Shadowed Strength: Shadowed Series Book One (18 page)

When Melanie awoke the next morning, she
resolved to get started on fixing this situation. She had the beginnings of a
plan formed, but in the meantime she knew what she needed to do. She needed to
be able to protect herself.

At some point in the wee hours of the morning,
she decided that she was going to use her week off to start getting into shape.
She knew, realistically, that a week was not long enough to see any real
results, but she was going to get a good start. Strength and stamina were a
necessity if Melanie was going to win this battle with her teacher.

In her room every morning, she performed reps
of sit ups, squats, and even push-ups, on her knees anyway. Melanie went to the
kitchen pantry and found two one-gallon water jugs. She snuck them back up to
her room and used them as hand weights. She did as many reps as she could of
every exercise she could think of to strengthen all the muscles in her arms.

Once her mom left for work each day, Melanie
went out into the backyard and ran laps around the perimeter. At first, she was
only able to run for a few minutes at a time. By the week’s end, her legs
pumped and carried her for thirty minutes straight. She wasn’t fast, but she
didn’t need to be. Her plan, to which she had been adding details all week, did
not include running away.

On Monday morning her alarm sounded and she
turned it off, getting up without hitting the snooze button once. She went to
the bathroom and took a shower, then went back to her room wrapped in a towel
and pulled out her favorite jeans to wear to school.

After drying off, Melanie pulled on a pair of
panties and noticed that they were really loose on her. Thinking that the
elastic was stretched out, she made a mental note to go to the mall and buy
some new ones the next time she and Tara went out. She put on her bra and a
t-shirt, which seemed a little baggy, but after wearing nothing but yoga pants
and workout tops all week, anything would seem baggy to her. Next, she pulled
on her jeans.

“What the…” Melanie said aloud and walked over
to the full length mirror on her bedroom door.  “Okay, this is weird.”

She buttoned and zipped her jeans, but it
didn’t help. They were too big. Letting go of the waistband, they dropped down
and barely snagged on the gentle swell of her hips. A light tug on the pant leg
pulled them right down. She stepped out of them and looked, really looked, at
her body for the first time in ages.

Melanie ran her hand over her belly, which had
flattened out considerably and only had a slight bulge at the bottom below her
navel. She sucked in her gut and could see the light outline of muscles
starting to form there. She released her grip on her stomach muscles and turned
so she could see her butt in the mirror.

“What the hell?”

Her butt was still round, but more narrow and
compact. Her hips still swelled out gently, but not nearly as wide as before.
Her thighs, though nowhere near having any kind of gap, were narrower as well.
Her calves looked muscular and defined.

“Huh. I guess all that working out really did
a number on me.”

She turned this way and that, checking herself
out from different angles, before realizing the time and dashing to her closet
to find something, anything, to wear. After discarding all the jeans, which
were too big, and all the yoga pants, which would just be embarrassing, she
settled on a black elastic-waist skirt that fell to mid-thigh. She added to
that a fitted button down pink shirt that, even though it was too big on her
now, looked decent enough to wear to school. She finished the look with a pair
of black sling back sandals.

Melanie ran into the bathroom and threw her
wet hair into a high ponytail. After putting on some mascara and lip gloss, she
flipped off the light and ran downstairs, completely forgetting her daily “you
are beautiful” mantra. She grabbed her backpack and yelled goodbye to her mom
before running out the door to wait for Tara.

“Perfect timing,” she said aloud as she pulled
the door closed and turned to see Tara’s car pulling into the driveway.

The car stopped with a screech and Tara jumped
out before Melanie made it even half way to the driveway. She stood there,
hanging on to the car door like a lifeline, staring at Melanie with her mouth
hanging wide open.

“What is it?” Melanie asked looking down and
checking herself out. “Did I drip toothpaste on my shirt?”

“Are you sick?”

“Thanks a lot. Do I look sick or something?”

“Yes. I mean, no. I mean, you look amazing.”

“Then why did you ask if I was sick?” Melanie
asked skeptically.

Tara came around the car door and walked up to
Melanie. She looked her up and down, then circled around behind her and smacked
her on the butt.

“You are, like, half the size you were last
week! I thought maybe you had a stomach bug and couldn’t eat or something, but
you look healthy to me. Your skin is glowing and you don’t look tired or
anything. What the hell, Mel?”

“I didn’t get plastic surgery, if that’s what you’re
asking, hussy. I started working out on my mini vacation.”

“Mel, that’s great, but to see results this
fast? That’s magical.”

“Alright, stop checking out my ass and let’s
go before we’re late.”

After they got in the car, Tara froze while
putting the key in the ignition and glanced at her. Melanie arched an eyebrow
and waited for her to speak.

