Hunted (6 page)

We
were right. Dad walked through the door five minutes before seven,
gave both of us hugs, and then the three of us sat down to eat.

Dad
asked us how our days had gone and Cindi started to tell him about my
performance at the end of practice, but I kicked her under the table
and she cut off midsentence with a hurt look. Dinner went by pretty
quickly after that. Dad loaded the dishwasher up and then retreated
to his study to finish up some of the work that he hadn't been able
to get to during the course of the day.

He
looked so worn out that I almost couldn't bring myself to go in and
bother him with my problems, but I knew he'd rather be bothered than
out of the loop so I took a deep breath and stuck my head inside of
his office.

"Hi,
Dad. I know you're busy, but could we talk for a few minutes?"

"Of
course, come on in, Adri. Is this about your punishment?"

"Actually
it's not, but now that you mention it I have been thinking about your
questions and I think that I have some answers for you."

Dad
gestured at the tiny chair stationed at the side of his desk. "Well,
which do you want to start with?"

"Your
questions, I think."

He
smiled at me like he knew that I was trying to avoid getting into the
real reason we were talking and then waved for me to proceed.

"First
you asked who I thought was the bully in my fight."

"What
did you decide?"

"I
think that we both were, at least a little. She was calling me names
and she was the one who got in my face first, but by telling everyone
there that she'd cheated on her test I put her in a position where
she felt like she had to do something to protect her image. I guess
you could say that I escalated things."

Dad
nodded. "I think you've done the situation justice. So how do
you think the fight could have gotten out of control?"

"I
don't know, I guess there are a lot of different ways. When I
scratched her I could have missed her cheek and gotten her eye
instead."

"She
had friends there, right, Adri?"

"Yeah,
why?"

"These
days friends don't always just stand by and let a fight be settled
between two people. I've read about plenty of incidents, especially
in cities like ours, where an entire group of kids jump one kid after
the fight starts. Those situations don't usually end very well,
sweetie. Usually the loser ends up in the hospital, at the very
least."

My
mouth opened and closed a few times as I tried to process what he'd
just said. I'd seen some of the same kinds of headlines online, but
somehow none of that had crossed my mind, either at the time of the
fight or in the days since.

"I
guess you're right, that would have been pretty bad."

Dad
sighed. "You being hospitalized or even dead would have been
pretty much the worst-case scenario, but there are other things that
could have happened that wouldn't have been very much fun. To be
honest, I half expected that Janessa's parents would try to get the
police or lawyers involved."

My
stomach knotted up like it was trying to digest a rock. We couldn't
afford a lawyer. I didn't know a ton about our finances, but I knew
that despite the long hours Dad worked that there wasn't a ton of
money to spare and lawyers were super expensive.

"I'm
sorry, Dad. I didn't think about that either."

"I
know, sweetie. You wouldn't have purposefully done anything to hurt
your family, but you need to understand that your actions can have
much bigger consequences than you realize."

I
felt like crying, but he really wasn't mad at me. He waited while I
pulled myself back together a little bit.

"So
what about my third question? When is fighting okay and was your
fight with Janessa justified?"

"You
said the other day that sometimes fighting is okay, but now all I can
think about is all of the ways that things could have gone really
wrong."

"The
consequences can be pretty serious, but sometimes the consequences of
not fighting can be even more serious."

"Like
if someone else might be killed or hospitalized if I didn't fight."

"Yes,
like that. Fighting is always a last resort; it's always something
you should consider only when fighting a bully and only when the
consequences of not fighting are at least as bad as the potential
consequences of fighting."

I
nodded and stood up to leave but Dad grabbed my hand and pulled me
back down into my chair. "You had something to ask me, and we
also haven't talked about your punishment."

"I
did a pretty bad job answering your questions, so I'm guessing my
punishment is going to continue for the foreseeable future, which
makes the question I came in here with a pointless one."

Dad
shook his head. "I actually thought that you did an okay job
with my questions. I think that there are plenty of adults who
haven't thought things through to the degree that you have now. Not
only that, I feel like you now understand the gravity of any decision
to get into a fight. I think your punishment can come to an end,
which means that you can go ahead and ask me your other question."

"I…well,
Cindi thinks that I should try out for the cheerleading squad
tomorrow."

Dad's
eyes got a little bigger like I'd just completely blindsided him.
"That's what Cindi thinks. What do you think?"

"I'm
not sure. If I knew that I wouldn't be able to make the team then it
would just be a matter of whether I was willing to go make a fool out
of myself at the tryouts. I'm pretty sure I can make the team though,
so if I go try out then I'm looking at making a huge change. I'll
have to go to practices and games and I'll have a lot less time to do
my homework."

Dad
shook his head. "The act of trying out doesn't mean that you are
committing to join the team. You still have a decision to make after
that, so the real question you should be asking yourself is whether
the things you lose by going to the practice are greater than the
things you gain."

"So
I would gain the opportunity to be on the team, and I would lose two
hours of my life?"

"At
the most basic level, yes, but there might be other considerations as
well. Based on how excited Cindi was about telling me something
before you kicked her under the table, I'm guessing that Cindi loves
the idea of having you on the team with her."

"I
guess you're right. My going to the tryouts would probably gain me
brownie points with Cindi, but isn't it a waste of time to go do
something just for the possibility of being on the team if I'm not
really interested in joining?"

"Yes,
if you're positive that you don't want to be on the team, but you
don't seem like you really know what you want to do yet."

"Yeah.
I think I'm worried what people will think. I've always thought that
most of the cheerleaders were stupid and shallow. If I'm a
cheerleader then everyone is going to think the same thing about me."

"Is
that your only concern?"

