Broken (41 page)

His nod was hesitant, but my wane smile
seemed to reassure him somewhat.

"I guess that makes sense. Nobody likes to be
told there's something wrong with them, but I can't exactly say
everything is just Jim Dandy. Not when I still collapse at the mere
mention of what I've lost."

The silence wasn't as comfortable now. I had
to break it, even if it meant further examining all of the holes
inside me that I'd spent so many months struggling to ignore.

"So you're just one of those guys that can't
resist trying to help the broken girls huh?"

"No. That's Dominic's theory, I didn't say it
was mine. I did what I did because when I close my eyes I still see
you there."

My heart jumped up to my throat, but in a
good way.

"I don't know why, not really. Your
incredible, unearthly beauty helps, as does your stubborn
determination to continue soldiering on, despite how badly you've
been hurt. That doesn't explain it all though. Neither does the
fact that you stepped in and saved Rachel from a beating I couldn't
stop."

He reached up and tucked a stray hair behind
my left ear. "Whatever the reason, since your arrival here, I just
feel like parts of me that were missing have come back home. Even
when I thought you were some kind of...rogue...shape shifter come
to destroy my pack, I was still drawn to you."

My stupid eyes were tearing up again.
Sometimes being a girl really sucked. Boys never seemed to have
their bodies betray them in front of other people like we did. The
most gorgeous, kind boy I'd ever met had just professed his love to
me, and strangely enough it made what I had to do next both harder
and easier.

"Alec, what if I were to go back to Brandon?
Would that stop everything from going wrong? I mean, then you
wouldn't have been poaching his property or whatever you call
it."

It was bad enough that my heart was
shattering as I said it, the look in Alec's face made everything a
hundred times worse. For a second I thought the earth was shaking,
but it was Alec, trembling much like he'd done Friday night.

A loud crack from beside us made me jump.
Alec looked at the branch, easily as thick as my arm, which he'd
just torn from the tree we were leaning against. He stopped shaking
as he considered what he'd done to the poor tree.

"You're saying that because you're worried
for me? Not because you really want to go back to him?"

I shook my head, as confused by his reaction,
by how close he'd come to losing control, as I was by my not having
felt threatened. "No, I want to stay, but how can I knowing it will
mean you're going to be fighting to the death?"

Alec tossed the branch away with a sigh.
"I've spent years learning control, but sometimes I still forget
just how breakable everything around me is. If you go back to
Brandon, you support his claim that you belong to him, and I'd
still be forced to challenge him. If I didn't, he would be
justified in killing whichever two of my friends he wants."

"So there's no way you can avoid fighting
him?"

Alec's smile was more bittersweet than
normal. "No, but it's not too late to save you. I can have you on a
flight to Paris tonight. It's the only way to guarantee your
safety."

I shook my head. "I'm not leaving. I believe
you when you say my going back to Brandon won't solve anything, but
I'm not going to run away and leave you all to deal with the mess I
created. I wish you'd stop asking me to."

His gaze was long and steady, but finally he
nodded. "You have as much right to see this through as anyone else
does, but it's almost certainly going to get a lot uglier before
it's over. Your freedom is going to be incredibly restricted, at
least as bad as it was today. We'll escort you to school, stay just
long enough to ensure we don't get in trouble, and then hurry back
to our territory. At least if Brandon's pack does come after us
there, we're within our rights to do something about it."

I opened my mouth to comment on the fact that
Brandon's pack was roughly twice the size of ours, only to realize
that scurrying back home kind of precluded continuing to help out
at the tutor lab.

"What about helping Mrs. Campbell?"

It shouldn't have surprised me that Alec
thought it over for several seconds before shaking his head.
Whatever else he was, he wasn't the thoughtless jerk Brandon had
proven himself to be.

"I'm sorry Adriana. I wish we could, for
Rachel's sake as well as yours, but it's just too risky. Fewer
witnesses means more chance Brandon's people will try to arrange
for something to happen. There are just too many of them for us to
meet them in a stand-up fight and come out unscathed."

