The Glass Wall (Return of the Ancients Book 1)
“Just pretend to wax while you gather intel,” he said in a conspiratorial tone. “Take note of who comes in and out and let me know if anyone new shows up. We might be dealing with drugs here.”
    Drugs? I stared at him. Intel? I’d just meant I’d wax the truck.
    He nodded. “You’ll be safe. They won’t dare do anything in this neighborhood, not with the crime watch program that I run. And besides, you have Tigger here as protection.”
    I looked around, confused.
    He pointed.
    Tigger, it turned out, was a red - brindled bloodhound snoozing with his head under the rear truck wheel. It wasn’t an encouraging sign of his intelligence.
    “Yeah,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound as sarcastic as I felt.
    “Wear this,” he said, dropping his hat on my head. “They won’t be able to see your eyes that way. They’ll never know you’re watching.” And with that he scurried into the house, a spring in his step.
    I shook my head, wondering a little about these people, but decided it didn’t matter. It was my last year of school and my last year of foster care.
    It was also my last yo-yo year with Maya.
    There are tons of horror stories of the foster care system, but I’d never experienced one. The families that had hosted me over the years were guilty of only one crime: they were boring. Even those who had discovered my shoplifting habit had just reacted with speeches, made me go to counseling, or signed me up for community service. Nope, I’d never been abused or even yelled at.
    I sighed.
    It was all ending and soon I’d no longer be an actor in Maya’s Drama of Life.
    She had played the same tragedy for years.
    Act One: My mother and her boyfriend du jour would fight, he’d leave, she’d turn to alcohol to numb the pain, enter rehab, and I’d be escorted to a new foster care family.
    Act Two: After rehab, Maya would fight to get me back, succeed, and then we would have a few good months after moving to a different state for a fresh start.
    Act Three: She’d look in the mirror, convince herself she was getting old and find another man, any man. Voila! It was time for Act One all over again.
    I tried hard to convince Maya that she didn’t need a man to make herself ‘complete’ (I’ve watched more than my share of Oprah), but she didn’t believe me.
    She insisted I couldn’t understand because I’d never been in love.
    I don’t believe she ever had either, because I don’t think love is sitting your kid in front of the TV while you try to change yourself into whatever the man sitting at the kitchen table wants you to be.
    Over the years, I’d witnessed Maya transform herself into many things: a blonde motorcycle chick, a headbanging black-haired Goth, an eco-friendly-no-makeup-allowed hippie, and even a UFO cult fanatic.
    I liked the motorcycle chick phase the most. I loved riding the bikes, hanging on for dear life, with the wind whipping through my hair. I never wore a helmet and she didn’t care as long as the cops didn’t see.
    A loud snarl jolted me from my thoughts, and I found myself face to face with a Doberman. It was as if he’d jumped straight out of a scary movie with his long pointed ears, a bobbed tail, and lips drawn back in a sneer that revealed rows of perfectly white—and very sharp—teeth.
    I froze.
    He growled.
    “Ajax!”
    The Doberman shut his mouth and began to wag his two-inch stub of a tail as if he’d been trying to befriend me the entire time.
    “Sorry about that,” the blond stranger apologized as he entered my field of vision. “He really is very friendly.”
    The new neighbor was even more devilishly handsome up close.
    He was younger than I’d thought, probably in his early twenties. Tall and slender, he moved with an easy grace and a commanding air of self-confidence. He wore expensive clothes that made him look like a model or even a movie star. He removed his sunglasses, revealing gray eyes rimmed with a heavy dose of black eyeliner. Somehow, it looked

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