Hunted Page 14

  The old man walked over to me and ran his fingers over my clothes, shaking his head at the way that they hung from my body now. They'd shrunk down somewhat as my body had diminished in size, but not completely, and I knew I looked like a little girl playing dress-up in her mother's clothes.

  "We really must do something about these."

  The pressure built so suddenly that I never even had a chance to fight back. One second I was wearing clothes and then in the next, the outer layer of my clothes had disappeared. I reacted out of instinct, covering the underwear he'd just revealed, and only then realized my mistake.

  I'd dressed myself in my cheerleading uniform.

  I tried to recover from my mistake, tried to change into a featureless black jumpsuit, but he was obviously prepared for that because my clothing darkened only slightly before snapping back to the blue-on-white cheerleading shell and skirt that I'd owned for less than a month.

  I looked down at myself as he forced the branches to rearrange themselves to better display the school name and mascot. I'd managed to blur them slightly, but I was pretty sure that I hadn't managed to hide enough of the detail.

  He came even closer, touching my uniform and then looking up at me and smiling. "I thought as much. Your accent is a dead giveaway, you know."

  My hands were free so I did the only other thing I could think of. I punched him in the throat. It wasn't a great punch, but he'd leaned down to look at the lettering across my chest so my hand didn't have to travel very far, and I put everything I had into the blow.

  He grabbed his throat as he collapsed to the ground. I envisioned the tree disappearing and my legs coming free of the ground, but when I tried to push my version of reality into the dream I met with resistance so strong it might as well have been real iron.

  Even choking and gagging like he was right now, his will was just too strong for me to affect his reality. In that instant I realized that I'd run out of options. I was going to die here and nobody would know why my heart had just stopped beating partway through the night.

  As the old man pulled himself back up to his hands and knees, still gasping for air, a host of regrets washed through me with shocking force. The startling thing wasn't that I had more regrets than I'd anticipated, it was how different some of them were compared to what I'd been expecting.

  I was sorry that I hadn't worked harder to bury the hatchet with Cindi years ago. I wished that I'd realized just how bad things were between my parents and tried to do something there instead of being so self-involved all of the time.

  Those were the more or less predictable regrets, but I also regretted the fact that I'd never applied myself to anything with my full heart and soul. School, cheerleading, having a social life, I'd never gone all-out in an effort to excel at any of it. I'd just wasted a lot of time when I could have been doing something worthwhile.

  Most of all though, I was sorry that I'd never acted on the persistent urge to fill the absence that I'd spent so many months denying. It wasn't a lack inside of me so much as it felt like a missing potential. I was a key without a lock, a bow without a violin. I was perfectly acceptable as I was, but I could be so much more with the right person.

  I didn't know whether or not Jackson was that guy, but I should have tried harder to find out. I was going to die never having even kissed him.

  The thought of Cindi waking up tomorrow morning to find me dead, my body already cold, wracked me with grief. I could see her in my mind's eye, tears streaming down her face, darkening my sheets wherever they landed, and the fact that it hadn't actually happened didn't matter. That was real, that was what was going to happen.

  I looked around at my surroundings one last time and realized just how dreary and artificial they looked. My conscious mind didn't know what to do with that knowledge but some deeper level of my subconscious reached for Cindi and my parents.

  Strength gushed out of me like blood from a mortal wound.

  And then I sat up in my bed. I was shaking from exhaustion and my sheets were soaked in sweat, but I was alive. I even managed to make it to the bathroom before throwing up.

  Chapter 14

  I stumbled back to bed, more because I didn't know what else to do with myself than for any other reason, and fell asleep despite the terror I was still feeling. I wouldn't have said it was possible to sleep when you were that scared, but I literally had no reserves of energy left.

  I felt a little better when I woke up, but I was starting to look gaunt. I'd gone beyond skinny and if this kept up I was going to look like a famine victim pretty soon. The fear was still there. It was muted compared to what I'd felt during the dream the night before, but it had been too strong for it to be completely washed away by the arrival of daylight.

  Cindi seemed almost back to her old self. She smiled at me as I was going into the bathroom. I say almost because there was a definite edge of smugness to her manner. It was kind of annoying that she was so happy about having maneuvered me into not saying anything about the party she had planned, but I had much bigger problems to worry about.

  I pulled my clothes off and stepped into the shower, letting the water wash away the sweat that was the only physical sign of my near brush with death the night before while my mind worried at the invisible results.

  I'd never come so close to dying before this, and it hadn't just been death in the dream that had been threatening. The old man had very nearly unmasked me, which would have put my whole family at risk too.

  As it was, if he'd really recognized the uniform like he'd seemed to, then all of the other girls on the squad were in danger already, but I had a feeling that he wouldn't do anything drastic until he'd narrowed the possible targets down to just one or two. Surely even supernatural creatures couldn't get away with killing or kidnapping more than a dozen girls at once.

