Shady Woods: Book 1 in the Shady Woods series - a fun, easy to read paranormal for teens by J Mercer

Author:J Mercer [Mercer, J]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bare Ink
Published: 2020-10-13T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

It Was Us or Them

They sent my grandpa to pick me up, and as he drove me home in silence, I pressed my finger to the rain that was running down the outside of the car window.

“It was just dinner,” I mumbled as we pulled up.

He squeezed my hand. “You're not exactly in trouble.”

“Not exactly?”

“They're just worried about you.”

“Because of the vandals and the purist nonsense?”

He raised an eyebrow. “You don’t keep an eye out and you could easily end up the first in town with teeth in their neck.”

I swallowed. “That's an unnecessary picture to paint.”

“Is it?”

In the face of his stare, I swung out of the car and ran through the pouring rain to the front door, where Zeus was waiting. My parents too, both of them sitting on the stairs, and I could hear my brother and grandma in the kitchen, chatting over dishes.

My dad’s elbows were propped on his thighs, his hands clutched in the open space between them, while my mom was hugging her legs to her, chin resting on her knees.

Both of them relaxed when they saw me but didn't move to stand.

I stood, dripping a little in the hall in front of them. “I'm sorry,” I said. “I lost track of time.”

“You should've called,” my mom said, her eyes dark in the shadow of the enclosed staircase.

“Why didn't you call?” my dad asked.

“I forgot. I’m sorry. I was in a lesson about the miracles that are Shady Woods, I had a terrible day, and I just wasn’t thinking about what time it was.” Zeus nudged me, as if he’d been worried too, and I let my fingers settle by his ear.

My grandpa came in behind me and sidestepped his way to the kitchen, only to pull a chair out from the table and sit down facing us.

“You weren’t upset about that boy again, were you?” my mom asked.

“No. I’m a miserable failure and I wanted to go home.”

“We can’t go home,” my dad said, an edge burned onto his voice.

“Charlie said I could come live with her, and it's like she's almost forgotten about me, so I ran to the truck stop—” I bit my lip. My parents did not need to know about the almost-hitchhiking. “I don’t know what I was thinking; it seemed one step closer or something. I just… I want to go home. Can’t we please go home?”

The three of them stared at me, and I noticed, in the severity of the silence, that the water from the kitchen sink had stopped. The chatting over there had stopped, too. They'd all been listening.

Zeus, pressed up against my leg now, was also holding himself still, gauging the room and adapting to it.

“Grace.” My mom’s tone was laid flat. “We can never go back. You can never go back.”

Tears sprung to my eyes, and I tried to gulp the desperation back down. My parents were swayed by logic, not drama. “Because of one stupid slip? The girl probably thought she was crazy.

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