Light Through the Window Read online

  Like Through the Windows

  Copyright 2020 Cassandra Morphy

  Published by Cassandra Morphy at Smashwords

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One - Moving Day

  Chapter Two - The Roommate

  Chapter Three - Dinner

  Chapter Four - The Girlfriend

  Chapter Five - Physics Class

  Chapter Six - Not Just Her Imagination

  Chapter Seven - The Study Group

  Chapter Eight - Hiding Out at Home

  Chapter Nine - Close Encounters of an Alex Kind

  Chapter Ten - Early Return

  Chapter Eleven - Cornered

  Chapter Twelve - A Tentative Peace

  Chapter Thirteen - Dead Parents' Society

  Chapter Fourteen - Panic Attack

  Chapter Fifteen - Research

  Chapter Sixteen - Light Breaks, They Enter

  Chapter Seventeen - Hunted

  Chapter Eighteen - This Land is Guarded

  Chapter Nineteen - Collateral Consequences

  Chapter Twenty - Safe in the Bushes

  Chapter Twenty-One - Stress

  Chapter Twenty-Two - A Quiet Sunday

  Chapter Twenty-Three - Testing the Waters

  Chapter Twenty-Four - Vern's Follow-up and Follow-through

  Chapter Twenty-Five - Conspiring Against the Conspiracy

  Chapter Twenty-Six - Scouting

  Chapter Twenty-Seven - Remember Sami

  Chapter Twenty-Eight - The Source of Sam

  Chapter Twenty-Nine - Weekend Road Trip

  Chapter Thirty - Getting There

  Chapter Thirty-One - More Crime

  Chapter Thirty-Two - The Hotel

  Chapter Thirty-Three - The Welcoming Party

  Chapter Thirty-Four - What They Are

  Chapter Thirty-Five - The Second Test

  Chapter Thirty-Six - Vern's Victory

  Chapter Thirty-Seven - The Girlfriend's Birthday

  Chapter Thirty-Eight - The Launch

  Chapter Thirty-Nine - The Out of Control Revelry

  Chapter Forty - That's No Party, That's a Mob

  Chapter Forty-One - That's No Mob, That's an Invasion

  Chapter Forty-Two - Rooftop Conversion

  Chapter Forty-Three - Kidnapped Alien

  Chapter Forty-Four - I Am Not

  Chapter Forty-Five - Betrayal

  Chapter Forty-Six - A Hero Falls

  Chapter Forty-Seven - Overprotective Daughter

  Chapter Forty-Eight - Mother of Ellie

  Chapter Forty-Nine - The Faults of George

  Chapter Fifty - Stubborn Father

  Chapter Fifty-One - The Hospital

  Chapter Fifty-Two - The Girlfriend's Father

  Chapter Fifty-Three - The I of the Storm

  Chapter Fifty-Four - Good Enough?

  Chapter Fifty-Five - Not Kidnapped

  Chapter Fifty-Six - Odd Rescue

  Chapter Fifty-Seven - Cornered

  Chapter Fifty-Eight - The Reveal

  Chapter Fifty-Nine - The Light at the End of The Tunnel

  Chapter Sixty - Where Do We Go from Here

  About Cassandra Morphy

  Other books by Cassandra Morphy

  Connect with Cassandra Morphy

  Chapter One

  Moving Day

  "Hey, Ellie. It's time to wake up. You'll be late for school."

  Ellie laughed at that, at the simplicity, the familiarity of the call of her father from downstairs. Of course, there really was no danger of her being late for school, seeing as how classes didn't start until the next day. There was plenty of time for her to move into her dorm room and get everything set up. Then again, she had been up for an hour already, just sitting on the seat by the window. Her hand played through the light streaming in through the window, feeling the familiar warmth of it.

  She hadn't been sleeping much during the summer vacation, still not used to her old bed. After two years at boarding school, she was back home. Back in her old room, looking out her old window at her old backyard. And, yet, she was feeling homesick of all things. She missed the school, missed her friends, and, mostly, missed her girlfriend Mare. It had been an interesting and exciting two years. But it was time for her to move on to bigger and better things.

  "Ellie?" her father called up to her again.

  "I'm up," she called back. "I'm up."

  "Well... alright. Are you all packed?"

  Again, she laughed. There were three suitcases stacked in the corner of the room. She had been back for three months, for all of summer, but she had never bothered to unpack anything. Instead of using the old dresser and closet for her clothes, she had just tossed them back into the suitcases. As she looked over at them, she still wasn't sure why that was. She didn't know why she had never settled back into her old room. Her old routine.

  It was probably because she knew that day was coming, and coming soon. The day that she would move into her dorm room. But, even as the thought came to her, she knew there was a very different reason why she had never unpacked. A reason that had more to do with the very real fear that she would need to be on the run once more.

  "Yea," she said, though too quietly for her father to hear her. "I'm packed."

  She looked back out of the window again for a moment, taking what could have been her last look out into her backyard, before getting up from the bench in her bay window. It took her only a few seconds to strap the three suitcases together again, so that she could roll them out as one unit. Once they were settled, she scooped up her tablet from the desk, tucking it in her otherwise empty backpack before tossing that on her shoulder.

