Hunted

by Dean Murray

  Cindi shrugged. "You're probably right. Cheating would be more Janessa's speed than any form of studying, even studying with a nerd-assist."

  "So where did I hear it then if not from you?"

  "I don't know, Adri. I didn't think that you really talked to anyone else. Maybe you dreamed it."

  It was like she'd reached out and slapped me. I'd been less shocked when Janessa had hit me. I gasped, but Cindi just rolled her eyes at me and kept walking. I thought about trying to explain my reaction to her, but it was just too crazy to try to put in words.

  I had dreamed it, and now that she'd raised the possibility, even in jest, it was like a set of floodgates had opened up. I'd been having a ton of really weird, specific dreams about people lately, and almost every dream was about someone I knew.

  I didn't have an explanation, but if there really was something going on inside my head other than just run-of-the-mill dreams, then I needed to figure out a way to keep the dreams from ruining my waking world. If I didn't keep the two separate then I was going to end up in all kinds of trouble. People wouldn't just ignore a girl who spent time inside of their minds.

  If they really believed that I was capable of knowing their deepest secrets then I'd be lucky to make it out of high school alive and sane.

  Chapter 2

  Mom came unglued on me when I finally made it home. She was going on and on about suspensions and me being grounded. It was looking pretty bad right up until the shiny red timer on the fridge went off. That was the signal reminding her that she needed to do something with the photos that were being developed in her darkroom, or her cave, as we jokingly called it. She said our conversation wasn't over as she disappeared into the specially-designed rotating door that prevented light from getting inside the room, but I knew I was safe now. As long as Cindi didn't stir things up, Mom probably wouldn't even remember that I'd been in trouble.

  Once Mom got buried in a photography project it was pretty much guaranteed that she would ignore anything less catastrophic than the house burning down, so I only needed to worry about Dad now.

  Mom had the beginnings of dinner laid out on the counter, but past experience had shown that if we just waited for her to finish it up we might not eat for hours still. Cindi and I washed our hands and started grilling the chicken and cutting up the green peppers so that the food wouldn't go to waste. It looked like Mom was planning on tacos, but sometimes she took us by surprise. Once the chicken was started cooking I pulled out Grandma's recipe book and double-checked to make sure that we actually had all of the ingredients on hand.

  It looked like we were safe, so Cindi and I fell into our normal rhythm of cooking interspersed with breaks to study whenever we were waiting on something. It was actually nice. We'd been filling in for Mom so long now that we didn't need to talk about what we were doing when it came to a meal like tacos. It meant that we could be together and yet still have some space inside our own heads.

  I had to hand it to Cindi. She was a cheerleader and all, but she did work hard to keep her grades up. In fact she was probably doing better than I was. It was another reason to hate her. She was skinny and pretty and smart and I was just me. I didn't really hate her though. She was my sister and I was proud of her, even if I wished from time to time that the talents and looks had been split up more evenly between us.

  Dad got home early, which is to say about the time most normal dads got off of work. He didn't say anything about my fight as he walked through the door, which gave me some hope that maybe Mom had forgotten to call and tell him about the incident.

  He kissed Cindi and me each on the forehead and took a deep breath. "Those tacos smell really good, girls, thank you for cooking again tonight. How's your homework coming?"

  Cindi smiled up at him with a warmth and brightness that exceeded anything she displayed even out on the football field. If she ever figured out how to bottle that expression she'd be very rich and dads all over the world would suddenly be wondering why they'd purchased their little girls a sports car and twenty-thousand dollars' worth of new clothes.

  Dad had built up a little bit of resistance over the years, but even he struggled not to give in when Cindi really poured it on.

  "Homework is fine, but I have really good news. I'm going to get to be the top of the third pyramid for the game tomorrow night."

  That earned her a frown from both of us. Dad was frowning because despite having agreed and signed something like half a dozen liability waivers, he was still not completely onboard with the idea of his baby girl being thirty feet up in the air with nothing but a couple of irresponsible teenage girls between her and a serious injury.

  I on the other hand scowled at her because she was getting unacceptably close to bringing up my fight with Janessa. She made a 'calm down' gesture at me when Dad bent back down to pick up his briefcase, which mollified me somewhat.

  "What about you, Adri? How are your studies coming?"

  Pretty poorly to be honest, given that I had missed the last hour of school and therefore my chemistry class, but I wasn't about to tell him that.

  "I'm doing okay. I'll be glad for this semester to be over though."

  This time it was me he frowned at, but his expression wasn't so much disapproving as it was worried. "Don't wish your life away, Adri. Someday you'll look back at high school and wish you'd enjoyed life. Trust me, things only get more complicated and hectic the older you get."

  I shrugged in response, which was about as safe of a route to go as possible. His smile seemed to say that he knew exactly what I was thinking, but he let things rest there.

  "How long has your mom been in her cave?"

  Cindi checked the antique metal clock on the kitchen wall. "Half hour, forty-five minutes maybe."

  Dad nodded and headed down to Mom's cave. His voice floated up the staircase from the basement so we could hear him despite the distance. "Nikki, the girls have dinner ready to go. Are you where you can stop and join us?"

