Once Upon a Haunted Moon (The Keeper Saga) Read Online Free PDF Page B

thing none of the “normal” people of the world had asked me what I had been into this weekend, but then it was still morning, and I hadn’t seen anyone yet. I plopped down at the table, drenched my cereal with the milk and filled up a glass.
    “Hey,” my mom came through the kitchen, grabbing random stuff to get ready to go to work.
    “Hey,” I answered, taking a gulp of milk.
    “So what did you get into this weekend?”
    I choked. Milk flew everywhere. She came over and smacked my back in an effort to help, which ended up only making me hurt while I choked. For being only 5’2, she packed a punch.
    I waved her off, “Fine…I’m fine…” I managed between hacks. Thankfully, the milk saved me from answering her, because I wouldn’t have been able to lie to her. She was a cop — a great one — for as long as I remembered. Of course, there was also the fact that she could smell a lie a mile off. I wasn’t that great at lying.
    It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her. She’s my mom, and we’d gone through some tough stuff together. She also knew all about my wolf, which made life tons easier. I’m pretty sure Deputy Shaw knew more of what went on in Bland County than I did. Definitely more of the “normal” people stuff, but it was also probably a safe bet that she knew more about the “magic” people than she let on. Nothing shook her up; she was the toughest person I knew.
    But still, she was my mom, and she was all I had, so I didn’t say anything that would make her worry any more than she had to. If it came to life or death, I’d let her in on the flesh-eating fairy dangers in the world.
    “You ok?” she asked when I finally quit trying to cough my lungs up.
    I nodded.
    “All right, well, I’ve got to go,” she smiled; “Have a good day at school, ok?” she bent over and kissed me on the cheek.
    “Ok, love you, Mom.”
    “Love you, too.” The screen door slammed, and her cruiser pulled out of the driveway.
    I ended up leaving later than I mean to. My truck coughed and groaned, and after a little coaxing and a lot of threatening, it finally started up. I pulled into the school parking lot, and ran to the big double doors with seconds to spare.
    “What a great way to start a Monday,” I mumbled, shoving my book bag into my locker, expecting the bell to peal through the speakers at any time. What came through the speakers, however, was not the bell…
    “Brian Shaw to the principal’s office,” the chirpy voice of the principal’s secretary announced as I stuffed my pack into the locker.
    I winced at the happy voice.
    I spotted someone else coming out of the office as I made my way up the stairs. Rhudy Lockhart sported a black eye from fighting on the bus with Morris Laney over his ex-girlfriend — again. I knew Rhudy, so I was betting our rotund, bald principal was not going to be in the best of notions (not that he ever was.)
    I heard a crash, and the sound of splintering wood. It sounded like someone had thrown a bowling ball. The force was enough that the stairs shook.
    “Man, Rhudy, whatever you said to him, she wasn’t worth it,” I muttered, grabbing the handrail.
    “Huh? What’s that?” Rhudy asked. He hadn’t even noticed I was there.
    “You didn’t feel that?” I asked.
    “Feel what?”
    Then I realized he had two black eyes instead of one. That really didn’t make me any more hopeful that he’d notice anything out of the ordinary, never mind huge crashing sounds, “Nothing, man. Never mind.” I shook my head at him, and slid on past, leaving him with the same perplexed look stuck on his face. I made it to the top of the steps and gave the door a light knock.
    “Come on in,” a happy voice answered on the other side, exactly the same time another crash erupted from within the office. The glass in the door vibrated and I waited, expecting it to shatter and shoot into my skin like bits of shrapnel, “Come iiiinn!” The secretary repeated, so I held my breath