“You didn’t do this to make Jeremy jealous or
something like that, did you?”

Melanie shook her head sadly. “No, I didn’t.
Besides, Jeremy loved me just the way I was.”

“And you loved him, too?”

“Yes, I did. I am going to get past this,
Tara, starting today.”

They were silent the rest of the way to
school. Melanie was going over the details of her plan in her head, and Tara
knew not to try and make small talk.

First things, first. She had to tell Jeremy
the truth without letting Mr. Hughes know that they weren’t fighting anymore.
He could be watching her at any time, waiting for her to go to Jeremy so he
could hurt him. Luckily, she knew just how to get around that.

She told Tara to go ahead and that she’d lock
up the car when she got out. When she was alone she pulled out a sheet of paper
and wrote a short note that no one would understand but Jeremy.

“
I need Ace, and only him. He should come
by today after school, so don’t bother showing up, Jeremy.”

She folded it up tightly and held it in her
hand as she exited the car. She knew Jeremy would understand, and that if Mr.
Hughes somehow saw her give it to him and got his hands on it, he wouldn’t get
it. He would think she was rubbing some new imaginary boyfriend in Jeremy’s
face to keep him safe.

A smile tugged at her lips as she walked
toward the front entrance of the building. A shrill whistle rang out that
jerked her out of her daydream. She stopped walking and glanced around. There
were students crowded in groups all around her, and it seemed like all eyes
were focused on her. Tara popped up in front of her out of nowhere, grabbed her
hand and dragged her inside.

“What was all that about?”

“I told you, Mel. You look amazing,” Tara said
with a grin.

“It’s not that noticeable, is it? I don’t
think I’ve gotten that much smaller.”

“Uh, yeah, it is. Not only are you wearing a
skirt to school, which by the way, is the first time ever, but you are walking
with your head held high and your shoulders thrown back. It’s the confidence,
Mel. If nothing else, the change in your body brought out this confidence that
wasn’t there before. People can see it.”

Melanie gave Tara a quick hug. She could have
said “You’re not fat anymore, so now you’re beautiful,” but she didn’t. She
said the most perfect thing she could have.

“I love you, Tara.”

“Love you too, Mel.”

Melanie walked to first period, trying to
ignore all the staring.
She made the best of it though, smiling at
everyone she made eye contact with. She wasn’t going to let the attention get
to her.

Geez, I don’t look that different. You’d
think I had two heads, or something.
She took a deep
breath and strode forward.
Looks like I’m going to have to get used it,
she
thought.

Melanie walked to the doorway of English and
stopped just outside the threshold. One glance around the room showed her that
Jeremy wasn’t there yet, and that there were only two empty desks left, hers,
and his normal seat right behind her. She smiled in satisfaction for a moment,
then she noticed the silence.

All eyes in the classroom were on her as she
crossed into the room and headed for her seat. As she approached Sissy, she
heard her harrumph and sneeze/cough something that sounded like “liposuction.”
Her little gaggle of friends tittered around her until Melanie stopped in her
tracks right in front of Sissy and pumped her arm back. Thinking she was going
to get another slap to the face, Sissy squealed and covered her head with her
arms. Melanie just laughed softly and continued on to her desk.

As she turned and sat down, she caught Mr.
Hughes’ eyes on her. He looked surprised and possibly even a little
disappointed in her new look. Melanie smiled inwardly, careful not to show him
any emotion. She never even considered what her toned up body would mean to him
and his desire for her. She only thought of protecting herself. Mr. Hughes
liked her chubby. Maybe he wouldn’t want her now.

Her train of thought was interrupted when
Jeremy Stevens walked through the door and froze. He looked at her
incredulously, and she got a little twitchy and unnerved by his perusal. She
didn’t let anything but disgust show on her face, for she could see Mr. Hughes
still staring at her from the corner of her eye. Both of them seemed to snap
out of it at once, Jeremy shaking his head to clear it and walking forward and
Mr. Hughes addressing the class and starting to call the roll.

When Jeremy sat down behind her, Melanie
stretched and scratched the back of her head, dropping the note on his desk in
the process. She heard the paper crackle when he grabbed it, and again when he
unfolded it. She heard his sharp intake of breath when he read it and another
when a loud voice rang out from the front of the room.

“Mr. Stevens! Please bring that to me. There
will be no passing of notes in my class, Miss Johnson.”

Jeremy got up and walked to his desk, dropped
the note and turned to walk back. He caught Melanie’s eye and gave a slight nod.
She narrowed her eyes and shot him the dirtiest look she could muster, knowing
that all eyes, including Mr. Hughes’, were on them right now.

