Dreamwalkers (9 page)

Remy doesn’t like that idea. “If there are
enemies there watching the house, you could be putting an innocent
person in danger.”

I’m in the chair again, one leg dangling over
the arm. Remy sits on the couch, lightly touching my foot in the
hidden corner where Mom can’t see. She hasn’t been flirting quite
as hard-core as a week ago, and she often stops and watches Remy
and me when we’re talking. I’m not quite sure why I don’t want her
to know that I’m interested in him. Maybe because I was so opposed
to it when she first suggested the idea of mating me with him.

I’ll make my own decisions, thank you very
much. And if that means waiting until she’s not all over us being
together, so be it. I can wait. At least until I’m old enough to be
married in the state of Montana.

“So how exactly are we going to do this,
then?” Mom asks.

“I was thinking that Kayla and I could drive
there.”

Mom opens her mouth to remind him about what
I just said, but Remy holds up one hand. “We’ll first go to
Glendive and rent a car, then drive that car out to Wolf
Point.”

“You could still be followed,” Mom says, eyes
narrowed, looking from me to Remy and back again.

“I don’t see why we need to go back,” Aunt
Jenny says. “We’re safe here. We should stay here.”

“We can’t keep running scared!” Mom shouts at
her.

“Julie, calm down.” Remy’s voice of reason
cuts through the tension in the room. “We need to do some
reconnaissance. We need to find out where they’re hiding, where
they’re looking, what kind of numbers they’ve got. They’ll be
watching your compound, I’m sure of it.”

Compound. It sounds like a cult. I suppose,
knowing that we were a wolf pack, compound could describe how we
lived. I still don’t like it. We had three little cabins out in the
woods. That’s all.

“How exactly are you going to do all this
spying? And what makes you think I’m going to let you take my
fifteen-year-old daughter off on a spying mission, alone, with a
full-grown man?”

I give my mother a look. Really? She’s going
to play that card, when she was practically marrying me off to the
guy a week ago?

“I promise that I will be a perfect
gentleman,” Remy says. His intention pours forth like a blanket.
He’s trying to use the kind of pack magic I once used on Daniel on
my mother–I stop myself from smiling. I’m not even sure pack magic
will work. Thus far, it hasn’t seemed like Remy has bonded with
anyone else in our pack other than me.

Mom narrows her eyes. “I think you should
take Jenny with you. That way you leave Kayla and I here. We can
protect ourselves.”

“Kayla has some… unique… abilities that are
necessary to this mission.”

He words it carefully, yet I know he’s
talking about my dreamwalking, and I don’t want him to tell
anyone.

(why not?)

I blink at the unbidden thought, then,
without looking at him–continuing to give my mother a death glare,
in fact–

(I don’t know. I just don’t want her to
know)

“And what ‘unique abilities’ are we talking
about?” Mom is pissed. I can tell because she just used air
quotes.

(come on, you must have some idea)

(I don’t know!)

“You’re acting like you know my daughter
better than I do. I know her abilities. I raised her; I trained
her.”

(need a reason)

(because then she’ll know I kept this a
secret from her. because then I’ll have something she doesn’t have.
because then she’ll find a way to make me hate it.)

“As you know, I’ve been training with Kayla,
and we work well together,” Remy says finally. “We’ve developed
something like a pack bond that I haven’t been able to develop with
either of you. I think it’s much safer to go on this mission with
someone I can communicate with in an emergency.”

The fire crackles.

“You’ve… developed a bond?” Mom asks
quietly.

Asks me, not Remy.

I can’t look at her. I was all worried about
her finding out about my dreamwalking, while this secret is
possibly worse. Much worse.

“It just happened,” I say, like that’s going
to make it any better that it was accidental. “During the hunt. I
don’t know how.”

Mom studies me. Testing our bond. To see if
I’m lying.

Thing is, I’m not.

Finally she looks at Remy. Glares at him.

I know exactly what she’s thinking, too: You
did this. You have corrupted my daughter. You knew what you were
doing even if she didn’t.

