Soul Searcher by D.M. Richardson (novel24 .TXT) 📕

I had received three more notes in my locker. All three repeated the first word for word, and we still weren’t able to figure out who it was. It was driving me crazy.

“I’m done for today.” I said exhausted. We had been at it for three hours without a break and I was ready to just curl up and go to sleep.

I went back to Sara and Koner’s and went straight up to my room. I laid down intent on sleeping until dinner when my mind started straying to everything I had learned in the past week.

I was just contemplating the soul shredders when a thought stuck. I remembered listening to everyone gossip in school after I broke up with Chase. It seemed that he targeted all of the new girls. Sometimes getting three or four in one year. But I remembered what everyone said when he was done with them.

They all became hysterical or depressed, and never stayed in the school long afterward. I couldn’t get the thought out of my head long enough to drift off to sleep so I got up. I went down to Koner’s office and sat at his desk in front of the computer. He had told me before that I could use the internet when ever I wanted so long as he wasn’t in there.

I brought up google and racked my brain for the names of a few of the girls I had heard about. I remembered one of them and typed her name into the search engine. There were several crap titles that came up, but I finally found what I was looking for.

It turns out that not long after Chase broke up with her she became suicidal. She was now locked in an institution for her own safety. I looked up the second girl and she was the opposite. She had become uncontrollably violent towards everyone around her. She was also locked up in an institution.

I looked up four more girls and all of them had one or two results. Three of them were institutionalized and one of them committed suicide. I closed down the site and sat back taking several deep breaths to keep from hyper ventilating.

After I had calmed myself I bolted from the chair and grabbed my jacket as I ran out the front door. I sprinted across the street to Zeke’s and barged in without warning. Rob had told me not to worry about knocking anymore since I was there almost everyday anyway, but I still felt guilty about it. Zeke and Rob were in the kitchen eating lunch when I ran in to meet them. They both jumped in surprise, and I couldn’t see Vera around anywhere. She must have left for her hotel already.

“I think I know whose been leaving me the notes.” I said quickly.

“Who?”

“Chase, he’s the only one who could possibly know.”

“How?” Zeke asked speculatively.

“Because it’s the only way I could have known about him cheating on me. I was a complete recluse in my last school. I didn’t talk to anyone but him, literally, and he knew that. The only way I could’ve known about what he did was if I got it from him.”

“Okay that make sense.” Rob said.

“There’s more… I’m pretty sure he’s a soul shredder.” My statement was met with silence.

“What makes you think that?” Rob asked in confusion.

“I looked up all of his ex girlfriends. All of them are either in an insane asylum or they’re dead. They committed suicide. And I don’t mean a few I mean every last one of them that I could look up.” Rob stared at me and Zeke looked down at the floor in thought. Suddenly he disappeared out of the room. He came back a few minutes later with a laptop. He typed something in and I watched as his eyes skimmed the screen. He typed something in a few more times until finally he closed it.

“Sam is too. I never put it together before. I just thought all of the girls left out of humiliation, but not one of them are walking around on their own. And some of them are dead.”

“If Chase is then that means Megan is too. And all three of them have been hanging out a lot together. I would put money on Chase having told them about me. Hell they probably figured it out together.” Zeke nodded his agreement and I started to rub the back of my neck. It was hard to concentrate when I was around Zeke, because every time I was the pressure would build until I had a headache no amount of any kind of medication would cure.

Rob sat in contemplation, and Zeke stared at me for a couple minutes. Finally he took his glasses off and I half turned away towards the wall so I couldn’t accidentally make eye contact.

“If you need to look then look.” he said softly. I shook my head and jumped when Rob suddenly got up and walked out of the room. I heard as his study door closed behind him and sighed. Zeke walked over so he was standing in front of me. I looked down at our shoes, and he reached out to touch my chin. I jerked back, but it didn’t stop him. My entire body hummed and my head felt ready to explode.

He forced my head up, and my eyes widened as I realized just how close he was. I could feel the heat coming off of his body, and I closed my eyes. It was more to keep myself from leaning into him than avoiding his eyes, but it served the same purpose.

