Within These Walls Read Online Free PDF

sat.
    “You want to go to the beach?”
    He stood up, his tail flicking left and right.
    “You . . . want to go see if Deacon is still there?”
    Shadow snorted, excited by a prospect Audra knew he didn’t understand. He bowed into a quite literal downward dog, his butt held high in the air.
    “But it’ll be weird if we just show up,” she murmured, lifting a hand to chew on a nail. “Maybe I should call Maggie.”
    Shadow barked. Forget Maggie.
    She raised an eyebrow at his insistence.
    What do you need Maggie for? You’ve got me.
    “You’re right.” She let her arms drop to her sides. “I live here, and you want to go for a walk, don’tcha?” As soon as she uttered Shadow’s trigger word— walk —his eyes went wild. He reared up and bolted out of the kitchen, completed a couple of breakneck doughnuts around the coffee table, and returned to his spot with unbridled anticipation. Audra cracked a smile at his enthusiasm. There reallywas no choice now. If she backed out, she’d break Shadow’s thumping doggie heart.
    She saw the tents as soon as she and Shadow made their way out of the thicket of trees and into the clearing that opened onto the coast. At first she thought she was imagining things, but the charred remains of their bonfire assured her that the tents had moved from where they’d been on Thursday afternoon. They were closer now, as if inching their way toward her home.
    Shadow made a run for the tents. When he nudged his snout inside one of them, she sucked in a breath to yell for him to come back. Before she could find her voice, Deacon’s head popped out of the flap. He clambered out and then strolled toward her with a wide smile across his face.
    “Audra!” He caught her in a tight hug as soon as he was able to reach her. “We were wondering when we’d see you again.”
    You were? The question was poised on her tongue, but she held it back.
    “Come,” he said, motioning for her to follow him despite not giving her much choice. Without asking whether she’d like to join him, he looped his arm through hers and pulled her along. By the time they reached the new campsite, the girls who had fussed over Shadow on Audra’s previous visit had crawled out of Deacon’s tent. “I want you to meet everyone,” he said.
    “What do you mean?”
    “Well, there are nine of us,” he explained.
    Nine? Audra gaped at the number. How can nine people fit into two tents? And how was she going to handle meeting them all without Maggie there to help her through it, to take the edge off, if only by stealing away some of the undivided attention?
    “I . . . I was just taking Shadow for a walk,” she stammered,anxiety crawling up her throat. “We can’t stay. He just needed to go out.”
    But Deacon wasn’t listening. He released his hold on Audra’s arm and called into the first tent. “We have a visitor,” he announced to no one and everyone. “Come out, come out. Meet our new sister.”
    Audra caught her bottom lip between her teeth as people began to surface from behind red nylon. They reminded her of circus clowns piling out of a tiny car, one after the other, a seemingly endless stream. The second tent remained zipped against the cold.
    Deacon introduced his family one by one. There was Noah, who had the biggest eyes Audra had ever seen, larger than a pair of blue Jupiters. The three girls who had previously made Shadow’s acquaintance were Lily, Robin, and Sunnie with an ie . Lily was tall, slender, and regal with her milk-white skin, which looked impossibly pale next to her blazing red hair. Robin was more of a girl-next-door, and Sunnie looked so young Audra pegged her to be fifteen at the absolute oldest. Her hair looked as though she’d chopped it short with a pair of dull kitchen shears. Kenzie was hyperkinetic, unable to stand still for more than a few seconds. And while Audra assumed it was just his personality, she couldn’t help but wonder if he had some sort of disorder.