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    Burned
    Burned
    Burned
    Ebook104 pages1 hour

    Burned

    By Natasha Deen

    3.5/5

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Two years ago, Josie Smith’s life went up in smoke. Literally. Everyone and everything she ever loved burned in a fire—one set by a crooked cop. To survive, Josie’s been living under the radar as a homeless kid while trying to find a way to knock the cop down a few notches and put her on the other side of the prison bars. But time’s running out. A pimp’s got his eye on Josie, and if she doesn’t get off the streets soon, she’ll be the one brought down. Her salvation and the key to the cop’s undoing seem to lie with a car thief and a rich kid. Trust and teamwork don’t come easily to Josie—in fact, they don’t come at all—but if she can’t find a way to make the team work and find justice for her family, she will get burned all over again.

    Part of RETRIBUTION—a high-interest trilogy that can be read in any order.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOrca Book Publishers
    Release dateOct 13, 2015
    ISBN9781459807297
    Burned
    Author

    Natasha Deen

    Natasha Deen loves stories: exciting ones, scary ones and, especially, funny ones! As a kid of two countries (Guyana and Canada), she feels extra lucky because she gets a double dose of stories. Natasha is the author of many books including the Lark Ba Detective series in the Orca Echoes line, Depth of Field in the Orca Soundings line and In the Key of Nira Ghani which won the Amy Mathers Book Award and was nominated for the Red Maple, MYRCA and R. Ross Arnett Awards. Natasha lives in Edmonton.

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    Reviews for Burned

    3.5/5

    19 ratings10 reviews

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    • 2/5
      Pros: Short chapters, fast pace, decent vocabularyCons: Characters are not very well developed, plot is full of holes and is not entirely believable
    • 3/5
      Decent book, not something I would read again but I don't regret reading it. However the plot of the book plays very close to a movie. Which was a bummer. However it was very well written and worth a one time read.
    • 2/5
      This young-adult novel is told by Josie, a teenage girl who is living on the streets after her family has been murdered and her house burned down. She lives to get revenge on the corrupt cop who destroyed her life. The characters are not particularly well-developed, and there are too many coincidences to be really believable, but the novel might be appealing to teens, particularly reluctant readers. This novel is part of the Retribution Trilogy, which also includes Unleashed and Exposed.
    • 5/5
      I was able to read this book in 5 days. Well told story, with the right amount of suspense. Would recommend this book as a good read. Given the age of the main character, would suggest it's more of a teen novel. The author seems to have done her research, to give you some idea, of what it is like for a young person, to live on the street. The story is about revenge, for her family, who were murdered. Proving who did it, without the police, because she doesn't trust them.
    • 4/5
      Part of a trilogy that can be read in any order. I enjoyed this book. It was another quick and easy read. This is a book you can finish in a day. Well written for the length of the book.
    • 5/5
      This is fast paced and perfect for kids looking for a little action on a small scale. No inappropriate situations. Just a girl trying to get her family's killer to pay for her crime. Or should I say, crimeS.
    • 4/5
      Burned is part of retribution trilogy. The best thing is that these books can be read in any order.Burned is about Josie who has a vendetta against a cop who murdered her family. She becomes homeless, dresses, and acts like a boy to stay undetected. For two years plans on a way to bring the cop down. Does she?A good read from start to finish. Teens as well as adults will enjoy this book.
    • 4/5
      This book was a fast paced very readable story of one girl's search for retribution. The work is targeted to early teen readers and the main story was interesting and moved quickly. Each of the characters was intriguing and had interesting back stories. While I enjoyed the resolution of the main story, the final chapters of the book are confusing and do not flow well with the rest of the story. My sense was that the structure was meant to tell you more about the secondary characters as a way to set up the story for the 2nd and 3rd books in this trilogy. However, I found that this distracted from the book as a whole. Despite this, I enjoyed the story.
    • 2/5
      Pros: Short chapters, fast pace, decent vocabularyCons: Characters are not very well developed, plot is full of holes and is not entirely believable
    • 3/5
      I liked this book in the sense that it would be great/attractive for some of my reluctant readers. I don't feel it's an incredibly well-developed story. The first person narration works and the back story of her family dying in a fire is very intriguing. The character development of the antagonist/cop merely skims the surface and the ending and transition into the next book is quite rushed.

    Book preview

    Burned - Natasha Deen

    ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

    ONE

    It would be so easy to kill her.

    So easy.

    So simple to pass by her on the street, take her breath with the same ease I’d take her wallet. I’ve been on the streets for two years, and I’ve learned how to pick pockets and steal apples, which alleys are safe to sleep in and which ones to stay away from. I know which pizzerias leave their leftovers for the homeless and which ones watch over their garbage with the zeal of a miser guarding his gold.

    And I know how to use a knife.

