EdrickWith an exasperated sigh, I picked up my phone to call my chief security officer.“Afternoon, Mr. Morgan,” he said when he answered. “Everything alright?”“Yes,” I replied. “But I need a favor. Do you have any female bodyguards you could send over for an interview?”The chief security officer paused for a moment, thinking. “I do,” he replied. “I can send them over tomorrow. Is there anything you need them for specifically?”I sighed again, thinking back on the incident with Moana and the male bodyguard that I had assigned to her. She clearly felt uncomfortable with him, and it was obvious that the other teachers and students were uncomfortable as well. All I wanted was for Moana to be protected, but it wasn’t going to help any if she kept pushing away the bodyguards.“I need someone who can work closely with my… fiancee,” I replied, still feeling strange about referring to Moana as that. Even though we had marked each other and had become a lot more affectionate since it had ha
MoanaThe first day that my colleagues and students got wind of the bodyguard situation was already bad enough. By the second day, people were really beginning to pick up on the fact that a strange, intimidating man was sitting outside of the school and watching me with binoculars. Combined with the fact that everyone seemed to think that I was bad luck as a late bloomer, I quickly became even more of an outcast amongst the other teachers and even some of the older students. What I was most worried about, though, was that this would somehow reflect on Ella. I could handle people looking negatively upon me, but if they began to look negatively upon Ella because of me, then I couldn’t live with it.When I went home on the second day, I decided that I had had enough. Yes, some horrible things had happened; but this whole bodyguard situation wasn’t working out, and I couldn’t risk it ruining both mine and Ella’s reputations in an environment where our reputations were already fairly shaky
EdrickMoana really could be far too stubborn for her own good sometimes.At first, I thought that we were coming to an understanding; she seemed to be on the same page as me when we discussed the dangers of not having security to keep an eye on her. When I told her that she would need to have a bodyguard in her classroom in case anything happened, however, her reaction was full of unnecessary anger. Of course I expected her to be upset, but I thought that she at least understood the reasons behind why it was so important. There was a possibility that she could shift unexpectedly while she was teaching and cause mayhem. There was also a possibility that if my father or anyone else who wanted the Golden Wolf dead found out that she was the Golden Wolf, someone could come and try to hurt her. Nowhere was safe, and it didn’t matter if she was teaching in the middle of the day in broad daylight. If someone wanted her dead, it would be too easy to get the job done unless she had someone b
Moana“I’m sorry,” Edrick whispered, his eyes wide as he took in my appearance. “I didn’t mean it.”His face showed nothing but sincerity. I was hurt by what he had said, but I couldn’t stay mad at him. Without a word, I held my arms out for him.Edrick looked at me for a moment with shock on his face before he slowly walked toward me. He walked right into my arms, and his scent overwhelmed me. That sweet, tantalizing scent that made a shiver run down my spine.Outside, the sky had darkened and it had begun to rain. The sound of the rain hitting my windows filled the silence around us, and the darkness made me want to feel more of Edrick’s warmth.I looked up at him then. He was watching me intently as he held me, his steely gray eyes searching my face with sincerity and pure emotion. In the dark light of the thunder storm outside, I thought that he looked so handsome. His gray eyes were ever so slightly glowing that same silver color as before, and I felt a slight smile spread across
Moana“The police are downstairs,” the old housekeeper said, sounding both confused and concerned, and a little sheepish as she surely knew what she had just walked into. “They want to speak to you.”Edrick and I suddenly looked at each other in shock. “I’ll go,” he said, grabbing his shirt off of the floor and putting it on. “You can stay here, Moana.”But Selina shook her head and pointed at me. “They want to talk to her. They asked specifically for Moana.”As Selina spoke, my eyes suddenly widened. Surely the police wanted to talk to me about Ethan and Kelly, but why now? They really came in the pouring rain? Couldn’t they have called first? Edrick, who seemed to be thinking the same thing, narrowed his eyes. “Well, it’s not a good time,” he said. “Why didn’t they call first instead of just showing up?”The old housekeeper shrugged. “I don’t know. But they asked specifically for Moana.”Edrick looked at me again and opened his mouth to speak, but I shook my head and grabbed my swe
MoanaWhen we arrived at the police station, Edrick helped me out of the cop car and held me closely as we walked inside. Once we were inside, I immediately noticed that the other people who were there suddenly got very quiet and started giving Edrick and I strange looks. I tried to ignore it, but it was hard to do that when I had spent the last two days at work being whispered about. Only this time, I didn’t know whether they were whispering about my “unluckiness” as a late bloomer or whether they were whispering about the warehouse incident.Either way, I felt myself getting somewhat sick as the officer led us down a narrow and fluorescent-lit hallway to the interrogation room.We stopped outside the door and he opened it, letting me in. It was a small room with a metal table in the center, a couple of chairs, and a fluorescent light on the ceiling. I could see a camera in the corner of the ceiling and a “mirror”, which I was certain was a one-way mirror. I instantly felt even more
EdrickI watched the police officer take Moana into the interrogation room and shut the door in my face before I could even really protest.“She’ll be fine,” I whispered to myself. But did I really believe that?What happened to Moana and Ella was extremely traumatic. At least Ella didn’t have to remember what happened at her young age, but Moana… She would never forget it. I had already seen the way that it was affecting her since it happened. During normal conversations, she would go elsewhere. Whenever the events in the warehouse were brought up, her face would darken and her eyes would gloss over, like she was reliving it. I tried to help snap her out of it whenever I noticed it happening, but I was worried that she would freak out in there and I wouldn’t be around to help her. I highly doubted that the police officer would know what to do, or if he would even care. To them, Moana was just a piece of evidence to collect before Ethan could be convicted. That was it.For a long time
MoanaOne moment, I was in the interrogation room with the police officer sitting across from me.“Ms. Fowler?” he asked, standing from his seat with a worried look on his face. “Are you alright?”My eyes were wide and my hands were shaking. I was standing with my back against the wall, feeling as though I couldn’t get a full breath into my lungs. The room felt as though it was closing in on me, and I felt trapped inside like an animal caught in a net.And then, suddenly, I felt my knees buckle under me. I fell to the ground, and then everything went dark with only Edrick being the very last thing on my mind.…When I woke up, I was in a dark room. In fact, it was pitch black… But when I held my hands up in front of my face, I found that I could see my own hands perfectly. The room itself was black, like a void.“Hello?” I called out. My voice felt thick and heavy. There was no echo, and no response.I called out again. This time, after a few minutes of waiting, there was finally an a