Hunted

by Dean Murray

  I vaguely remembered being stabbed in that general area, so I suspected it was going to take the longest to return to feeling normal. All in all, I couldn't think of a time when I'd felt more beat up, but I would have gone through twice as much physical pain if it had meant that I would be able to forgo the emotional and mental anguish I was currently trying to deal with.

  Dream Stealer—Taggart—had loaded Tristan, Cindi and me into Tristan's car and then driven us to one of the worst parts of Minneapolis. Apparently there really were doctors willing to cast broken bones and not ask questions.

  Taggart not only knew how to get in touch with the city's underground, he also seemed to have the ridiculous amounts of money required to buy his way in to see pretty much whoever he needed to talk to. While Tristan was being taken care of, I'd given Taggart the spare house key and he'd promised to have someone repair the damage from our fight before my parents returned home on Sunday.

  Normally I would have asked about the cost of arranging all of that, but the doctor had injected me with something to dull the pain while I waited for my turn and I was more than a little out of it. As a consequence, I didn't remember much of what happened for the next few hours, but I'd woken Saturday afternoon and found myself in one of the largest hotel suites I'd ever seen.

  I panicked for a second until I saw Tristan on the bed in the room across from mine and Cindi asleep on a black leather couch that had been positioned so that it was equidistant between the two of us. Getting out of bed with only one working arm was more difficult than I'd expected it to be. It wasn't that it wasn't doable or anything, but I was realizing that I used my left arm for a lot more than I'd ever realized.

  I made enough noise getting out of bed to wake up Cindi. She quietly pulled Tristan's door closed and then came into my room so we could talk. Taggart had filled her in on nearly everything and the parts he hadn't known about she'd guessed correctly.

  She said she was sorry for being so jealous at how easy cheering had come for me, and I said I was sorry for not having told her about the fact that I was sharing people's dreams. We cried a little and hugged a lot, and when everything was said and done things felt better between us than they had in a really long time.

  I was surprised at just how calmly she was taking everything. If I'd been in her place I would probably have run away screaming that none of what I was being told was possible. I guess it's hard to argue with your own eyes though and she'd seen Taggart shift forms and seen Jackson move objects around with his mind.

  While Tristan and I had been unconscious, Cindi and Taggart had come up with a plan to explain Tristan's injuries. Taggart had backed Tristan's car into another automobile and then had fake police and hospital reports created indicating that Tristan had been between the two cars when they'd impacted.

  I wasn't sure how well it would hold up, but then again I would have said it was impossible to fake police reports on such short notice and in a town that was obviously not Taggart's normal base of operation.

  The cover story included the fact that Tristan had been knocked unconscious and that his identification had been inside of his car, which explained why his parents hadn't been called immediately. There were a bunch of other details that helped flesh everything out, but that was the basics of what they'd come up with.

  There had been a lot of debate around what exactly my parents were going to hear. In the end, it was both harder and easier than I expected it to be. The only thing that everyone had agreed on was that Cindi shouldn't mention vampires or shape shifters.

  Watching Cindi walk away, pushing Tristan in his wheelchair, nearly made me change my mind, but I knew I had to go through with my decision, if for no other reason than it was the best way to keep everyone that I cared about safe.

  Taggart had been trying to give me space and time to deal with things in my own way, but I could tell that he was getting impatient. He walked over as I looked down at the blocky gray burner phone he'd given me more than an hour earlier.

  "I'm sorry, Adri, but if you don't make your call now I'm going to have to arrange for another vehicle."

  Tears started to come, but I choked down the urge to break into tears. I'd already done enough crying to last a year.

  "Tell me again why this is the best option. It feels like pretty much the same thing that would have happened if Pamela and Jackson had gotten their hands on me."

  "I'm not going to be torturing you for starters. I'm also not going to make you do anything you don't want to do."

  "I'm still leaving my family, maybe never to see them again, and I'm still going to be turned into a weapon."

  "I can't change the realities of the situation, Adri. You can choose to stay with your family if you wish, but you will be exposing them to some degree of danger."

  I started to laugh and then forced myself to stop. I was a stiff breeze from being pushed over into complete hysteria. If I got started laughing I'd almost certainly end up in tears within a few minutes.

  "And you don't know how much danger they'd be in?"

  "No, there's no way to tell, not without knowing who Pamela and Jackson might have told about their suspicions. Even if they just told another vampire back in Atlanta that they'd found someone who was potentially a powerful weapon then all of the evidence would point to you. It ultimately doesn't matter how well I hide the bodies, there is too much physical evidence between Tristan's legs and your arms. It all points to the two of you having been involved in Pamela and Jackson's deaths. At least it would for anyone who knows just how unlikely they were to just disappear—for anyone who knows that they were vampires."

  Taggart looked away from me for several seconds and then shrugged. "As for the other, you're already a weapon. You've been a weapon almost from the first day that your power awoke, you just didn't know it. I'm giving you a chance to be your own weapon. Trust me, it's much better to chart your own course than it is to simply be unleashed on targets not of your own choosing at another's command."

