Hunted (29 page)

The
second creature jumped Alec, crashing into his back before he could
spin around after finishing off the first enemy. Claws ripped across
Alec's back, but rather than tearing through flesh in a spray of
blood as I'd expected them to, they skittered off in a spray of
sparks.

Alec
tried to turn around to capitalize on the surprise he'd created by
manifesting armor underneath his skin, but the second creature had
hold of him and although its claws didn't seem to be making any
headway on his flesh it had him effectively immobilized.

Alec's
third enemy struck, and again the claws bounced off, but this time
there was blood along with the sparks. The second creature bit down
on Alec's shoulder with its fangs and even I could see that Alec was
weakening. He could only manipulate the dream around him to a certain
degree and the attacks he was dealing with were already pushing him
beyond his capabilities.

I
stepped forward, wanting to help, and then I remembered my certainty
that I could be killed in the dream. Oddly enough, it wasn't my
vulnerability that stopped me, it was the fear that my being here was
imparting the same weakness to Alec. In a normal dream Alec might be
defeated, but he'd wake the next morning unharmed.

I
didn't know the limits of my power, but he'd said that he couldn't
normally dream in this level of detail. If that meant that I'd sucked
him more strongly into the dream then the most helpful thing I could
do was simply flee as fast as I was able.

The
two creatures had him on the ground now. There was more blood and his
struggles seemed to be weakening, but I forced my worry for him to
one side and focused on the real world. It was surprisingly easy to
return to the feeling of cotton sheets on my bare arms. As I lapsed
back into a normal, dreamless sleep I had two thoughts.

The
first was to hope that he was okay, that he would survive, both the
dream fight and whatever real-world conflict he'd said was so
imminent. The second thought was to wonder if it had been so easy to
come back to myself this time because part of me didn't believe any
reality that included someone like him—especially someone like
him who had such strong feelings for me—could possibly be real.

The
dream with Alec was still with me on Friday morning when my alarm
pulled me awake. I reflexively hit the snooze button, but I didn't
feel like going to sleep despite the fact that I was exhausted. I
couldn't remember a time when I'd been more tired, but it was the
kind of tired that wouldn't be solved by sleeping in an extra fifteen
minutes.

I
knew I was worn out from dream walking with Alec, but I hadn't
expected for it to hit me this hard. Either Alec was somehow more
resistant to my gift than the other people I'd encountered in the
dream, or he was much further away than they'd been. There was a kind
of dull ache behind my eyes that seemed to say that I'd pushed too
hard and stretched something inside of my head that needed some time
to recover still.

I
was going to be feeling the aftereffects of my time with Alec for at
least the next day or two, but I didn't regret the time we'd spent
together. I now had a potential ally, one who said he couldn't do
much for me, but who knew more about the world I was being dragged
into than I did. One who somehow knew me without ever having met me.
One who felt drawn to me in the same inexplicable way that I was
drawn to him.

I
stayed in bed thinking about Alec, wondering whether my leaving the
dream had been enough to save him, until my alarm went off again. One
thing was for certain, in a few days, once I'd given myself a chance
to recover from this last excursion, I was going to try and
reestablish contact with Alec. Maybe he was right and there wasn't
much else he could do to help me, but I had more reasons to be with
him than just the possibility of safety.

I
got an unexpected call just before I walked out the door to go to
school.

"Hello,
this is Adri."

"Hi,
Adri, it's Missy. I'm just calling to tell you to bring your light
uniform to school with you today."

"I
thought we always wore our dark uniforms to away games."

"Yes,
usually, but there was some kind of screw-up somewhere so the team is
wearing their light jerseys today."

"Okay,
thanks, Missy."

I
went back to my room and grabbed my light skirt and shell, but I left
my other uniform in my duffle bag too. I knew I was being paranoid,
but that didn't mean that I was necessarily wrong. I wasn't going to
trust Missy any further than I absolutely had to.

I
practically flew to school. Classes went by in a blur that was eerily
similar to the way I'd lost time after I'd realized that Jackson
wasn't interested in me. This was better though because I was still
aware of what was going on around me—I just didn't care about all of
the stupid, petty crap.

Without
the constant distractions involved in trying to ignore the whispers
all around me, I managed to catch up on most of the homework I'd
missed out on earlier in the week. As focused as I was, I still
remembered to keep an eye out for the rest of the squad. A lot of the
girls just wore their uniforms all day on the day of a game, so I
figured that was one way to settle the question of whether we were
supposed to wear dark uniforms or light uniforms.

Not
too surprisingly, it turned out that none of them were wearing their
uniforms today, which pretty much confirmed that Missy was trying to
screw with me and she had all of the other girls in on it. I made a
mental note to ask Sheree or Tristan what they'd been told as far as
what color of uniform to wear and then just continued on with my day.

I'd
started to gain back a little bit of weight as a result of not
dreaming for so many days, not enough for anyone to notice with my
clothes on, but enough that I'd been feeling a little better about
having to go to the doctor so that Miss Winters would stop worrying
that I had some kind of eating disorder.

All
of that progress had been washed away as a result of dream walking
with Alec. It was interesting that I hadn't gone below my lowest
weight, but I was right back to it. I loaded up with an extra slice
of pizza at lunch, wondering the whole time if my gift was somehow
self-regulating. It was like my body had known that I'd pushed it as
far as I safely could, so it had stopped me from dream walking until
I'd had a chance to build back up the physical reserves that it knew
I was going to need in order to be able to dream walk again.

I
ate until I couldn't eat anymore and wondered the entire time if I
could solve my dream walking problem simply by keeping myself too
skinny for my body to permit another midnight excursion. It was an
interesting possibility, but one that came with some very real risks.
I didn't want to think about what might happen if I was wrong and got
sucked into an extended dream session when I didn't have enough body
fat to supply the energy the dream required.

