Read Anastasia (The Bolton Series Book 1) for Free Online Page B

I heard Simon moving the dresser and then walk away.
    I stretched my limbs out and walked over to the door on the opposite side of the room. It opened without any noise revealing a bathroom.
    I quickly used the facilities and sat back on the cot. My hands twisted the hem of my shirt while my brain repeated the binding spell. No noise came from above, not a voice or footsteps. The quietness of everything made me more on edge.
    Where did my family go?
    With every minute that passed by the more I wished my brother would burst through the door with a smile plastered on his face telling me that everything was over. That mom and dad are waiting for me upstairs and we have nothing to worry about anymore, but it never happened. No matter how long I waited just sitting on that cot Simon never came back for me.
    Hours later, my body ached from sitting down for so long that I just could not sit anymore. Instead, I stretched my muscles out in the open area in front of the staircase. I did the excises from a yoga class my mom and I had taken on earth. As my muscles stretched, I felt calmness overtake my body. I forced my mind to forget what might be happening upstairs and breathed in deeply. That is when I heard it, the sound of heavy footsteps approaching the bedroom. The person walked around the whole room before he stopped in the area above me.
    “Anastasia,” my mother’s muffled voice drifted down to where I stood. “Sweetie you can come out now.”
    My heart soared at the sound of her voice. They were okay. I started running up the steps before I remembered Simon’s words to me. Do not open the door. Whoever needs to get you will have a key.
    It’s not as if I could open the door anyways, I did not have a key and Simon had locked it and on top of that there was a dresser heavier than me on it. Therefore, I waited on the third step for mom to move the dresser aside and open the basement door. But wouldn’t she know I couldn’t open the door? I know she would have, so why was she telling me to come out?
    “Did you find her?” A sinister voice growled at my mom.
    “No,” mom replied. “We will have to question the boy.”
    “He won’t give her up.” I could barely hear the man’s voice through the floor as he walked farther away from the stairs.
    “I guess we will have to persuade him.” She drew out the word persuade which made it seem like they were not going to be nice about it. The longer my mom talked the more her voice changed. It took on a deeper tone, it almost seemed like a third person was in the room.
    “Make sure she is not in here before we leave. I have already checked the other rooms.” The man stormed out of the room, his heavy footsteps echoing down the hallway. I could hear someone throwing things around.
    It had to be my mom, but it could not be because she would have known where I was. Unless she was keeping me safe from the people who attacked our little home. But why would she bring up Simon and the possibility of torturing him?
    Mom would never do something like that. She could never hurt her own family. It was in her nature, not only as a mother but also as a Strega, to protect her loved ones. There was only one possibility that went through my head. The person upstairs was not my mom but was a Trow. It was the only explanation for everything. However, the thought of that thing drinking my mother’s blood made my skin crawl.
    “She’s not here,” the thing called out to the man in the other room. “They must have taken her before we got here.”
    Footsteps made their way back to my parent’s bedroom. “He is not going to like this.”
    “I know,” the trow’s voice grew frightened. This, He, figure must be a scary person.
    “Let’s go. I don’t want them to come back and find us here.”
    Their footsteps went out the room and down the hallway before their sound disappeared. I stood frozen on the third step as my mind tried to process everything.
    My mom was most likely dead and