Into The Light (The Fallen Shadows) Read online

  As Katharine bolted down the hallway, through the empty gym, out the locker room doors and into the back parking lot, it was the one place she knew Molli would not think to look for her. Katharine had run so fast out of the building she was having trouble catching her breath. She leaned up against one of the cars parked in the lot and tried to regain her breath.

  This wasn’t going to work. Katharine couldn’t keep running and avoiding her friends forever. The Tracker should have just left Meadowbrook when she had the chance but she would have left behind everything and everyone she loved and that was something she just didn’t have the strength to do. Despite her strength, Katharine felt the tears falling from her eyes.

  Leaving Meadowbrook was always part of the plan but not like this. Katharine wanted to finish her senior year and celebrate her graduation with the rest of her friends and she wanted to see Molli fall in love with more boys and then finally find the one. Katharine wanted to see the pride in her parent’s eyes as she accepted her diploma and threw her graduation cap in the air signifying her departure from Carnegie High School.

  “I told you this wasn’t going to be easy,” Ash said, stepping out from a dark part of the parking lot that Katharine didn’t think to look.

  “Ash? What are you doing here?” Katharine asked as he approached her.

  Ash was what any normal girl would have considered charming. He was everything the boys of Carnegie High School weren’t, but boy did he piss her off.

  “Why did you insist on giving this whole normal life thing a chance? I told you from the jump that it wasn’t going to work,” Ash said viciously. There was satisfaction in his voice, as if he were happy for Katharine’s plight.

  “Did you come here to mock me?” Katharine asked, rolling her eyes and walking away forcefully, her black converse smacking into the pavement with every step.

  “Did you really think this was going to work Kat? You do not belong here anymore,” Ash said following the angry teenager through the parking lot.

  “You forget that only a few weeks ago this was the only place I belonged so you’ll excuse me if I don’t just up and leave because you don’t agree with my decision.”

  “Ha! You think this is a choice? You are sorely mistaken sweetheart. In the three weeks we’ve known one another did I once offer you a choice?”

  Katharine was appalled by Ash’s vicious tone and defiance. Regardless of what took place over the last few weeks, she was still a person and therefore she had free will. She would not be defined by anyone or anything that was supposedly destined for her.

  Ash was overwhelmingly intrusive. Everywhere she turned, Ash was waiting in the wings. She had no privacy anymore, Ash was always watching her, judging her. Maybe if he didn’t speak Katharine would find him attractive but the sound of his voice sent painful chills down her spine and all she could do was picture all the ways she could shut him up.

  “You really do like the sound of your own voice don’t you?” Katharine scoffed.

  “Why yes, I do,” Ash replied honestly.

  “You’re ridiculous. Now can you please leave, I’m late for my next class. Besides, isn’t it bad if a mortal sees you?”

  Ash looked around the parking lot playfully, ducking behind larger parked cars and poking his head out from behind them, toying with Katharine’s concern.

  “Funny, looks like it’s just you and me.”

  Katharine made her way around the side of the school with Ash following closely behind. In a pathetic attempt to lose Ash, Katharine picked up her steps. She had become a master at losing unwanted company but Ash was inexplicably fast. He was right on her heels before she reached the cafeteria door that sat in between the chemistry lab and the auditorium.

  As she pulled the metal doors open dust burst open like popcorn flying uncontrollably out of a popper. She was careful to hold the knob tightly to make sure she wasn’t too loud; students weren’t exactly allowed outside the school during school hours.

  “You can’t run from this Kat. This is your destiny and I am going to be here every step of the way,” Ash said.

  Katharine slipped inside and allowed the door to slam behind her. She just wanted to get away from Ash and at that point she didn’t even care if anyone heard the door slam.

  Katharine made her way across the cafeteria bumping into the long bench attached to the lunch table. The Tracker winced in pain as the edge of the bench pushed on her kneecap. The teenager kicked the metal bar that held the bench in place, as if this would give her revenge on it for hurting her.

  Ash had put her in such a bad mood that everything was making her angry. Katharine was careful not to knock into the rest of the tables that were lined in vertical rows of ten throughout the cafeteria.

  The light from the vending machines gave way to a path that would lead her back through the school. The Tracker was quiet as she walked deliberately toward the exit, hearing the whining of the vending machine motors as she approached.

  “So we’re beating up inanimate objects now?” Ash said, leaning up against a pillar wearing a self-satisfying smile.

  “Shoot! Give me a heart attack why don’t you!” Katharine jumped, startled by Ash’s appearing out-of-nowhere act. “You’re still here? I thought you got the hint when I slammed the door in your face.”

  “Can’t get rid of me that easily,” Ash snickered. “As I explained to you on that road a few weeks ago, I am here to help you. To prepare you for what’s to come. As much as I enjoy our hate filled conversations and your ever-present contempt toward me, I would love to return to my work and not have to be a babysitter, but we can’t always get what we want now can we?”

  His eyes squinted as he spoke. His face was brooding, something the leading men on some of Katharine’s favorite television shows did often. The look made his green eyes stand out; it was the first time Katharine noticed how pretty they were. Gross cut it out! Remember he is the bane of your existence. Katharine forced herself to blink out of the pretty eyed trance she was in. You’re still staring. You hate him. Remember what he brought to your life three weeks ago.

