Zander sat up straight. “Tru! You do remember what happened, don’t you?”
Just then the warning bell rang. We both groaned, wanting to keep talking.
I pulled up one side of my mouth, “Yeah. I do. I remember the wolves, the guns, and your stupid brother.”
“Why didn’t you say something before now?”
I just shrugged. “I was waiting for you to say something first.”
Zander grabbed his backpack and looked around the room.
“We need to talk, now.” He grabbed my arm and I barely snagged up my backpack before he was pulling me through the librarian’s office and through a door leading out of the school.
“Now? Are you crazy?” I demanded. “We are going to get caught!” I’d never skipped school before, much to Ruthie’s chagrin. She would have loved a partner in crime.
He clenched his jaw and propelled us both down the sidewalk behind the school.
“This is important, Tru,” he said, looking around a corner before pulling me across the gap between buildings. We were still a decent distance from the parking lot, where he seemed to be dragging me.
Just then, a door opened behind us, and a voice bellowed, “Hey!” It was Coach Dean, the football coach and biology teacher. His voice was loud and booming. “What do you two think you are doing?”
Zander stopped with a large sigh and a muttered “Great!” He turned toward me. Our eyes connected and his went wide suddenly. He leaned in and whispered, “Do you think you can convince him to just forget about us?” His eyebrows lifted when he said “convince.”
“Huh?” I whispered back, totally confused. “Seriously, Zander, I’m a terrible liar, really! We are so busted!”
Zander blew air out through clenched teeth. “Worth a try,” he muttered.
The coach’s voice raised louder. “Yeah, I’m talking to you two.”
We turned around.
“Parker?” Coach Dean sounded surprised to see me.
“Uh, yes, sir.” My record was so squeaky clean, I’m sure the coach was shocked to see me trying to ditch class with a boy.
He walked up closer to us. “And your name, young man?” He looked Zander over, appraisingly. I knew what he saw—football potential. Coaches were always looking for recruits, and they always catered to team players. They got away with murder at school. Maybe he would go lightly on us, I hoped.
“Zander Hughes, sir.”
I realized that this was the first time I had heard Zander’s last name. I felt stupid. I really had a lot to learn about the guy who occupied my thoughts so much.
“You new at this school, Hughes?” asked the coach.
Here we go, I thought.
“Yes, sir.” Zander stood at attention, looking the coach in the eye.
“Ever played football?”
“Yes, sir, but not on a team.”
“Hmm… And where were you two planning to go?”
“I know it looks inappropriate, sir, but we were just heading to my car to work on our English project because we are behind on it and we couldn’t meet after school. I’m sorry. We shouldn’t have tried to ditch, even to do homework.”
I just nodded my head, agreeing with everything he said. Nice excuse, I thought. He sounded so sorry. I knew Coach was going to buy it, especially since he hoped to recruit Zander for his team.
Coach looked from Zander to me, and back again. He seemed to come to a decision.
“Well, now. Studying is a worthy pursuit, but not good enough to skip class. But as long as you don’t do it again… I’ve held you up long enough. You’ll be tardy for class now. Why don’t you two follow me and I’ll write up some excuses for you before you head back.”
“Thank you, sir,” both Zander and I chorused. I was smiling smugly, but Zander appeared annoyed. We definitely wouldn’t be having our discussion now. But at least we weren’t going to be punished for trying to skip class. I felt like I’d dodged the big one. With everything else going on, I didn’t need detention added to it.
Coach Dean detained Zander longer while I went ahead to my class, nicely preventing us from trying to skip out again. I had to hand it to him. He wasn’t stupid.
In drama, my poor excuse about helping a teacher during lunch did not seem to suit Isaac, who glowered at me through most of class. I lost the courage to tell him I wanted to talk. He was already upset, so why make it worse?
Although Zander sat next to me in English, a pop quiz prevented him from saying anything to me, and as soon as class was over, he was overwhelmed by Zena. Jealousy had my blood percolating. I left the room in a huff even though Zander made desperate eyes at me.
