Page 54 of Soul of Shadow
“Ladies,” he announced, pulling the red scarf from Lou’s neck and wrapping it around his own. “What time are we leaving?”
“We?” Charlie asked.
“Of course,” her brother said. “You, my dear sister, are driving so that the rest of us…” He reached into the bag dangling from his arm and pulled out a handle of vodka. “Can dothis.”
“Just you and us?” Lou asked, skeptical.
“Oh, and one more.” Mason turned over his shoulder. “Elias, come on in.”
Charlie quickly turned away from the door. She shouldn’t have been surprised that he was there; after all, they planned to sneak off from the game together. She just hadn’t expected to see him yet.
“Greetings.”
When she turned back around, she saw that Elias was leaning casually against the bedroom doorway. He was dressed in dark jeans and a leather jacket, no school spirit in sight. His greeting was for the whole room, but he was staring straight at her. Her cheeks flushed, and she looked away.
Lou walked over to Mason and grabbed the vodka out of his hand. “Where’d you get this?”
“The local alcohol store.” He pulled out his wallet and flipped it open, waving an unfamiliar ID in her face. “Today, I’m Matthew Gibbons, not Mason Hudson.”
“You used afake ID?” Abigail asked. “You could get arrested for that, you know.”
“Andyoucould get arrested for drinking it,” Lou said, pushing the bottle into her hands. “Which is why you’re going to go first.”
“Me next,” said Elias, pushing himself off the doorframe and walking closer to the group, stopping right next to Charlie.
“Are you kidding?” Charlie hissed to him as the rest of them crowded around the alcohol. “We have a mission to carry out tonight.”
Elias winked. “Nothing a light buzz can’t improve.”
Charlie gaped at him. “Are you out of your mind?”
Elias flapped a carefree hand. “It’s homecoming weekend. That stuff can wait until Monday.”
“What happened toI’ll show you tomorrow? There are kids’livesat stake here.”
“And my Friday night is at stake if you don’t get on board.” He tweaked her nose with two fingers. “Besides, if anything seriously bad goes down, I can shift into shadow form. No blood alcohol content that way. Instant sobriety.”
“How convenient,” Charlie muttered.
Elias winked again, then turned to Mason, raising his voice. “Pass me that handle.”
The stands of Silver Shores High School’s football field were packed. It felt as if the whole town had turned out for the homecoming game—which wouldn’t be a surprise, given that half ofthe people who grew up in Silver Shores moved back there after college. Local pride ran deep.
After Charlie parked the Bronco, their group piled out into the parking lot. The vodka had clearly kicked in; Abigail and Lou had sung loudly and off-key to Ed Sheeran the whole ride over. Now, they linked arms with Mason and marched up the pavement, hollering school cheers into the night.
It was just them. Charlie had forced the vätte to stay home. “It’s not safe,” she’d whispered to him in the bathroom before they left. “Elias and I might need to go into the woods, and I don’t want you to risk getting hurt.”
Somehow, even though she could see neither his eyes nor his mouth, she knew he was pouting.
Now, Charlie hung back, grabbing Elias’s elbow.
“Listen,” she said as he turned around, raising his eyebrows. “We’ve gotta keep up this dating ruse, okay? At least for a little bit longer.”
He saluted her. “Understood, Captain.”
She rolled her eyes and grabbed his wrist, looping his arm over her shoulders the way he had done in the cafeteria. He leaned close to her ear and whispered, “Just can’t get enough of me, eh?”
“Grow up,” she whispered back, but he only pulled her closer.
