Hunted Page 24

  Besides, there was always a chance that my effort to pretend that nothing was wrong had been successful enough to leave him with at least a little doubt as to whether or not I was the cheerleader he was looking for. It was doubtful, but I didn't know what else to do.

  "I didn't mean to make you mad, Adri. Sometimes I get too cynical where all of this stuff is concerned, but it's good that you haven't gotten that way yet. You're right, I should give people the benefit of the doubt more than I do. Just because I'm not a romantic doesn't mean that I should try to deprive everyone else around me of those kinds of dreams."

  "Fine, apology accepted."

  He hadn't actually apologized, but it wasn't like I believed his explanation either. He was obviously just making stuff up to explain away his comment from a second before. He still hadn't let go of my wrist yet and I didn't know how much more stress my heart could take.

  "Let me make it up to you, Adri. I'll call my mom and she can come get us. I know you well enough to know that you don't want to ride the bus back. Miss Winters might agree to let you come with us, but you're not going to want to deal with all of the gossip and knowing looks from the rest of the team."

  Did his mom know what he was? Had he always been different, or had he developed some kind of unique ability at some point recently? If he really was the old man, then she almost certainly had to know.

  It didn't matter either way though because I couldn't allow myself to end up alone in a car with the two of them. He still hadn't let go of me, it was almost like he was a different person entirely right then.

  "You're hurting me, Jackson, that's hardly the way to make anything up to me."

  "I'm sorry, you're right."

  He loosened his grip enough for me to slide my hand free, but he didn't exactly let go and I got the feeling that he was savoring the feel of my skin against his as I freed myself.

  "So what do you say? I'll call my mom and we can ditch this place?"

  "No, I don't think so, not after your big speech about how you're worried that I'm secretly in love with you. You apologized, but that doesn't mean that you really believe me. I'll get home another way. I think it's best if we don't see as much of each other for a while. Maybe then you'll believe that I only wanted to be friends."

  He wanted to call my bluff, I could see it in his eyes, but anything he did right now would be witnessed by at least a couple hundred people. He let me back away without saying anything else, but we both knew that it was only a matter of time before I'd be by myself.

  I wanted to run down the bleachers as fast as I could, but I knew that would just put me in even more danger. I needed an escape that provided the illusion that I didn't realize just how much danger I was in. If he thought I was about to leave town he'd move sooner than he would otherwise. I needed him to remain complacent and sure of himself if I was going to have even a sliver of a chance of getting somewhere safe, of making a run to wherever Alec was.

  I managed to get down to the ground without cracking from the stress and fear I could feel ratcheting tighter and tighter inside of me and then was faced with walking the length of the bleachers with hundreds of eyes on me.

  A few minutes ago it had seemed smart to sit as far away from our cheerleaders as I could get, but now I wasn't sure that I'd be able to make it to Sheree and the others without betraying just how scared I was. It took nearly everything I had to force myself to take one slow step after another. I could feel Jackson's eyes on me and my shoulders kept trying to knot up.

  I could see Sheree now; she was on the far end of everyone else, an impossible distance away from me. My legs were weak now and my backpack and duffle bag were dragging at my arms. I started to fall, but a pair of strong arms caught me before I traveled more than an inch or two towards the ground.

  "Adri, you look terrible. What's going on? Where did Cindi and Missy go?"

  Tristan's voice was full of concern and I grabbed onto it like the lifeline it just might be.

  "I'm off the team. It's hard to explain, but I need a way home. I'm…I'm scared."

  I said that last bit in a whisper while looking away from him. I was afraid to meet his eyes and see the mockery in them, but he reached up and gently turned my chin until I didn't have a choice but to look at him.

  "You're serious, aren't you? This isn't some kind of joke or anything, you're actually scared for your life. Do you need to leave right now?"

  He responded in a whisper, for which I was profoundly grateful. I couldn't manage a response other than a shaky nod.

  "Okay, my phone is over there, do you have yours handy?"

  Now that the anger was gone I felt shocky and numb again. I handed him my phone without thinking about what I was doing. As Tristan started dialing I noticed his coach headed in our direction.

  "Hey, Mathews, how about you stop talking to the skirt and get your head back in the game before I bench you."

  "Just a sec, Coach. Trust me, taking care of this will help me keep my head in the game."

  His coach, a massive guy who looked like he'd probably played on the line back in his glory days, was obviously not very happy about the fact that Tristan was blowing off the game to talk to me, but apparently he felt like he could only push his star quarterback so far.

  "I don't want to get you in trouble."

  Tristan waved my concern away. "The defense is doing their thing, my watching isn't going to make much of a difference. Besides, the worst that could happen will be that he'll bench me for a couple of games which would just mean that we'd lose. He's not going to do that without a lot more reason than this."

  Tristan put the phone back up to his ear—apparently he'd remembered the number and it was dialing.

  "Hey, Brad, I need a favor. Yeah, I know it's the middle of the game, but did you drive? Okay, do you have room for one more person? Great, that's even better. Tell Sally that I'm sorry, but I need you guys to leave right now. Yeah, do you know Adri Paige? Right, she'll meet you on the far edge of the bleachers in like two minutes. Thanks, man, I owe you."

