Page 25 of Bullied Pretend Mate (Silverville Firefighter Wolves #3)

I’m running faster than I have in my entire life.

Back in Los Angeles, I got into fitness and taking care of my body, not to lose weight but because my body deserved to be taken care of, too.

I was no longer afraid of going to the gym as a big girl.

I deserved to be there, getting stronger, like everyone else.

And I used to run laps in the morning, before weightlifting.

But not like this—not this fast. Not this hard. This is the fastest I’ve ever gone on two legs, including that night on the ridge with the other girls.

Maybe back then, in the middle of the night with those girls, I had no clue how serious the situation was.

We were always sneaking out in the middle of the night.

To the lake, into the woods, over to the school, where we’d pull a stool out of the bushes and use it to hike ourselves up and into the window, using our little meeting room on the weekends to work on our magic.

But that night was the first time we went to the ridge.

Valerie, Phina, and I all knew it was dangerous.

We’d grown up in Silverville and had heard the stories.

Drunk teenagers getting too close. Rocks tumbling down.

The cliffside eroded when people least expected it.

People take their own lives by jumping and landing on the sand below, the lake lapping along peacefully, completely unaware of the carnage of their landing.

Back then, I should have run faster than I did. I should have run away— full stop . But I didn’t. I was frozen, watching. Maybe I was under some sort of strange, twisted spell, the kind of social contract between young girls that’s so tight, it feels suffocating.

Maybe back then, I wasn’t as strong as I am now.

Or maybe this—Felix coming after me, seriously asking me to stay in Silverville—maybe this is setting off my fight-or-flight more than even a daemon fire could.

Halfway through the ballroom, I pause for a second to slip my heels from my feet and run even faster, the shoes dangling from my hands.

I race along the marble floors, my feet smacking loudly.

When I get out to the parking lot, I don’t even feel the bite of the small stones, the gravel, against the soft flesh of my soles.

And when I hit the edge of the forest, I do what comes naturally.

I shift, my wolf form rolling over me, caressing me like diving into warm water. It happens mid-stride, my feet leaving the ground with ten toes and returning as paws.

It feels damn good to shift, to let loose of the human emotions rolling through me.

As I race through the trees, it feels like I’m running from my thoughts. Logically, I know that I started running because of what Felix said to me. That he loves me. That he wants me to stay.

He’s never taken anything seriously in his entire life, but it seems like he wants to take this thing between us seriously now.

But I fell for him once, and it broke my heart.

All it got me was emotional turmoil, which eventually led to that day on the ridge, crying and watching one of my closest friends go up in blue-tipped daemon flames.

So I know that I’m running away because of Felix, but I tell myself I’m running because of something else.

Because when Felix leaned down close to me, hugging me, I realized why that smoky smell in his hair was so familiar to me.

It smelled exactly like Tara.

And there’s no reason he could smell like her if she’s dead. If that fire really burned her body down, reduced her to nothing but the fine, silver ash left behind after a daemon fire, her scent wouldn’t still be lingering.

Would it?

Could the fires still be carrying the scent of her, even if she’s not alive?

I have no idea how it works. Maybe I could talk to Felix about it, find out what he knows about the daemon fires, but I can’t even think about him without seeing that look on his face.

That expression, full of love. Reaching right to young Maeve inside me and squeezing away at her heart.

So I run into the woods, not sure what I’m looking for, not even sure I’m going to find something that makes sense.

And mostly running from him.

It’s always been fine for me to have a crush on him.

It was safe, in a way, because I was sure he would never like me back.

I’d never have to face the reality of being a fat girl with a tall, handsome man like that.

Never have to face the ridicule and listen to the harsh whispers following us everywhere we went.

Tara’s voice comes back to me, bringing back the sounds and smells of that bathroom. The stale water in the toilet bowl. The rush of nausea and self-hatred when I stuck that finger down my throat.

“You’re really going to hurt your body over some shithead boy?”

I went completely still, as if I didn’t move or make any noise, she might leave me alone. Like a scared bunny, freezing in the middle of the yard, hoping it would be enough to make the scary neighborhood dog go away.

“Hello?” she called, laughing a little, rapping on the door. “Maeve, come on. Come out of there. You don’t want to do this.”

I straightened up, my heart skipping in my chest. “You know my name?”

“Other people might treat you like crap, but not me,” Tara said from outside the door. “Yes, I know your name. Are you serious?”

When I pushed out and saw her, it was like meeting a pop star in real life. She was almost effervescent. An impossible kind of cool that I could never aspire to.

And she was plus-sized. Like me.

Her blue hair was choppy and short, like she’d cut it herself, leaving the layers in jagged edges down above her ears. Her eyes were bright, her cheeks flushed. She was like the picture of life.

“Come on,” she said, ushering me to the sink. Moving with a brusque precision, she grabbed a paper towel, wet it, and pressed it to my eyes, which were puffy from crying.

“What do you mean, over a shithead boy?” I asked, sucking in a shaking, sobbing breath when I looked up and met her eyes.

Her expression softened. “Come on, Maeve. I’ve heard people talking about it. It’s all over school.”

My sobs only deepened. Here was this girl I barely knew, feeling sorry for me because apparently everyone in the school knew that I liked Felix.

And he made it perfectly clear to the entire student body that it would be laughable for him to even think of liking me back.

Not only that, but it was like I could still feel his arms around me, his hand behind my head, tipping me back and driving me into the wall for that kiss.

“Alright,” Tara said, balling up the paper towels and throwing them in the garbage. Everything she did looked effortlessly cool. “Who do you have next period?”

“Reynolds,” I said, thinking about the government teacher who always looked at me with pitying eyes.

“Perfect,” Tara laughed, tugging me out of the bathroom, her boots kicking out as she walked like she was marching the two of us into battle. “So, you can skip.”

“What—I can? No, I can’t. That would be—”

“Come on, Maeve,” she laughed, throwing her arm over my shoulder like we were already best friends.

She was effortlessly affectionate with me in a way that I’d never seen from another fat kid. Usually, we were used to sitting in the corner, trying to make ourselves as small as possible. Assuming the other kids would cry or gag if we got near them.

Not Tara. She was bold, confident. Everything I wanted to be.

And there’s a chance she’s still alive.

Everything is confusing, and I still don’t have a real understanding of what happened that night. But if there’s a chance she’s alive, I have to try to find her. Have to try to help her.

Even if she has something to do with the fires around Silverville.

Tara was always only ever a confused kid, like the rest of us. As confident as she acted, I know she was just trying to fit in. Just trying to find herself in us.

Just trying to put together a group in which she could feel safe and wanted. A handful of girls doing magic together, letting out some of the steam of our individual pressures.

Everything with us ended horribly, but in a lot of ways, Tara was the best thing that ever happened to me. She showed me how to be confident in my own body. Showed me that magic could be mine , that I could use it to bend the world around me, make it a little more inhabitable for a girl like me.

So it doesn’t matter if I’m just trying to get away from Felix, or if I’m running toward Tara somewhere in the woods, following the scent of ash and smoke drifting vaguely on the wind.

I let that fall away and just focus on the feeling of my paws along the ground.