He took his hand from my chin only to slide it across my cheek and into my hair. I had taken it down to take a nap earlier and in a hurry never bothered to put it back up. He ran his hand down it’s length then started at the top again letting it slide through his fingers. No body had ever done that before and I felt myself slowly relaxing into his hand.

I felt his other hand settle on my hip and opened my eyes in surprise. I opened my eyes and looked directly into his. I only had enough time to realize his eyes were a deep emerald.

In the next second I was standing in his room and he sat with his mom while they played with legos. They were both smiling and happy.

Shift

He was sitting with his dad in his study as he read him a book. Both of them content.

Shift

Rob was teaching him about soul readers.

Shift

His mom was pushing him on a set of swings.

Shift

He was standing at her casket.

I felt his sadness as if it were my own and in that sadness I felt myself reach for him. And the next thing I know I’m looking though his eyes as he’s playing with his mom on the floor again. He looked up at her and I let myself get pulled into her.

She had a very active and happy life all the way up until she met Rob in college. They married the day after she graduated and he went on to med school. I watched as she gave birth to Zeke, and watched him grow. The love and devotion she felt for her family was almost overwhelming and brought me close to tears.

I pulled back from her and back to Zeke when she was close to her end. Instead of dying of an illness she perished in a car accident. When I was back in Zeke. I stayed in his point of view and managed to keep myself from being pulled into anyone else. A feat I had yet to manage until now.

I watched as his life went by and he learned to perfect his ability. Until we were sitting in a desk at school and I walked into the room. It was the first time he saw me. I was standing there talking to the teacher with my eyes on the floor. My clothes were lose giving no hint to my body type and I had dark circles under my eyes. I walked to my desk with my eyes on the floor but my back straight and my head as high as I could manage without looking up. I looked confident but tired.

I felt his spark of curiosity in me grow into a flame as he watched me throughout the day. His curiosity turned to true interest as I succeeded to ignore his existence throughout so many weeks. And then I felt his happiness when he finally got my lasting attention.

I watched as he went through the anger and frustration with me keeping him at arms length. Then I felt his guilt as he trapped me into revealing a bit of my lingering feelings of my childhood in our first fight. And his gut wrenching guilt for both forcing his way into my soul and then for making me so sick from it. He felt horror from what he saw and sympathy he knew better than to show.

But at the same time I finally understood why he felt he had to. He was angry and hurt and frustrated by my rejection, and even more confused why I would let him that close and push him away so hard.

It was like I was reliving the last week and half through him. Seeing it all as he saw it. I felt his immense sadness every time he looked at me and knew he would never get close to me again. He felt miserable every time I looked at him with nothing but coldness. And then his joy when he found out that I had wanted him as much as he wanted me. But he was back to intense sadness when I refused to interact with him.

As he watched me so closely his feelings went from curiosity to casual interest to romantic interest and then to something so intense he didn’t know how to handle it. Didn’t know what it was. It confused and irritated him because he couldn’t name it and he didn’t understand what it was. But I did. I had never felt it myself, but I had felt through so many other people I could name it instantly.

He was in love with me, and more disturbing was the fact that it took me feeling it through him to realize that I felt the same for him. I had been in so much denial over it that I had insisted to myself that I was just growing too attached to our friendship.

I blinked and was back in my own mind and body. His hand was gripping my hip and I had a hold on his wrist keeping his other hand against my cheek. He was gazing down at me and I saw the love in his eyes. I felt mine fill with tears though I wasn’t entirely sure what they meant.

“And now you know.” he said softly. He started to lean down and I saw the kiss coming. I had plenty of time to move away, but instead I closed the few inches between our bodies and pressed myself against him.

He groaned as his lips met mine, and I deepened it immediately. My self control was gone and I ran my hands up his chest relishing the feel of him. I had spent so long without touch. I didn’t touch anyone and I let no one touch me. I hadn’t realized how much I craved it.

I tolerated Chase’s touch, but I sought out Zeke’s. The kiss ended and I leaned back enough to look at him. I couldn’t get enough of his eyes. I felt like I could drown in them and die happy.

Zeke watched me with a look tinged in worry. He