Hunted (28 page)

My
throat had gone dry. It took a couple of attempts to get a response
out.

"Even
if that is the case, why should that matter? Why would you bother
helping me?"

His
smile was odd. It was mocking, but he wasn't mocking me. It was more
like he was mocking some memory or misadventure from his past.

"Trust. It always comes down to trust, doesn't it?"

"I
guess so. I can't survive in the world that my ability has thrown me
into. I'm not fast or strong or deadly. The only thing keeping me
alive is the fact that I'm safely anonymous here where I do all of my
interacting with other supernatural beings."

"I
guess I spoke more truly than I realized. Your problem is deciding
who to trust. You're in physical danger already, aren't you?"

"How
did you know?"

He
suddenly looked tired, almost as though my asking him that simple
question had forced him to pick his burdens back up in some form or
fashion.

"I
didn't know, but it was a pretty safe bet. The world I live in, the
one that your dream walking ability seems to be slowly but surely
sucking you into, is a savage, lawless place. Anyone you encounter
here, anyone who's more than just a normal human, is going to be
looking for anything that they can to track you back to your physical
body. It's reflexive. Humans are a stewardship to be protected—or
cattle to be preyed upon, depending on who you're talking to—but
anyone who's not a human, anyone who has the potential to be a threat
of some kind or another, either has to be confirmed as an ally or
eliminated."

"I'm
no threat to anyone."

"Sure
you are. Our dreams are the only place where most people really give
into their subconscious desires. When you see someone here you see
them as they truly are, you see them with all of the illusions
stripped back, you encounter them at their most vulnerable. It's a
subtle power, but it's incredibly powerful."

"So
what should I do? Are you going to come riding to my rescue?"

It
wasn't my imagination; he was looking more and more tired by the
second.

"No.
If that's the help that your power thought I could provide then it
was sadly mistaken. I can't even rescue those who are the closest to
me. I'm not even sure I have the power to protect myself through the
storm I can see approaching on the horizon."

"What
about if I told you where I am? Could you send someone to help me?
Even just someone to help me disappear? I'm…"

He
held up his hand abruptly, cutting me off before I could say anything
else. "Don't tell me that. You're safer if I don't know. Not
that I would hurt you myself, but I can't promise the same for my
father. He looks at people and he doesn't see individuals, he sees
weapons and tools, implements to be used up in his quest for more
power and influence."

It
was hard to get much clearer than that. His father was bad, really
bad. That didn't necessarily mean that someone working against him
was good, but it was a starting point.

"So
your father can't be trusted, but what about someone I saw spying on
him?"

He
looked at me for several seconds. "You mean in the dream? Tell
me about him."

"I
don't know. Male, older, like forties or fifties. He looks like a
Native American."

"He
was spying on my father?"

"Yeah,
we were at the top of a building looking down at your dad, but it was
odd, like the ground was only a few feet away. Your dad started
climbing the building to get to us and the Native American guy seemed like he
was going to take my head off. He turned into some kind of giant
wolf-man and nearly killed me."

"Was
that the only time you saw him?"

"No,
I somehow pulled him into one of my dreams. He tried to get me to
tell him where I lived, and then he taught me a little bit about how
dream walking worked, but when I asked him about your dad he shifted
shapes again and tried to kill me. Neither experience particularly
made me feel like he was someone I could trust. By the way, you've
never even told me your name."

"My
name is Alec."

"Okay,
Alec, what do I do? What help can you provide me? I've come across
two other even scarier people over the last couple of weeks. One of
them knows what school I go to and he knows that I'm a cheerleader."

"Very
little I'm afraid. The most I can do is tell you that I think you're
dealing with Dream Stealer."

"Who's
Dream Stealer and why do you think he's the Native American?"

"Kaleb,
my father, is part of a group, a terrible group. Dream Stealer was
also a member of that same group at one point, but he's since started
working against them. Until tonight, until I met you, he was the only
person I'd ever heard of who could interact with people during a
dream. Not only that, he's a shape shifter, like me."

"Are
there a lot of you?"

"Too
many and not enough all at once. We're not entirely in control of
ourselves. Mostly we do okay, but if we're injured—or
threatened in some way—sometimes our inner beast takes over."

"So
maybe he's more trustworthy than he appeared?"

Alec
nodded. "Possibly. It's always possible though that you weren't
actually dealing with Dream Stealer. I've never heard a reliable
description of what Dream Stealer's physical body looks like, I'm not
even positive that he's a man. Everyone talks as though he is, but by
all accounts it is rare for anyone to interact with him in the flesh.
He generally sticks to the dream where he's the most powerful and
least exposed. His tactics are…disturbing though. He's done
things that a few weeks ago I would have said would make him
irredeemable. I'm not so sure now, but even so he's not someone to
interact with lightly."

I'd
been standing, looking down at him on the bench, but now I let myself
drop down to sit next to him.

"You've
given me more questions than you've answered for me. After talking to
you I still don't know whether the Native American is this Dream Stealer you've
told me about, and even if they are the same person, I still don't
know whether or not I can actually trust him. Are you sure you don't
want to just tell me what to do?"

Alec's
smile was sad, somehow sadder than the situation seemed to call for.
"Adri, I'm not qualified to tell anyone what to do right now.
I'm not even qualified to be running my own life. In the last little
while, I've found out that much of what I've always believed was
nothing more than a convenient set of lies meant to keep me safely
out of the way. People I thought I could trust have been deceiving me
so they could do whatever it was they thought would benefit them the
most."

"I'm
sorry, that sounds pretty terrible."

"It
is, but I just keep telling myself that it was the living in
ignorance that was awful. Knowledge is power and sometimes even
freedom. As much as it feels like the sky is falling now that I know,
it's better this way."