Once Jeremy passed by, she shot her look back
to the teacher. He read the note and shoved it into his desk drawer, but not
before a smug smile pulled his lips up for a brief second.

Yes! He bought it!

He thought Melanie was reinforcing her break
up with Jeremy to keep him safe and away from her. He was in for a big
surprise.

When Tara dropped Melanie off after school,
she ran around the house closing every curtain on every window. Then she ran up
to her room and changed into her workout gear. She went into the back yard and
ran laps, waiting for Ace to come to her.

After about twenty five minutes, she got a
creepy feeling that she was being watched. She stopped running and put her
hands on her knees to catch her breath while scanning the woods.

She still felt uneasy, so she stood up
straight and tall and called out, “Who’s there? Come out and face me!”

She snapped her mouth closed and gave herself
a mental slap.
Where the hell did that come from? I am
so
not into
confrontations.

Before she could make the decision of fight or
flight, she heard a sharp whine and a black mass of fur came from behind a
large pine tree and started toward her.

“Ace!” she whispered happily as she dropped to
her knees in the grass. “Come here, boy.”

Ace took a few tentative steps out of the
woods, but stopped and sat on his haunches several feet from where Melanie
kneeled. He kept his nose pointed at the ground and looked up at her with sad
eyes.

Melanie closed the gap by walking on her knees
toward him. When she reached him, she threw her arms around his neck and
squeezed him tight. He stayed where he was, but remained frozen, showing none
of the exuberant affection she had come to expect from him.

She kept her arms around his neck and
whispered urgently into his big, floppy ear, “Jeremy, I’m sorry. I can explain
everything, but not here. He could be watching.”

Ace’s head jerked out of her embrace and
sniffed the air around her. He got up and walked in circles around her,
sniffing the ground and the trees that lined the yard. He came back and stood
in front of her, giving a warning yip towards the woods, like he smelled
something that didn’t belong.

Melanie forced a giant-sized smile on her
face, and as loudly as she could while still sounding natural, she said “Come
on, boy. Let’s go get you something to eat.” She started walking toward the
house and Ace ran stoically beside her.

Once inside, she dropped all pretenses as she
ran up to her room with Ace on her heels. He went straight into her closet and
she shut the door behind him. This time, she remembered to leave some oversized
sweat pants in there for him wear after he shifted.

A few seconds later, he emerged and the sight
of him took her breath away. Melanie took a step toward him with her arms
outstretched. He took a quick step back and threw his hands up in front of him
to stop her.

“Wait, Mel. What the hell is going on? I
thought you couldn’t handle what I was, but then you ask for ‘Ace’ to come see
you? I need you to explain. Now.”

“Okay, I will. Please sit down.” She gestured
toward her bed, but Jeremy went to the desk instead and sat in the chair.

“Okay, I’m ready. Tell me.”

Melanie took a deep breath. “Last Monday, when
you skipped school to go running with your parents, I got in trouble in English
class. Mr. Hughes yelled at me and told me to stay after class. Then he caught
me looking at my phone, at a text from you, and he confiscated it.”

“But, what-”

“Just bear with me, Jeremy. I’ll get there.”

“Okay,” he said, then clamped his mouth shut
and nodded for her to go on. She began to pace as she talked.

“After class he was so angry, yelling at me
about disrespecting him and looking at love notes from you instead of paying
attention to him. He saw the texts from you and they made him very angry. Angry
enough to mess up.”

“What…”

Melanie stopped pacing and held up her hand to
cut him off. “He said that I will show him the proper respect from now on, and
he used the words ‘Do you understand me, little girl?’ Jeremy, those are the
same words from that night. The same words in the same voice. It was him.”

Jeremy jumped up from his chair and reached
her in two long strides as she started to cry. He wrapped his arms around her
and squeezed her tight.

“Why didn’t you tell me, Mel? Why did you push
me away?”

“He got my number when he took my phone, Jeremy.
He’s been texting me. He said he would break all your fingers if he ever saw
you touch me again. He’s been watching me, watching us. That’s why I had to
break things off so publicly and you had to believe it. I couldn’t let him hurt
you.”

Jeremy held her for a while longer until her
tears subsided and her breathing returned to normal. He grasped her shoulders
and pushed her back, holding her at arm’s length. “Let me see the text
messages, Mel.”

She went to her nightstand and grabbed her
phone from where she had left it earlier. She pulled up the app and clicked on
the conversation between her and Mr. Hughes. She hadn’t deleted anything, in
the off chance there was something she could use to get him arrested.

Jeremy’s face clouded over as he read. When he
finished, he looked up at her angrily.

“You should have told me, Mel! I could have
helped you!”

“Stop yelling at me!” she hollered back. “I
was protecting you because I love you too much to let anything bad happen to
you!”