It isn’t Mom who breaks the silence, though.
It’s Aunt Jenny.

“So it’s true. You didn’t bond with
Daniel.”

I can’t say it. I can’t tell anyone, not now.
Even though tears are now brimming in her eyes, and she’s leaving
the room, sniffling, and Mom is saying, “Oh, Jenny.”

I definitely can’t tell Remy.

The day is unseasonably warm, and I roll my
window down despite the breeze that is a little too sharply cold.
The sunshine just feels so good.

Remy and I left before the sun rose this
morning. Mom made sure she was awake and sipping her coffee in the
dark kitchen when we went out the door. It’s been two days since
the argument and she’s still nursing a grudge.

Her bond with me has been closed off tight. I
think it’s jealousy, and it’s strange for me to think about my
mother being jealous of me. She already had her time–already was
married and had a child. She shouldn’t be so concerned about my
love life. She shouldn’t have been thinking about pursuing someone
so much younger that he would be interested in her daughter.

I wish she could have said something before
we left. Something. Anything. She barely spoke to me as Remy and I
made preparations. “I love you,” I told her before we left. Her
coldness prevented me from even thinking about trying to hug her
good-bye.

And forget Aunt Jenny. She’s been holed up in
the bedroom since the other night.

can’t tell her about Daniel no matter
what.

Getting out of that cabin is like removing a
heavy set of chains. Finally, I’m free. I’m alone with Remy.
Although that scares me a little, I can at least talk to him
without having to constantly worry about my mom listening in or
watching us.

We stopped at a gas station two hours into
the trip. I bought a coffee for Remy (black, one sugar) and an iced
coffee (extra cream, extra sugar) for myself while he filled the
tank. Up to this point, we haven’t really been awake enough to talk
much.

“I’m beginning to get the sense that your Mom
doesn’t like me very much,” Remy says now that the caffeine has
perked us up.

“I don’t think she likes me very much right
now, either,” I say, rolling up the window.

My hand rests in Remy’s across the center
console of the Jeep. It feels so natural and right.

like Daniel is a distant memory

I wish my wolf would stop reminding me about
Daniel every time I think about Remy.

“And your Aunt Jenny…”

He stops. I know what he wants to talk about
now. Not my mom.

Daniel.

“Your mom tried to bond you with Daniel?”

“Yeah.”

Have to close off our bond. I don’t want him
to know. I want this to be a good trip.

“Kayla.”

I can’t tell him.

Can’t tell him that I can still feel Daniel.
Feel his pain.

The past two nights, Daniel has been running.
Running and running and running. My legs feel tired. I’ve actually
tried to reach him in his dreams, but he isn’t sleeping. He’s just
running. I get these glimpses, but he can’t hear me, I can tell. I
scream at him to stop running. He can’t hear me.

“Kayla?”

“Daniel’s gone, okay? I don’t want to talk
about him.”

There goes any hope of this being a fun
trip.

The awkward silence stretches over the miles.
Remy never made a move toward the radio so I put it on, tuning it
to my favorite station.

By the time we stop to get the rental car,
I’m starving. I wait outside the dealership, staring over rows and
rows of shiny cars. I imagine it’s better to be outside. People
might get suspicious of a young teenage girl alone on a school day
with some random guy in his twenties.

It makes me feel like a total freak that my
two choices of romantic partners are

my first cousin

a distant relative who others might think is
a pedophile.

Oh Alex Lo, what are you up to now?
Seriously, there has to be someone better out there for me. Someone
approximately my age who is not part of my family tree.

It takes a while for the paperwork and all.
By the time we’re back on the road I’ve had an opportunity to come
up with some conversation topics to fill the three hours or so we
still have to drive.

“If you were stranded on a deserted island,
what three things would you bring with you?”

Remy gives me a long, concerned look.

“You might want to keep your eyes on the
road.”

When it becomes clear that Remy is not going
to answer my hypothetical question, I give my own answer. “If I
were stranded on a deserted island, I would bring a good sharp
knife. I wouldn’t need anything else.”

“Really.”