  I debated quitting the team, but that didn't particularly seem like a good idea. The key to staying safe right now was to blend in as much as humanly possible. Quitting the team would make me an anomaly, which would make anyone who knew that the new dream walker in town was a cheerleader, examine me more closely. No normal cheerleader would go to all of the time and effort of getting on the team and then walk away from that accomplishment without a really compelling reason to do so, and I didn't have an obvious reason for doing something crazy like that.

  What I really wanted was to tell someone else what was going on, but that also felt unacceptably risky. Mom and Dad would be convinced that I needed counseling, and I'd already established that I couldn't tell Cindi, at least not right now, not while she was acting like Machiavelli.

  Actually, I could probably convince anyone I wanted as to the existence of my powers. All it would take would be to spend a couple of nights sharing their dreams and then telling them exactly what they'd dreamed about. The only problem with that was that it would either freak people out because I'd been invading their privacy, or they'd immediately start trying to figure out how to profit from what I could do.

  If I didn't play my cards just right then the best-case scenario was that I'd end up in a government lab somewhere, locked up while they ran every test under the sun on me and then figured out a few hundred different ways to weaponize me. The worst-case scenario probably involved me disappearing without warning and then spending the rest of my life locked up inside someone's basement.

  Just because I was now pretty sure that there were actual supernatural beings out there didn't mean that every monster was of the creepy-crawly variety. There were plenty of sickos out there of the purely human variety and I didn't even want to begin contemplating the kinds of things that someone who was really demented might try to use my power for.

  Telling other people about what I could do was undeniably dangerous, but I was still tempted to do it anyway. In the end, the only thing that stopped me from choosing that route was the fact that I couldn't take it back once I started telling people.

  Right now I just wanted to have as normal a life as p
ossible, which kind of precluded running away as a solution to my problems. The chances of having anything remotely like a normal teenage existence were rapidly approaching zero, but there was still some chance and I wanted to cling to that possibility for as long as I could. Maybe it was the wrong thing to be doing, maybe I was already past the point where the smart thing would be to go ahead and get whatever help I could from the adult in my life, but I knew I was going to wait a little longer in the hopes that the old man hadn't seen enough last night to act. If he didn't come after me in the next few weeks then maybe I'd be able to get enough of a handle on my abilities to avoid continuing to attract supernatural threats.

  It was a long shot, but by the time the hot water started to run out I knew that it was the route I was going to try for.

  As I walked back into our room, I happened to look at the calendar that Cindi had hung on the wall. Today had a big blue border drawn around it, which meant that we had a football game today. I looked closer and realized that it was an away game.

  I looked at our clock and then muttered a swear word under my breath as I realized just how far behind schedule I was. I pulled on the rest of my clothes—a mixture of the stuff that Mom had bought for me a couple of days ago, Cindi's old clothes, some of which were even long enough that the school administration might not send me home for being indecent, and some of my old stuff that probably wouldn't fall off of me before the day ended.

  I double-checked the calendar to confirm that we were headed to an away game, and then packed my duffle bag up with my away game shell and skirt. Dad was already gone, and Mom was rattling around the kitchen still looking like she was half asleep as I blew through it on my way out the door.

  "Hold on there, young lady, you need to eat something."

  There was some cold pizza in the fridge, the greasy, fatty kind that Cindi would never dream of eating, which was perfect because unlike her, right now at least, I didn't need to worry about getting too big to fit into my cheerleading uniform. I grabbed three slices out of the white cardboard box and promised Mom that I'd eat them on my way to school.

  School went by in a blur. People were still whispering nasty rumors about me just loud enough to make sure that I'd overhear them, but it bothered me less than it had before. It was still mean and completely unjustified, but now I was also able to see just how petty it was too.

  A lot of what had happened in the dream with the old man was already starting to fade into a distant, untouchable mist—which was simultaneously frustrating and welcome—but I could still remember how it had felt to see my death barreling towards me with enough advance warning for me to realize just how badly I'd messed up my priorities. There was a lot about that experience that my mind seemed still unready to deal with, but that wasn't one of those things and I tore into my classwork with a zeal that astonished my teachers and surprised even me.

  I'd never actually realized that I was capable of focusing on one thing for more than four or five minutes, but while the old man had probably lied about a lot of things, I was pretty sure that he was right about mental discipline leading to more power and strength in the dream. I didn't know what mental exercises he'd done to gain such an incredible level of mastery, but I figured that I could at least start by getting to the point where I could complete an assignment in one sitting rather than it taking an entire evening.

  I was working on my U.S. Government assignment when my fingers started hurting. At first I thought it was just a side effect from doing so much writing, but when my left hand started hurting in almost the exact same fashion I realized that there was more going on than just that.

  I didn't have an explanation though, so I just gritted my teeth and kept going. It wasn't until after lunch, which consisted of another slice of pizza and some French fries again, that I realized what was causing the pain that was threatening to stop me from being able to continue with my homework.

  The pain I was feeling wasn't the result of anything I'd done at school, it was a shadowy reflection of what had happened in the dream. I'd mutilated my hands clawing at the branches that had been holding me up against the tree. At the time, I'd been too freaked out to worry about the damage I was doing to myself or how badly it hurt, but now I was experiencing some of the pain that I'd been feeling in the dream.