  Ash was responsible for everything that had happened to Katharine over the last few weeks and that made him her least favorite person on the planet.

  “What do you expect me to do, just up and leave?” Katharine asked when she already knew the answer. “What about my parents? What about my friends? They would notice if I just went missing.”

  “This is your problem, you are so concerned with these mortals that you cannot focus on what is truly important. If you do not allow me to do my job and take what I have told you seriously there will be no mortals to worry about. Besides I still have much more to tell you.” Ash’s voice was no longer sarcastic or self-satisfying. He was serious and determined to get Katharine to understand the responsibility she carried.

  “I don’t want to hear anymore. You’ve already told me too much. I just want to go to class and forget you were here,” Katharine said, her voice trembling with anger.

  “Have it your way, but I am warning you now, you are putting every single person you come in contact with in danger. More than that, you yourself are in danger. Remember not everyone is who they say they are. Chew on that while you’re sitting in your classroom surrounded by those who would sooner kill you for being what you are.” With that Ash seemed to disappear right in front of Katharine’s eyes. Hmm…never seen him do that before, she thought.

  As she headed to her philosophy class Ash’s words played over and over in her head. Did he have a point? Regardless of whether or not Katharine knew Ash was right she was too full of pride to admit it. She reached room 115 where her philosophy class was held and saw Molli was standing outside the room. Katharine knew she was waiting for her. Here come the questions.

  “What the hell was that?” Molli demanded, “Why did you bolt like that?”

  “Come on Mol, you know how it is when it’s that time of the month,” Katharine said jokingly.

  Molli l
ooked suspiciously at her unsure as to whether or not she believed her friend’s excuse. She wanted to believe her because if she didn’t it would cause a fight and she hated fighting with Katharine. They had had many minor fights but only one major one where they didn’t talk for weeks. Both girls believed it to be the worst time of their lives.

  Like most female fights between teenagers, the best friends fought over a guy, but it wasn’t the type of fight where they both liked the same guy. Actually, it was a complete misunderstanding that involved Kol Harper.

  Kol Harper was the captain of the Cardinals, Carnegie’s baseball team, and was probably one of the most attractive boys in the entire school. Molli had had a crush on him ever since she first laid eyes on him her sophomore year; however, he wasn’t in any of her classes but he was in Katharine’s biology lab. Molli begged her best friend to become friends with Kol, which would in turn enable the three of them to hang out and allow Molli the chance to use her charisma to win Kol over.

  In order to appease her friend Katharine did just that; she got to know Kol and befriended him. In fact they became so close that they began speaking on the phone every night and spending a lot of time together after school and on the weekends. In all their time spent together, the plan Molli devised completely backfired and Kol began to develop feelings for Katharine.

  For quite some time neither girl had any clue as to what was really going on. Kol was paying a lot of attention to Molli but this was, as it turned out, his way of getting on Katharine’s good side.

  Everything came to a head when Molli finally got up the courage to ask Kol to accompany her to the winter formal that Carnegie held every year for sophomores. When Kol turned her down he explained to her that he had fallen for Katharine and was planning on asking her to the winter formal.

  With a hurt ego clouding her judgment Molli was furious with Katharine and blamed her for Kol’s feelings stating that Katharine had planned it all along because she wanted Kol for herself. Despite Katharine’s pleas and promises that she did not feel the same way for Kol and would never betray Molli that way, the girls went for weeks without so much as acknowledging one another’s presence in the hallway.

  Eventually, when Molli met a new boy to be the ‘love of her life,’ she forgave Katharine and admitted that her plan was destined to fail from the get go. As for Kol, he transferred to another school when he got one of the cheerleaders pregnant. Since then Katharine and Molli had vowed to never again let a boy come between them.

  “Okay so I wanted to ask your opinion on something,” Molli said, choosing to believe that Katharine was telling the truth about her disappearing act following their English class. “What do you think about Eric Carlo?”

  “No, Mol, no,” Katharine whined. She knew where Molli was going with her question.

  “What? Come on he’s cute and he is really hard to understand. Isn’t that your type?” Molli joked.

  Katharine walked into the classroom clutching her textbooks against her chest. They were relatively light for schoolbooks, especially considering the amount of work the teachers expected from their students.

  “My type? I don’t have a type,” Katharine insisted as she took her seat in the back of the room next to Molli. She placed the books on the top of the wooden desk, stacking them up on top of one another the way she always did. They went in order of the class she were in at the time; for this class her biology book rested on the top of the pile.

  “So you know how I have Advanced Placement math with Eric?” Molli said, completely ignoring her friend’s disinterest in hearing anymore about Eric.

  “Molli, please.” Katharine had no time for boys, even if Eric was intriguing. The last thing she needed was to complicate her life further by adding in a relationship that had been set up by her best friend.

  “Kat you haven’t been out with anyone since Dylan, people are going to start wondering if you’re a lesbian.”