  Tristan's smile was worried as he handed my phone back to me. "That's the best I can do right now. Brad's a stand-up guy and his girlfriend Sally is actually pretty nice. They'll get you home right now so that you don't have to be worried anymore."

  I tried to put on a brave face, tried not to let him see just how terrifying the thought of sitting home alone was right now, but he could tell something was wrong.

  "Oh, crap. Your parents are still gone, aren't they? Do you want to just go to my house instead?"

  "Yeah, they are gone until Sunday, but I shouldn't get you anymore involved. It's…well, it's not safe."

  Tristan closed his eyes for a second and when he opened them the arrogant teenage quarterback had disappeared and been replaced with someone serious, someone who felt dependable in every way.

  "If you tell me that you need me to blow off this game, I'll do it. It's going to suck, but I'll do it. What do you need? My parents are out of town too. You and I could go up to the cabin my parents bought last month. We'd be safe there; nobody at school even knows where it is. Dad bought it using one of his corporate fronts to keep it quiet, so there's probably a grand total of six people in the entire state who even know how to link it to us."

  I desperately wanted to take him up on his offer, but I knew just how big a price he might end up having to pay if he left with me right now. He'd be off the team and he'd probably have to move to another school if he wanted to play next year. It might cost him a college scholarship, maybe even a future as a professional athlete.

  "No, I can't ask you to leave right now, but maybe you could come get me as soon as you get back from the game."

  My insides were quivering at the thought of spending even that much time alone, but I willed my face to keep that secret, to do what I asked for at least once tonight. It was a calculated risk, but Jackson would be riding back on the bus so he wouldn't be home any sooner than Tristan would be.

 
"You're sure?"

  "Yeah, it's the best compromise, just hurry every chance you get. Here are my keys, just in case. I'll let myself in with the spare one that we've got hidden outside."

  "Right, no overtime. I'll see you soon."

  "Thanks, Tristan. I misjudged you."

  A hint of his normal humor and cockiness crept back onto his face.

  "It's easy to do. I like to keep people guessing a little."

  I leaned in and gave him a kiss on the cheek and then turned and headed towards where he'd told Brad to meet me. Tristan had just bought me some time, but I wasn't under any illusions when it came to my safety. I wasn't going to be safe until I'd found someone bigger and scarier than Jackson, someone who could go toe to toe with all of the other supernatural creatures out there.

  I needed Alec.

  Chapter 24

  I'd never met Brad before, but he turned out to be a six-one giant who looked like he belonged out on the offensive line keeping the other team away from Tristan. Apparently my look of surprise wasn't anything new for him.

  "I know, right? I actually played football for half of a season my freshman year. I took a really hard hit during one of my games and tore my rotator cuff. My mom freaked out and still won't let me play."

  "I'm sorry to pull you away from the game, it's just…"

  I wasn't actually sure how to explain the craziness I'd just been through, at least not without sounding like a complete head case, but he just shrugged.

  "It's not a problem. If Tristan likes you then most of the rumors floating around school can't be true. Besides, we all know he's just going to throw four more touchdowns and destroy the other team."

  Sally turned out to be exactly the kind of girl you'd expect a football player to date. She was tiny like Sheree was tiny. She wasn't just short, she also had the kind of super-small frame that meant she'd look skinny even if she was ten or fifteen pounds overweight. She wasn't overweight at all though, so she just looked like she was made out of plastic like some kind of perfect blonde Barbie doll.

  She didn't say much, but she smiled at me and seemed to actually mean it, which was more than I normally expected to get out of girls who looked that good. I was just as skinny now, but I still kind of felt like most of the really attractive girls looked at me and figured I was too far beneath them to bother getting to know.

  Almost before I knew it we were in Brad's blue Pathfinder and headed home. He made a couple of valiant attempts at carrying on a conversation with me, and I really did try to reciprocate, but things just kept petering out after a minute or two.

  We were both making a legitimate effort, but the fact of the matter was that we just didn't have very much in common and I was having a hard time focusing on anything other than the fact that Jackson was going to come for me as soon as the buses got back into town.

  "…can't believe that you've managed to resist Tristan's charms for so long. I think this is some kind of record."

  I looked up and realized that Sally had decided to help draw me out.

  "I can't really take full credit there. My sister has wanted to date him for a couple of months now and he didn't exactly make a good impression by telling me that he didn't care whether she got hurt as long as he got what he wanted."

  Brad winced a little. "I knew that was going to bite him in the butt."

  Sally punched him in the arm. "You're a complete jerk. I still think I gave him the right advice. Maybe he screwed up the execution, but he needs to stop just dating whomever chases him or he'll continue to have one bad relationship after another with girls who like him more than he likes them. He needs to tap into his inner jerk a little more or he's never going to be happy."

  Brad shrugged as he changed lanes to pass a red Miata. "I don't know, I still think he just needs to go somewhere new and make a fresh start. He's tried to keep things low-key here, but there's a couple of girls on the cheerleading team that I'm pretty sure have figured out who his dad really is. Even if they haven't, he suspects the same thing, which means every time they look at him he thinks they are seeing dollar signs."

