My sigh was more
expressive than I meant to make it. Her resulting smile was the one
she used when she was just moments from crying.
"Anyways thanks
for being willing to stand up for me. Oh, and for being willing to
stand up for Adri. I think maybe she and I could be real friends
someday. She seems different than all the other girls."
It seemed cruel to
deprive her of her latest hope. I couldn't help but think maybe I
should do it regardless, but I didn't.
"Well, if the
two of you are going to be friends you should probably know she
doesn't like to be called Adri. I'm not sure why but her heart races
every time anyone says Adri instead of Adriana."
Her smile had
transformed to a happy thing, and I took my leave. Once I arrived
outside Mother's room, I steeled myself with a couple of quick
breaths and then knocked on her door, letting myself in after several
seconds.
Mom was curled up on
the window seat sobbing. She was always frail looking, but
currently looked even more fragile than normal. I gathered her into
my arms and began rocking her back and forth until she registered my
presence.
"Oh, Alec. My
poor, poor child. Whatever will we do without your father? You're
so young. You won't even remember him."
She broke into
wracking sobs again and I wished I could hand this duty off to
someone else. She was still replaying the past, but the worst was
still to come. The loss had been the worst part for her. For me it
was when she told a toddler she'd take care of him. I wasn't a
toddler anymore, but she didn't even realize it right now. Didn't
realize it and didn't understand that I already knew she wouldn't
fulfill her promise to take care of us.
It would have been bad
enough if last night had ended with my futile efforts to console my
mother. Instead I'd had a full night's worth of homework which had
been cut short to go out on patrol.
Apparently Brandon
hadn't been pleased by just how badly Nathanial had been hurt. With
the sole exception of Nathanial, every other wolf in his pack
conducted an extended patrol around the edges of our territory. I'd
been pretty confident when his scent told me he was along for the
ride, that there wouldn't be any actual violation of our territory,
but it was the kind of threat we had to honor.
Neither James nor I
had been at one hundred percent but we'd gamely kept up for hour
after hour as Brandon's pack had dared us to step over the line into
neutral territory. Predictably it hadn't been easy to keep certain
members of our pack from taking the bait.
Conducting such an
exercise with a freshly-reopened wound had made it all the more
frustrating. Despite my slight fear that I'd bleed out before the
night ended, I'd awoken to find that my side was mostly healed.
Depressingly enough,
the high point of the night was when I found the answer to our
physics problem in one of the reference books I'd purchased upon
enrolling in the class. Luckily it was a fairly straight-forward
explanation and I was able to just barely complete typing up my
solution before it was time to go to school.
Once I'd arrived at
school, I'd dealt with the normal round of trash talk and posturing
from Brandon. Dream Adriana had pegged us correctly. Nearly
everything we did in public came back to some kind of dominance game
or another. Most of the kids that'd grown up in Sanctuary were so
used to it all that they didn't even realize what was going on, but I
hated it. If Brandon hadn't been so set on shredding our pack and
soaking up the remnants, I would have been more than happy to leave
him completely alone.
It was foolish to
attribute the insights she'd displayed in my dreams to the flesh and
blood person, but I found myself looking forward to seeing her again.
She was extremely frustrating, but in less than a week she'd noticed
things that people who'd been here their entire lives hadn't ever
even given a second glance. She'd drawn the wrong conclusions with
most of it, but the fact that she'd come even that close was
intriguing.
I walked into Physics
more than a minute earlier than usual and headed straight to my desk
only to almost stumble when Adriana pulled her desk close to mine and
hissed at me.
"So very nice of
you to finally come to class on the day our stupid assignment is
due."
It shouldn't have been
so shocking, I had plenty of people who really didn't like me, but
her words were so different from what I'd been expecting that I felt
my face freeze into the expressionless mask I used when I couldn't
afford to let those around me know what I was thinking. I pulled my
typewritten sheaf of paper out and set it on her desk so she could
review it.
Looking astonished,
but still very sure of herself, Adriana pulled several handwritten
sheets out and all but threw them at me. She was right. There was
some background information that she could have covered in more
detail, but it was a very concise answer to the problem we'd been
presented.
I felt a momentary
pang at not having coordinated with her to avoid duplication of
effort. I'd had a rough couple of days, but she had no way of
knowing that. The charitable feelings I'd been working up to
suddenly evaporated as she opened her mouth again.
"You were right.
You never even came to class, and you got the right answer. Did
you cheat? Is the answer to this problem out there somewhere on the
Internet?"
I felt my expression
slip into true anger for just a second before I managed to bring it
back under control.
"No, I didn't
cheat. I did the research to find the answer, presumably just like
you did. Next time you feel like insulting me, please suppress the
urge."
She choked back
whatever denigrating response she'd been contemplating, and then Mrs.
Alexander arrived. I'd always enjoyed the study of mechanical
advantage. Levers, pulleys, ramps. They were simple things, but
they'd allowed humanity to begin its first steps towards mastering
the environment around them.
Unfortunately I
couldn't take any pleasure in the lecture with Adriana radiating
dislike at me from just a few feet away. The only event that even
came close to pulling me out of my funk was when Patty and Sammy
exchanged whispered rumors about some celebrity being in a massive
car wreck. Adriana's pulse momentarily shot up at exactly the same
time. It was ludicrous. There was no way that she could have
consciously heard their whispered conversation. Human ears weren't
that acute, but there was no other explanation for why she'd chosen
that moment to almost enter a panic.
There was nothing to
be done. For everything I learned about her two new, unfathomable
things floated to the surface. Once the bell rang I followed her up
to the front of the classroom to hand in my answer.