  It wasn't her main backpack, the one that she had been using during her time at boarding school. Ellie had promised herself that she wouldn't use that one again. She left it, along with the tools and equipment she had been issued, at the bottom of her closet. She would have left it at the school, but they had insisted that she brought it home with her. Mare had insisted, fearing she would need it. All Ellie wanted, though, was to go back to her normal life. The one she had before everything happened. The one that she should have had, would have had if it weren't for the demons.

  The suitcases bounced heavily against the steps, one by one, as she pulled them downstairs. Her father was standing by the door, in his usual professor's garb, wincing at each bang as if the entire staircase was going to fall apart and bring the rest of the house with it. Ellie knew that the house was old, but she doubted it was so old as to not be able to stand up to something so simple.

  "Are you ready?" her dad asked, once she was down. "I have a department meeting in a couple of hours that I'll need to be at."

  "I could have driven myself, you know," Ellie said. "I'm just going to have to come back for the Leaf anyway."

  "Nonsense. There was no way I was going to miss you moving into your dorm. It's a rite of passage, seeing your kids off to college and all of that."

  "But you're not seeing me off anywhere. Not really. I'm just going to U of C. Heck, I could have lived at home and just commuted to school if I had wanted to."

  A flash of fear played out across her father's face, his eyes glancing around the room. The old table that had been near the door, the old antique that had b
een in the family for generations, had been moved to storage at some point during the two years since she had been gone. It was the only remaining witness to her being grabbed by the kidnappers, to them putting a bag over her head before throwing her in the trunk of a car. Neither of them had said a word about the replacement, or the incident itself, despite it still being fresh in both of their minds.

  "Besides," Ellie said, after shaking off the haunting memory. "It's not like they can start a department meeting without the department head."

  "Right," her father said.

  He gave her a small smile. The promotion was new, barely a year old, and neither of them had missed the timing of it. The university had been doing everything in their power to try to make up for him being kidnapped from their campus.

  "Still, we should be going," he said. "They're having a bunch of activities for the incoming class today. You're not going to want to miss that. And you get to meet your new roommate. Won't that be nice? I'm sure the both of you will be fast friends."

  "I have friends, Dad," she said, half whining. "Besides, isn't it a bit cliché to be friends with your roommate in college? What if she's a complete bitch?"

  "Ellie," Dave said. "There's no need for that language."

  "Hey, you know me. I call 'em like I see 'em. Come on. Like you said, we'll be late."

  Ellie couldn't help but smile at that thought, being late for a day with no real schedule to it. She knew she wouldn't be going to any activities, even without looking at a schedule of them. All she wanted to do was move into the room and get settled. Perhaps then she would be able to shake the disturbing feeling she had had ever since she had gotten back. She had wanted to just write it off, figuring it was the fact that she hadn't been to her house since the kidnapping. But, as the summer dragged on and it only deepened, she knew that there was something else on the horizon. She just didn't know what it was, or how bad it would get.

  "Oh, what happened to my sweet little girl? What did they do to you at the horrid school of theirs?"

  "It wasn't all that bad. Besides, I had to grow up eventually. They just made the transition... more meaningful, I guess."

  "Uh, huh. Come on. We'll get you all moved in, then I'll go to my meeting. Are we still having dinner tonight?"

  "Of course," Ellie said. She didn't like that he sounded so unsure. Of her. Of them. Of the family still being what they had always been, despite the years of distance. "I wouldn't miss it for the world. Besides, you are so driving me back here so I can pick up my Leaf."

  "I hate to break it to you honey, but there aren't many places to charge it up at the school. It might just be easier to leave it here."

  "Oh, nonsense. I can drive it back here on the weekends to charge it. That way, I can get my laundry done for free while I’m at it."

  Her father chuckled at that thought. Yet, he seemed much more relieved. It was like the added reasons were enough to reassure him when her simply wanting to spend time with her father didn't seem enough. Dave grabbed the handle to her suitcase group, all but pulling them from her hand, as he led the way towards the door.

  "There's also plenty of free food here as well. Come as often as you..."

  Dave had opened the door, his eyes locked on the table that had replaced the antique. It seemed as much a reminder to him of those events as the original had been. As the two of them headed towards Dave's car, Ellie wondered if it was too late to get the old one back. She promised herself to look into it, when she had a chance. Perhaps she could gift it to him for his birthday next year. While she wasn't sure just where it had ended up, she had learned plenty of skills over those past couple of years to make a decent try of it.

  Chapter Two

  The Roommate

  Ellie was hiding. From the world. From the overly happy and helpful upperclassmen that welcomed her to the school. From her father who had offered to cancel the department meeting to help her find her way around the campus. She had been to the campus before, plenty of times. Most of those had been to visit her father, or to spend time in the daycare back when they had first lost her mother. Once, it had been to investigate his disappearance, a fact that neither of them had mentioned. She already knew the campus like the back of her hand. She didn't need to be chaperoned by her father, or to join in on the several school tours that were running that day. She certainly didn't need to go see all the "amazing" clubs, as her father had put it, that were recruiting in the quad. And, seeing as how that turned out to be the limit on the activities of the day, she had no interest in any of it. She had already known she wouldn't.

