Hunted (17 page)

It
wasn't the most romantic gesture ever. Actually it wasn't even the
slightest bit romantic, but it took me a second to process what he'd
said because the way he was holding onto my arm was making me
nervous. Tristan wasn't as tall as Jackson, but he had slightly
broader shoulders and he was built like someone who spent a lot of
time in the weight room.

Jackson
was all lean muscles, almost like a swimmer, while Tristan was bulky,
more like a running back than I'd always thought a quarterback was
supposed to look like. I told myself that nothing was going to happen
out here in broad daylight despite the weird vibe I was getting from
him, and then shook my head at him.

"I'm
flattered, Tristan."

Actually
I wasn't really flattered, more like creeped out due to the fact that
he had to have at least some inkling of the fact that Cindi liked him
or he wouldn't be trying so hard to get me off by myself to talk.
Still, I was pretty sure that he was used to girls all but swooning
when he asked them out and I figured that things would go better if I
didn't let on that his pitch had been the epitome of underwhelming.

"That
sounds fun and all, but I don't think it would be a good idea."

"How
come?"

"I
don't think it's really my place to say."

He
looked at me for a few seconds almost as though he was expecting for
me to cave just based off of his smoldering good looks.

"Is
it because of Cindi?"

"You
know that she's interested in you, don't you?"

He
nodded. "Yeah, but it's not like I asked for that. Cindi is a
nice girl, and she's super attractive, but she isn't the one I'm
interested in. You are."

I
didn't know what his issue was for sure. I suspected that he was
getting bored of girls throwing themselves at him and just wanted a
challenge.

I
didn't actually care what was making him act like a jerk, but I
needed to come up with a way of warning him off without ruining the
possibility of him and Cindi getting together later on. Assuming that
she was still interested in him once she got to know him better.

"I
really am flattered, Tristan, but I'm not going to do that to Cindi.
Even if you were my type, which you aren't, I still wouldn't do
anything to hurt her like that."

Tristan
waited to see if I was going to say anything else for several seconds
and then shrugged. "I have a feeling you're going to change your
mind at some point, but I won't push the issue right now. One way or
another you're going to end up spending that weekend with me. Tell
Cindi that I said hi."

I
opened my mouth to ask him what he meant, but he just shot me a
snarky grin as he looked over my right shoulder and then turned and
walked off. I turned to see what he'd been looking at and my heart
sank as Cindi hurried towards me.

I
had only a second to wish that Cindi had been a few minutes slower
changing and then she reached me and I had to start answering
questions.

"What
did he say? Tell me everything!"

Fat
chance of that. Cindi was already mad at me. If I told her that her
crush had asked me out then she'd stop talking to me altogether. It
wasn't fair. I hadn't done anything to try to capture his attention,
but she wouldn't place the blame on him, she'd lay it squarely at my
feet.

"It
was mostly just small talk. He's got some kind of trip up to St.
Cloud planned when Mom and Dad are away on their vacation."

"Did
he invite us? Did he mention me?"

"He
didn't invite us."

Technically
he hadn't invited us, he'd invited me, so it wasn't quite a lie.

"You
came up in passing, I tried to bring you up more than that, but he
really seemed pretty focused on himself."

Again,
not quite a lie, he'd definitely cared more about himself than
anything or anyone else. And I had brought up Cindi, he just hadn't
wanted to talk about her.

"You
can't just leave me hanging like that, Adri. What did he say?"

"He
said you were nice and super attractive."

Something
that hadn't quite added up during our conversation suddenly
crystallized for me.

"Cindi,
how did Tristan know that Mom and Dad are going to be gone? I haven't
said anything to anyone, did he hear it from you?"

Cindi
gestured for me to pick up the backpack that Tristan had set down on
the ground before making his abrupt exit.

"Let's
get started for home. I'll tell you on the way."

She'd
already started walking so I didn't have any choice but to grab my
stuff and follow if I wanted to carry on a conversation with her.

"I
want to throw a party while Mom and Dad are gone. Not a huge one or
anything, I just want to invite a few friends. I had Patty Conners
mention it to Tristan so that he could make sure not to plan anything
else. I was thinking that you could invite Jackson."

"Are
you crazy?"

The
words came out harsher than I meant for them to, especially after how
pissed off she'd been at me lately. It wasn't like I could take them
back now though and they pretty much summed up how I felt.

"I've
seen how you look at him, Adri. It's obvious that you like him. Maybe
not to everyone, but you're my sister. I've never seen you act like
that around any other guy. I think you should invite him and see
where things go. It's not like we get many opportunities to have the
house to ourselves."

"That
wasn't the part I was talking about. You can't really be thinking
that it's a good idea to throw a party while Mom and Dad are away."

"So
you
do
like him. I thought as much."

"Okay,
yes, I'm very interested in Jackson, but that doesn't change the fact
that these things never work out like they are supposed to. More
people than you invite are going to end up coming to the party and
then you'll completely lose control of it and they will trash our
house."

"Just
because you saw it happen that way on a sitcom doesn't mean that it's
gospel, Adri."

She
had me there. I hadn't actually been to any parties since I'd been
eight and those had been heavily supervised. I knew I was right
though, knew that the risks were huge, but she preempted me.

"Missy
threw a party last month and everything was fine. The key is to make
sure you invite three or four of the biggest guys on the football
team and have them throw out anyone who shows up that you don't want
to be there."

"What
if they don't do their job? Or end up being the ones who get out of
control."

"That's
easy. You pick guys who are dating your friends and make sure that
they know they'll be going through a major dry spell if they screw
things up."

My
face heated up immediately. It was like this whole conversation was
one blindside after another.

"I
can't believe you just said that! Please tell me that you
haven't…well, you know."

