Faery Worlds - Six Complete Novels (27 page)

"Chase, what's up?" asked Jared.

Everyone stared at the guy who never talked.
This should be interesting
.
Maybe he's one of those guys who only speaks every once in a while, but when he does it's really earth-shattering.

"Dunno," he said, shrugging his shoulders.

Or not.

"Come on, you must be thinking something, otherwise you would've raised your hand."

"Just seems like a lot of money for a fitness test."

"That's what I was thinking, too," said Jared, sounding a little bit concerned.

Becky looked at Tony and me. "What about you guys? Are you going to go?"

I looked at Tony and he nodded his head, so I said, "We're going to go check it out, see what's what. It's just an informational meeting - can't hurt just to go hear what they have to say."

Jared looked at his crew to gauge their reactions. Everyone seemed to be in agreement. "Unless anyone has any objections, I say we all go to the meeting, like Jayne and Tony are, see what's going on with this test and if it's something we want to do."

"Cool!" said Becky excitedly.

"Awesome," said Finn, also looking happy.

"Whatever," said Samantha, getting up to go back outside, probably to go sharpen her knife or something.

Chase nodded his head once.

Spike smiled with those amazing teeth of his, blazing white, right at me. "See you there. I'm gonna catch some Zs now." He got up off the couch, walked over, and leaped onto a mattress. I heard him snoring less than a minute later.

Chapter Six

Tony and I ate a quick breakfast of granola bars and juice boxes from his duffle bag in companionable silence, while we sat on the beach listening to the rhythmic sounds of the waves and the seagulls screeching above. I picked up some thick-grained sand, examining it closely. I'd seen sand lots of times, but never paid much attention to it before. I realized I was holding a million or so tiny pieces of rock and seashell in my hand; it made me wonder how many other little details of life I'd missed along the way. I let the sand filter out through the cracks in my fingers while I scanned the shoreline for evidence of beat-up homeless teens, thankfully not finding any. The sun was already soothingly warm on my skin, and the sand sure felt like a more comfortable place to sleep than that concrete floor. Becky's warnings were getting farther and farther away in my mind.

Tony sucked the last of his juice from his juice box. "I think we would have been more comfortable out here on the sand last night than on that concrete."

I just stared at him, a little creeped out by the fact that he'd just read my mind. He really needed to stop doing that.

Tony noticed my look. "What? What'd I say?"

I shook my head, unwilling to speak about it.

"Tell me."

"It's nothing."

Tony stared at me for a few seconds, making me wish I could read
his
mind. He was very busy thinking something that looked important.

"Spike has a nice smile," he said, looking at me intently.

I didn't know what to say at first.
Yes,
Spike did have a nice smile, and really awesome teeth, but why would Tony bring that up now? And why did he say it at all? I'd never mentioned Spike's smile to him, and we weren't talking about Jared's crew at that moment.

Tony kept staring at me, and it was starting to freak me out a little. I realized he was waiting for an answer.

"Yeah, he does."

"See, I already knew that you liked his smile."

"Am I that transparent?"
Shit.
I thought I was being all cool when I was checking him out. I hate when people catch me oogling someone.

"Not to other people, but to me you are."

"Well, you know me better than anyone else in the world, so that's not surprising."

Tony remained silent for a minute, as if he were searching for what he wanted to say - I could see it on his face. I waited patiently for what was coming; it seemed important to him.

"It's more than that."

"More than that? Like how?" I'm not sure I really wanted to know but I asked anyway. Stupid me.

Tony drew shapes in the sand with his finger, avoiding my gaze. "Do you want to know why I had that gun in my bag? Why I had this plan to leave town?"

Uh-oh.
We were here now ... talking about stuff I'd rather not be talking about.

"No, but that's okay. I'm sure you had your reasons and I'm here to support you." Maybe he'd go for the distractor.

"Listen, Jayne, we have to talk about this."

I sighed. He wasn't going to let it go. I was feeling sick again. "Whatever." My usual sarcasm wasn't jumping to my lips. All I had left was helplessness, and that just pissed me off.

"I want to tell you something that happened to me a couple weeks ago," said Tony, still swirling his fingers around in the sand.

This sounded safer than talking about me, so I felt a little bit better already. "Okay ... "

"I was in bed, ready to fall asleep ... maybe I was already a little asleep ... and suddenly I heard you yelling. At first I was thinking it was there in my house, the yelling, but then I realized it was in my dream - but I wasn't dreaming. I was in some sort of sleep state, but not totally asleep ... do you know what I mean?" He looked at me for confirmation.

I had to be honest. "No, not really."

"Well, anyway, I couldn't help myself - I fell deeper into this state, whatever it was, and I was suddenly
with
you. I couldn't see anything, but I could hear you and feel your panic, your anger ... your fear."

My face was burning. I knew the night he was talking about. It was the first night that my mother's boyfriend had come into my room.

"I didn't have to see to know what was happening, Jayne. He was there. Your mother's boyfriend."

"I get it! You don't have to say it!" I yelled, standing up and unintentionally spraying sand all over Tony's lap. "I don't want to re-live it, okay?!"

