Stone Angel Read Free

stayed for few months.
They wanted to abandon Sophia. When I refused to leave her, they
abandoned both of us.”
    “ Great
folks,” Aaron said, sotto voce .
    Amanda couldn’t pretend she didn’t hear him.
She was done with pretending. “Yes, they cowered at every portent,
believed every televangelist, looked for omens and ran from their
responsibilities the first chance they got. They were not admirable
people, and my DNA is nothing to brag about. But I loved that baby,
and I didn’t tell anybody my parents were gone. I’d been working
summers for three years—”
    Genny interrupted. “You were too young to
work.”
    “ I was
too young to work legally ,” Amanda
corrected.
    The Chosen Ones looked at each other, and
nodded their heads or shook them.
    They had all been abandoned, too, and Amanda
would bet some of them had worked as children, too. She continued,
“My family was already on welfare, which made it easier for me to
fool the system and keep food on the table. I used my college
savings to pay for Sophia’s daycare so I could finish high school,
and after I graduated I worked nights to put myself through nursing
school. Sophia was totally worth it. She was bright and
sweet-natured, and I knew I had done the right thing when I took
her as my own." Amanda felt the glow of pride at her sister's
accomplishments, and her own.
    The Chosen Ones circled her.
    She supposed they weren’t trying to be
threatening — well, maybe Caleb and Samuel — but they made her ever
more nervous. "Anyway, when Sophia turned eleven, the tattoo, well,
I guess it bloomed. It had always been a closed bud along her
forearm. But that year, it grew and changed until it seemed to be a
full-fledged flower."
    Rosamund pulled out a notebook and a pencil
from behind her ear, and took notes so intently Amanda knew she
wanted to rush to one of the books on the shelves and find the
specific meaning of flower tattoos among the Abandoned Ones.
    Amanda continued haltingly, "I was in a … um
… relationship. And I wasn't paying enough attention to Sophia. I
know that now. I got caught up with the one man who hadn't run away
when I said I was raising my sister.”
    Isabelle and Genny nodded their heads in
understanding.
    "He led them right to me. The Others." At the
memory of how she had been betrayed, Amanda’s face flushed with
humiliation and rage.
    Aaron’s eyes grew cold.
    Irving's lips pressed into a thin, pale
line.
    John asked the question hanging in the air,
the answer to which they all probably already knew. “So Sophia has
a gift. What is it? Why did the Others want her?”
    Amanda faced him. "She's always been able to
create small force fields. She used to do it when she was a baby
and didn't want me to take a toy away from her. But as she grew
older, the force fields became stronger, larger. She could control
them, put them up at will. I should have known someone would
notice.” She paused to collect herself. “I should have known no one
would love me without an ulterior motive."
    “That’s dramatic,” Charisma said coldly.
    Amanda matched her stare for stare. “Is it?
Have you ever been in love? Have you ever been betrayed?”
    Charisma’s gaze faltered, and she stepped
back. “No.” She shook her head slightly. “No, not like that.”
    “ I
figured.” As Amanda thought of him ,
she could feel the anger rising in her, the familiar surge of pain
and hatred. She tamped it back down, knowing it would do her no
good to show the Chosen her weaknesses.
    She needed to make them understand.
    She needed their help.
    “After the Others took Sophia, they told me I
would be placed here, in Irving’s home. They wanted me to use my
abilities as a nurse to get access to Irving and to all of you. I
was to report back each week with information about the Chosen Ones
and especially Irving’s movements.”
    McKenna’s shoulders stiffened. He was known
for his protectiveness of Irving, and he probably wanted to throw
Amanda out a