  So, she was hiding in her room. What made it that much easier to do was the fact that her roommate still hadn't arrived yet. There were name tags on each of the doors. From the one on hers, she knew her roommate's name was Rebecca. Other than that, she didn't know anything about the girl. She was just glad that her own tag had said Ellie instead of Elenora, as she had never been overly fond of that name to begin with. However, the fact that it was the only shortened name on any of the doors she had passed was not lost on her. She knew that her father had a hand in that. It was a subtle reminder, intentional or not, that he would always be around if she needed him.

  Ellie glanced at the half-mangled alarm clock on her dresser. The clock had belonged to her girlfriend and had often been beaten and battered when the alarm went off too early for her tastes. It had been a graduation present, something to help her remember Mare while they were apart. It was also a subtle reminder that Mare was very cheap. Ellie smiled at that thought as the clock ticked to 3:00 PM, the time that her father's meeting was scheduled to be over.

  The door let off two beeps and a click, easily heard in the otherwise quiet of the room. Ellie gave a deep sigh of annoyance, figuring her father had not only ended the meeting early, but had somehow managed to get a key to her room. However, neither of the two people that came in the room were her father. The first one through the door was a girl, only slightly taller than Ellie's demure height. This made the giant that followed her in seem that much taller. He was one of those people who had to duck when they entered a room. The huge trench coat he was wearing seemed to only accent the fact.

  "Oh," the girl said, coming up short when she saw Ellie lying on her bed. "I'm sorry. I kind of figured I was the first to arrive. Are you always this quiet?"

  "Um, what?" Ellie asked, still a bit surprised by their arrival.

  "I'm Becky," the girl said, not slowed in the least by her confusion. "Despite what the door might tell you. You're Ellie?"

  "Yes, I--" Ellie started.

  "Roommates," Becky gushed. She dropped her bag right next to the empty bed across from Ellie, only to turn back towards her and wrap her up in a huge hug.

  Ellie bristled at the movement. Before the incident with her father, Ellie would have been more receptive to the affection from the strange girl that seemed destined to be her roommate, for at least the first few weeks of school. However, as the hug lasted much longer than she would have liked, Ellie was just thinking of how best to offload the girl as quickly as possible without hurting her feelings.

  When she had finally broken the hug, she turned to the man in the trench coat. "Well, don't just stand there. Put that stuff on my bed."

  "Are you sure?" the giant asked. His voice wasn't nearly as deep and menacing as Ellie had been expecting. Instead, it was a tight, soft tenner. "Don't you want help unpacking?"

  "Hero, don't worry about that. There's so much more excitement to be had outside. Didn't you see all the stuff going on out there?" Becky looked between Ellie and Hero, making it clear that she was asking both of them. It was obvious that she was wondering just why it was that Ellie had been hiding out in their room. Ellie wasn't interested in discussing that, though, and decided to change the subject instead.

  "You call your dad Hero?" she asked, having noticed the reference. "Is he some big war hero or something?"

  "Well, sort of, I guess," Becky said. "But, he's not my dad. Well, he's
probably the closest thing I have to one, I guess. My real dad is kind of a deadbeat. He wasn't the least bit interested in helping his eldest kid off to college. Hero, on the other hand, had nothing better to do."

  "I had nothing better to do because there was nothing better in the world than seeing your charge off to higher learning," Hero said. He smiled with a level of pride Ellie had often seen in her own father.

  "What about you? Did your parents leave already?"

  "Worse. My dad went to a faculty meeting. He'll be back soon enough." Ellie rolled her eyes at the embarrassment of having a parent on staff. She knew it would only get worse as the school year went on and more of her classmates knew of the association.

  "That's cool," Becky said, sounding sincere. "What about your mom?"

  "Oh, uh..." Ellie dithered. Her mom was a sore subject, so much more so since she found out that her mother's death wasn't as cut and dry as she had thought it was.

  "Oh, yea. Mine, too," Becky said, without needing any further hints. "A while ago."

  "Eight years isn't so long ago," Hero said.

  “It’s more than half the years I can remember, so it’s pretty long,” Becky said. “I mean, yes, compared to your years, it’s probably the blink of an eye.”

  “I don’t think you really get over it completely, no matter how much time has passed,” Ellie said. “My mom died over thirteen years ago, and I still miss her, more often than I can remember her properly, even.”

  "So, before the invasion then?" Becky asked, seeming almost relieved. The demonic invasion happened so long ago that people had long since grown accustomed to their presence. However, every once in a while, Ellie was reminded that there was such a time as before it. The invasion had been such a momentous occurrence that the world wasn't quite the same after it as before. She barely remembered anything from before the demons came to Earth, and most of those memories were around her mother.

  "I'm sure there are plenty of people here that have lost their parents, and an unbalanced amount of those were to the demons," Hero said. His voice sounded bitter, like he had something personal against the demons, though none of them seemed interested in breaching the subject.