I chided myself later as I sat on a bench waiting for Dad. He should have been there already, so I turned on my phone to check for messages. Sure enough, he had left one indicating that there had been an emergency at work and he could not pick me up. He said I should wait with Ruthie at football practice and catch a ride. I so did not want to do that. Most of the players were, well, players and idiots. But I didn’t have a choice, so I headed over toward the football field, texting Ruthie that I was coming with her after all.
“Tru!” A car crawled alongside me. I looked up to see Bobby in the passenger seat.
“Hi, Bobby.” I smiled.
“Need a ride? I saw Ruthie at the field and she doesn’t seem to be leaving any time soon.”
I laughed. “No. That she is not. And my dad just bailed on me.” I peered over at the driver. It was Dante, the strange kid who called me a dummy. I had passed him a few times in the hall since then, and each time, I felt uncomfortable.
Bobby hung an arm out the window and waved me over. “We can give you a ride, right, Dante?” He looked quickly at Dante, who gave me a toothy grin.
“Sure,” Dante said.
“Uh, I don’t know. My dad thinks I’m going home with Ruthie…” For some reason, I didn’t feel right about going with them.
Bobby opened his door and walked up, grabbing my backpack. “Come on,” he urged. “Shrina’s coming, too.” He looked back up the sidewalk. “And here she comes.”
Sure enough, Shrina headed toward us, swinging her long black hair behind her. I bit my lip, considering Bobby’s offer. I was just being silly. And I didn’t want to wait for Ruthie, that’s for sure.
“Hi, Tru!” said Shrina. “You coming with us?”
I shrugged. “Guess so.”
Bobby smiled at us both. “Your carriage awaits you,” he said, swinging open the car doors and grandly waving us in. We giggled. He placed both Shrina’s backpack and mine in the trunk, and we headed off.
“So,” I said once we were on our way, “thanks for giving me a ride, Dante. I hope it’s not too far out of your way.”
Dante had not contributed anything to the conversation thus far. He seemed deep in thought.
After a long pause, Bobby smacked him in the shoulder. “Hey, man, Tru’s talking to you!” He swiveled around to me. “Sometimes he gets caught up in lyric land. It’s not far out of our way, right, Dante?”
Dante met my gaze in the rearview mirror. His dark brown eyes seemed to come to a decision.
“It’s not a problem,” he said.
There was an awkward silence, during which Shrina mimed something that suggested He’s whacked! I tucked in my lips, trying to prevent an all-out grin at her antics.
“Well, thanks anyway,” I repeated.
Bobby reached over to find a song on the radio. “Dude! This song rocks!”
While the boys were discussing the best radio stations, Shrina turned in her seat. “Hey,” she pursed her lips conspiratorially. “You and hottie Efoti, huh?”
She was just as bad as Ruthie with her need for details about everyone else’s love life. I suppressed my annoyance and tried to derail her.
“Maybe… What’s up with you and Bobby?”
Shrina’s eyes widened, and I saw a flush run up her brown skin. She shook her head and I got the message. “Got it,” I whi
spered.
Bobby turned around. “What are you guys whispering about?” He smiled. “Any good gossip?”
Shrina suavely waved him off. “Oh, we were just talking about who everyone is going to Homecoming with, that’s all.”
Bobby looked taken aback. “Really? Do you have a date already?” He almost seemed upset.
I sneaked a peek at Shrina. She shrugged. “Not yet, but rumors are afloat.”
Oh, she was good. Bobby was eating this up, hook, line, and sinker. He turned back to the front. I gave Shrina a mental high-five, which she apparently understood because she winked at me.
Shrina was the first stop. She gave me a hug as she left. We were suddenly friends. I wore a happy grin as we pulled away from her house.
It suddenly occurred to me that I didn’t know where Bobby lived, and I wondered if Dante was dropping him off before me. That would be really awkward. Just then, Bobby asked for directions. Apparently, he already knew the general area of my house.
As we approached the street that led to my neighborhood, Bobby suddenly slumped over.
