Read The Other Side Of Gravity (Oxygen, #1) Online
Authors: Shelly Crane
The Other Side Of Gravity (Oxygen, #1) (36 page)
Hundreds of miles passed under the truck’s wheels before I built the courage to ask. “Are there people who want to hurt us? I mean, because of who we are?”
She gave me a sideways glance. “I would not let anything happen to you.”
“I know, but if there are people out there, shouldn’t I know? Don’t you think it’s time I knew things about us?” I braced myself for her reaction.
She opened her mouth, paused, then closed it again. The corner of her lips turned down in a frown. “I can’t tell you, honey. You know that. Not until the
Ang’dora
.”
Right. The
Ang’dora
. The enigmatic “change” that was somehow connected with our quirks and everything that made us weird. I knew little about it. I knew little about us.
“Are you asking because of your dream last night?” she asked. “Because you know it’s—”
I cut her off. “Yeah, I know. Not real.”
I
wanted
to believe her. That was the easy and safe explanation. But was there more to it?
Mom held our secrets tightly, even from me, and I’d given up pleading for information a few years ago. She had told me many times she was bound to a promise made when I was an infant: I couldn’t know our secrets until I went through the
Ang’dora
and became more like her. Whatever that meant. I couldn’t even know what kind of changes there would be. This had been the one sore subject between us for years—the only time we ever argued throughout middle and much of high school. Then she finally told me her own mother had abandoned her when she was a teen to protect those same secrets, and if I didn’t leave her alone about it, she’d be forced to do the same.
I supposed that meant they were important ones, but when other families’ skeletons included domestic violence, sexual abuse, or various addictions, ours seemed rather innocuous. After all, we simply had some weird quirks. Nothing dangerous to ourselves or others. Most of the time anyway. Not knowing what more there was, if anything, could be annoying and frustrating, but if I tucked the thought of our oddities into a locked drawer in my mind and pretended we were normal, I forgot to be annoyed and frustrated. And I much preferred to live behind the façade of normalcy than fight with my mother and best friend. Or worse, never see her again and be left completely alone in the world.
Besides, in all honesty, I
liked
living behind that smokescreen. More than anything, even more than knowing, I ached for a normal, stable life—a career as an author, true love, and a big family with a home of our own, picket fence and all.
Even so, the renewed curiosity lingered.
I hated snooping behind Mom’s back, but her refusal to explain left no other options, and the move presented an easy opportunity for poking around. The new house was more like a cottage, but the attached garage in back had been converted into a room large enough for a bed, my desk, and a small living area, along with its own bathroom and a separate entrance. Mom thought it a perfect layout to give me privacy and independence without having to worry about on-campus housing costs or rent and utilities. After setting my place up, I volunteered to unpack the rest of the house while Mom prepared to open the bookstore. When she took me up on the offer to do her room, I knew I wouldn’t discover anything she didn’t want me to. So by the time the first day of classes came around, I knew nothing more, but I had a new plan.
That was the day the dreams stopped. Until then, I’d repeatedly dreamt of that strange night—a recurring nightmare, I supposed. But it always ended on a good note, with one of my heroes standing over me. Not the lanky one, but the other one. I still never saw his face, just a shadowy figure, but I knew it was him.
Who are you?
my dream-self asked every time. I never received an answer, and he stopped visiting my dreams the first day of classes.
Perhaps because a very real guy entered my dreams . . . and my life.
A Demon’s Promise,
Book 1 in the Soul Savers series, is free to download at all eBook retailers.
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