I was riveted, fragments of dreams coming back to me but none of it making sense. I was too exhausted to put the pieces together. The stress and excitement of the whole day was finally getting to me. I could really use Ruthie right now. She could probably make sense out of this—give me a “supernatural species for dummies” summary. A yawn escaped before I could stop it.
“Look,” he said. “It’s late. School tomorrow. Unless you aren’t going?” He raised one eyebrow. “Might be a good idea.”
I hadn’t even thought about school. My friends, homework, and that whole part of my life seemed like another world away. It seemed unimportant compared to this new side of my life.
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. I wondered if I would be able to leave the safety of my house. “Do I need to be worried about the Collector?”
“No,” he answered firmly. “Peter and I are staying put and we’ll be watching your back. You have nothing to worry about.”
“But you just said, you don’t trust Peter. And he doesn’t trust me. He thinks I’m ‘controlling’ you.”
“I know. Don’t worry. I’ll convince him you aren’t a siren. Besides, he’s chasing another problem right now, one more important to him. He’s not going to hurt you. I’ll do most of the watching.” He gave me lecherous smile.
I laughed. Were we flirting?
He was trying to derail me. But for some reason, I didn’t quite believe Peter was suddenly on my side. Could I trust Zander? Whatever I was feeling about him, could it be blinding me? Could Zander really be subjective when it came to his brother? Again, I was too tired to think about it. I was safe tonight. This could wait until tomorrow.
“Okay!” I gave up. “I really want to hear more about these vampires and werewolves and people with cool powers. But I suppose I better get to bed. I don’t know if my brain can hold much more tonight anyway, and I bet I need more than a few minutes to hear all about it.” I rubbed my gritty face. “Ugh!” I’d forgotten how awful I looked. “I feel so gross!”
Zander just chuckled. “I’m feeling pretty grimy myself.” He rolled his shoulders. “And I think that beanbag tried to swallow me. I feel like a truck rolled over me—”
As soon as he said it, regret showed on his face.
“Sorry, Tru. I didn’t mean to—”
I knew he was thinking about my mother’s accident then. I hadn’t made the connection before he started backpedaling. But it reminded me about the real information I was dying to know.
“It’s okay. One last thing,” I said, finally looking back up. He raised his eyebrows. “Really, then you can go. I never got a chance to talk to you about what happened in my backyard.” Zander groaned and set his forehead on the back of the chair. “I know those were werewolves, or Usemi. And I know your brother tried to make me forget it.”
“I’m really sorry about him. I tried to stop him.”
“Yeah. I remember.”
Zander looked back up at me. I locked him in my gaze.
“I was mad for a while, Zander, but I’m okay with it now. Just don’t let him near me again. I’m still mad at him. He’s an Idimmu-Sethian?”
“No, those are two separate species.”
“Oh, so Sethians can do mind-whammy things?”
“Well, not normally. It’s a lot to explain. I promise to tell you later. But I’ll handle him, don’t worry.”
“Anyway, I heard you and Peter talking about my mom’s accident.”
“Tru, I don’t know much more than you do.”
“But you sounded like you did! You said you were after the person—Usemi? Whatever. You were after whoever hit my mom. So you know who did it.”
“We suspect.”
The thing was, I suspected, too. But I wanted to hear his side before I told him. There was so much to talk about. Another wave of weariness hit me.
Zander noticed. He stood up. “Let’s get together tomorrow and talk about it, okay?”
I nodded. I realized I needed to sneak him out of the house. It hit me that I had a boy in my bedroom. Now I felt awkward, despite knowing that we were both feeling this need to be near each other.
“Let me make sure Dad is really out of it before you try to leave.”
Trying to smooth down my wild hair, I got off the bed. Zander’s hand stopped me, turning me around. One touch from him and I wanted to plaster myself against him. I resisted and looked up into his face.
“Hey, I, uh, just wanted to say you were amazing. What you went through would have sent most people into a mental institute trying to deal with it. But you handled it. Better than I would have, probably, if I were in your shoes.”
I took a moment to compare myself, at this moment right now, to me one year earlier. Back then I thought I was coma girl, but really I was some latent being, waiting to become something. Sure, I was something not quite human or normal by any means, but I was beginning to feel like I was something more amazing—undefined and untested to be sure, but amazing just the same. And with that knowledge, I was stronger and ready to do whatever it took to find my mother’s killer. Look what I already accomplished. I experienced such great loss last year that I lost myself for a while. But I pulled myself out of that dark well in my mind, just as Zander and I had escaped the dark cellar at the cabin in the woods. I faced down my captor, I escaped death—more than once—and I discovered courage I never imagined possible. Darkness had nothing on me. I saw through darkness!
I liked this new person I was becoming. The old version of me was a sleeping me. I didn’t know exactly what I was yet, but now I was aware—the sleeper had awakened. There was no going back.
Impossible, crazy beings existed, crazier than I ever was, too. I wasn’t the only freak out there. Most importantly, I knew terrible truths and I wasn’t losing it. And there were more to come. I felt the reality of that. I sensed a loosening in my mind where I had secrets wrapped up so tightly, I’d never examined them before. I was just noticing their existence. It was all coming out into the light. And I wasn’t afraid. Tomorrow was coming whether I wanted it or not, and I would deal with it. But not alone. I didn’t have to do it alone. I had my friends. I had my father. I had Zander and whatever was going on between us. I looked forward to discovering more. Hope bubbled up inside of me.
I stared into Zander’s deep blue eyes, and felt power and confidence despite my dirt-streaked face. I loved the way his eyes sparkled, even in the dark. The light in them came from an inner strength, and I couldn’t resist thinking that some of the sparkle had to do with me. I went up on my tiptoes. Like I knew he would, he met me halfway.
Check out karenlynnbennett.com for deleted scenes in in the True Nature Series and to hear the latest news for the True Nature Series.
Be on the lookout for Pandora’s Jar, book two in the True Nature Series, coming early 2015!
About the Author
Karen lived most of her childhood traveling around the world with her parents who taught English and life skills to poverty stricken families in destitute third world countries. The language and cultural skills she learned gave her a leg up as an operative in the secret service filtering out terrorists and saving communities everywhere—
Okay, okay. Too good to be true? So she daydreamed of that kind of life, but really lived another kind of dream life–the American dream–growing up in the small farm town of Ephrata, Washington, living with a large family (seven other siblings and two fabulous parents), working her way through college, meeting the man of her dreams and marrying him right after graduation, landing that job that escalated her along in her chosen career of technical writing, moving to San Jose, California, (home to some of the country’s best weather and gorgeous landscape), adding two beautiful children to her family, quitting her paying job for the incredibly satisfying job of full-time mother, home manager, school and church volunteer. Yes. That’s the honest truth. And it has been a wonderful dream life.
But it’s also true that a little piece of Karen’s sou
l resonated with movies such as The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (her favorite movie so far, the original and the remake) and True Lies in which the characters moved beyond the mundane. It turns out that part of her had been trying to escape for a very long time and finally got free! Now that she has had a taste of the writer’s life, she’s going to ride that ship as long as she can and see where it takes her. So while Karen still wears a lot of hats, and her family and friends occasionally wonder if she went off the grid again, nose to the keyboard, or staring at nothing lost in her own thoughts, they are supportive and encouraging always. And Karen is eternally grateful and hopes that her writing will provide that vicarious escape for someone else who needs to get away from reality for a small moment in time.
karenlynnbennett.com
Secrets of the Sleeper: True Nature Series: Book One Page 20