“Hey, Bobby! Are you all right?” I reached over the seat to jostle his shoulder. “Oh my gosh! Dante, pull over!” I ripped off my seat belt and leaned partway over the seat to get a better look at Bobby.
Dante laughed. I looked at him in shock. What kind of game was he playing?
“Don’t worry, Tru,” he said. “Bobby is just sleeping. I bet you’re sleepy, too.” He grinned at me and reached his hand over to my arm.
What the heck? I thought.
“Yeah,” he went on, “I think you need a nap, Tru.”
Then everything went dark.
Gotcha
I awoke to the smell of pine and ashes—and the mother of all headaches. I tried to bring my hands to my head, but they were being held in place. I opened my eyes to find my wrists tied with rope to the leg of a wooden chair. I yanked uselessly. What the…? Where was I? Blinking back my confusion, I sat up to assess my surroundings.
The small room couldn’t have been more than twenty or thirty feet. The ceiling was made of bare, wooden beams, the walls knotty wood planks. Across the room stood a brown sofa with an end table and lamp. The sound of running water slipped out the bottom of a door next to it. My breath hitched. Who was that? A few scenes from different horror movies crossed my mind as I sped up my perusal of the room, looking for escape routes or possible weapons. Off to my right lay a small, faded kitchen with an old refrigerator, microwave, and sink. Rustic cupboards hung above a short counter. On the other side of me sat a woodstove. The door to this cozy establishment must be the large door not far from me with the lock on it. Two curtained windows nestled the door between them.
Clarity returned with a frame-by-frame replay of my car ride home after school. I recalled being in the car with Bobby and Dante. I remembered Bobby slumped over and Dante saying something about a nap.
How long had it been since then? I needed to get out of here before Dante, presumably the one on the other side of the door, returned. I could kill myself for not listening to that little voice that said “Don’t get into the car with that weird kid.” If I didn’t do something now, someone else might take care of that for me.
I stood up carefully, bent over awkwardly since I had very little lag in the rope between my hands and the chair leg. I had to get to the door. The chair was pretty heavy, but I lifted it anyway and began to tiptoe to the door, praying that the wood floor wouldn’t creak. Light as a feather, light as a feather.
No such luck. Due to the heavy chair, each step triggered a loud groan. Oh, for the love of… I decided to just make a break for it. At least I had a heavy weapon in my hands.
Just as I set the chair down to open the front door, the other door swung in, eliciting a squeak of the hinges. Dante stepped out of what appeared to be the bathroom, drying his hands on a towel.
I picked up the chair again, holding it in front of me defensively.
He laughed. “Tru. You aren’t going anywhere. You don’t even know where you are.”
“My guess is that anywhere else is better than here.”
“Not necessarily. Besides, you wouldn’t make it two steps before I caught you, and then what would you do?”
He walked slowly toward me. In this setting I realized he was not a teenager. He was definitely not a high school student. He was taller than me and lean, with veiny muscle. I didn’t doubt that he could catch up to me.
I raised the chair. It felt amazingly light all of a sudden. “Don’t come any closer.”
He rolled his eyes. “Really? You think I can’t fend off a little girl holding a chair?”
“You can try,” I stated bravely.
“Fine. Go ahead. Open the door. You’ll find yourself surrounded by miles and miles of forest. You won’t make it very far, so maybe you will be served best conserving your strength for the moment. Right now, I just want to talk with you. Promise.” He held up his hands innocently, like he wasn’t some psychopath who had kidnapped me and done who knows what to Bobby.
“Where’s Bobby?”
“Don’t worry about him. I dropped him off at some park. He’ll get home fine when he wakes up. He’s probably already home.”