I
swallowed a couple of times. "If I choose wrong then I probably
won't live long enough to correct my mistake. There is a decided
chance that we'll never see each other again."

"That's
true, but you don't necessarily have to choose right away, you don't
even know that you'll ever see the Native American again. There are a lot of
different ways that your life could go from here and not all of them
are bad."

"You
don't seem worried."

This
smile was less sad, like he was still mourning the past, but the
future wasn't as bleak as maybe it could have been.

"I'm
not. I can't tell the future any more than you can, but I feel a
profound connection to you. I can't believe that the universe would
put us together for just these few moments and then make it so we
never meet again. You'll choose the right course and I'll somehow
make it out of the morass I'm currently mired in."

I
knew that my smile was a bit hesitant, a bit forced, but I was
smiling, which was more than I'd expected to be able to do a few
minutes ago when I'd realized I was in someone else's dream again.
Instead of fighting for my life, I'd found that missing piece of
myself that I'd only recently realize was absent.

"Do
you think we'll remember this dream when we wake up?"

He
looked at me oddly. "Why wouldn't we?"

"I
don't know why, but these dreams tend to fade away once I'm awake.
It's like I'm two different people and the other person can't wrap
her mind around what happens in the dream. I can remember basic stuff
like the fact that I'm in danger or that someone helped me, but so
much of the actual emotion is nothing more than vapor."

"Well
then, I hope that we both buck the trend where this particular dream
is concerned. I would hate to lose this connection with you, slight
though it is, because my memory wasn't up to holding onto the full
measure of what I'm feeling right now."

"It
doesn't feel like a
slight
connection."

I
wouldn't have said that he could look shy. Bashfulness had no place
on that justifiably confident face, but there was no arguing with my
eyes. He was unsure of himself, possibly even as unsure as I was.

"No,
you're right, this isn't a trivial thing, but it feels like it could
be even more, like it could be something truly epic and not in a way
most people use it these days."

"I
know. It's actually a little scary."

"Yes,
scary, but wonderful and exciting in a way that I thought I'd lost
the ability to feel. Little kids get excited about Santa Claus and
Christmas. Adults just cautiously anticipate."

I
smiled as he slid imperceptibly closer. "Santa Claus and
Christmas, and birthdays and the Fourth of July. That's a pretty good
description of what I'm feeling right now."

Alec
moved in slowly. He took forever to cover the painfully small
distance between us, but when his lips touched mine it felt like my
heart was going to explode.

His
kiss was soft and gentle, but there was a sense of controlled power
to it, like I was doing something dangerous, like I might not survive
if he relaxed his control for the briefest of instants. He pulled me
closer, effortlessly sliding me across the bench with one arm as
his other hand cradled the side of my face.

There
was more heat to his touch now and I could feel the iron control that
I was realizing was an integral part of him, start to fray. It was
terrifying and exciting all at once. I was scared to death of what
might happen if he ever really lost control, but at the same time I
wanted to know all of him, even the dangerous, feral parts that he
normally kept tightly locked away.

His
teeth bit down on my bottom lip, not hard enough to draw blood, but
hard enough to tell me that he was even closer than I'd realized to
losing control.

I
seemed to have forgotten how to breathe. I gasped for air, I needed
it, needed to be able to talk, but I didn't know if I was going to
tell him to stop or if I was going to beg him to just let go of the
inhibitions that were the only thing ensuring my safety.

I
opened my mouth to say something when I heard a howl that made my
skin crawl. Alec was shaking as he drew back from me.

"Even
here, even in my dreams it seems I can't be happy, can't be free of
the demons that chase me out there."

Now
there was more than one creature howling and Alec looked up at me
with eyes that had gone a paler, colder shade of blue.

"Get
out now if you're able to, Adri. What comes next won't be pretty."

I
shook my head. "No, I want to stay. I can help you."

"It's
my dream, remember? I can influence it more than you can. Besides,
I'll fight better knowing that you're safe."

I
meant to argue with him, but before I could really get started
something
stepped out from behind a large rock. My heart
skipped a beat as I took in a beast that should only be able to exist
in nightmares. It was tall, somewhere between seven and eight feet,
darkly furred with a face that was too unfinished to describe other
than that it seemed to have hints of both canine and feline
characteristics.

Claws
that were nearly as long as my forearm tipped its fingers, gleamed
darkly in the moonlight, but it was the fangs that I couldn't seem to
look away from. If madness had been made flesh and bone and then
given teeth they would have looked like this, impossibly big but
still somehow fitting in a mouth that was obviously designed for
rending and tearing.

The
creature seemed to be in no hurry and a second later I realized why
as a second and a third of its kind stepped into view. Alec looked
back at me with concern on his face.

"I'd
hoped not to expose you to this, to the monster I carry inside of
me."

Alec's
transformation tore through him before anything else could be said
and my breath caught as I saw what now occupied the space where he'd
been standing. A second ago I would have said that the three monsters
that were approaching us looked like the Native American when he was in his
wolf-man form, but now that I had Alec's wolf-man shape to compare
them to I realized how wrong I would have been. They were larger than
he or the Native American had been and where the creatures were unfinished and
bestial, Alec looked like someone had taken human intelligence and
simply crafted a new home for it.

He
looked back at me with the same ice-blue eyes he'd had a moment
before, and then lunged towards the closest beast in an explosion of
speed that I somehow knew I shouldn't be able to follow. The first
creature tried to dodge out of Alec's way, but he materialized a
large rock in the direction it was trying to move and then shoved his
fist into its chest as it bounced off of the rock that hadn't been
there a second before.