Mrs. Alexander's
eyebrows rose slightly at the sight of not just one, but two reports
being turned in for our group.
"Oh, Adriana.
It looks like you've been busy."
As I passed over my
typewritten pages she grinned conspiratorially at Adriana. "Somehow
I rather suspect you both have the same answer, Alec just used twice
as many words to get there."
Adriana shot me yet
another dirty look that I hadn't earned. How was it that after just
a few days even the teachers felt obligated to defend her? I'd spent
my entire life trying to prove I was making my way on my own talents
rather than my family's money and she won their approval with a few
sheets and a smile.
My mood wasn't
improved any when Jasmin slid into her adjacent desk at the start of
pre-calculus.
"Word on the
street is that the new girl got a ride into school from Brandon."
My desk creaked in
protest as I felt a momentary surge of rage.
"Apparently she
didn't need our protection after all. Too bad you didn't know that
earlier or you could have saved yourself some pain and blood."
"That doesn't
make sense. Brandon never does anything without a reason. Why would
he befriend someone who stopped Cassie from hurting Rachel?"
Jasmin shrugged and
fished out her homework assignment. "Beats me, but if she's
stupid enough to fall for his lines then she deserves whatever
happens to her."
I couldn't agree.
Especially not once I stumbled upon the likely answer.
"He's doing it
to punish her. He'll addict her to his touch and then he'll cut her
off."
Jasmin's eyes suddenly
got a little wider. "How did I miss that? That explains a
lot. I thought some of those girls were being a little aggressive,
but if he's formed Ja'tell bond with them, then that would explain it
all."
"Damn incubus.
His own pack should tear him apart for that."
"You know
that'll never happen. He's got everyone but Vincent terrified of
him, and it was probably Vincent's idea."
Jasmin's tone was a
darker thing than just her words would have implied. She didn't like
what Brandon was going to do any more than I did.
The idea of Adriana
being reduced to something worse than a meth addict touched on all
kinds of things I didn't want to think about. Forming Ja'tell bond
with a human was always looked down upon. It was somewhat acceptable
when the shape shifter in question did as my father had and married
the poor human they'd addicted, but even then it wasn't a topic for
polite company.
I was still futilely
looking for a solution that would stop even more girls from being
sucked into Brandon's clutches long past when school had ended.
Now that Rachel had
begun staying after school for math tutoring every night I'd begun
sending the rest of the pack home and finding an empty classroom
within earshot of the lab. Usually it was a chance to knock out a
good chunk of my homework, but after my conversation with Jasmin I
found myself unable to focus.
I finally packed all
of my things up early and headed out to my motorcycle. The shiny,
blue Yamaha R1 wasn't a very practical vehicle, but it was more fun
to drive than even my Porsche. Rachel exited the lab and all but
ran to me. It was nice to have one person at least who was glad to
see me today. I pulled out my blue helmet and the black motorcycle
jacket that should offer her a margin of protection if we happened to
wreck. She grimaced at having to wear safety items when I was
blessedly unencumbered, but she knew the drill. I'd walk away from
just about any accident conceivable, but she wasn't nearly as
durable.
I handed the gear over
with only a portion of my attention. My focus was on the pair of
girls that had walked out of the school shortly after Rachel; more
specifically on one of the girls. Britney wasn't of interest. I'd
long ago established just how shallow and self-serving she was, but
Adriana was a different matter.
I'd contemplated a
dozen different plans to keep her out of Brandon's clutches, but none
of them were viable. Adriana seemed to be returning my stare despite
the fact that at this distance, with my eyes covered by sun glasses
there was no way she could be certain I was looking at her.
She was such an
enigma. She stood up to Brandon's pack and then accepted a ride into
school with him. She defended my sister and then chose Britney
Samuels as a best friend. Not to mention the persistent lack of
additional information about her. It seemed impossible in this day
and age of computers and universal Internet access for anyone to have
left no trace after seventeen years of life.
Her expression was
mostly made up of the emotionless mask that she normally wore, but
there was the briefest trace of something else. Something I couldn't
identify at this range, not without scent clues, but which made me
want to protect her.
Rachel swung up behind
me, and then waved as she saw Adri for the first time. Adri's return
wave was a little hesitant, but it seemed to satisfy Rach.
"Time to go big
brother."
The bike dropped into
first gear with a satisfying clunk, and then I spun it around with a
hiss of heating rubber and shot out of the parking lot.
There wasn't anything
more I could do for Adri. She'd made her choices and was going to
have to deal with the fallout.
I'd spent a restless
night after getting Rach home. There'd been more patrols, followed
by a debriefing with Donovan, and a full set of homework. I managed
to get enough sleep to function, but not enough to really feel
rested.
The first couple of
classes didn't do anything to move the day along more quickly.
Wuthering Heights was one of the most depressing studies of how badly
people could mess their lives up if given even a slight chance, and
History was a complete waste of time.
Jasmin blew out of
History so fast that I didn't even get a chance to say goodbye. Even
more surprising she wasn't at her locker when I went to deposit my
books. I could have tracked her down by following her scent trail,
but we were finally scheduled to start a unit on painting, and I
didn't want to miss anything.
Art almost made up for
the previous few hours. I couldn't actually work on the kinds of
stuff I was truly passionate about, but it was still nice to sit
down, mix paints and apply brush to canvas.
My good mood nearly
evaporated away when I met up with Jasmin and felt the traces of
power on her.
"You swore an
oath." Rage nearly brought my voice up into the audible range
for humans.
"Yes I did, but
I'm not under any obligation to tell you what it was about."
"I can find out.
All I have to do is figure out who witnessed for you."
"There was no
witness, Alec. You may as well give up because I'm not going to tell
you anything else."