Shadow's Dangers (8 page)

And then there were the classes that I shared with Hayden, Leighton, Garreth and Travis again. Even those couldn’t distract me from my thoughts, which were mainly focused on the nightmares that wouldn’t give me some respite.

My life had lost its flavor now, without Tess, and I was becoming a little crazier every day, with those dreams and bloody visions that I had in Garreth’s presence and that I couldn’t forget.

Sitting at my usual table in the cafeteria, staring at Travis parade before an impressionable young girl, I really thought that I was at the lowest point of my life. Luckily, he at least didn’t have a boring life. In the space of a moment, as the girl Travis was flirting with giggled, I had the terrible feeling of having reached rock bottom, not having anything better to do than watch Leighton’s brother be the playboy of high school.

I shook my head, exasperated by the reaction of the girl near me. She was behaving so foolishly, laughing at a joke Travis told. It was anything but funny...a blonde joke...and she herself was blonde.
Ugh...And Garreth thinks that I am that kind of girl because of my stupid confession,
I thought, annoyed.

“I’m talking to a brick wall!” Hayden said by my side, her tone exasperated.

I winced and looked at her.

“I’m sorry, I was immersed in my thoughts.”

“Really?” she said sarcastically.

She didn’t speak any more. I gave her a suspicious look. Okay, there was a problem.

“What’s going on?” I inquired kindly.

“Nothing!”

It was lie, no doubt about it.

“And the truth is...?”

“Nothing. I have nothing...,” she sighed, visibly disturbed.

“Okay...What’s going on with you? You know you can tell me.”

She let out a short and fake laugh.

“This from the one who told me nothing at all. You know, I was delighted to hear from Leighton that you were in love with her brother.”

In shock, I opened my mouth, but no words came out. What the heck was that? What was Leighton saying behind my back? The girl was adorable, but she had a big flaw: she imagined things that didn’t exist about her entourage. Especially about me.

“I’m not in love with her brother.”

My best friend gave me a disdainful look, not believing a word of what I’d said.

“You’re not fooling anyone. The way you ogle him is obvious.”

That was totally ridiculous. In any case, why continue to argue? Apparently, her mind was made up.

“If you say so...”

She shook her head nonchalantly, trying to remain calm with great difficulty.

“And you continue to lie to me.”

Her expression was outraged, but I wasn’t lying.

“You think I’m lying to you,” I retorted calmly. “That isn’t the case. Leighton dreams up things. At my expense, of course.”

Her eyes showed that she was more than reluctant to believe my words. Lord, how many more times would I have to say this sentence? I was tired of being forced to repeat myself. Yes, Garreth was good looking. Yes, it was not unpleasant to let my eyes wander over him, because he offered a pleasant vision, but I was not in love with him, damn it!

“You really think that in the event that I’d fallen in love with Garreth, I would have confided in his own sister? While this same sister tends to spill details of my life in front of everyone? I’m not that stupid,” I added a little annoyed by the lack of trust from Hayden and her inglorious judgment on my mental abilities.

She probed me with her eyes, trying to see if I were lying. She winced as I mentally let out a sigh of relief. Finally, she understood!

“I’m sorry,” she said, uncomfortable.

“It’s nothing.”

Silence fell for a moment before Hayden spoke again.

“It’s been a long time since we really talked.”

I smiled, amused. “And what do you think we just did?” 

“I mean, it’s been a long time since we confided in each other. You know, things like: “My harpy sister likes to put me on edge.” or “My dumb big brother hasn’t stopped embarrassing me since his return home.”

I laughed at her description of Anna when I suddenly realized what she had just said.

“Andrew? He... returned?” I stammered, stunned.

Like my sister, her brother Andrew was also a phenomenon in this town, as all psychological cases seemed to be grouped here. I hadn’t been surprised to learn he was dating my sister for a time. They were the same age and had done countless stupid things together. Hayden and I had obviously inherited the “good” gene of our two families.

