The Shadow Stealer by Melissa Giorgio

Author:Melissa Giorgio [Giorgio, Melissa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing
Published: 2015-02-25T23:00:00+00:00

***

Three hours later, Dad knocked on my bedroom door and let himself in before I could even lift my exhausted head from my pillow. “Get up, Gabi,” he said. “We need to talk about your punishment before I leave for work.”

“Is this part of it?” I mumbled as I sat up in bed and pushed my messy hair out of my face. My eyes felt like they had a pound of sand on them, and I rubbed at them tiredly. After Philip’s phone call, I’d managed to fall back asleep, but I kept waking up, afraid the demon would reappear to torment me some more. In other words, I’d barely gotten any sleep, and I really hated the world right now.

Dad stood in front of me, his arms crossed over his chest. He was already dressed in his suit and tie, and his face was somber. There were circles under his eyes, probably there from Mom’s sudden reappearance. I sighed heavily. Could I have screwed everything up any worse this weekend?

“Two weeks,” he said.

I blinked. I’d been expecting more than two weeks, but I wisely kept my mouth shut.

“Two weeks of just school and work. No dates with Rafe, no girls’ nights out with Penny and Chloe, and absolutely no trips to New York City.” Dad met my eyes. “Do you understand?”

I nodded meekly. “And my phone?”

“You can keep it,” he said, “because I’d rather you have it in case there’s an emergency. Which there won’t be, right, Gabi?”

“Dad, about what happened—”

He held up a hand, effectively cutting me off. “I know what happened. What I don’t understand is why you thought running to the city would be a good idea. You should know better, Gabi. No,” he corrected himself, “you usually do know better. What possessed you to leave like that? Without even leaving a note explaining where you were? Do you know how frantic I was when I came home and you weren’t here, and you wouldn’t answer your phone?”

His words stabbed me in the heart, and I lowered my head in shame. The thing that made this even worse was the fact that I knew, as we were racing out the door, what I was doing was wrong, but I did it anyway. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “But I had to know if it was true. If Phil was my brother, I mean. And I thought… I thought if his dad could tell us about that, he could also tell us where Mom was. But instead, he said she was dead, and I couldn’t— I just fell apart in the middle of the city. If Rafe hadn’t been there, I don’t know what I would have done, Dad.”

“That was a cruel thing he did to you,” Dad said. “Phil’s father, I mean. Your mom said he lied to you because he never could accept the fact that she left him. He doesn’t sound like a nice person. I know you’re close with Phil, but I want you to stay away from his dad.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.