Cindi
had the grace to look a little embarrassed. "No, I haven't, but
you and I are about the only girls on the squad who haven't. Just
because I haven't doesn't mean that I don't know what's going on
though or how to use it to my advantage."

"Wait
a second, were you at Missy's party?"

"Of
course. You're a pretty heavy sleeper, especially lately. I waited
until Mom and Dad fell asleep and then I snuck out through our
window. Patty picked me up half a block from our house and then
dropped me off again a couple of hours before dawn."

I
was still reeling or I probably would have handled things better.
Instead I let the first thing that came to mind slip out of my mouth
without filtering it.

"I'm
not going to go along with this."

"Yes,
you are, Adri. The only way for you to stop it would be for you to
tell Mom and Dad, and you're not going to do that."

"Yes,
I am!"

Cindi
shook her head at me. "Think that through, Adri. If you were to
tell them then they'd probably cancel their vacation so that they
could stay home and make sure that the house didn't get trashed.
You'd be ruining their chance at working things out. Do you really
want to do that, Adri? You know they aren't going to just go and then
punish me when they get back. Mom is never going to be okay with a
bunch of kids she doesn't know being here at the house without any
supervision, not when there isn't anything to keep them out of all of
her photography equipment."

I
opened my mouth to tell her that she was wrong, but nothing came out.
She wasn't wrong and we both knew it. She could have just left things
there and I probably wouldn't have said anything to our parents about
her party, but she didn't stop there. She had to drive one last nail
into the coffin.

"Besides,
Adri, you owe me. I've been nothing but nice to you lately. I'm the
reason you tried out for the cheer squad, I'm the reason that Jackson
is starting to notice you. Everything good that is going on in your
life right now is because of me. You're even wearing my clothes."

"I
didn't ask for this, I didn't even want any of this."

"You
keep saying that, but it's not the truth and we both know it. I don't
know how you're doing it, where you're finding the time, or who is
teaching you, but this is obviously something that you've been
working towards for weeks, maybe even months. People don't just
suddenly learn our routine like that, not without serious effort, and
you're picking up stunting way too fast."

I
wanted to respond, but I didn't know what to say. There was no way
that she was going to believe that I was learning everything from
sharing dreams with members of the squad. Cindi nodded, as though in
satisfaction that I wasn't going to dispute her version of events.

"Most
of all though, you owe me because you wasted my time yesterday with a
practice that you didn't even need when I had other, more important,
things that I should have been doing."

"I
did need that practice. I'm sorry that it went long, but you should
have said something when you realized that it was time for you to
go."

"Whatever.
One way or another you're lying to me. You're not going to tell Mom
and Dad and that's pretty much all there is to it."

**

I
didn't eat very well at dinner. Cindi seemed to take that as a proof
that I had a guilty conscience, that or maybe that I was taking her
advice from earlier about not eating like a pig so that I didn't
balloon back up to my old size.

The
truth was that I actually
did
need to eat. I'd burned through
a lot of my reserves during my midnight practice with Sheree and I
wasn't sure that I'd managed to replace them yet today, which could
be a problem if I ended up in another shared dream tonight.

Mom
and Dad were actually both at dinner with Cindi and me, which was a
rare treat, but I couldn't enjoy it while worrying about what Cindi
was planning. Apparently Mom and Dad were really trying to make a go
of things—there wasn't any other explanation for them both
having torn themselves away from their respective projects in time to
have a normal, sit-down dinner like everyone else had.

My
apathy even cast a pall over their efforts there, because instead of
talking to each other they spent most of the meal trying to get me to
tell them what was wrong. I excused myself from the table after
twenty minutes of picking at my food and retreated to my bedroom.

I
tried to work on homework, tried to read a book, nothing worked. I
finally just went to bed about an hour earlier than normal. I didn't
particularly want to sleep, but I didn't want to talk to Cindi right
now. This wasn't something that we wouldn't work past eventually, at
least I didn't think it was, but it wasn't something that I could
just forgive right now.

Once
again I fell asleep instantly, but this time I didn't end up inside
of my own dream to start out with. I was in someone else's dream, and
it had happened without any kind of conscious effort on my part,
which meant that I was in danger. I looked down at myself and found
that I was once again a chubbier version of myself.

I
didn't waste precious seconds this time around wondering what that
said about my subconscious. Instead I visualized my body becoming
even more rounded and then pushed that illusion into the
pseudo-reality of the dream. I changed my hair and skin color and
then reached up to confirm that my face had also shifted around as
I'd changed the rest of my body.

I
debated for the briefest of instants and then I changed my eye color
to brown and stretched my face so that it looked like something you'd
see in one of those curvy mirrors at the circus.

The
whole process had taken less than a second. I'd done it out of a
reflexive paranoia at what I'd find here, but it felt like the right
thing to have done.

I
could feel the tightness off in a corner of my mind that told me that
my psyche was sustaining the illusions without any kind of massive
effort on my part. I knew there would be a constant, slow drain of
strength and energy out of my real body as a result of the seeming
that I'd created, but tonight I felt strong and well-rested, so it
wasn't something that I needed to worry about in the short term.
Hopefully I'd be gone before it became a concern.

I
looked around and finally realized how I'd known that I wasn't in one
of my own dreams. Everything was much more vivid than I could manage
with my own efforts. I was standing in a field of gorgeous sunflowers
under a blue sky that had only the faintest white wisps of clouds as
a gentle breeze caused the flowers to bob up and down.

The
flowers, at least the ones in easy reach of where I was standing,
were all individual plants rather than the textured, colored mass
that would have been the default surrounding in one of my dreams.
Even more impressive, the soft, delicate petals on the plants were
likewise individual and varied.