilled the whistle and told them to get dressed.
    Ten minutes later, Dawn scanned her English class for a seat. Candace read a paperback in a middle aisle, speaking to no one. Renee applied lip gloss in the back row, a cheerleading jacket over her sweater and denim skirt.
    Scott set down his sports magazine and grinned from the desk beside Renee. "Hey, Dawn, right? I get the feeling you don’t like basketball. I’ll bet you get good grades, though. Am I right?"
    Dawn gulped, and ignored Renee’s scowl. "Yeah, but I’m better at math than English."
    "Will you be joining the geek club? I mean the math club?" Renee slipped her lip gloss into a beaded sequined purse.
    "I don’t think so." Dawn escaped to a seat a few rows ahead of them, against the wall. Above her, a poster proclaimed an Abraham Lincoln quote in bold italics: Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.
    Dawn fished a pen out of her backpack with quivery hands. Scott kept going out of his way to talk to her. Maybe he liked her. Maybe he would even dump Renee and ask her out. Dawn scrawled a heart in her notebook and then scribbled over it. No, hooking up with Scott would take a MIRACLE, and miracles never happened to her.
    Mr. Murray spent most of the class reviewing the summer reading list book, The Crucible , an Arthur Miller play about the 17th century Salem Witch Trials. Mr. Murray wore his sparse black strands combed sideways over his thinning pate. He had more hair in his salt and pepper beard than on his head.
    "Tell me what you thought about the play, Scott," he said.
    Dawn had disliked The Crucible with its tale of finger-pointing toward people perceived as different. She wondered if Mr. Murray’s choice of the play was an omen. God knows, she felt like a witch sometimes. Unbidden, a year-old image of cracked horn-rimmed glasses and a body sprawled lifelessly on the floor sprang to mind. Dawn forced herself back to the discussion.
    Scott leaned back in his chair. In his rugby shirt, jeans and skateboarder shoes, he was easily the cutest guy in class. Stop checking him out, Dawn scolded herself.
    "Those girls shouldn’t have started accusing everyone to save their own hides," Scott said. "The people running the town were morons for listening. And what’s with Abigail? She sleeps with that John dude then uses the witchcraft stuff to try to get his wife hanged? I was glad John got the ropes, not the wife."
    "You’ve hit on one of the themes," Mr. Murray said. "Redemption. John was guilty of adultery, but once he was accused of witchcraft, he wouldn’t name names, choosing to die instead. People aren’t perfect and make mistakes, but we can purify ourselves by making what’s wrong right."
    While the rest of the kids fidgeted and yawned, Dawn noted how Scott’s broad shoulders filled out his varsity jacket and how the light blue letter brought out his eyes. He was smart, too, smarter than he let on. Suddenly Dawn’s thoughts of Scott and the play triggered an avalanche of images.
    Busy street. Worn Nikes and blue-jeaned legs. Screeching brakes. Black pickup truck barreling, barreling ... Scott crumpling to the ground.
    Dawn couldn’t breathe, as though the air had been vacuumed out of her lungs.
    Scott was going to die.
    She twisted at her desk and bent her head between her knees. Fuzzy black dots spun around her, blurring