  I nodded. "I know. Intellectually I'm on board with everything you just said, but my heart hasn't signed on fully yet."

  "I understand. Take as long as you need to. I'll go see about arranging another car."

  "No, I'll make the call now. If nothing else, I need to save Cindi from the interrogation she's currently suffering through."

  I dialed my dad's number. I half expected it to go through to voicemail since he wouldn't recognize the number, but it was his work phone and he rarely let a call to it go unanswered, even when in the middle of a family crisis.

  "This is John."

  "Daddy."

  I tried, but for a second I couldn't get anything else out.

  "Daddy, it's me, Adri."

  "Adri, where are you? I'm on my way to get you right now."

  "No, you can't come. The letter Cindi just gave you is more for the police than anything else. You'll need it to explain why I left, but I meant it when I said I couldn't come back home, at least not for a long time."

  "I don't understand, sweetie. Was it something we did? Your mom and I had a lot of really good talks while we were away. I'm sorry we left the two of you home alone, but things are going to be better, you'll see. Just come home."

  "I'm sorry, I can't do that. I want to more than anything, but I can't. It's not safe, not for you guys or me, either one."

  "Are you being held against your will?"

  "No, this is my choice. I…well, things happened. I'm not safe to be around right now. I need time to learn how to…control things. I'm sorry, Dad. I wish I'd been able to stay and say goodbye in person, but I was afraid that you wouldn't let me go."

  "I don't care what happened, Adri, we can deal with it. Please just come home."

  "I love you, Daddy."

  Something in my voice convinced him. I would have said it was impossible, but apparently he knew me better than even I'd realized. He knew that I wouldn't be doing this if I thought there was even the slightest possibility of any other
course working for all of us.

  "I love you too, Adri. If you ever change your mind we'll be here waiting. I don't care how dangerous you think you are, it doesn't matter what you're involved in, if you come home we'll be here for you and we'll deal with whatever it is."

  "I know. Thanks. For that and for everything. I'm sorry I wasn't a better daughter."

  I could hear the tears he was fighting off, they came through in the way his voice thickened and quivered.

  "You don't have anything to be sorry about. You were everything I could have ever hoped for. I'll miss you."

  "I know. I'll miss you too, Dad."

  "Your mom wants to talk to you. I'm sorry, I'd put you on speaker but this damn phone hasn't worked right for months."

  "Adri, is it really you?"

  She'd been crying. I could hear it in her voice.

  "Yeah, Mom, it's me. I'm sorry I made you guys worry."

  "You're not coming home are you?"

  "No, at least not for a really long time."

  There was silence for several seconds and then a shaky sigh. "I'm sorry that I made your last few weeks at home so difficult. Your dad and I are going to work things out. If you do decide to come back home, things will be different."

  "That's good, Mom. I think more than anything else that's what I want, for you guys to take care of each other and Cindi."

  "You were always too selfless for your own good. I'm sorry that I didn't spend more time with you and take you shopping like I did your sister. I guess I was always just a little jealous of the bond your dad has with you."

  "It's okay, Mom. Don't be too hard on Cindi. You guys probably already realize that there is a lot she isn't telling you, but it's for your own safety."

  There was a quiet thump as though the phone had been set down, and then I heard the sound of distant crying. Dad picked up the phone a second later.

  "As much as I'd like for you to stay on with us for hours, I suspect that you need to be moving. Do you want to talk to Cindi before you hang up?"

  "Yes, please."

  "I'll go get her."

  I heard Dad knocking on our…on Cindi's bedroom door a few seconds later.

  "It's Adri. She doesn't have much time but wanted to talk to you. I'll leave so you have some privacy."

  "Hi, sis."

  "Hi, Cindi. Are Mom and Dad punishing you too much?"

  She hesitated for a heartbeat. "No, not too bad. When you look at everything that happened, everything that I did, they are probably letting me off easy."

  "This isn't your fault, Cindi."

  "Are you sure about that? Maybe if I'd been a decent enough sister for you to tell me what was going on, then Jackson never would have figured out that it was you he'd run into in his dreams."

  "You can't think like that. Besides, it was really only a matter of time until someone found out about me. Don't think about all of that though. Get your grades back up, get back on the team, and enjoy the next few years."

  She didn't say anything for several seconds. "I'm not sure I'm going to rejoin the team. There doesn't seem to be much point. I mostly joined because I thought it would make it easier to finally find a boyfriend. That didn't work out very well."

  I'd thought we were past this, but I couldn't let our final conversation end on a sour note. "I'm really sorry about Tristan, Cindi. I promise that I never consciously did anything to lead him on."

  "I know. We actually talked for a couple of hours this morning. He told me the rest of his side of the story. Kind of funny to know now that I would have had a better chance with him if I hadn't joined the cheerleading squad. I guess that's good though. Teams and clubs help segregate people out so that likeminded people are all together. Having a cheer squad means that all of the self-centered, spoiled brats are all in one place so that guys like Tristan can avoid them more easily."