I walked towards the water, leaving my bag behind. I just needed to get away from what he was saying. I'd tried to forget that night and the few others that had happened since. Nightmares. His beer-stinking breath, fumbling hands. I learned after the first night to lock my door. When that didn't work, I had weapons ready. Asshole didn't know what hit him.

Tony was struggling behind me, carrying both of our bags. "Wait! Jayne, wait! I'm sorry!"

I stopped, giving him a chance to catch up.

Tony was practically wheezing by the time he got to me. "I'm sorry. I'm ... " He had to stop to catch his breath. "I didn't mean to ... make you upset. I just wanted ... to try and figure out ... ," he dropped the bags at our feet, " ... why it is that I'm in your head sometimes ... "

I realized what he was trying to say, and the horribleness of my situation became overshadowed by the strange, otherworldly stuff he was describing.

"In my head?" The idea of Tony in my head was both scary and entertaining at the same time.

"Kind of – yeah."

"What's it like in there?" I was smiling now, thinking of all the ways I could torture Tony without lifting a finger. Too bad the kid was as loony as a ... loon.

"Why aren't you taking this seriously?" he asked, frustrated.

"Because, Tony, it's ridiculous. You had some crazy, effed up dream, and now suddenly you're in my head."

"It wasn't a dream, Jayne. I heard you; I felt your feelings. Don't try to tell me something didn't happen with him."

"You're just projecting or something," I said, defensively.

"Oh, yeah? Well how did I know you liked Spike's smile or his teeth or something? And by the way, that's a little crazy, liking someone's teeth, don't you think?"

I didn't know what to say. It probably
was
weird to like someone's teeth, but how the heck did he know I'd thought that?

I was willing to consider his arguments, but still wasn't convinced. "You just liked his teeth and now you're acting like it's me who liked them. Or, you're trying to do some kind of brainwashing thing."

"I've got one thing to say to you," said Tony, a defiant look on his face.

I hate that look; I usually see it on those rare occasions when Tony finally puts his foot down and I had to let him have his way.
Not this time, buddy
, I was thinking.

He said two words: "
Tom Sawyer
."

My eyes bugged out of my head.
"No!"

"Yes!"

"Tony, that is just
rude!"

"What's rude?"

"Getting in my head like that! Those thoughts are
private!"

Tony nearly exploded. "I
know
that! Do you think I
want
to be in your head? Do you think I want to wander around in that crazy place you call your mind? I don't want to be in there! I care about you, you know that, you're my best friend. But seriously, no offense ... I could never ever go back there again and be
perfectly
happy for the rest of my life. Do you know how
busy
your head is? Like,
all the time
busy. You never stop flooding your brain with thoughts and emotions and ideas and feelings ... it's exhausting!" He stopped to catch his breath, but before I could get a word in edgewise, he was off again. "I would do
anything
to stop it, but I can't control it. One minute I'm drifting off to a nice, quiet, uninteresting sleep and then all of a sudden -
bam
- I'm there in your bedroom ... or I'm in your brain in History class, or Psychology or Health class. Health class! Can you imagine what that's like for me in your head during
Health?!"

I couldn't help it; I giggled. We had just recently been going over the male genitalia in that class. It was super hilarious, and I did spend an inordinate amount of time running some internal commentary in my head while looking at the pictures we were seeing on the teacher's slideshow.

"It's not funny. It's been torture for me, not saying anything to you. We have to figure out how to turn this thing off." Tony was trying to stay serious, but he couldn't help laughing along with me, particularly since my giggles had turned into hardcore cracking-up at this point.

"What am I thinking ... right now?" I had a hard time saying it because I couldn't stop snorting. I was focusing really hard on recalling the picture of a cross section of a testicle from page fifty of our textbook. Don't ask me why I remember the page number.

"It doesn't work like that, thank God. It only happens sometimes and not when I try to do it."

"When you
try?
Tony, have you
tried
to get into my head?" I looked at him suspiciously, the laughter fading quickly.

He started to squirm a little. "No, not really. Well, okay, I did try a couple times ... but not to invade your privacy!" He could see I was getting cranky, so he tried quickly to calm me down. "I just wanted to see if I could turn it on, because I figured if I could turn it on, I could learn how to turn it off, see?" He looked at me hopefully, a little bit of desperation in his eyes.

"Fine." I sighed. It made sense. I knew for sure I wouldn't want to be floating around in his head. I loved the guy, but I preferred to keep a little mystery in our relationship. "So, you don't know what I'm thinking right now?"

"No. I just get the slight feeling that you're not so mad anymore. You were mad earlier."

"Right. You're right - I
was
mad, but I'm not anymore. I know you wouldn't do anything to hurt me on purpose."

"Never in a million years," said Tony, earnestly.

I grabbed my backpack off the sand. "Well, nobody ever said life with me was going to be dull."

Tony grabbed his bag too. "Nope. Never has been, so I don't expect it will be anytime soon."

We stood on the beach smiling at each other. That lasted a full two seconds before Tony had to go ruin it with his persistence again. I think maybe he learned a little of that from me.

"So, about your mother's boyfriend ... "

"Leave it!"
I said forcefully, walking away.

"I just wanted to ask you what you did. I know you did something that made you very happy." He was walking at my elbow now, refusing to be left behind. "You kicked his ass, didn't you?" He was smiling, like he already knew the answer.