Authors: Dean Murray
Cindi shrugged.
"The police are tapping our phones, so even once he got his
phone back we couldn't really talk, not about what we wanted to talk
about. He's the only other person who knows what we went through that
night, Adri. Even if I wasn't attracted to him, that would still make
me want to talk to him. I feel like I'm going crazy, like it didn't
really happen, and there isn't anyone I can talk to about it."
"I'm so
sorry, Cindi. I should have realized that would throw a wrench in
everything. How were things going before his parents pulled him out
of school?"
She mustered a
tremulous smile. "They were actually pretty good. I mean we
weren't official or anything, but I'd been talking to him every day.
I think if we'd had another few weeks I'd have managed to redeem
myself for how much of a wench I was while you were on the team."
"That's
good then. Once everything blows over the two of you will have a
chance to spend more time together and you can pick up where you left
off."
"Adri,
that's never going to happen. A guy like Tristan doesn't have to be
girlfriendless. All he has to do is snap his fingers and he'd have at
least half a dozen girls throwing themselves at him. He's a good guy,
so he wouldn't cheat on me if we were official, but he's not going to
spend the next six months all alone. He'll find someone else between
now and then. By the time I see him again, things will just be
awkward between us."
Her words hit a
little too close to home for me, but I managed to keep that off of my
face. I even managed a smile despite wanting to cry.
"Maybe
there's something I can do about that."
"What are
you going to do, kidnap him?"
"In a
manner of speaking. Give me a few minutes to concentrate."
I was being
reckless and I knew it, but I wasn't going to let that stop me. There
didn't seem to be anything I could do about my situation, but maybe I
could do something for Cindi. Besides, it had been a long time since
I'd seen Tristan. I wasn't interested in him, not the way that Cindi
was, but it would still be nice to see him again.
I remembered
the way that Tristan made me feel. The frustration of our first few
interactions had been replaced by feelings of safety and respect.
Tristan couldn't compete in the world I was in now. He wasn't
supernaturally strong or fast, but I still knew that he would do
whatever he could to help if I was in danger.
I pulled those
feelings close and then sent my seeking threads out to find him. It
was harder this time than it had been with Cindi. My strength was
nearly exhausted by the time the first tiny filament made contact
with him, but I had just enough left to stabilize the link between us
while I started reabsorbing the rest of the threads.
I took a deep
breath without opening my eyes. "If this doesn't work don't
worry about me—it just means I got too tired and lost my grip
on the dream. I'll be back in a few days after I've had a chance to
visit Mom and Dad."
I strengthened
our connection, turning it into a silvery cable that was as big
around as my wrist, and then I started pulling. It was harder this
time. I knew I was just more tired than before, but it felt like it
was more than that. It felt like he was heavier than I was, but once
I got him moving all of that momentum would help get him past the
wall.
My mental arms
were burning from exhaustion by the time I got him up to full speed,
and I had a worrisome ache in the back of my skull, but I just
gritted my teeth and pulled harder. The impact as Tristan hit the
wall felt more like what I remembered from the time that I'd brought
Taggart into my dream.
The whole
universe seemed to groan and flex from the collision of two
absolutes. There wasn't supposed to actually be an immovable object
any more than there was supposed to be an irresistible force and yet
that was what it felt like.
For one
impossibly long second it seemed like I'd failed and then I felt the
tear in reality that I'd come to associate with success. I got the
impression of bright lights and vast, immeasurable amounts of energy,
and then I felt something land on the grass at my feet.
I opened my
eyes to find Tristan looking up at me in shock. "This is the
weirdest dream I've ever experienced."
He was slowly
levering himself up into a sitting position, which seemed odd to me
until I remembered that in the real world he was still getting around
in a wheelchair.
"You're
right, this is a dream, but it isn't just a dream. Your legs can be
fine while you're here if you want; you don't need a chair or
anything."
The smile on
his face as he ran his hands down his legs was the purest expression
of joy that I'd seen in a really long time. It reminded me of the
thing that had frustrated me so much early on about him.
Tristan wasn't
an idiot, but he was perfectly happy to enjoy the simple things in
life and leave tomorrow's problems alone. It meant he sometimes came
across as childish, but he wasn't—not really. The truth was
that having access to an unimaginable amount of wealth had somehow
freed him from the cares that bogged most of us down.
Just seeing him
so happy would have been worth the exhaustion currently pulling at
me. The fact that he and Cindi would have some time together just
made it all the more worthwhile.
"Adriana
Paige, you're a sight for sore eyes. You have no idea how much I've
wanted to know that you were okay."
There was
something in his eyes that I knew was going to spell trouble, so I
did the only thing I could think of. I pretended that I didn't know
what he was thinking, that it wasn't as plain on his face as if he'd
come right out and yelled it for everyone to hear.
"I'm glad
that you're not put out that I pulled you away from your own dreams.
I was here with Cindi and she said that the two of you were basically
in solitary confinement, so I thought I'd see if I could arrange a
pass for the next little while."
His eyes
followed me as I turned to pull Cindi up off of the bench. He knew
what I was doing, but luckily he was willing to play along and Cindi
didn't seem to have noticed the way that he'd been looking at me when
he first arrived.
"How are
you doing, Cindi?"
"I'm fine,
Tristan. How have you been? Are your parents still giving you a lot
of grief?"
His smile was
the same easy expression that I remembered. "Yeah, they are
still pretty pissed, but it's okay. They know that I didn't actually
abduct Adri, so eventually they'll forgive me."
