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

the hallway like a predator. Retreating to the band room, which was empty during lunch, she slumped in a corner behind the risers, and cried into her folded arms, which were balanced on the tops of her bent knees.
    Running out of tears, she rubbed her face dry on her shirt sleeves, careful not to smear the spaghetti sauce any further. I can never catch a break, can I? she thought. What is so wrong with me that I can’t even make one friend? Standing up quickly, she took off her spaghetti soaked sweater and threw it aside. Luckily, she was wearing a tank top under her sweater, so she wouldn’t have to walk around wearing a cold, clammy, stained, smelly sweater for the rest of the day. As she stood there, contemplating her next move, a voice startled her.
    “I’m sorry.”
    She screamed in surprise and snapped her head towards the entrance to the band room. There stood the boy who had made a fool of her at lunch. Fury filled her eyes again, and she said, sarcastically, “Oh, boy. Just the person I wanted to see.”
    “Look, I didn’t mean to do that to you. I stepped on my shoe lace and lost my footing...”
“Excuses, excuses,” Maika cut in, rolling her eyes. “You made a fool of me! What gives you the right to waltz into my school and dump food on my favorite sweater? In front of the entire school?”
    He looked down, defeated. “I’m so sorry for making a fool of you. I really didn’t mean to. Can you believe me?”
    Gritting her teeth, her jaw tight, she let her anger go for a second so she could genuinely observe this new kid. Her muscles relaxed, her hands unclenching, her jaw relaxing. Tall, cute... and something more. She sensed he was literally telling her the truth. She didn’t know how she knew, but she knew. Pushing her anger down and away, she shyly smiled at him. “Yes. I can.”
    Ethan let out the breath he was holding and grinned. He thought he had just earned himself an enemy, but it seemed as if he might have made his first friend. Walking a few steps closer, he thrust out his hand a bit timidly, but it was the most genuine gesture he’d ever offered someone. Especially a girl. “Ethan.”
    Maika stepped closer to him, and put her hand in his like a business deal was being agreed upon, and shook it hard and firm. “Maika.”
    Disaster averted, the man in the shadows sighed, content, yet not. If his commanding officers, or the High Lord himself, were to find out that he had used his power to control a human, and in the process make Maika’s life worse rather than better, it would have literally been his head served on a silver platter. The closest thing to someone in his world was Ethan, and now Maika could be friends with him. Her kin, although she (and Ethan, for that matter) did not know it.
    Maika had, from the day she met Ethan all those years ago, felt close to him, but she was never able to put a finger on why. The man in the shadows knew why, but she’d find out eventually, when she hit the correct maturation, and the universe itself gave her soul the key to the door. Souls mature, and only by reaching this maturation would a soul be able to handle a paradigm shift of that magnitude; it is a great responsibility, one the man in the shadow’s tried not to dwell on. For now, on Earth, she would be happy with her friend. Her kindred spirit.
    In his world, the man in the shadows was considered a hero. He had volunteered to sacrifice his life for the soul that got away. The one and only soul that had flown into another world, letting the door close behind it, risking being lost forever. This soul had made its home in Maika, and this was why her life must be preserved at all costs; his world required the return of this delicate soul.
    He could not, however, forcibly take her back. He was unable to put a spell on her and carry her back to the door and through it, back to his world. A soul can only open the door with its own power, with its own desire. She, in essence, will become her own