Read The Inner Circle, Book 3 of the Glass Wall ( A YA Urban Fantasy Romance ) for Free Online Page A

old
bloodhound still snoring where I’d left him. Fortunately, he woke
up at the first whiff of hot dog, and I was successful in luring
him into my room with a trail of tiny hot dog pieces which led all
the way to the foot of my bed.
    Devouring the last piece, Tigger happily
wagged his tail and sank down into the middle of the room, quite
content to stay and keep me company.
    “I love you, Tigger,” I whispered, snagging
my pillow and lying down on the floor next to him.
    He was soft and warm. And within minutes, his
paws were twitching and his mouth grinned. I knew he was dreaming,
but I didn’t think it was that cliché dog dream of running with his
tongue flapping in the wind. When he began to lick his lips I knew
for sure he was dreaming about a hot dog.
    I didn’t feel quite as safe as I did with
Ajax, but then, Tigger exuded a warm, fuzzy feeling that I didn’t
get from the Doberman. I wasn’t entirely confident the old
bloodhound could protect me from Mesmers, but I hoped the Mesmers
thought he could.
    I lay there listlessly on the floor, but my
mind refused to rest.
    I felt like I was being watched. But there
was nothing there ... that I could see.
    In the effort to relax, I forced my thoughts
to think of a bright future, one where everything worked out all
right. One in which the Mesmers were forced back into their
dimension, and humans on Earth realized they didn’t have to live
with so much fear. And one in which Rafael definitely was one of
the good guys.
    I tossed and turned for what seemed like
hours. But whenever I checked the time, about only twenty minutes
had passed.
    Still, I found the more I occupied myself
with that happy dream of the future, the less time I had to feel
afraid.
    Finally, the night passed in a fitful jumble
of thoughts and dreams. And when the morning light finally painted
the sky, I sat up, my back stiff from sleeping on the floor.
    Tigger was still cuddled up next to me, his
paws still twitching contentedly.
    Lifting one of his long, droopy ears, I
whispered, “Thank you.”
    And then I got up and dragged myself to look
into the mirror.
    “So, this is what an insane person looks
like, Sydney,” I said, eyeing the big, purple rings under my
eyes.
    It didn’t take me long to get ready for work.
Pulling on my scuffed tennis shoes and a gray hoodie, I went to the
kitchen for a piece of toast.
    The kitchen was quiet. Everyone else was
sleeping in. The open doorway leading to the garage was
crisscrossed with Al’s ‘Crime Scene’ tape.
    It leant such an eerie atmosphere to the room
that I gave up the toast idea and ducked outside to wait for
Ellison on the porch.
    A quick peek across the street revealed no
sign of Rafael nor of the garden troll that had turned into the man
with the black top hat.
    I stayed where I was, wondering if Rafael had
ever gotten my message. Or if he even cared.
    But I refused to think too much about it.
    My first order of business was to figure out
how to protect everyone from Mesmer mind control. Running back into
the house, I grabbed my notebook and rolled it into my sweatshirt
pocket.
    I was going to do some more research on my
lunch break.
    I heard Ellison’s Volkswagen long before I
saw it. And when I did see it, it was sliding all over the road.
Apparently, the slushy snow from the day before had hardened into
ice.
    As he neared the driveway, Mrs. Patton
appeared at the door of her big pink Victorian house and waved,
calling out a ‘Good Morning’ in her raspy smoker’s voice.
    I waved back, eyeing her
lawn-ornament-stuffed yard in consternation. I’d come to think of
it as a Mesmer playground. She watched me get into Ellison’s car
through glasses that made her eyes appear twice as big as they
actually were.
    “Top o’ the morning to ye,” Ellison greeted
me with a grin as I slid into the front seat. “Buckle up, it’s
gonna be a rough slide.”
    “Slide?” I laughed.
    It was a slide. Ellison’s car was more
of an oversized