"No.
I'm the reason that this spot on the team is open. How is it going to
look if I get Janessa's place on the team after getting her kicked
off in the first place?"

"I'm
not going to lie, Adri, it's going to look pretty bad. On the other
hand, if you spend your whole life making decisions solely based on
what other people will think, you'll have a very unhappy life and
people will still end up disapproving of your choices."

I
nodded and stood back up. This time Dad didn't stop me. "Thanks,
Dad. You've got some good points. I'll at least go try out tomorrow
and then I can make a decision from there."

"You're
welcome, Adri. Have a good night's sleep if I'm still working when
you turn in."

Cindi
was predictably thrilled when I told her I would at least go try out.
I kept telling her that I still wasn't positive that I'd be joining the
team, but she didn't seem concerned. In Cindi's world, once you
got an offer to join the cheerleading team there wasn't any way you
would not join.

We
talked about random stuff until it was time to get ready for bed and
then almost before I knew it our light was off and I was trying to go
to sleep.

It
seemed like my eyes had only been closed for a second before I
started dreaming. I could tell that this wasn't just a normal dream
because there were things that were off about it and I noticed them
rather than just accepting that the flawed version of reality I was
seeing was accurate.

I
was in a house that was bigger than any house I'd ever been inside
before, but it still somehow gave the feeling of being cramped and
confining. It took me a couple of seconds to figure out how a room
that was almost two stories tall could feel so small, but it seemed
to be something a bit like the visual distortion that I'd seen when
I'd looked down from the tower in the dream with the wolf-men. When I
looked directly at a wall or the ceiling, it was obvious that the
room was huge, but out of the corner of my eye everything seemed to
move in closer. When I looked away and focused on the windows, the
walls angled in towards me and the ceiling sloped down to the point
where it felt like it was going to collapse and crush me.

I
walked over to the window and pushed aside the massive curtains that
kept the room in a perpetual twilight, only to recoil at the sheer
brightness of the sun. I wasn't looking directly at it, but the light
was still so strong that it made my eyes tear up and shut despite my
best efforts to keep them open.

It
was another piece of reality that wasn't quite right, another sign
that I was in someone else's dream rather than my own. I let the
curtains swing shut again and then once my eyes had readjusted to the
darkness I looked down and found in surprise that I was wearing
Cindi's cheerleading uniform.

I
wondered idly if it was possible for me to change aspects of my
surroundings inside someone else's dream. It seemed easiest to start
with my clothes, so I tried to visualize myself in jeans and a normal
top. My clothing flickered for a second, becoming embarrassingly
translucent for a heartbeat before I gave up and allowed the
cheerleading uniform to snap back into place.

I'd
been so absorbed in my efforts to swap out my clothing that I didn't
hear the footsteps when they first started up. They were alarmingly
close by the time they registered. My pulse skyrocketed as I
remembered the two wolf-men. I wasn't completely safe here, but I
didn't know how to leave someone's dream once I got sucked into it.

I
thought about running, but I didn't know how to get out of the house
or even if it was possible to get very far away from the person who
was dreaming. I vacillated for too long and then
she
stepped
into the room.

From
the neck down she looked like a normal person, a little too skinny to
be healthy maybe, but still pretty much like anyone else. Her face
though was disturbingly indistinct, almost like a wax model that
someone had left out in the sun for a moment or two too long.

"Who
are you?"

Her
voice had a hissing nature to it that I was pretty sure wouldn't be
possible outside of a dream and it gave off a sense of great age
which didn't match her young-looking body. I opened my mouth to
answer her and then thought better of it. I already knew that I could
be in danger while dreaming, the last thing I wanted was to give her
the information she'd need to track me down in the real world.

"I'm
sorry, I'm not sure how I got here."

"That's
not what I asked you."

"I
know, but you're kind of scary, no offense. I'd like to keep my
identity a secret."

One
second she was all of the way on the other side of the room and the
next she had ahold of my throat and had slammed me up against the
wall. Her movements had been inhumanly fast, but I got the feeling
that it wasn't a dream thing. She was actually that fast in real life
too, just like the wolf-man who'd warned me to stay away from Kaleb.
I had a split second to wonder if everyone I ran into in the dream
world was some kind of supernatural creepy-crawly, and then her hand
started squeezing.

I
managed to choke out something to the effect that I couldn't breathe,
but she just smiled. "I don't need you to talk to get the
information I want out of you."

I'd
been able to get a little bit of air in and out until then, but as
she finished talking she tightened her fist even more and suddenly I
couldn't get anything in. I started hitting her, kicking with my feet
and hammering on her arm with my fists, but it was like kicking a
tree, there was absolutely no give to her.

I
was in a full panic now, but even so I knew that the dark, smoky
tendrils extending out from her head and face weren't a figment of my
imagination. I tried to break away, clawing at her face, but she
simply whipped her head back out of the way and then threw me against
the wall with enough force that a black veil slowly slid over my face
as unconsciousness claimed me.

As
everything else disappeared the tendrils touched my face and then
slid under my skin, seeking a way into my mind. I tried to fight
back, tried to push the tendrils back out of my mind, but my strength
evaporated, leaving me with nothing but the certainty that she was
about to loot my mind, that no secret I'd ever had would be safe from
her probing fingers.

Maybe
Cindi was onto something when she said that I was losing a lot of
weight lately. When I looked at myself in the mirror I didn't see it,
but when I put on my old workout clothes they practically slid off of
me.

Cindi
had offered to let me wear some of her shorts and a tank top, which
I'd reluctantly tried on. They didn't look anywhere near
as good on me as they did on her, but they actually didn't make me look
too repulsive so I agreed to wear them. It was that or risk exposing
myself mid-routine as my shorts fell down around my ankles.