Freefly Read Online Free Page B

flat on the floor.  “Dizzy.”
    “You were right about the arrow.  It had something in it.” 
    “Definitely wasn’t vegetable juice.”
    I reached for her arm.  “I’m going to help you up.” 
    She didn’t say anything. 
    I grasped her arm and, gently as possible, pulled her up off the floor.  She put her arm around my neck for support, keeping her eyes down.  Her body trembled.  I wondered if it was from the injury, or if I was truly that terrifying. 
    I helped her back onto the bed, and this time she lay back, folding her arms onto her chest.  She shivered.  I ran out to the linen closet, grabbed the blanket with puppies on it (my mother’s), and draped it over her.  After giving me one last look — with something like suspicion in her eyes — she succumbed to whatever poison was in her system and drifted off to sleep. 
    I exhaled.  The girl’s sneakers stuck out from the bottom of the blanket, but I decided not to try to remove them.  I glanced at the digital clock.  4 p.m.  Mom and Dad would be home soon. 
    After quietly clicking shut the bedroom door, I barreled down the stairs.  Blood drizzled down the entire hallway leading to the kitchen.  I wondered, again, if the flying girl was going to die.  I hoped not.  I liked her.  Already.
    A towel hung from the handle of the oven door, and I snatched it and ran it under the tap.  Then I got down on my hands and knees and scrubbed up all the blood in the hallway, darting back to the sink every so often to squeeze the towel clean beneath the running water.  When I got to the large red pool in the kitchen, I grabbed a roll of paper towels and ripped off about half a tree’s worth, then scrubbed up the blood for a good ten minutes.  Finally, I stood in the center of the kitchen, eyeing every surface, ensuring that no trace of blood remained. 
    Then I remembered that the outside of my house looked like a crime scene. 
    I got the hose and washed down the sidewalks and the porch.  Then I realized that blood reddened the knee of my jeans, and crept back into my room to pull another pair from my drawers.  The girl was sleeping, her head cast sideways, her legs curled into her chest.  I went into the bathroom and got changed.  I went back downstairs and grabbed my first aid supplies, replacing them in the bathroom cabinet.  Finally, I stood in the kitchen once more, satisfied that I had fulfilled my promise to the girl to tell no one about what I had seen. 
    Throughout dinner, I said nothing, thinking about the sleeping person upstairs.  Who was she?  Who had shot her?  How could she fly?  My parents chatted about American Icon , arguing over who they thought would get voted out in that night’s episode.  When I was distant and unresponsive, it was nothing unusual. 
    I returned to my room to find the girl still sleeping.  I had half expected her to have vanished, the whole thing a dream.  I checked the bandage on her leg, lifting the blanket carefully, so as not to wake her.  The blood was not seeping through.  I had done a good job. 
    I sat down at my desk and dug into my homework.  The downside of spending the afternoon tending to the arrow-wound of a mysterious flying girl was that I was severely behind.  I clicked on my reading lamp and flipped open my biology textbook. 
    When she still hadn’t awakened by 12:30 am, when I finished, I pulled my Phillies blanket out of the linen closet and spread it out on the floor.  I lay down and fell into a deep sleep. 
    The next morning, the buzzing of my alarm clock jolted me awake, and I was quickly confused at being on the floor.  Then I remembered the girl, and the arrow wound, and the girl being in my bed.  I had a small heart attack and leaped to my feet.  The bed was empty, the puppy blanket in a ball in the corner.  I whirled around.  The window was open, and the screen had been pulled out and set on the floor. 
    She’d left.
    Filled, for some reason, with