Expelled Read Free Page B

Li Jing thought. She put her hand over the ugly crescent-shaped marks.
    â€œYes. He would believe that.”
    â€œDid he know about your research?” Mr. Almstead asked.
    â€œNo,” she said. Then she closed her eyes. The excitement and the adrenaline were wearing off and her body was beginning to remind her of the beating she had received. Her head pounded. Her shoulder ached. The swelling bruises and welts on her upper arm were thumping in time with her heartbeat. “Wait.”
    Li Jing cleared her throat, “You know, I did mention it one time,” she said. She couldn’t quite look at Mr. Almstead on the screen.
    â€œI almost forgot about it. Yes, he does know. He said I should try to sell it.” She knew the lie sounded hollow, but she couldn’t stop herself. “He offered to try to sell it for me.”
    She glanced at Mr. Phillips and saw he was looking out the window, away from her.
    â€œHe’s very possessive of me,” Li Jing added. “He would try to find me if I disappeared.”
    â€œI see,” Almstead said from the screen. “Well, then maybe we need to take care of that. Do you think so?”
    â€œYes,” she said.
    â€œYes,” Elise Zhang said.

Get ready for a dream vacation that first goes comically, then tragically, then horrifyingly wrong!

    Keep reading for a sneak peek of
    SWEET
    Â 
    LAUREL
    DAY ONE
    A GUY WEARING SKINNY JEANS and a neon-blue fedora is leaping into the air, vaulting up onto the backs of the people in the crowd, waving like crazy and shouting, “Baby Tom-Tom! Baby Tom-Tom!” like a man on fire calling for a bucket.
    The dock is a zoo. Fans, maybe two thousand fans, are crammed into the space on either side of a red carpet that extends from the limo drop-off point, all the way up the dock, up a narrow gangplank and onto the luxury cruise liner, the Extravagance.
    It’s dawning on me that I’ve made a terrible mistake: I walked.
    My parents dropped me off way back at the ship terminal after besieging me with last-minute instructions about everything from cell phone usage to alcohol poisoning.
    I should have come with Vivika. She begged me to join her in the limo her dad rented for her. But, eh, I felt like I didn’t want to show up like some pseudo-celebrity in a rented limo.
    Well, it turns out that when you’re boarding a cruise that’s filled to the brim with wannabe rock stars and reality-TV almost-rans, you want to be chauffeured. A limo means you wind up on the right side of the security guards and the red velvet cords.
    I see a curvy, tan girl with a razor-straight brown page-boy haircut get out of a Hummer limo (yes, they make them) at the start of the red carpet.
    It’s Sabbi Ribiero, the Brazilian heiress from Teens of New York, along with several wealthy sidekicks. They all look polished and gorgeous, but not quite as polished and gorgeous as Sabbi, herself. Of course.
    The fans go ballistic.
    Uniformed bellmen start unloading stacks of leather matchy-matchy suitcases and hanging bags and valises and, God, hatboxes (hatboxes!) out of the trunk of the monstrous Hummer.
    The lanky fellow in the blue fedora yells, “Sabbi! Sabbi, we love you!” and puts his hand on my head, to push off me like you would a fence post.
    â€œHey!” I shout. “That’s my head!”
    But he doesn’t care. He’s yelling to some off-site friend on his phone. “This scene is insane! I’d give anything to get on that boat!”
    Hmmm, I feel the exact opposite way. I sorta feel like I’d give anything not to get on that boat. How did I let my best friend talk me into coming on this—the Solu “Cruise to Lose”? The most famous cruise since the Titanic?
    I have to get onto the carpet. Vivika’s already on board and her texts are getting apoplectic in tone. I don’t blame her. I’m late, as usual.
    If the ship is going to leave on time