I didn't like it. Mrs. Campbell was the only
teacher who'd taken an active interest in my wellbeing, but I could
see his point. I managed to do at least a passable job hiding my
near frown as I nodded in acceptance.

"Can I have just a few minutes today after
school to tell her?"

Alec's hand was warm on my face as he nodded.
"You're amazing. All the things being taken away from you just
because you got involved with the wrong crowd, and you just do what
has to be done. Of course you can have a few minutes. I'm sorry to
make you do this."

I wanted to tell him it was less than he was
doing. To say it was the least I could do considering this was all
my fault, but the unabashed bliss of having him touch me was
overwhelming. It took surprising effort to string coherent thoughts
together. Before I managed to do so successfully, he sighed and
helped me to my feet.

"We'd better get back or you'll miss
Spanish."

Based on how badly Biology had gone, I was
dreading Spanish with even more fervor than normal. I felt
incredibly better when it was Dominic who was waiting with a smile
for us at my locker. Alec let go of my hand with an actual look of
regret.

Mrs. Tiggs seemed to have read whatever memo
Mrs. Sorenson had been working off of earlier. She started out the
hour by asking me a question I was positive wasn't in any of the
chapters I'd ever read.

The class' collective mouth dropped in
astonishment as Dominic called her on it. "But Mrs. Tiggs, isn't
that covered in chapter 18? I mean, I just started the class
obviously, but it just seems confusing. Your syllabus says we're
talking about the preterit today."

The only other person I'd ever met who
could've even come close to pulling off such an innocent expression
was Rachel, and I wasn't sure even she could compete with Dominic
today. If I'd found her standing in front of a broken window with a
rock in her hand, and she'd told me she had no idea why the window
had shattered, all the while flashing me that look, I would've
believed her.

Mrs. Tiggs apparently wasn't quite so
gullible. "It's a reasonable question, as the two subjects are
highly related. One could almost say they're so close to the same
thing that any distinction is purely arbitrary."

Now Dominic looked both innocent and
confused. "But why are they so far apart in the book then? I mean
my Spanish book in the school before I came here had them pretty
widely spaced too."

It was masterful. I'm not even sure the rest
of the class realized the pattern, but Mrs. Tiggs seemed to catch
on about halfway through the hour. Every time she was snippy with
me, Dominic made her look like the idiot we all suspected she
was.

As the bell rang, and we exited the first
truly instructive Spanish class all semester, I pulled Dominic off
to the side. "That was amazing. Thank you, but you can't keep doing
that or she's going to fail you."

Dominic sagged a little against me. "I don't
think she will. Not after the rest of the class realizes she has a
hard time reading the book herself. Even if she does, it doesn't
really matter. I never expected to finish junior high, let alone
graduate from high school. Besides, James is always talking about
dropping out and just getting his GED. Maybe I'll follow suit."

She stiffened slightly as I hugged her, but
then smiled and returned the gesture with an earnestness that made
me think she hadn't had much in the way of hugs in her life.

"Well, I hope it doesn't come to that, but
thanks again. I may still flunk out, but seeing the expression on
her face makes it worthwhile."

Was it possible to be both shy and confident
at the same time? If it was, Dominic's fluid, expressive face
pulled it off.

"Nonsense. Once we undo all of the damage
from her teaching you, you'll do so well even she won't flunk
you."

It went against everything past experience
with Mrs. Tiggs had taught me, but I almost believed her.

Chapter 26

It was amazing how quickly my classes flew by
when I had a friend, or at least a protector with me at all times.
Then again all of Monday had flown by, not just the school portion
of the day, so it really shouldn't have been a surprise today was
doing likewise.

After Spanish, Jasmin had escorted me to Mrs.
Campbell's class. Telling her I wasn't going to be able to help out
at the lab anymore had been one of the harder things I'd ever done,
but she'd been surprisingly understanding. We'd scheduled my makeup
test for the next day and I'd left with the sneaking suspicion
she'd guess more about what was really going on in Sanctuary than
either pack would've liked. I'd been busy contemplating what Mrs.
Campbell might have really figured out as we left the building,
only to have Jasmin interrupt my musings with an apology of all
things.