“I’m supposed to be protecting you!”

“I can protect myself! If you haven’t noticed,
just ask Sissy!”

With that, the anger drained out of both of
them immediately. Melanie bit her bottom lip to keep a smile at bay, but lost
the battle as Jeremy started laughing. She joined in and they both ended up
falling on the bed in a heap, wiping the tears of laughter from their eyes.

“So,” Jeremy said, clearing his throat as he
sobered, “you
do
still love me?”

Melanie took his face into her hands and
stared into his eyes. “Of course I do. Breaking up with you was a knee-jerk
reaction. I felt like I had to do it to keep you safe.”

“Almost killing me in the process,” he
interjected.

“I’m sorry, Jeremy. During my suspension, I
did a lot of thinking and I think I came up with a plan. I need your help, but
we can’t let Mr. Hughes know that we are back together, or even talking again.
That’s why all the cloak and dagger stuff with you coming as Ace and not
yourself.”

Jeremy sat upright on the bed and pulled her
up next to him. “I smelled something out there. I couldn’t place it exactly,
but it smelled like someone was in the woods recently.”

“It was probably him. You saw the text
messages. He’s been following me in rented cars and watching me through
windows.” She gave an involuntary shiver.

Jeremy reached over and rubbed her upper arms,
as if to drive the chill away. “Okay, I want to hear your plan, but first, I
need to ask you something.”

“Okay, shoot.”

“Um, I don’t really know how to say this,
other than just blurting it out. What happened to your body?”

Melanie let out a choked laugh. “Don’t you
like it?”

“I mean, yeah, I do, but I loved it just as
much the way it was before. What I meant is, I don’t know, how?”

Melanie understood his question, but didn’t
really have an answer for it. “I started working out over my mini vacation. I
decided I needed to be able to protect myself if Mr. Hughes attacks me again.
I’ve been lifting weights and running.”

“Yeah, I saw you from the woods. I watched you
run for several minutes, and you didn’t even seem winded.”

“I built up some stamina, I guess.”

“Well, you look great, but it’s more than
that. You know I love the way you looked before, but there was something
missing that you have now. It’s like you believe in yourself. I can actually
see your strength coming out of the shadows.  There’s a boost in
confidence and your sense of self-worth. Whatever else it is, it’s sexy as
hell, and it has nothing to do with what size your clothes are.”

Melanie wrapped her arms around his neck and
pulled him forward until their noses touched. She breathed in his scent as her
eyes drifted closed.

“Thank you,” she whispered, then lifted her
mouth to meet his in a long, desperate kiss.

Her phone beeped several times and they broke
apart. She groaned at the interruption, but pulled up the text messages.

Unknown Caller- 912-555-8782

“Who’s Ace?”

“You better not be letting anyone else
touch you, you little slut. You’re mine.”

“I hope you don’t think that losing some weight
is going to make me lose interest. I’m disappointed, but not deterred.”

As she and Jeremy read the messages, another
came through.

“Answer me, damn it! I will kill him!
Whoever this Ace is, he’s a dead man!”

“I’ve got to text him back.”

“No, don’t. Mel, just ignore him.”

“He’s not going to go away, Jeremy. We’ll deal
with this together, but I have to keep him calm for now.”

“There is no Ace. I just made him up so
Jeremy wouldn’t come by and make you angry. I was just protecting him,”
she typed. Jeremy nodded, and she hit the send button.

Five seconds later, she got a response.

“Good girl. Keep that punk away from you,
and I won’t have to hurt him. Soon you’ll be mine completely, and he won’t want
you anymore. You and he will both see how perfect the two of us are together. A
perfect match, just like I’ve always said.”

Melanie shivered, then set her phone down on
the nightstand. Jeremy wrapped his arms around her, comforting her without
words, peppering her forehead and cheeks with light kisses.

A while later, they were lying on their sides
in Melanie’s bed facing each other. Melanie was tracing the curve of Jeremy’s
face with her fingertips when she broke the silence.

“I’ve missed you.”

Jeremy leaned forward and pecked a kiss on her
lips. “I missed you too. I felt like I couldn’t breathe when you broke things
off between us, and I didn’t breathe again until I read your note today.”

“I’m sorry. I just didn’t know…”

He shushed her with a finger to her lips.
“Hush, Mel. I understand. I wish you had handled things differently, but I know
your heart was in the right place.”

Melanie glanced over at her alarm clock and
let out a groan. “My mom is going to be home in half an hour, and I still need
to tell you my plan. I can’t let her find you or Ace here again. I just
finished my house arrest.”

“Okay,” he said kissing her one more time.
“Tell me your plan to bring that bastard down.”