  Katharine rolled her eyes at her friends’ immature comment and smiled sarcastically. Molli always did enjoy getting a rise out of people, especially Katharine. The girls were complete opposites. Katharine was very serious about life and took everything to heart whereas Molli lived her life day-to-day and never took anything too seriously, except when it came to boys of course. Every time she thought her friend was being too serious, Molli cracked a joke at Katharine’s expense.

  “Mol, I have too much going on in my life right now. I really don’t need a guy to complicate it any further,” Katharine said to Molli who was staring her down with an affectionate smile.

  “You seem to never have time for anything lately, even your so-called best friend,” Molli said, her voice sounding pained.

  Katharine had been absent from Molli’s life ever since she met Ash and as far as Molli was concerned her best friend was simply ignoring her.

  Despite Ash’s warnings, Katharine was not about to lose her best friend. She decided it was time to tell someone about what had happened to her the last few weeks and who better than her best friend. Besides if she didn’t tell Molli the truth she was going to lose her; there weren’t many more excuses she could come up with, or excuses Molli would accept.

  “Good afternoon class. I assume everyone had a productive weekend?” Mrs. Tingle, the biology teacher, said as she hurtled herself into the classroom.

  Despite her small size (she came in around at five feet two inches tall) – with a slender figure, Mrs. Tingle certainly made her presence known. Heavy feet and a sturdy frame sometimes made it sound like there was an elephant barreling down the hallway when she walked. She was often the butt of her student’s jokes because of her appearance, and Katharine felt bad for her because despite how frazzled and unkempt she looked she was actually a kind teacher. There was no mistaking the ‘uncool’ factor though.

  Mrs. Tingle was one of those people who wore the same cardigan sweaters every day, and always a different color with her mismatching pencil skirts. She wore pointed toe heels that she could barely walk in, always teetering around as she taught, and her hair in a ponytail and just never bothered to fix it in the morning before work.

  Furthering the appearance that she tried and gave up was the makeup situation, since she would apply what looked like store brand makeup every morning, only to have it smidge and fade throughout the day. Since she never reapplied it, her lipstick would just smear to the point of no return and then some, leaving her students with the – not incorrect – impression that she was incredibly uncool, and it seemed she was the only one who didn’t know that. Her students made fun of her constantly for it, and that morning it was Jeffrey Stevens as he shuted a snide, “Isn’t that your THURSDAY sweater?” from his seat, to the amusement of some of his immature fellow classmates.

  “What was that?” Mrs. Tingle asked swinging her head around from facing the blackboard where she had been writing the day’s lesson, to face the classroom of misfits.

  Jeffrey Stevens said nothing further but in unison the entire class, minus Katharine, continued their canned laughter. Mrs. Tingle cocked her lips to form a crooked smile. She didn’t know they were laughing at her but she didn’t want to push the issue and continued on with writing the lesson on the chalkboard.

  “Molli,” Katharine said in a loud whisper. “Mol,” she didn’t want Mrs. Tingle to hear her but she wanted to make sure that Molli heard her over the chatter of the rest of the class.

  Katharine whispered loudly again but Molli didn’t turn around. She was either ignoring her purposely or she really didn’t hear her. Fine. If Molli won’t listen to me I’ll have to get her attention another way. Katharine thought.

  She took out her notebook and opened it to a clean sheet of paper and wrote, “I have something to tell you, it’s really important and it is to be considered classified. After school, at Murphy’s Café.” She folded the note into a small square and threw it on Molli’s desk. As the flying note landed on Molli’s biology book she looked over at Katharine.

  Nudging
with her head Katharine encouraged Molli to read what she had written. Begrudgingly she did and was clearly surprised by the contents of the note. She turned to Katharine and nodded in agreement, to which Katharine replied with a smile.

  Breathing a sigh of relief, Katharine knew she had saved her friendship but she was suddenly overcome with a pit in her stomach. While saving her friendship would she be putting herself and Molli in danger? She couldn’t very well take it back, she had to believe that she was doing the right thing and that she could trust her best friend with such a important information.

  Murphy’s Café sat on the corner of Miller Street, the main road in and out of Meadowbrook. It had been Katharine and Molli’s after school hang out ever since they first learned about coffee. It was a complete hole-in-the-wall and offered customers plastic lawn chairs to sit in as they drank their coffee.

  The chairs were not high enough for the high top tables that lined the floor of the coffee shop. The smell of brewing coffee fell upon the café and poured out into the street luring in customers who, until they walked by the café, didn’t realize how badly they were craving a good cup of coffee.

  The walls were decorated with paintings done by locals, so they weren’t always a sight for sore eyes. Adeline Williams, Murphy’s Café’s proprietor, once hung Meadowbrook Elementary fifth grade art class drawings as that month’s featured artwork. She said it gave the shop a, “hometown feel.” Despite the occasional bad art and uncomfortable chairs Katharine and Molli loved the family vibe. It was where they had all their major discussions and where Molli would tell Katharine about her latest crush.

  It was only fitting that Murphy’s would be where Katharine would tell Molli the biggest news of her life. Murphy’s Café used to be the only hangout for the teenagers in Meadowbrook, until The Alcove opened up three years earlier.