She didn't get into specifics, and it was
obvious she was still worried about the coming showdown with
Brandon, but I was pretty sure she really was sorry. It didn't make
us best friends and she was still an enigma, but it was a start. It
even gave me hope maybe Jessica and James might eventually come
around.

I was still reeling in surprise as we walked
out to the parking lot and met up with the rest of the pack, or
rather the rest of the pack minus Alec. He'd shown up several
minutes later, looking very satisfied with himself, but obviously
unwilling to answer any questions. As we caravanned home, I
realized the collection of vehicles carrying us back to Alec's
estate probably cost more than my house.

Donovan had met us at the door and conducted
us to the dining room, where Alec and his friends devoured a
sizable meal. Even back when I'd had a more substantial appetite, I
still couldn't have kept up with the wolves. Even the girls packed
away more food than I would've believed possible for such slender
frames. I mentally shrugged and added it to the list of shape
shifter benefits. Able to eat like a complete pig, and still slip
into size zero jeans.

Dominic spent a couple hours after dinner
helping me with Spanish. She probably would've spent even longer
with me, but mom called, so Dominic slipped out to give me some
privacy. I fielded something like a hundred questions about school,
reassured her two or three times that she wasn't a terrible mother,
and promised yet again to stay one hundred percent out of trouble
while she was gone. I was beginning to wonder if I was ever going
to get off the phone when she finally decided, ultra-late shoot
tomorrow or not, she'd better go to bed.

By the time I finally finished up the rest of
my studying, decided I was ready for my catch-up test in Mrs.
Campbell's class tomorrow, and spent a few minutes with Rachel, I
was well and truly exhausted.

I thought about going back to the Lilac room,
but it would've just been because I was worried about what everyone
else was thinking. I'd been raised to believe good little girls
didn't spend the night with boys. Not even boys who were so
gentlemanly it was sometimes painful.

I guess I still believed that, but my desire
to be with Alec had devoured the parts of my brain that used logic
and reason to decide things. I wanted to be with him while he
slept, even if it was only for a couple of hours. Everyone in the
pack already knew I'd spent the night. In the end, the reasonable
part of me never had a chance.

Waking up next to Alec fully vindicated my
decision. He'd greeted me with his typical, heart-stopping smile
and I'd leaned in to kiss him before I'd even realized I was in
motion. He'd pulled back, but his expression at least wasn't
reproachful.

I wanted to force the issue, wanted it so
badly I could feel the desire bubbling inside me, but even more
than my natural shyness, the thought of him pulling away again,
this time in disgust, was too much to contemplate.

Once we got to school, I'd found the rampant
gossip had subsided to a dull rumble, but the few undecided votes
seemed to have come down solidly on the side of everyone else. Some
people hated me for using Brandon, others hated me for playing
Alec, while a small, but decidedly upwardly-mobile group disliked
me for achieving not just one, but both of the conquests they'd
been dreaming of since grade school. In the end, it didn't really
matter why everyone disliked me. Still, only the fact that Alec's
pack closed ranks around me kept the situation from becoming
unbearable.

Biology went better than it had since my
first day in Sanctuary, largely because Alec seemed to have
developed a near-post doctorate knowledge of Biology. Also he
didn't have a single qualm when it came to using that knowledge to
deflect questions aimed at me. Mrs. Sorenson tried three different
times to make me look stupid before finally giving up and getting
down to the business of teaching.

She continued to shoot us nasty looks
throughout the class, but I hardly noticed. Alec spent the rest of
the class time writing questions for me in the margins of my
notebook. By the time I'd described my grandparents, kindergarten
teacher, and top three most embarrassing moments, I wanted to get a
chance to ask some questions of my own, but he just shook his head
and passed me my notebook back with a new set of quickly-jotted
queries. The sentences should have been a careless mess based on
the speed with which he was writing. Instead they somehow turned
out more even and carefully constructed than anything I'd ever been
able to accomplish.