  I heard something bang into something else and then a muttered oath from Mom. "John, you're home? I wasn't expecting you for another half hour at least. I'm right in the middle of something. You and the girls will have to start dinner without me, I guess."

  I heard a longsuffering sigh out of my dad and then he came back into the kitchen and helped me set the table. Dinner went about like normal. Cindi dominated the conversation while Dad and I watched in bemusement at the way she managed to talk nonstop about so many different things without ever seeming to have to pause for food.

  I was actually starting to relax by the end of the meal. My headache even disappeared right up until Dad leaned back in his chair and patted his stomach. "The tacos were excellent, girls, thank you very much for stepping into the breach once again. Cindi, would you mind doing the dishes tonight while I talk with Adri?"

  It felt like my head was going to explode. I didn't hear much else for the next few minutes, but all too soon I found myself sitting in the tiny guest bedroom that doubled as my dad's office. Cindi and I had been begging Mom and Dad to let one of us move into the guest bedroom so that we didn't have to share a room any more, but it was one of the few things that Mom had held firm on. She kept telling us that Dad needed a space of his own just like she had her darkroom and had refused to budge despite an epic amount of pleading from Cindi.

  "The school called your mom today, Adri. You were in a fight. What happened?"

  "I…well, there was a girl in school who was lying and I knew she was lying so I kind of made a disbelieving noise and then things kind of escalated from there. She called me chubs, so I insulted her back and then I told everyone in study hall that she'd cheated on her history test."

  Dad looked tired a lot of the time lately. He was working longer hours than ever and it showed in the set of his shoulders and how bloodshot his eyes always were. He rubbed his eyes and stared at the ceiling for several seconds.

  "I'm not sure what to say to you, Adri. I always thought that only having
girls would mean that I wouldn't have to worry about having these particular kinds of talks with any of my kids."

  I felt sorry, for the first time all day. The assistant principal, the psychiatrist, Mom, they all mostly just yelled at me or at the very least scolded me, but I'd known that their unhappiness came from how I was impacting their lives. Dad was different, and I knew it without him having to even open his mouth. He was worried about how my actions were going to impact me.

  "I'm sorry, Dad. I don't know what I was thinking. It just kind of happened."

  Dad looked back down from the ceiling and took my hand between both of his. "I have some questions for you, but I don't want answers right now. I want you to think about them and then come back to me with the answers later."

  My headache was stronger than ever. Tears started pooling in my eyes, but I managed a nod, which seemed to satisfy him.

  "The first question is who you think was the bully in this situation. The second question I'd like you to think about is some of the ways that the situation could have spiraled out of control and gone oh so much worse than it did, and the last question is whether or not fighting was justified and if so, why."

  "You're not going to tell me that fighting is never justified?"

  Dad shook his head. "Your teachers and mother are probably going to tell you that there's no such thing as a justifiable fight, but I don't agree with them. I'm not saying that your fight with this girl at school was that kind of fight—maybe it was, maybe it wasn't—but some fights are justified."

  "Okay, Daddy. I'll think about your questions."

  I stood up to go help Cindi finish up with the dishes, but he stopped me with a gesture. "I'm sorry, Adri, but you need to have some kind of consequence for what happened today. I'd take away your phone, but you hardly use it, so it wouldn't be the same kind of punishment for you that it is for Cindi. Instead I'm going to say that you need to deep-clean the house. I want you to finish up a room every other day between now and whenever you have a set of answers for my questions."

  I opened my mouth to answer his questions right then and there, but he held up a hand.

  "If you have good answers to my question then I may shorten your punishment, but if I feel like you haven't really given them any thought then I'll be adding to it."

  I didn't like it. The normal teenage response would have been to yell and scream in an attempt to convince him that the pain of sticking to his guns was much greater than he'd expected, but I couldn't bring myself to explode into those kinds of theatrics. Dad already had enough to worry about what with Cindi starting to really take an interest in boys and Mom spending ninety percent of every day lost in some other world where her art actually mattered.

  "Okay, Dad. I'll think about it and I'll start cleaning the kitchen tonight."

  "You can wait to start until tomorrow, sweetie. How bad off is your arm?"

  I'd forgotten that Janessa had scratched me. The school nurse had patched me up while I'd been waiting in the office.

  "It's okay. It probably won't even scar up or anything."

  Dad pulled me onto his lap and wrapped his arms around me in a fierce hug. "I'm just very glad that you're okay and that things didn't end up worse than a scratch on the arm. I love your mother, and I love Cindi, but you feel things more deeply than either of the two of them and that makes you special to me."

  It was hard to talk past the sudden lump in my throat, but I nodded. "I love you too, Dad. I'm sorry if I was stupid about everything today."

  "It's okay. We're not going to talk about it anymore until you have had a chance to think about those questions. The important thing will be what you learn from today's events."

  The rest of the night passed by in a blur. Cindi was faster than normal, so the dishes were already done by the time I left Dad's office.

  Dad fired up his work laptop and logged back into work for the rest of the night. He paused for a few minutes when Mom came out from her cave to eat, but she just wolfed down her food and then fidgeted like a little kid until Dad gave her a hug and sent her back to her darkroom.

