18. Chapter 18
I drove back toward Cornwall. There wasn’t a point in running, especially in the direction of a bigger town with an even bigger population. Or worse, to my little family.
The whole thing was a recipe for disaster.
It was best to put him back where he belonged. I wasn’t even sure how he’d glued himself to me.
He wasn’t physically in the car, but I could feel his breath on my neck. He wasn’t hiding his presence this time. There was no question he was in this truck with me.
My phone rang. Esme.
“I’m working on it,” I answered on speakerphone.
She clicked her tongue with disapproval.
“He attached himself to me,” I squeaked. “I can’t bring him home.”
A hand squeezed my thigh as if to confirm that I wasn’t going anywhere without him. I resisted the urge to elbow him. All I’d do was hurt myself, and I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t feel less lonely with him here.
“I wouldn’t judge you.” Her words implied that there was already one monster on Aunt Jackie’s old couch.
“It’s not that.” I hadn’t even thought of the fact that her monster lover was definitely there. Two alphas in the same pit didn’t sound like a fun time. Especially since I was pretty sure mine would win.
“Have you figured out what you’re dealing with?” Esme asked.
I sucked in air, wracking my brain for the hundredth time. “A shadow?”
That piqued her interest. “Like a shadow person?”
His hold on my thigh went slack, like the answer shocked him. Interesting.
“I swear if you came up with the answer just like that, I’m going to scream.” I rubbed my temple. “What is a shadow person?”
“There are a lot of theories about that. We don’t know much.
Most shadow people don’t interact with this world.
It’s mostly reports of what people see from the corner of their eyes and when they wake up in the middle of the night.
” Her voice took on that edge that Willow’s did when she was quoting a book from memory.
“But there are those that think they are created by witches.”
“Typical. Spell, curse, or potion?”
“It’s more than that: Intention,” she answered conspiratorially. “They say that a witch’s intention on a new moon can impact a dying soul’s new cycle. That if a witch is agitated or enraged it turns the dying soul into a new energy.”
I chewed on my lip. Her words made me uncomfortable, but I couldn’t figure out why. Something on the edge of my memory that I was suddenly sure was important.
I wasn’t the only one.
The overhead light flickered with what I recognized as agitation. A loud pop that echoed in the cab made me cringe. The engine stalled, making the car behind me have to swerve around me when my speed suddenly dropped to almost nothing.
“Shit!” I yelped, yanking the wheel to the right to coast to the shoulder.
The truck shook from the force of the wind as other cars whipped around and smoke billowed from under the hood. My hands shook by the time I made it out of traffic.
I let out a heaving breath, “You’ve got to be fucking me.”
“I’ll call you back.” Esme chuckled and hung up.
Bitch.
I climbed out of my truck and popped the hood. A big cloud of smoke made me cough as I climbed onto the bumper. The engine looked fine for the most part.
Where was the fire?
After a few minutes, the smoke cleared out enough to see that it was coming from the fuse box.
I grabbed a rag from the back pocket of my jeans to open the latch and had to manhandle it when I realized the plastic was partially melted together.
The fuses were misshapen and practically welded into their slots, but the fire had already died down.
“The truck, Abiel? This is where I draw the line.” I growled with as much gusto as a human woman could muster. It wasn’t anything compared to his, but hopefully it got the point across.
My shadow in the afternoon sun stood taller and bigger than me. His arms crossed as if he was also frustrated.
“I’m sorry, Dandelion,” he whispered in my ear, and the engine gave another angry pop that had me putting my hands up to protect my face.
I waited a long moment for something else to happen and for him to show himself.
I frowned when he didn’t appear. This stretch of road was empty, so there wasn’t a reason to hide.
Was he even worried about hiding himself?
“You can come out.”
“No, I can’t.” His voice rumbled with irritation.
His words hit me like a rock. Some part of me thought he could do anything.
I froze. “Why not?”
He didn’t answer. Of course not. Can’t tell the woman trying to kill you anything. I rolled my eyes and focused on the truck.
I’d described him as a shadow. When Esme suggested he might be a shadow person he reacted to her in surprise. Like it made sense to him. So maybe I wasn’t just perceiving him as a shadow, that’s what he considered himself to be.
My eyes went to the sun sitting high in the sky.
During the day when I was out and about, I rarely saw him. I felt him and saw him in my shadow, but he didn’t take form.
But when it was night or somewhere with an abundance of shadows, he took his own shape.
I glanced down at my shadow again. He held the same stance, shifting from foot to foot as if he wanted to do something but couldn’t. The edges of the shadow moved outwards as if they wanted to grow larger, but were confined to a small space.
Like he was trapped inside the confines of my shadow.
The realization was ice cold water tossed into my face.
He hadn’t been attached to the Dark Entry Forest. That was where he always had power. Or maybe it was just home, and this was the first reason he had to leave.
Nausea turned my stomach.
How did someone get rid of a shadow?
That ‘space’ he gave me hadn’t been space at all. There hadn’t been a time since I entered that forest that he wasn’t on my heels?
How could I get away from him? That wasn’t the right question.
How did I find the desire to escape him so I could get away?
My heart pounded in my chest as I realized that even if I mustered up the willpower to do what needed to be done, it was next to impossible.
Was there any hope for me?
Probably not. Another Rinah failure.
I leaned deeper into the engine, trying to get a clear picture of the damage, even though I was suspicious he short-circuited the entire system. That way, I had something else to focus on.
Anything other than the truth hanging over my neck.
I had to keep my shit together.
My truck was always an easy distraction when I needed one. A gift from my Aunt Jackie on my sixteenth birthday, and I’d babied the old broad like she was a brand new luxury car, rather than a retired ranch truck. I’d spent countless hours working on her instead of facing my issues.
“Come on, girl. You’ve been with me for too long to give up now.” Longer than my husband.
I had a couple of extra fuses in the toolbox, but electrical issues were out of my wheelhouse. My old lady needed a real doctor.
Damn it.
“What even got you worked up?” I snapped.
He didn’t answer.
The muscles in his arms were bigger like he was flexing. Or annoyed.
I thought about what Esme said about a witch’s intention tainting a soul. Did something happen the day he was executed?
Was she so distraught when her husband died that she created something she never intended?
Witches walked around like we were morally superior to the monsters, but we were just as dangerous.
If not more.