“Yes. Really. I can use a knife to start a
fire, to cut wood and build a shelter, and to protect myself.”

“Not even your favorite teddy bear? A photo
album?”

“Nope.”

“Not the sentimental type, then?”

“You gonna answer my question or just
criticize my answer?”

Remy thinks for a moment, then says, “I
wouldn’t bother bringing anything.”

“Nothing?”

“I’ve got my wolf for hunting for food, and
I’m sure I could find some natural shelter.”

My jaw clenches because he’s right. Wolves
will survive. They don’t need warmth or shelter. Especially not on
a tropical island.

“What both of us should bring is a life raft.
So we could get off the island.”

“Okay, Mr. Smartypants. If you could have one
extra hour in the day to do only one thing, what would that one
thing be?”

“Seriously? What’s with the icebreaker
questions?”

I cross my arms over my chest. “I think it’s
a good way to get to know someone.”

“You don’t feel like you know me?” He flashes
me a most untrustworthy smile.

“No, I don’t. You’re a total mystery. I never
knew you existed until a couple weeks ago, and now you’re around
every day. But I don’t know you.”

“I bet you say that about everyone who isn’t
in your pack.”

“You know what I mean.”

He’s quiet for a moment. I’m interested to
learn his answer to my question. I know what I’m going to say: I’d
spend that hour learning archery. I’ve been wanting to learn
archery every since I read
The Hunger Games
last year.

“I don’t think you can ever really know a
person.”

Not the answer I was expecting.

“Really? Never?”

“Spoken like someone who’s never been
betrayed,” Remy says.

“I’ve been betrayed.” Daniel definitely
betrayed me by running away. But it wasn’t like I didn’t see that
coming. He was always on the border of being ready to crack under
the pressure. Which is why I had to follow him around in wolf form
for three months before I thought he could handle the fact that he
was a werewolf.

“By who?”

I twist in my seat so I’m staring directly at
the side of Remy’s face. “I asked you a question. Stop turning it
around on me. I’m never going to trust you if you never answer any
questions about yourself.”

“You’re not really asking me questions.
You’re giving me hypothetical situations. There’s a big
difference.”

“I think hypothetical situations can tell a
lot about a person.”

“I think real situations can tell a lot about
a person. Hypotheticals only tell you what the person thinks of
themselves.”

I settle back in my seat, unwilling to
concede that he has a point. Yes, actions speak louder than words.
Fine.

“Here’s what I’ve learned from this real
situation.” I begin counting on my fingers. “You don’t want to talk
about yourself. You don’t trust me. And I don’t trust you.”

Remy opens his mouth to talk, closes it,
takes a deep breath, then speaks. “Here’s what I’ve learned from
your answers. You know you’re strong. You think you’re smart. You
think you’re tough. You don’t want to admit that you’re attracted
to me.” He gives me a short sidelong look. “But you haven’t been
tested.”

“You don’t know anything about me!”

“So you’ve faced a situation where it seemed
like there was no way out, and still found the strength to fight?
You’ve been beaten to where it’d be easier to lie down and die, and
still found the strength to stand?”

I don’t answer. Instead, I stare out the
window at the trees and miles flashing past. It’s true. It’s all
true. I haven’t been tested.

Daniel has.

And I called him weak.

A wave of shame crashes through me. How could
I be so mean? I can’t even begin to fathom all the horrors he’s
seen.

A life of abuse, for starters; waking up to
discover you’ve not only murdered all the men in your family, but
literally ripped them to shreds. Maybe even eaten parts of them. I
swallow, turning my mind to other things.

Leaving home at age thirteen–the age when I
was going into eighth grade and my biggest concern was some jock
asshole calling me a redneck–he was out there, on the roads,
worrying about when he was going to find his next meal, or whether
when he woke up he’d find himself in the middle of a crime
scene.

In the short period when we traveled
together, he was attacked by a serious serial killer, nearly
starved to death in the snow because I pushed him too hard, killed
a little girl, attempted suicide… and as icing on the cake,
discovered he was a werewolf and had to save his family from enemy
wolves.