by Dean Murray
Chapter 15
My alarm pulled me out of the strangest night of sleep I'd ever experienced. Maybe I'd just been overtired, or possibly the strange, symbol on the note, inked into the place where a signature normally would've been, had reminded me of the other truly alien experience so far in my life.
Whatever the reason, it felt like I'd spent all night on the edge of one of the incredible, vivid dreams. I kept catching glimpses of the characteristic soft glow out of the corner of my eye, but hadn't ever actually slipped into a full-blown dream. It'd left me feeling very unsatisfied.
I rolled over and pulled the note out from its hiding place in my dresser. I had the words memorized already; the symbol was what I wanted now. The note was proof of the existence of our benefactor, but the sigil on the bottom of the page was a clue to his identity. It was incredibly intricate and completely different than anything I'd ever seen.
Once again I traced the sharp edges and smooth swirls with my eyes, marveling at the way it hinted at further complexity lurking just out of sight.
With a sigh of resignation I hid the note once again and pulled myself out of bed. Convinced as I was that Brandon was our benefactor, I no longer felt any qualms about trusting him to come pick me up.
I waited in the living room until I saw him pull up, and then skipped out to meet him with a smile. He reached over and opened my door, but some of the usual casualness was missing from his smile.
"Something wrong?"
Brandon spared a momentary glance from the road, just enough to give me a querying look. "What do you mean?"
"I don't know. It isn't anything I can really put a name too, but I'm usually pretty good at reading people, and something seems to be bothering you. Or maybe just distracting you."
The smile was back, and at near normal intensity. "Distracting is as good a description as any. Some things have been a little different than normal. Nothing to worry about, it just got me thinking."
Before my move to Sanctuary I probably would've pried just a little in an attempt to get whatever it was out in the open, but I didn't press him. I had too many secrets of my own now, secrets I didn't want anyone looking at too closely until I'd had a chance to work through them.
Brandon pulled into his normal parking spot, cut the engine and grabbed my hand before I could open the door. "Hey, you'd tell me if you knew about anything I should know, right? Anything odd or out of the ordinary?"
For a second nothing made sense. Brandon was the one who was saving us, and if that wasn't out of the ordinary, I didn't know what would be. Only he'd said in his note not to say anything to anyone. Of course. He was testing me, making sure I was going to keep quiet about what he'd done. Probably because he didn't want any of the praise for such a selfless act.
I was usually a pretty lousy liar, but it isn't really a lie if you both know the truth. "Brandon, you can trust me. There isn't anything odd going on. At least nothing odder than normal for Sanctuary."
Brandon looked at me for several seconds, and then chuckled. "You're right, compared to other places we do tend towards oddness. It's the small town effect, I think."
Something about his voice was a little different than normal. "You've lived somewhere else, somewhere bigger?"
The wistfulness was gone; the smile was back full force. "Not really. I've visited a few larger cities, but never for long enough to get the full feel for what it must be like to live in a Minneapolis or a New York. Someday maybe though."
This time I was going to pry, but he preempted my question. "It looks like we'd better be going or we'll both be late."
Les Misérables. I managed to put the impending drawing more or less out of my mind for the first half of the day, but I actually missed Britney's constant gossip. There was almost no redeeming value to most of what she said, but it did have the benefit of being distracting. By the time lunch finally came around I needed some kind of distraction. This was my only chance to see Les Misérables performed live before I turned forty.
Unfortunately, while the conversation at Brandon's table was plentiful, it wasn't very distracting. I was quickly realizing that Brandon's friends weren't very nice. I'd pretty much known Cassie was a wench, but Vincent seemed even meaner.
While a story about how someone tricked some poor girl into thinking he was going to ask her out was highly illuminating, it wasn't particularly the kind of thing I wanted to dwell on. Especially considering how many parallels there were between her story, and mine.
I kept looking at the clock, and the later it got, the more certain I was that Principal Gossil was just about to get on the loudspeaker and call out the winners of the drawing. The last two minutes of lunch dragged on forever, but then the bell rang and I was left sitting stunned as Brandon and his friends stood to go.
I let Brandon help me to my feet, hardly noticing the way his touch left my hand tingling, and headed off to class. It was stupid, but I couldn't help feeling this was yet another sign I wasn't going to win a ticket.
I tried to shake the feeling during History, but was still fighting it when I walked into Physics. In a departure from his normal routine, Alec was already seated when I arrived. I flipped open my notebook and tried to distract myself with a brief sketch, only to tear the page out and ball it up as the bell rang.
I looked up to see Alec staring at me, which just made me mad. It was completely unfair. I wasn't going to get to go to Les Misérables, but he was rich enough to fly to New York and book the whole theater.
As Mrs. Alexander stood up to take roll, a burst of static silenced us all. "It's my pleasure to read off the names of the five winners in our drawing for tickets to Les Misérables."
"The first winner is Pam White."
Somewhere down the hall I heard someone yell, and then an entire class broke out into cheers. I knew I should be happy for Pam, but I was too busy wishing everyone would quiet down so we could hear the next name.
Mrs. Alexander shut the door, muting the roar as Principal Gossil continued with a slight rustle of papers. "Also winning a ticket to Les Misérables next weekend, Mr. Andrew Webbs."
A couple of half-hearted cheers broke out towards the front of the class, but they were short-lived. Andrew wasn't in the class, and his friends were probably spending almost as much time thinking about their odds of still winning, as I was.
I only had three chances left, three in two hundred assuming that everyone else in the school had entered the drawing, which was virtually guaranteed.
"And the third lucky person is Suzanne Bergerman."
And my chances were down to two, with even worse odds than I'd had a second before. My hands hurt, only when I looked down to see why, it was because my fingernails were digging into my palms. The blood was pounding so furiously in my ears that I couldn't hear the next name read. I could tell it wasn't mine though because nobody turned back to congratulate me.
There was only one name left to be read, and I knew that it wasn't going to be mine. I'd never been that lucky in my entire life. As quickly as that my pulse slowed and my fists relaxed.
I could clearly hear as Principal Gossil cleared his throat and continued. "The fifth winner is Ms. Adriana Paige."
The cheer from my classmates wasn't nearly as loud as the one for Pam, but it didn't matter. I'd won a ticket. Me, the person who never won anything, was going to get to see the greatest musical of all time.
I smiled and thanked everyone who yelled back congratulations, and then turned to find Alec staring at me.
"Congratulations, Adriana. Les Misérables is one of the best. I hope you enjoy it."
I thanked him sweetly, and even managed a smile, but I wanted to tell him he was a jerk. I'd been desperate to win a ticket, and he had to take yet another opportunity to rub in the fact that he'd already seen it. That he was rich enough to see it anywhere in the world as often as he wanted to.
Even my desire to tell Alec off wasn't strong enough to overcome the pure joy at having won. The next tw
o hours floated by, and before I would've believed it possible, I found myself heading towards the tutoring lab. Rachel met me outside the door, her face lit up with a smile even more striking than her usual expression.
"You won. I'm so excited that you won. Guess what. I traded tickets with Suzanne Bergerman, so we get to sit together!"
Life couldn't get any better. I was going to Les Misérables with Rachel, and I only had two more hours before Brandon would be taking me home.