  I felt my eyebrows start to creep up in astonishment. I'd always figured that Tristan's family was rich, or at least moderately well-off. You didn't buy vacation cabins without at least bringing home somewhat big bucks, but Brad and Sally seemed to be hinting at lifestyles-of-the-rich-and-famous kind of wealth.

  "Just how rich is Tristan?"

  The two of them looked at each other for a couple of seconds and then Sally sighed. "Tristan said he was going to take you to his cabin, right?"

  "Yeah, he invited me there a couple of weeks ago and I turned him down. I think that's where we're going tonight though."

  "Okay, don't tell him I told you this or he'll be mad, but it's not like you wouldn't have figured it out for yourself as soon as you saw their new place."

  "You've seen it? I thought he told me that nobody else had been there yet."

  It was silly of me to ask the question. I was interrupting her in her response as to just how wealthy Tristan was, but it was almost like I didn't really want to know even though I'd been the one to ask.

  "We haven't been there, but he showed us pictures that they shot when they went up there the first time to check it out. It's ridiculous, in a good but still over-the-top way. Are you sure you really want to know this?"

  "Yeah, it's always best to know what you're getting into."

  "The truth is I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that they are billionaires by now. His dad is pioneering that new technology to project images from your phone onto another flat surface. He's some kind of super-genius. Everyone is saying that the technology is still a year or two away from mass production, but Tristan said his dad cracked the power consumption problem and figured out how to fit it all into a small enough footprint to make it viable."

  Brad changed radio stations without turning it up and then jumped in with his two cents. "It's all pretty much way over my head too, but Tristan said that it's one of the key steps in turning our phones into real mobile computing platforms. It's crazy stuff, like all you need is your phone and a desk. You'll put your phone down, it will project a keyboard onto the desk and then his dad's invention will project a display onto the wall at eye level."

  "So you just sit down and type? No more desktops, no more laptops?"

  "Yeah, pretty much. The other tech companies are going wild over it. He's got money pouring into his company already in advance orders and licensing agreements like you wouldn't believe."

  It was almost too crazy to contemplate.

  "Why is he going to our school instead of some snotty private school?"

  Sally looked at Brad like she didn't know the answer either and was curious to see what he'd say.

  "His dad offered to put him in any school he wanted, including some that have wicked good football teams, but he wasn't interested. I think Tristan figured that it would just paint a bigger target on him because people would know he had to be rich in order to be going there. Here he's stayed pretty incognito up until now. He's really a pretty good guy when you get right down to it."

  Sally snorted, but even that was a delicate sound. I wouldn't have said that there was such a thing as a ladylike snort, but if there was, she managed it.

  "He's almost too good if you ask me. You've only managed to ever even get him drunk once and he still only had like two beers."

  "Yeah, he can be a bummer at parties sometimes, but I can't really blame him. A girl like Missy or Wendy is totally not above getting him drunk and sleeping with him just to get pregnant so she can get her hands on some of his dad's money."

  "So why did he give in and let you get him drunk that one time then if he's held strong up until now?"

  I managed to make the question sound casual, but the truth was it was anything but. I knew when he'd gotten drunk, it had been for Cindi's party, and Sally was right—he hadn't really been drunk, more like he'd just had enough to take the edge off.


  Sally suddenly went bright red. Interesting. I would have said that nothing could throw her off like that. Brad frowned at her. "Now you've done it. She wasn't supposed to find out about that."

  "Find out about what?"

  "Brad's right, I wasn't supposed to say anything, but Tristan isn't nearly as self-confident as he seems. He hates parties. Really, any group bigger than four or five makes him uncomfortable. He doesn't usually go to that kind of stuff and when he does, he always feels like he just stands there and looks like an idiot. So…Brad convinced him to have a couple of beers as a way of relaxing a little and being more himself around you. Did it work?"

  "I…well, I'm not sure, not really. He was more aggressive, he pretty much backed me into a corner of the room so that I didn't have any choice but to listen to him. Then he told me that we should date because I needed someone to help me navigate the social waters now that I was a cheerleader and that he needed someone who was cute but not as…witchy as the other girls."

  Sally turned an even darker shade of red and Brad's smile spread from ear to ear. "Only he didn't say 'witchy', did he? You can thank my sometimes big-mouthed girlfriend for that. He was pretty much quoting her directly."

  "Well, it's true. Adri was in over her head, and Tristan needs a nice girl, but he should get a nice girl who's also attractive. Can you imagine the inferiority complex an ugly girl would have if she dated him for very long? Not only is he gorgeous, but once she realized that he was rich enough to buy a small country she'd start expecting that he was going to cheat on her because she couldn't compete with the kinds of girls who would constantly be throwing themselves at him."

  Brad's sigh was pretty eloquent. "Give the guy some credit. He doesn't just care about looks."

  "I know, but most girls aren't going to think like that. We automatically think that we're not pretty enough or smart enough or skinny enough to be with a guy like Tristan. Besides, you have to admit it would still be a temptation for him."