  Now I was angry. "Stop that. Don't let them define who you are. Miss Winters isn't like that and I don't think you are either, at least not deep down. Give Tristan some time and maybe he'll come around. He saw you stand up to Jackson just like I did. Not a lot of girls would have the guts to come running into the house like that and then hit a vampire with pepper spray."

  "No, he's pretty head over heels for you still, Adri. It's okay, I don't begrudge you having won his heart."

  "Cindi, I'm…well, I'm not coming back, not for a long time, maybe never. I don't want him to sit there and pine for me. It wouldn't be fair to him, especially not considering that there's someone else I'm interested in."

  "Yeah, he told me you'd said that to him too."

  "It's the truth. Just give him time, Cindi. He's a lot better guy than I ever realized, and the two of you have a bond now that he doesn't share with anyone else in the school. If you honestly, in your heart of hearts, don't want him then that's fine, but otherwise it would make me really happy to know that the two of you eventually got together."

  It was obvious by the silence that she wasn't ready to agree to anything yet, but I figured that was a good sign. If she was still conflicted then it meant that she did still want Tristan. Eventually that desire would trump her regret over having treated me like crap for the last few weeks.

  "Adri…will you at least call us from time to time?"

  "I'll try. I don't know what the future will bring or what Taggart will decide is too dangerous, but I'll really try to keep in touch."

  Taggart was walking back over to me and I could tell by his manner that our ride was almost here.

  "I'm sorry, Cindi, but it looks like I'm going to have to go. I love you. Tell Mom and Dad that I love them too."

  "I love you too, Adri. Be careful out there."

  She hung up before anything else could be said, but I'd heard the tears in her voice, so I knew it wasn't out of spite.

  A black SUV pulled up as Taggart took the burner phone from my hands and wiped it down with a white handkerchief. A couple of rough-looking guys got out and handed Taggart the keys to the SUV.

  "You two know your job?"

  The taller guy, the one with the chin piercing, nodded. "Yeah, we take your car back the way we came. The rest of our payment is waiting for us in Marshal."

  Less than a minute later all of our things had been moved to the SUV and Taggart had dropped my burner phone on the side of the road.

  As we drove away I knew two things. First, leaving my family was the hardest thing I'd ever done, but in a way I was glad that I was leaving them rather than the other way around. With all the crap that had happened it was still nice to know that they were back there waiting for me to return to them someday.

  Second, as soon as I had a chance to recover from the last few days, as soon as I put five or six pounds back on, I was going to start trying to contact Alec again. Nothing short of death was going to stop me from finding him.

  —The Story Continues in Ambushed—

  Curious how all of the pieces of the Reflection Universe fit together? Check out the Reflections Reading Order Diagram on my blog.

  Publisher's Note:

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  Acknowledgments:

  Once again, this book wouldn't have ever seen the light of day. My editors, RJ Locksley and Amy Jirsa-Smith, did great work cleaning up typos and mixed metaphors. Once they had finished pummeling Hunted into shape, it went out to my beta readers who helped make sure that I didn't introduce too many new errors while fixing the issues that RJ and Amy identified. In no particular order my beta readers are: Mom, Dad, Shalese, Matthew, Mark VanderDoes, Mimi VanderDoes, Kim Allred, Chris Beijk, Janine Anderson, Janelle Gordinier, and Heather Tucker. Thank you all for your assistance!

/>   A big thanks to Brittany Gale who was kind enough to read through Hunted and make sure that I didn't go too wrong when it comes to life as a cheerleader—thanks, Brittany.

  My wife, Katie, continues to be the glue that holds the Murray household together. She is the first person to see each new book, she provides great feedback as to what does and doesn't work with the plot, and then she pitches in to do my covers around all of the other responsibilities that she has. Thanks, Katie.

  About the Author:

  Dean Murray is a prolific author with more than 27 titles across multiple pen names and more than 480,000 copies of his work currently in circulation.

  Dean started reading seriously in the second grade due to a competition and has spent most of the subsequent three decades lost in other people's worlds.

  Things worsened, or improved depending on your point of view, when he first started experimenting with writing while finishing up his accounting degree. These days Dean has a wonderful wife and two lovely daughters to keep him rather more grounded, but the idea of bringing others along with him as he meets interesting new people in universes nobody else has ever seen tends to drag him back to his computer on a fairly regular basis.

  Keep up to speed on Dean's latest projects at deanwrites.com. If you want to interact with readers who love the series as much as you do, please consider checking out the Reflections Facebook page or Dean's Forum.

  Other Books by Dean Murray

  The Greater Darkness

  (Writing as Eldon Murphy)

  Something powerful is stirring in the darkness. Something so ancient that even creatures who've been alive for hundreds of years have long since discounted this new threat as nothing more than myth.

  Normal humans will be caught in the crossfire, but then that's always the way of things. Geoffrey has no memory of his past life or any idea how to survive in the violent, dangerous world in which he's trapped. Despite his best efforts, he's about to find himself in the middle of a conflict that threatens to sweep away everything, and everyone he's been fighting so hard to protect.