  My fingers weren't bruised and bleeding and my nails looked fine, so it had to all just be inside of my head, but it felt like I'd just run them over a cheese grater. It represented one more unpleasant side effect from my dream walking that I was going to have to deal with. I filed it all away, along with the fact that it had taken hours after the actual 'injury' for the pain to start up in the real world.

  Jackson walked me to my last class again, which was super nice, but I was too worried about everything else going on in my life to get as googly-eyed at him as I normally did. I was actually so caught up inside of my own head that when the bell rang to dismiss us I left without waiting for Jackson.

  I was a third of the way back to my locker when I felt someone brush up against me. It wasn't quite a groping, but it was right on the border, something that could possibly be explained away as an accident, but a very unlikely one.

  I turned around and saw the guy Jackson had punched smirking at me. His expression dared me to react, dared me to say something so that he could claim that nothing had actually happened.

  I'd been through so much crap in the last few days that I didn't even think. I slammed my foot down on his instep as hard as I could and then smiled as he collapsed to the ground with tears streaming down his face.

  "I hope it's broken, you piece of trash. The next time you try that kind of sleazy crap on me you'll really be sorry."

  I turned and walked away without looking back, but a few seconds later I felt someone following a couple of steps back from me. I turned, ready to give the perv a piece of my mind, but it wasn't him, it was Jackson.

  "It looks like you don't actually need my help after all."

  "We'll see. If he tries it again you can go ahead and put him in the hospital for all that I care."

  Jackson nodded and then pursed his lips. "I'm starting to think that I misjudged you, Adri. I never would have guessed you had it in you to do something like that."

  "I don't, not usually, but things have been so crappy lately that I think in some way I was just looking for an excuse, looking for someone to take my frustrations out on."

  My newfound zeal meant that I was carrying more books than normal. We'd arrived at my locker and Jackson held his hands out to take my books so that I'd have a hand free to spin the tumbler on the combination lock.

  "What's going on? You made the team, you're a backup flyer, and you're gorgeous. Most girls would practically kill to be in your shoes."

  He'd leaned in close as he'd said it, his voice dropping to something that was only barely more than a whisper. I knew it was just an effort to keep our conversation from being overheard by every other junior who happened to share this section of the hall, but it was still strangely intimate and the way that his breath caressed the side of my neck was incredibly sensual.

  A tiny tremble ran through me, but I was pretty sure that I managed to keep all of that off of my face.

  "The entire school hates me, half because I joined the team and the other half because I got Janessa kicked off of the team. Most of the people in both groups are convinced that I'm now some kind of massive slut, and my sister now hates my guts for about a dozen different reasons. Oh yeah, my parents are constantly at each other's throats lately, and I'm pretty sure that it will take some kind of minor miracle to keep them together long enough for me to graduate. Life is just peachy."

  Jackson sighed. "I'm sorry, Adri. I guess that nothing good happens without something bad happening to balance things out a little. I wish that there was something I could do to help make everything better. Is there anything else?"

  Yes. I wanted to say it, wanted to confide in him, but I shook my head.

 
; "Isn't that enough?"

  "I guess it is. I don't suppose that my hitting people will do anything to convince them to like you?"

  His expression was so deadpan that I couldn't help myself. I broke out into the kind of laughter that invariably turns heads as people try to figure out what you think is so funny.

  "No, I don't think it would, but thank you for the offer. I'll definitely keep it in mind."

  Jackson nodded and gave me a warm smile that still somehow had some of the smoldering heat that he'd used on me a couple of times before.

  "Well, then I guess we'd better get moving. The bus is leaving in twenty minutes and if we don't hurry we're going to get left."

  We made the bus with a couple of minutes to spare and then had an uneventful ride to the game. Miss Winters was apparently still a little jittery about having the guys on the team and therefore on the same bus as us, so she put the girls in the back of the bus, Jackson and the other guys in the front of the bus and then sat between the two groups.

  By the time I arrived, Sheree was already curled up in one of the seats and sleeping soundly. Cindi beat me to the bus too and was sitting in the very back of the bus with Missy and a couple of the other seniors.

  It was possible if I went back there that Cindi might talk to me. She'd been relatively pleasant earlier in the day, but I had a suspicion that she was still at least a little mad at me and I didn't particularly want to make the trip to the back of the bus and then be humiliated by Missy and the others if Cindi didn't stand up for me.

  With Cindi and Sheree out as possible travel companions, I knew I was pretty much out of luck. None of the other girls were going to talk to me, so I just plugged my headphones into my phone, exchanged one last smile with Jackson and then turned on some music and zoned out.

  Cheering at the game went better than my first game. I managed not to run into anyone and I hit all of my marks. Jackson gave me a look a couple of times that seemed to ask if I wanted to stunt with him, but I was more than happy to leave that kind of stuff to the three flyers. Flying during practice was one thing, doing it during a game would probably just cause me to tense up again. Besides, I didn't want Missy or Sheree to feel like I was gunning for their spots.