Read Online The Reader by Traci Chee - Free Book Online

The cart with the crate sat at the edge of the trees. The men seemed to avoid it as they built a fire and cooked dinner, going out of their way to keep a good distance between it and themselves. While they ate, Sefia gnawed a few strips of dried meat, searching the men for weaknesses while the rumble of their voices drifted up through the trees.
    A man paused in polishing his rifle. “I tell ya. I never get tired of it. I’ve never seen anyone fight like that. Kid’s quick as a cat.”
    Beside him, his friend lifted his eye patch and scratched the skin stretched over his empty eye socket. “Mean too.”
    â€œStop that.” The rifleman swatted his friend, who laughed and straightened his eye patch. “You’d fight like crazy too, if you were in his place.”
    One-Eye picked his teeth with a sliver of bone. “You gotta watch his face, though. You know what I’m saying? His face when he’s fighting, it’s . . .” He glanced nervously at the crate and nodded again. “He’s like a cat. One of them big cats, with the golden eyes.”
    Sefia scanned the campsite, but couldn’t see anyone who fit that description. Disappointment flooded her. It probably wasn’t Nin inside that crate.
    Just beyond the ring of firelight, two men sat on a rock away from the others. While the bulk of the group ate and chatted easily, these two were watchful, calculating.
    â€œA born killer,” said one, smoothing his bristling red beard. “I think that’s the third one he’s done in by snapping his neck.” His voice was deep and filled with the gravel of a lifelong smoker, and there was a delight in his words that made Sefia’s skin crawl.
    The second man grunted and picked at a scab on his fleshy arm. “All that matters is that he won, and we got paid.” He must have been Redbeard’s superior. Sefia could smell his selfsatisfaction from her perch above the clearing. She studied him more closely: watery brown eyes, sparse straw-colored hair, skin gone ruddy from a life on the road. He wasn’t tall, but he had the beefy figure of a wrestler. Not a man you’d want to cross.
    Sefia gripped her knife harder, its cold curves reassuring inher palm. She glanced at the crate, still untended at the edge of the clearing. The airholes stared at her like dozens of black eyes.
    Impressors.
The word trickled down Sefia’s back and spread like ice to the tips of her fingers. Boys captured and forced to fight each other. Boys turned into killers. A wave of cold anger and confusion struck her. What were impressors doing with the symbol on their crate?
    â€œAnd we’re one step closer to the Cage,” their leader added.
    â€œYou think we’ll meet Serakeen, Hatchet?” Redbeard asked. “I hear Garula met him, when his boy won in the Cage.”
    The hair rose on Sefia’s forearms. The Scourge of the East. Was he responsible for the kidnappings, the brandings, the killings? It fit with his brutality. But why here? Why pay impressors to turn boys into murderers when he had enough murderers in his fleet already?
    Hatchet flicked the last of his scab into the dirt and squinted at the raw skin beneath. “I couldn’t care less about Serakeen. It’s been too long since we’ve even gotten that far, and I’m dying to find out just how much the Arbitrator pays.” He stood abruptly and motioned to one of his other men.
    Sefia watched one of the tallest men in the crew disengage from the rest of the group and trot over to where Hatchet and Redbeard sat.
    â€œYeah, boss?” he asked. When he spoke, the scar across his lower lip stretched and pulled, making his face seem crooked, like that of a clown.
    â€œGet that mess cleaned up, Pal.” Hatchet gestured to thespit and carcass. “Bury it. Far away. I don’t want scavengers to come nosing around here tonight.”
    Up in the tree, Sefia