Shattered Secrets (Book of Red #1) by Krystal Wade

between my dad and Mark’s. Things were calm, so I removed the screen and crawled onto the roof over the porch, then closed the window.
    Invisibility definitely came in handy. I hid myself from view and grabbed the gutters, lowering myself to the railings, then jumped to the soggy ground. I sprinted across my large yard, the narrow street and Abby’s land, then into Abby’s house, wasting no time in my purpose.
    Gather her things.
    Toss out our phones.
    Put everything in the Mustang.
    Grab Abby.
    Leave.
    I wouldn’t fail.

Abigail
    f I’d hoped the book would make me feel better, that hope was crushed immediately. According to
History of Kalós
Page 1002 in the Living Off-Plane section—and Mr. Crawford—if what Derick and I experienced was true love, both of us should have been freed from some of our human restrictions. But only he was.
    Maybe I wasn’t so supernatural, after all.
    I wanted to hide. Mark and his family arrived not long ago, as well as my parents with a bag full of stuff. They all sat in the family room, staring at me as though I were some sort of wild animal ready to burst out of my cage. I propped my elbows on the kitchen table and put my face in my hands, fighting back an urge to cry. None of them needed to see this.
    Being alone would have been nice. Derick was alone. Why couldn’t I be with him? Apologize? Run away and lock myself in an asylum, even?
    “Keep reading.” Mr. Crawford placed a big cup of steaming tea on the table.
    Strong smells of chai and fruit wafted toward my nose. The scents were soothing, but a deep ache pressed on my chest. Nothing could take that away. Well, maybe
someone
could.
    “It may not be as bad as you think.”
    I looked up, trying to make sense of his words. Mr. Crawford definitely pried into my thoughts, but
not as bad as I think
would have been me going to my house and forgetting any of this ever happened, or waking up and discovering this was all just a dream.
    Derick hurt me, then made up for it, then I spit in his face, and now, he hated me; I was sure. My parents weren’t my parents. Nothing was real. Not even my love for Derick. Hell, not even Mark, someone I’d known since diapers, was
normal
.
    Suddenly Ms. Wiley’s slow reading didn’t seem that bad. I could handle boring and mundane over being a different species any day. I closed my eyes, imagining the steel gray classroom with its steel gray blinds and stark white board in the front of the room. Somehow, all that lack of personality screamed home, right, good,
easy
.
    “We kept your identity a secret for a long time, as your birth father, who’d never wished to bring you harm, asked us to do. He wanted you to have a happy life, and he feared if you knew the truth, you wouldn’t be able to because you’d never be safe.” Mr. Crawford smiled, deepening the faint wrinkles around his mouth. “That normal life ended when you and my son kissed.”
    Mark growled, but Mr. Crawford didn’t pay him any attention. I, on the other hand, now wanted to know how long Mark knew who we were, and who he kissed in order to wake up.
    “Now, it seems anyone can find you. Do not doubt what you feel.”
    Mr. Crawford’s words held truth… at least some. When I saw Psycho Number One in the restaurant, he said my powers grew stronger. Maybe what happened there wasn’t a hallucination, but why couldn’t Derick see him?
    His dad squeezed my shoulder and pointed at the cup of tea. “Grab that and come with me.”
    “Shouldn’t I keep reading?” Not that I wanted to look at any more of the confusing words.
    “You’ve learned the most important thing, but there is something I’d like to speak to you about in private.” Glancing at Mrs. Crawford, he picked up the mug then handed it to me; it was warm, and the tea smelled so yummy. Derick always made this when I was upset, and no doubt Mr. Crawford was aware of that; they seemed to be aware of everything between me and Derick. “About your history.”
    I