I Have an Invisible Stalker (Guardians #1)

Chapter 4

Samuel's POV

I fold my arms in front of my chest and watch the mother stomp out of the house. She goes straight for her daughter, who is still standing at the edge of their driveway, waiting. And I know exactly who she's waiting for.

Me.

"I've had enough." The mother—Mina—grabs her daughter's upper arm and pulls her in the direction of their house. "You need to come back in. Or I'll lock the front door and force you to spend the night outside."

"Go right ahead." My charge—Olivia—tears her arm out of Mina's hold and turns back to the road. "He said he has another hour left, so it means he has to come back."

"Who?"

"Samuel," Olivia says.

I loosen my arms and glance at my left hand—the hand she touched. It doesn't make sense. She isn't supposed to be able to see me, let alone touch me.

There is but one explanation for the change and I'm sure it has something to do with the accident Olivia keeps mentioning. Something must have happened to her and in order for me to fix it, I need to find out what happened.

"Who is Samuel?" Mina asks. "Is he a classmate of yours? Or is he your imaginary boyfriend?"

I focus back on the open window in Olivia's bedroom I'm standing in front of, and lean against the wall.

"No," Olivia shakes her head and moves her injured foot for an inch to the side. "He's my stalker."

A cough erupts from my throat and I shake my head at my charge. After seventeen years I should be used to her thoughtless way of speaking, but right now I still can't believe she told her mother the truth. Or at least what she thinks is the truth.

"What stalker? We've already been through this. You don't have a stalker." Mina grabs Olivia's upper arm again and this time pulls harder on it. "What you have is a mother who will tie you to a chair if you don't put the weight off your ankle. You need to rest."

She's right. Since I reappeared in Olivia's bedroom, she has shifted her injured foot nine times already. She needs to put the weight off her foot.

"Fine." Olivia turns her crutches in the direction of the house. "But I'll rest beside the window in my room, so I can keep my eyes on the road."

"As long as you sit while doing that, you go right ahead. Maybe you'll even see a ghost fly by."

The moment they turn in the direction of the house I step away from the window. Mina might not be able to see me, but there is no more denying that Olivia can. I walk over to the single door of her square bedroom and lean against the wall next to the waist-high cupboard.

Two minutes later, Olivia swings the door open and hops into her room. Without turning, she closes the door with the crutch and then heads for her bed. But four steps in, she suddenly stops. Before I can take a single step forward, she spins around and points one of the crutches at me.

Again.

I glance from the crutch's tip to Olivia's white shirt and notice that she's wearing a dark bra underneath. I would consider it to be a deliberate tactic to distract me if I hadn't already seen her wear the same outfit on multiple occasions.

When I look back into her eyes, my hands tighten into fists. Never before has she looked straight at me, and right now she has done it for the third time today.

"How did you manage to break into our house?" She narrows her dark eyes while keeping the crutch raised between us.

I ignore the unusual weapon and focus on what matters right now. "Tell me what happened in that accident."