I hoped he called to check on me. Would he keep trying to find me or tell my dad I was missing? Did he know I was missing? I decided to look outside to see if Dante was bluffing. I had to set down my only weapon to do it, but Dante stayed where he was. I picked up the chair again and walked out, closing the door behind me. Sure enough, there were trees as far as I could see. Towering Douglas firs and redwoods, as well as miles and miles of ferns and poison oak. Still, it seemed more inviting than the cabin. The trees blocked out most of the sun, but I could see it breaking through the branches. It seemed like the middle of the afternoon. His car sat off to the side, under a makeshift carport. A rutty-looking road, barely wide enough for a car, curved around the trees and out of sight.
Would he let me keep walking? I doubted it. How far could I carry this stupid chair? Maybe I could surprise him when he followed me out.
I stepped to the side of the door and held the chair up so I could swing it at him when he stepped out of the door.
I could hear the stupid floorboards creaking as he walked across them. I tensed, ready to bring him down. Part of my brain knew I was hopped up on adrenaline, and I encouraged the self-preserving madness of this violent side of me. I imagined the chair breaking his face.
“I know you are standing by the door, Tru. I’m not an idiot. Besides, I can see you in the window.” Dante’s muffled voice easily penetrated the door.
Ugh! I forgot the windows.
“We can wait all day, if you want,” he continued. “Or you can just come in here and find out who you really are and why you can do what you do.”
Who you really are? Why you can do what you do?
The words ricocheted around my skull, and all at once I couldn’t hold up the chair any longer.
He had answers to questions I hadn’t quite given life to, but suddenly needed to know, desperately.
The door swung open wide. I stepped in front of it. He stood to the side, one hand out, inviting me in like a long-awaited guest.
I picked up my burden and followed it into his irresistible trap.
Rainbows and Unicorns
“Okay, start talking.”
Dante had kindly uncuffed me long enough to use the bathroom, in which I had found nothing remotely useful as a weapon other than shampoo and soap. I imagined squirting the soap all over the floor and him slipping on it and breaking his neck, which kind of made me feel a little better. But eventually I returned to the room, where he politely held out the chair for me to seat myself before retying one wrist to the back of it. My wrist was already turning red.
“I’m not sure where to start, honestly.” He leaned back into the sofa, a thin laptop next to him.
“What did you mean by who I really am?”
“I told yo
u at school. You are Idimmu.” He smirked.
I thought he had called me a dummy. “Yeah, what’s that?”
“That’s your true nature. Not human like you’ve been pretending to be so far. Time to embrace it, girl.”
“But what’s the difference between humans and Idimmu?”
“The difference is ordinary—” He held up one palm. “And extraordinary.” He raised the other. “It’s awesome! We’ve been called many names, though—witches, warlocks, fae, sirens, half-breeds, demons, the list goes on. Sometimes it depends on what you can do. In general, all Idimmu are gifted.”
“You left out unicorns.” I rolled my eyes.
He laughed. “They would be cool, right?”
Exasperated, I tried again. “Look, I think you’ve got the wrong person.”
No way was I any of those crazy things. I just had better eyesight than most. Nowhere in that list was werewolf, which was the only mystical being in my life right now. Of course, I had no proof yet. Man! I should have made a run for it after all. I wondered if Zander had called me. Where was my phone anyway? In my backpack, of course, which was probably still in the car.
Dante stood up and walked over to the refrigerator.
“Oh, really? I saw what you did for Bobby, you know.” He pulled out a soda, extending it out to me like we were friends just hanging out. I shook my head even though my mouth was as dry as the dirt road outside. He shrugged and popped the can open before sitting back down on the sofa. He took a swig and let out a deep, satisfied breath.
“That’s my gift, by the way,” he added.
I was having a hard time keeping up. “What?”
“I can see auras and, baby, yours lit up like a rainbow when you talked to Bobby that first day!”
I gave him my best you-are-a-whacko look.
“Sure, it may not be your average superhero power, but it’s very useful to the folks in charge. I’m just doing what I have to do to survive. You’d do the same thing.”
Dante’s voice raised and his eyes got a little crazy, like he was going to snap any minute. Dang! What was in that drink? Looked like your average soda, which meant he had a few more screws loose than I originally thought.
Secrets of the Sleeper: True Nature Series: Book One Page 15