Free Hidden (Hidden Series Book One) by M. Lathan

heavier with every step I took
towards the bed. I wished my parents had left a note or something
to explain it all. I wished they’d told me not to worry when the
magic came, that Satan had nothing to do with any of it. And Sophia
had been watching me. She’d taken helpless creatures in for years.
She let me rot there. I wasn’t as important as Emma who she’d saved
several times.
    I felt myself shattering as I crawled into
bed. It felt like I was crawling into my grave.
    A bark startled me just before my head hit
the pillow. It, well he, barked again, then scratched at my door. I
managed to lift my heavy body from the bed and pull it to the door
to answer him.
    He had the same green eyes as he had as a
person, just surrounded by snowy fur. He dropped the newspaper from
his mouth at my feet.
    “I saw it already,” I said. He nudged the
paper closer with his nose. I kneeled and unrolled it. He’d written
on my face when he had hands, I guessed.
    Play with me , it said. “You … want to
play?” He barked. It felt like a yes. “Fetch?” He answered with a
wagging tail. Yes, again.
    I rolled up the newspaper and flung it a few
feet to the right. He scurried after it and ran out of the room,
ending the shortest game of fetch ever. So I’d thought. He ran back
and growled, playful unlike the panther, and took off again. I
guessed he wanted me to follow him.
    Since the only alternative was crawling back
into my grave, I followed him through the dark house. He barked at
a door in the kitchen.
    “Outside? At night?” He jumped up on the
door and tried the knob with his mouth, covering it with slob. It
was locked. He whined, a cute disappointed sound, and I opened the
door for him.
    He sprinted out into the yard. I could
barely make out the gate enclosing us in the distance. Nathan
circled my legs, a huge splash of white in the grass. He dropped
the newspaper at my feet. This time, I heaved it as far as I could,
with all of the energy I had.
    Somewhere between him charging after it and
lowering my arm, I noticed it was the most energy I’d ever expelled
on anything. How pathetic.
    I threw it higher the second time. He jetted
after it, flying through the sticky air, his paws barely touching
the grass. He nudged my leg when he returned, first the right, then
the left, then the right again.
    “What?” I asked. He crouched, his tail in
the air, like he was about to charge at me. “Run?” I asked.
    He barked and I did. It was a wimpy jog at
first, and he was right at my heels. Then I caught a glimpse of the
stars above us, hovering over the home I should be grateful to stay
in, twinkling in a night I should be grateful to be alive in. My
legs moved faster, propelling me through the wet air and wet grass.
My heart pumped violently for the first time without being afraid
or livid.
    His bark coached me on until I was no longer
running from him. I was running to feel my heart pound. Running to
feel my legs and arms move with a fervor I didn’t think I could
have.
    Running because I’d feared death for years
for no reason at all, waiting for someone to pluck me from my
hiding spot. Waiting to burn. And I would have thought I deserved
it. I’d sat in Mass truly believing I could combust, more than
convinced that the God I prayed to hated me. Witches weren’t
soulless and incapable of happiness. My mind was just buried in a
dark and hopeless place.
    When the tears wanted to come up, I let them
without straining. I kept running, because running felt like the
opposite of dying – what I’d been doing for years. Nathan finally
caught me, and I hurled the newspaper in the air and took off after
him. We continued our game of fetch and chase until I didn’t want
to cry anymore. Until all I wanted to do was play with the friendly
dog that barked at my door.
    When exhaustion hit, I collapsed on the
grass to catch my breath. He stretched out next to me.
    “Do you like to be petted … like a real
dog?” I asked. He rolled over