I breathed a
quiet sigh of relief that I'd managed to sidestep the disaster I'd
almost unwittingly plunged us in. It was hard for me to remember that
it had just been a few weeks ago that I'd last seen Tristan. For me
it felt like the entire world had shifted on its axis since then.
Everything had changed for me in the time that I'd been away, but for
him everything was still almost exactly the way that it had been.
I'd brought him
here without realizing that his feelings for me were still stronger
than his feelings for Cindi. I was going to have to be more careful
in the future.
Tristan took in
the blanket that Cindi still had wrapped around herself and gave her
a questioning look. "Are you really cold or something?"
"No, I
just don't have as much control over my dreams as Adri does. My
uniform has seen better days."
I visualized
her in a new uniform and then pushed the image into the fabric of the
dream. In between one heartbeat and the next her blanket disappeared,
but there was no longer any need for it. I set the illusion,
maintaining it with a portion of my subconscious as Cindi took in the
fact that she didn't look like some kind of weird homeless
cheerleader anymore.
I was better
than I had been at changing someone else's dream, but that had been
easier than I'd expected. Actually all of the changes that I'd made
to Cindi's dream had been surprisingly easy considering how tired I
was.
Part of me was
hoping that just meant I was getting stronger than I'd realized, but
I was pretty sure that wasn't the case. Apparently Cindi just had a
less disciplined mind than I'd always thought. Even so, maintaining
the uniform and the bench was taking strength that I couldn't spare.
I let the bench
disappear and then turned back to the two of them.
"I'm
sorry, guys, getting Tristan here took more out of me than I realized
it would. I'm not sure how much longer I have before I lose my grip
on Cindi's dream, but before I go I want the two of you to have
these."
I forced a pair
of plain white business cards to materialize out of thin air and
handed them to Tristan and Cindi. Both cards were blank but for a
twelve-digit string of numbers.
"That's my
message service. You can't take the cards with you so you'll have to
memorize the number before you wake up, but you can use that to get
back in touch with each other. Buy a prepaid phone that the cops
don't know about and then call that number and leave me a message
with your new phone number on it. If you call back a few days later
I'll have a new message waiting for you both. It will be one of your
phone numbers backwards so that you can call each other."
Cindi looked
like a five-year-old who'd just been told that Christmas was coming
early this year. There was a considering look to Tristan that told me
he'd realized the messaging service could be used to get hold of more
than just Cindi. I needed to head that off.
"The
number is an international one because we purposely located the
service in a country that doesn't work well with U.S. law
enforcement. It means that your pesky detective shouldn't be able to
get a warrant and use the service to track me down, but I'd ask that
you still be careful. Only call it from a brand-new burner phone and
only call if something absolutely critical comes up."
They both
nodded their understanding, which was good because I was about at the
end of my strength.
"Memorize
fast, guys. I don't have much longer and I'm not sure what will
happen once I'm gone. Hopefully the cards will stay and the two of
you will be able to spend a little more time together, but this is
the first time that I've ever done this so I just don't know."
They obediently
studied the business cards until my brain finally became too tired to
hold onto Cindi's dream and I slipped away from the two of them and
into a normal, more restful dream. As I let myself drift into a
sunlit meadow, my last thought was to wish that I'd been able to talk
to Cindi about what had been bothering me when I'd gone to sleep.
She was worried
about Tristan losing interest in her and starting to date someone
else, but she was much better off than I was. She and Tristan had
spent hours together and Tristan was basically under house arrest.
I'd talked to
Alec exactly twice and the last time hadn't exactly been
earth-shattering for either of us. Even worse, Alec didn't have to go
looking for another girl if he decided that he wasn't interested in
waiting around for me. He already had one basically living with him,
a girl who was addicted to his touch, a girl who would probably do
anything he wanted without thinking twice.
Alec would have
to be superhuman to pass up that kind of temptation.
Addison Wright
Philmore Projects
South Central Los Angeles, California
Addison pushed
the little red cart along the dirty sidewalk in front of her and
wished for the millionth time that she'd decided to go to ground
somewhere other than gang-land California.
The cart was
useful—she was strong enough to carry all of the groceries
she'd purchased at the corner store without it, but just being strong
didn't help much when what you were carrying was spread across a
dozen or more flimsy plastic bags. More than that though, the cart
was part of her disguise.
Addison looked
like a woman in her late thirties even though her actual age was much
greater than that. For someone that age in this part of the city, her
best bet at blending in was to look like just another single woman
who was too beaten down to care about the constant low-level gang
warfare that had been going on since even before she'd arrived.
Strolling down
the street with her head up and her back straight would have just
marked her as a potential problem. Once she'd been identified as
such, the teenagers and early-twenties toughs who made up the local
gang wouldn't rest until they'd broken her will.
Addison could
have probably disposed of two or three bodies without raising any
eyebrows, but that would have just made her more of a target. Gangs
didn't operate like cops, they didn't need proof. They ruled based
off of fear and violence, so when something happened to one of their
people they went after the most likely target regardless of whether
or not they were sure that person had actually been the one to kill
their friends.
Under the right
circumstances Addison might have been able to wipe out the whole gang
if push had come to shove. She wasn't a hybrid, but she was still
fast and strong enough that most humans wouldn't have even seen the
blow coming if she decided to take them down. Something like that
required planning and time though and Addison most definitely didn't
want to spend any more time in LA than she had to. Besides,
single-handedly taking down a gang would have just attracted exactly
the kind of attention she wanted to avoid.
Truth be told,
she would have already left town if not for the fact that she kept
getting the feeling that there was something seriously wrong with the
neighborhood she'd ended up choosing to go to ground in.