Breaking Away (The Man in the Shadows) Read Online Free PDF

important that you call me back. I’m afraid I’ve lost you... Call me, Darling.”
    He flipped his phone shut with a clap and shoved it back in his jeans pocket. What now? He had driven them there, so it’s not like she could have driven herself home. “ARGH!” he wailed, distraught. He had walked away from his best friend, his confidant, the person closest to him, the one person on the entire planet he felt magnetized towards, and for what? Because she kissed him. He reacted like it had been a crime. An action of love, repaid with an action of hate.
    Snapping his fingers, the club vanished, leaving him in an empty, silent warehouse.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

     

     
     
     
    Chapter Two
    His job was simple. Guide her to and through a nice, normal life in the human world. Along the way, be creative in slipping her hints about her original existence. Subliminal messages, if you will. Whisper to her, make her believe she has a higher calling. Crawl in her brain, implant a doubt in the meaning of her life. Lead her to the one soul on earth who could be a true friend: Ethan.
    He had found out about Ethan by some sort of fluke. For a decade and a half, he was led to believe that Maika was the only one of her kind, the only one in this specific predicament. One day, while he was watching over her in junior high, his eye was caught by a bright, purple glow. He saw auras all the time, they radiated from people with exquisitely good souls, from those who were special, and from those with the capacity, hidden or not, to change the world, for good or ill. Typically these auras were soft, subtle, like headlights in a fog. Not Ethan. As Ethan drew nearer, the glow became hard to bare. He’s one of them .
    Ethan’s glow matched Maika’s both in intensity and color. Shocked, he had seen nothing like it before. Hence, he used a pinch of his majestic wizardry to throw them together so Maika would have a friend. The other kids always seemed to stay away from Maika, as if she were a poisonous flower, beautiful yet deadly, so he figured he could get away with using his magic to intervene and snag her a pal. He realized too late that his magic spell was taken literally by the powers that be, and Ethan was made to trip on his shoe lace, and fall directly into Maika. Thusly, he was thrown into her.
    Keep in mind, this pairing took place in the lunch room, in a junior high school. During that delicate time in a young person’s life that is the most impressionable, the most emotional, the most vulnerable, the most embarrassing. When Ethan tripped and ran into Maika, she was holding a tray full of food, as she was walking to her normal table in the corner. Hitting her at full force, he knocked her food to the ground, and at the same time, all down the front of her brand new sweater.
    Mortified, she froze, looking down at her clothes, her breath instantly taken from her lungs. She was already the most unpopular, nerdy girl in school, now this was just more fuel to add on to the relentless teasing fire. She slowly looked up, rage etched on her face, splatters of spaghetti sauce in her hair. Her mouth moved up and down, but she couldn’t utter a single word, her fiery robbed her of speech.
    Ethan, the new kid at school, hadn’t yet made a reputation for himself with his new classmates. This one blunder was all he needed to be considered one of the cool kids, a bully. Yet it was just that: a blunder. It tore him apart to think that he’d be labeled a hard-ass. No ill will had been aimed at Maika. He was fashion savvy, his long hair styled like Elvis, destined to be correlated with coolness. His face turned bright red, as he stuttered, “I... I... I’m so...”
    Maika’s fury turned to embarrassment, and tears burned her eyes. She burst out crying and ran from the cafeteria, spaghetti sauce dripping from her, the sound of the school’s collective laughter followed her down