    How easy it would be to bump into her. Instead of slipping my fingers into her purse, I’d slide my blade between her ribs, and I would whisper, This is for Emily and Danny and Emma.

    And she would look at me, startled, shocked.

    And I would smile and walk away, leave her bleeding on the streets, the red stain of her life dripping from the smooth edge of my knife.

    But I can’t.

    I won’t.

    Death would be too easy for her. A cop murdered on the streets. She’d get a hero’s burial, and people would cry. The department would decorate her, and the police chief would make speeches about her sacrifice and loyalty to the people she served. Newscasters with their helmet hair would use their the-world-is-ending voices and talk about the need for better policing. People would rally for tougher laws. Cops would roust the homeless.

    I live with these people.

    They’ve been rousted enough.

    I won’t bring pain and torment to their already tortured lives.

    Besides, if she died on the street, no one would know the truth of her.

    The lies of her.

    I will not kill her.

    She will not die.

    Not by my hand.

    But.

    I.

    Will.

    End.

    Her.

    Burn her. Burn her with the same heat she used to set my life on fire, and the orange-red flames that scorched the breath from my family will cauterize her soul.

    TWO

    Head down, a worn baseball cap covering my hair and sunglasses hiding my eyes, I entered Tron’s, a small family grocery store on East Georgia Street in Vancouver. The electronic bell dinged as I stepped through the door and left the fall sunshine behind me. My gaze flicked to the cashier. This time of day was the best for me, the worst for her.

    People rushed in for milk and bread. The line of customers stretched six people deep and irritated-end-of-the-workday wide. In the back, at the ATM, was the kid. One look said he’d been born with some kind of genetic disorder. The stocky body and hands said he’d inherited the dwarf gene. But the larger-than-normal forehead said there was something else going on in his DNA. And the way he moved screamed leg surgery. Whether the operation had been an act of mercy or cruelty, I didn’t know. And really, I couldn’t allow myself to care. We all have our sob stories. The way he was dressed said the kid had money, at least; everyone in the store figured he was the usual rich kid, coming at the end of the day to drain his trust fund of some coin.

    I knew there was more to him. I had seen the infinity tattoo on his wrist. I’d watched him long enough to know that, trust fund or not, the money he took wasn’t from his account. Maybe I should’ve said something, but I had other things to worry about. I ignored him and, turning from his form, hunched in his private-school blazer, surveyed the crowd. I moved past the doors and kept casing the store. By the chocolate aisle, I focused on a guy with a goatee. One who didn’t know me, but a man I knew too well. A guy who was about to pay for a bad decision he’d made regarding my friend Amanda.

    My gaze went back to the lineup. A man in a business suit glared at his vibrating smartphone, then scowled at the clerk, who gulped and rushed to finish ringing in the current customer.

    Perfect.

    This cashier was new. She didn’t know to look up every time someone came through the door, didn’t know not to be intimidated by the middle-class and middle-aged. I took my time, pushed up my hockey jersey and stuffed my hands in the pockets of the boys’ jeans I wore. As a girl, I don’t get baggy jeans. As a pickpocket, wearing pants big enough to hold three of me comes in handy.

    I got to the candy and started grabbing chocolate bars, breath mints and anything else in my reach. Walking out of a store with a five-finger discount is all about timing and finesse, and I have both.

    I overfilled my hands—almost. At the right moment, when the twentysomethingyear-old guy with the goatee walked by me, I twisted, spilling the bars.

    He jerked to a stop. Candy and chocolate littered his path.

    Sorry. I grunted the word, kept my gaze on the floor. Big difference between guys and girls? We chicks love to talk. Man, are we vocal. Dudes, on the other hand, not so much. It took my first year on the street to realize that if I was going to pretend to be a guy, I had to shut up.

    No problem, the man said and gave a short laugh. You’re hungry, I guess.

    I shrugged. That was the other trick to being a guy. Men don’t explain. They give information, but they don’t give speeches. Yeah. The nice thing for me is my voice. It’s already deep. I scooped the chocolate bars into a pile—step one in my con game, with this guy as my victim and accomplice. The man crouched to help.

    Perfect.

    He blocked me from the cashier’s view, and I’d already positioned myself so my face wasn’t in the camera’s lens. As the man handed me the bars and treats, I made a show of putting some back on the shelf and holding on to a couple of others. I made sure we bumped into each other as he moved to grab a bar and I went to put another back. I mumbled my apology, and he nodded. When he wasn’t looking, I slipped two bars under the leg of my jeans and tucked them into my white tube socks. By the time we were done, I had three bars in my hand. He nodded at me, and I moved off.

    Part one, complete.

    Part two was trickier. I returned two bars to the shelves, then went to the cashier and waited in line to pay. This was the hardest part. Playing it cool. A

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