It
was possible that I'd just snap out of the dream once I couldn't
sustain the exertion required, but it was also possible that if
someone was holding me in the dream like the Native American had tried to do,
that my heart would simply stop beating.

Between
thoughts about Alec, my classes, and worries about my weight, I
forgot to track down Sheree and Tristan. By the time I realized my
mistake I was already headed towards my last class. I told myself
that it didn't matter one way or the other because I had both of my
uniforms, but that didn't stop me from stewing over it for most of
the next hour.

The
locker room had its normal complement of girls from the last PE class
of the day, but not a single other member of the squad, which was
even more evidence that something fishy was going on. I wanted to
scream over the fact that Missy and the others were still being so
petty, but I just took a deep breath and told myself that the worst
that would happen was that I'd show up to the school bus in the wrong
uniform and have to change once we got to the game.

Either
way, the most that Missy could accomplish at this point would be to
tip Miss Winters off to the fact that she was still hazing me. I just
needed to hold things together for a little bit longer. Alec had said
that he couldn't protect me, but no matter how much danger he was in,
I was pretty sure that I'd be better off with him than staying here.

In
another few days I'd dream walk to him again and try to convince him
of that fact. Once that happened I could leave Missy and Cindi behind
and never worry about them again.

I
paused midway through pulling my white skirt up as the full impact of
what I was considering hit me. I was fully prepared to leave my
family behind and go off to be with some guy I didn't really know and
the only person I was going to miss was my dad.

There
were so many problems with that idea that I didn't know where to
start. For all I knew Alec had used some kind of metaphysical whammy
on me to create such an instant bond. I didn't think that was the
case, but that didn't mean I was right. The fact that my life was so
bad, that I'd connected so poorly with everyone around me that I was
only going to miss one person, was just as scary.

I'd
been convinced all of this time that I wasn't the one with the
problem, but what if I was wrong there too? Everyone else around me
seemed to be able to make friends and have fun spending time with
other people; I was the clear anomaly there.

I
forced myself to continue getting dressed. Those were all worries
that I was going to have to deal with sooner or later, but being
stalked by the old man, the Native American, and maybe even the wax woman had
to supersede everything else. If Alec could get me away to somewhere
safe then I was going to accept his help.

I
wasn't really surprised when I went out to the bus and saw that all
of the other girls were in their dark blue uniforms. I wasn't
surprised, but that didn't mean that I wasn't mad. I was actually
super-pissed. The one redeeming thing about the whole situation was
that they hadn't screwed Sheree over too.

Miss
Winters was looking down at her clipboard when I walked up with
Sheree only a couple of feet behind me.

"Adri,
what are you doing? You know that we always wear dark colors to away
games."

I
tried to keep the anger off of my face, but I probably didn't succeed
entirely. "I got a call from Missy this morning telling me that
we were supposed to wear our light uniforms today."

"Are
you sure that's what she said?"

"Yes,
I'm positive. It's fine though. It sounded fishy so I went ahead and
brought my dark uniform too."

I
could see the relief in the way Miss Winters' shoulders relaxed. My
having outsmarted Missy meant that Miss Winters wouldn't have to
further escalate things with the rest of the team.

"Okay,
I'll have to think about this, but at least you'll be able to change
once we get there."

Miss
Winters waved me into the bus and I took my usual spot towards the
front, only a little away from where Miss Winters sat to split the
boys and the girls up. Jackson hardly even looked at me as I walked
past him, but it wasn't exactly unexpected and it hurt a lot less
after meeting Alec the night before.

Missy
walked forward as though wanting to talk to one of her spotters, but
on her way back she stopped at my seat, resting one hand on the fake,
brown plastic leather in front of me.

"It's
too bad that you didn't remember to wear the right uniform, Adri."

"Yeah,
if only someone hadn't told me that we were wearing the white ones
today. Luckily I'm not as stupid as some people, so I brought both."

I
zipped my duffle bag open just enough for her to see the dark blue
fabric of my other uniform and then I gave her the kind of smirk that
she usually bestowed upon me. She obviously wasn't happy, but she
gave me a sugar-sweet look in return and then turned to Sheree who
had just sat down across from me.

"Sheree,
can you come sit in the back with us, please? Cindi and I need to
talk to you about the routines we're going to use tonight. You know,
flyer stuff."

"Shouldn't
Adri be coming then?"

"No,
Adri is just a backup and all three of us are here, so I'm sure her
help won't be needed."

That
last bit was said in the same tone as the rest, but she shot me a
look that had enough poorly contained rage in it for me to see that
she wasn't very happy at having her plan foiled. I wanted to stand up
and punch her in the face, but I knew that would just backfire on me.
Right now Miss Winters was on my side and I needed to keep it that
way.

"I'm
fine, Sheree. You should go back there and find out what's going on
tonight. I'll just stay here and catch up on some homework or maybe
I'll even take a nap."

I
hadn't planned on saying that last bit, but as I said it I realized
it was the truth. I'd been gamely going all day, but I was still
suffering from the exhaustion inherent in dream walking for such a
long time with Alec. I really would be happiest if I got a nap on the
way to the game.

Besides,
maybe this was the first step in Missy burying the hatchet with
Sheree. I didn't want to lose my only friend on the team, but I
wasn't selfish enough to think that it was okay for Sheree to be
unhappy just so I could be a little less unhappy myself.

Sheree
gave me a worried look, but allowed herself to be led back towards
the rear of the bus. I watched the two of them sit down and then
turned back towards the front of the bus myself and closed my eyes.

It
must not have taken very long for the rocking motion of the bus to
put me to sleep because it seemed like hardly any time at all passed
before Miss Winters started chivying us all up and out of our seats.