Page 32 of Soul of Shadow
“The giant wolf. Huge, creepy? Glowing red eyes? Fangs the size of butchers’ knives?”
This time, it was Elias who advanced on her, causing Charlie to stumble backward. He took both of her shoulders, stooping over until his eyes were level with hers. “Listen to me very closely,” he said, speaking low but fast. “If you see that creature again, I need you to tell me immediately. Do you understand?” He pointed at her backpack. “Give me your phone.”
“What?”
“Yourphone.” He gestured impatiently. “Now. Hurry up.”
“God. Okay.” She dug into her back pocket and pulled out her phone, handing it to him. “What do you want with it?”
“I’m putting my number in here.” His fingers moved swiftly across the screen. “If you see that wolf again, you text me. Okay?”
“Why?” she asked. “Don’t tell me—you’re worried about my safety?”
“Not even remotely.” He smirked as he handed back her phone. “I told you, Charlotte: we aren’t friends. I don’t care about your safety. But Idocare about finding that wolf. And for now, that’s all you need to know.”
“If you don’t care about my safety, what are you doing following me around school, joining a junior-year science class when you’re a senior?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” His mouth crooked into a smile. “I’m making a statement. Showing you just how easy it is to infiltrate your life. To be near the people you care about.” His smile widened. “I have history next period with your brother. We’re good buddies now—did you know? He really trusts me.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“I’m a mare, darling. This is what mares do.”
“Right. You create fear. You kill people.”
He patted her shoulder once. “And don’t you forget it. You see, the thing is—” Elias arched an eyebrow at her. “You’re afraid of me, but I don’t know if you’re afraidenough.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“What I’m asking is, Do you understand?” He advanced on Charlie again, walking her backward across the lush school lawn. “Do youreallyunderstand how easily I could hurt the people you love?” He nodded over her shoulder. Charlie turned and found Lou and Abigail poking their heads out the front door. Their eyes bulged when they spotted Charlie talking to Elias. “Take your little friends over there. If I were to grab hold of them, I could make them see things. Awful things. I could make them feelexcruciating pain. Could force them to watch their loved ones be tortured. Could create monsters so horrifying they’d die of sheer fright.” He lifted his hands, inspecting them from all sides. “But if that isn’t enough, I can go ahead and drain the life from their bodies. It only feeds me. Makes me stronger. Plus”—he smirked at her through his fingers—“it’ssomuch fun.”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Charlie whispered.
Elias pasted a winning smile onto his face as if he hadn’t threatened to murder her closest friends. “Nothing is wrong with me, sweetheart.” He winked. “I’m a completely normal human, just like you.”
“But you—”
“Anyway,” he said loudly. “See you around!” He skirted around Charlie and strolled back to the front door, nodding at her friends as he passed them.
He had been gone all of three seconds before Lou and Abigail rushed over to Charlie’s side. Lou grabbed Charlie’s wrist and shook it excitedly. “You were talking to the hot new guy again,” she said. “Spill. What did he want?”
Charlie was still staring at the door through which Elias had disappeared. She opened her mouth. Closed it again.He was letting me know exactly how easy it would be to end your lives.She swallowed thickly. She had understood Elias’s threat the night before. Had even taken it seriously. But a part of her had thought he was exaggerating. That he wouldn’t really go that far.
She saw now how wrong she’d been.
She turned to her friends, putting on a smile. “He wanted to know what he missed the first day in physics class.” She threw an arm over Abigail’s shoulders and started leading her friends back toward the door. “Now, let’s go. We’re already late.”
Her friends kept chatting as they walked into the building, but Charlie’s attention wandered away. She kept thinking about what Elias had said. What he’dthreatened. And the more she thought about it, the angrier she became. How dare he play with the lives of the people she cared about like a cat with its prey. How dare he try to hold her free will hostage. What was she going to do—sit back and let it happen?
She had spent almost two years in a fog. Barely existing, following Lou and Abigail into whatever activity they wanted to do but neverlivingit, not really.
Not anymore.
There was a monster on the loose in her town.Twomonsters, actually. One stealing children, and another sitting in her physics class. Charlie wouldn’t stand for it. She wouldn’t let Elias carry out whatever evil plan he was concocting. She would figure out exactly what he was up to, and she would stop disaster before it began.
Heart racing, she laughed along with her friends, but in her mind, she was forming a plan.
18