  Cindi finished up her homework and then spent most of the rest of the evening texting people on her iPod. I stared at my textbook for another hour or so, but I didn't really make any progress on my chemistry homework.

  I finally just put everything away and got ready for bed. Dad looked up absently at me when I padded into his office to give him a hug good night.

  "You're going to bed already?"

  "Yeah, I haven't been sleeping very well lately. I thought maybe I'd just turn in early tonight and see if it helps."

  "Your headaches are still bothering you, aren't they?"

  It was like Dad had developed some kind of weird sixth sense to compensate for the fact that Mom was so oblivious to everything going on around her.

  "They seem to be getting a little better. They don't bother me as much as they did."

  It was a lie, maybe even more than just a white lie. The headaches were worse than before. I was just getting better at ignoring them lately. Well, better most days at least.

  "Well, I'm glad to hear that they are a little better, but if they are still bothering you next week I think you should ask your mother to take you to the doctor. She can take me into work on Tuesday or Wednesday so that she has the car to drive you to the clinic."

  "I'll be fine, Dad. It's just a little headache from time to time."

  "I'm serious, Adri. I want a promise out of you that you'll be responsible enough to ask for help before things get worse."

  Right. I had to be the responsible one because Mom certainly wouldn't be. I hated when Dad made me promise him something. It was pretty much the one thing guaranteed to get Cindi or me either one to do what he wanted. Unfortunately he knew it, so he wasn't averse to using promises to get his way whenever he thought we weren't taking care of ourselves or that we were going to get into trouble.

  "Okay, Dad. If things don't start getting better soon then I'll go see a doctor."

  I kissed Dad on the cheek and then went into the small room I shared with Cindi. We actually had bunk beds—black metal monstrosities—of all things, so I climbed up to the top bunk and closed my eyes.

  "You're really going to sleep already, Adri?"

  "Yeah. It's been kind of a long day."

  "Okay, I'll just put my iPod on silent then. Good night."

  "Good night, Cindi."

  I fell asleep instantly. It didn't make any sense, but once I was dreaming it was actually easier to remember some of the other dreams that I'd been having recently. Remembering didn't particularly help because they were still so odd.

  Mostly it was just a collage of images involving people I knew—Richard Parsons, Janessa, even a couple of my teachers, which luckily wasn't as gross as it otherwise could have been. Tonight was different though. I wasn't at school or anywhere else I knew, and I wasn't dreaming about anyone familiar.

  I was standing in the top of a partially-constructed skyscraper. The steel skeleton had been assembled and most of the floor and exterior wall had been finished for the floor I was on, but if I looked up I could see open sky above me in some parts.

  There was movement a little ways ahead of me. Part of me said that I should just steer clear, that dreams in abandoned buildings never end well, but I crept forward anyway. There was a small man sitting on the very edge of the floor I was on. His legs dangled out into thin air, but he didn't seem worried that he might fall.

  He was obviously intent on watching something below us, so I took a couple of steps forward until I could see over the edge of the building too. What I saw was odd, even for a dream. We were somehow both really high up and only a few feet from the ground all at once. When I looked straight ahead at the buildings around us, we were even with the very tops of most of them, and they were all dozens if not hundreds of stories tall, but when I looked down at the ground it seemed like it was close enough that I could just hop down from the building without any ri
sk of injury.

  I shook my head and closed my eyes, but when I opened them back up everything was still the same. Down below, on the street, someone walked into view and I suddenly realized what else was wrong about the scene. There was only one person visible down there. We weren't in some kind of ghost town—the buildings all looked well-maintained, the streets were still in working order—but there wasn't anyone else down there. I'd never been to New York or Tokyo, but it just didn't look right to have a city as big as this be completely deserted.

  The man looked up at us and my heart skipped a beat. He looked familiar somehow, not like I knew him, but like he was related to someone important to me. Only he didn't actually look like anyone I knew.

  It would have just been one of those things that you dismiss as a weird coincidence, but my heart was still going a mile a minute. It was like it was trying to tell me that whoever this guy looked like was the reason that I'd never been particularly interested in any of the guys my own age. It wasn't that I was gay or asexual, I'd just been saving my emotions and attention for this one person whom I still didn't know, but whom I finally had the tiniest of links to.

  I came within a second of throwing myself off of the building so that I could stop the man below us and ask him where I knew him from, but something stopped me at the last moment. I'd heard people say that if you hit the ground in a dream that you'd die without waking up. I'd never believed it before now, but there was something about this dream, weird though it was, that made it feel as real as anything I'd ever experienced with my eyes open.

  Instead of jumping, I turned to the man a few feet away from me and asked what I thought was a non-threatening question.

  "Who is that and is there a way for me to get down there in time to talk to him before he disappears?"

  The man practically jumped out of his own skin. It was like he'd been on a hair trigger, but he'd been expecting the threat to arrive from a different quarter.

  He went from sitting to standing without ever actually having seemed to move, but that was the least alarming of the changes. Between one second and the next his face changed. He went from looking like a non-threatening, elderly Native American to something out of a nightmare. His teeth lengthened and got sharper at the same time that his face got broader and sprouted fur.