This deleted scene fits in immediately between chapters 1 and 2 of Where Shadows Rise. Enjoy!
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By the time I’d reached the top of the steps where the path began, I knew the shadows were just the personification of my own guilt. I should never have been out here, and running into Scott of all people only made it worse. He grated on my nerves like no person I’d ever known before, and that combined with my guilty conscience had cooked up a vague, shadowy menace to get me home again—fast.
I ignored the fact that Veve had been growling at the shadows. Probably, actually, she’d just been growling at Scott after all. Heavens knew he made me growl. Running into him like that had been just the way I’d wanted to end my holidays, let alone my birthday. Not.
I stomped up the street and into the front yard, blithely ignoring the way the ugly, prickly bushes along the fence seemed to skulk in shadows abnormally dark.
My stomach sank. Even before I reached the front door, I could hear them: Mum and Anna, going at it like the proverbial hammer and tongs, screams like caterwauling tomcats in a mating battle.
Approximately as productive, too, I added sourly. One of them would win, one of them would retreat to lick their wounds, and the next time a hot-button issue popped up like a cat in heat, they’d be at it all over again. I swear, I’ve never heard anyone fight like Anna and Mum. Especially, I thought as I edged the front door open, since they managed to be practically best friends in between times.
Perfect. They were in the kitchen, and maybe since they were obviously otherwise occupied I’d be able to sneak down to my room and pretend I’d been in there the whole time.
An excellent plan, except that Veve had other ideas. She whuffed happily and jerked out of my grip, trotting into the family room where her favorite person in the entire universe reclined in an easy chair. Dad ruffled her ears in silence, but he didn’t need to say anything: his gaze pinned me to the spot as effectively as any tongue-lashing.
I blushed and stared down at the tiles as Dad rose and moved toward me.
“Are you okay?” he asked quietly once he’d joined me in the hall.
I nodded, still unable to look at him.
He let out an explosive sigh and drew me into a spine-cracking hug. “Please don’t do that again.”
My heart nearly melted right out of my chest. Mum would yell at me later—if Dad had been worried, there would be no hiding my absence from Mum—but much as I hated being yelled at, this was worse. “I… I’m sorry, Dad,” I whispered against his chest. “I didn’t mean to. Well, at first I did, but then I realized it was stupid, but then Veve ran off and I had to find her, and…”
He cut me off with another squeeze. “You’re okay,” he said into my hair, and I knew he was seeing glossy photographs of shredded skin, and girl whose face looked like nothing until they reconstructed it, and then it looked like Anna.
I squeezed him back. “I’m okay.” The words stuck in my throat, but it seemed like he’d heard them anyway, because he released me and shot me a quick, knowing smile. I squared my shoulders. Mum was going to yell at me whether I appeared now or in an hour. Might as well get it over with.
Luck was not in my favor. I entered the kitchen during an awkward pause in her argument with Anna, and Mum turned the full weight of her evil eye on me. “Oh, you’re home now are you.”
I counted lines in the floor tiles.
“Well, I see you’re unharmed and in good health, so what have you got to say for yourself?”
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled. No point explaining that I hadn’t meant to do it. The fact was that I had done it—which I understood. Rules were rules, after all, and they were there for a reason.
“That’s it?” she asked, voice rising at the end. “That’s all you have to say for yourself? No excuses, no reasons? No justification whatsoever for the worry you have put us through? You had me terrified out of my mind, young lady! I had no idea what had happened to you! Anyone could have come in off the street and taken you, and I had no idea how to find you, or if I’d find you, and—” Mum’s tirade cut off abruptly and I knew she was remembering the photos too.
“I’m really sorry, Mum,” I whispered, tears blurring the floor.
“Be that as it may, you’re grounded, young lady, until further notice!”
“Oh,” Anna cut in, voice laced with sarcasm. “And what’s that supposed to mean? She can’t go anywhere? She can’t call her friends? Monitored internet time, no phone? Wow, I wonder what that would be like. Almost like witness protection.”
“That’s enough.”
I shivered. When Mum’s voice got tight and quiet like that, you knew you’d crossed not just a line, but the line, and maybe all the lines in the entire universe. How could Anna be so flippant about the whole situation? I couldn’t understand how she wasn’t being eaten alive by guilt. I was, and it wasn’t even my fault the girl had gotten killed.
“Both of you, go to your rooms. We’ll finish discussing this later.”
I nodded and headed for the safety of my room.
I closed the door behind me and leaned against it. Great. Just great. What a frogging fantastic birthday this had turned out to be: Bruises the size of Jupiter on my backside, scratches all over my cheek, hallucinations that broke the very fabric of the universe, a run-in with Scott before school had even started, freaky guilt-tripping shadows, and now I was grounded, all because I’d let stupid Anna and her stupid rule-breaking get to me.
Oh, I added as I flopped face-first on my bed, and I’d be lucky to be able to hold a pen tomorrow, since the darned dog had torn the lead out of my grip three times in less than an hour.
“Perfect,” I mumbled into my pillow. “Happy birthday Emma.”
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