“If you mean the big imbecile I’m stuck with as my big brother, yes, he’s back,” sighed Hayden, almost looking desperate.

“Oh...”

I was unable to say anything else. Even if it was obnoxious on my part, I had to admit that the absence of her brother hadn’t affected me much. And Hayden either, incidentally. However, at one time he had watched over us, Hayden and I, and I thought it was a shame that he changed like that. He was friendly. At least he was until he was eaten by hormones and said that I should be like my sister, whose reputation was second to none. Sometimes I had real desires to murder her for all the problems she had caused me and still caused me.

“You don’t mind if I avoid your home for a bit, eh?”

My friend laughed.

“Not at all! It will give me an excuse to escape from mine and go to yours. And given the nonsense he said about you, I prefer you avoid all contact with the male in heat.”

It was my turn to laugh, attracting strange or surprised looks from several surrounding tables. I ignored them.

“What nonsense?” I inquired, when I recovered from my laughter.

“You don’t want to know, trust me,” she assured me, grimacing.

Unfortunately, I still wanted to know what he said about me. I wanted to be prepared, knowing what to expect if I crossed him one day.

“Tell me,” I insisted.

“He... He is an asshole! He... He told me several times that he was looking forward to seeing you to see if you were... more developed since the last time he had seen you.”

I winced. It was really disgusting.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized immediately.

My best friend seemed overwhelmed with embarrassment.

“You’re kidding me, right? It’s not like you’ve chosen your brother. Just like I didn’t choose my sister. You don’t have to apologize for it, as I don’t have to for all the bad things that Annabelle has said or done. And given the time Andrew spent with her, she probably messed up his brain.”

Hayden smiled. I did the same.

“Considering how little his brain is, it shouldn’t have been difficult,” she said, mockingly, before resuming seriously: “Still, I’m...”

“Stop it. The subject is closed.”

“Got it, captain.”

I shook my head while Hayden performed a military salute, while giving me her childish pout. She had the gift to lighten the mood with a simple gesture. It was one of her many exceptional qualities.

Suddenly, her expression became stunned. She gave me a slight nudge in the ribs and told me to look somewhere in the cafeteria. I followed the direction of her gaze and noticed with dismay that she showed me the table where Travis was flirting with the blonde girl, a moment before. He was no longer around, same for the girl. The reason for their departure didn’t require much imagination. Only Garreth was still sitting at the table, his nose buried in a book. I never thought he was the bookworm kind of guy, but apparently he was. Contrary to his brother, I never saw him talking to a girl—even if a lot of them tried to attract his attention. I heard a girl say that he was too handsome not to be gay—I didn’t get the logic in that. Personally, I just thought he has someone in his former town or wasn’t interested in any girl here. But remembering his reaction when he understood that he was the cause of my fainting, maybe he indeed was.
Such a pity for the female gender if it were true,
I told myself, the thought coming out of nowhere.

“What?” I asked, not understanding what she wanted me to look at.

“He looked at us, a few seconds ago,” she whispered in my ear.

“Who?” I inquired, foolishly.

“Garreth, of course.”

“So what?”

She lifted her brows, an expression that meant, “You know very well what I mean.”

“Maybe he was looking for his sister,” I retorted, silently blaming Leighton for putting such stupid ideas in her head.

“Unless his sister is much like you or he has big eyesight issues, I lean towards the assumption that he was eyeing you up.”

I could not help but laugh at this nonsense. Garreth? Looking at me? Last time I checked, we weren’t in
The Twilight Zone
. Hayden glared at me with her chocolate brown eyes.

“I’m sorry I laughed,” I declared when I was calmer. “Seriously... you’re wrong. He was just looking for his sister,” I added.

“If you say so,” she gave in with a casual shrug of the shoulders. “But when you get together, I’ll remind you of this moment.”

Holding a new laugh, I nodded in response. I didn’t need to argue, I knew already that it would never happen. Even so, I had to admit, a small part of me had imagined it and had even hoped for it, in recent weeks. But ultimately, it was better this way.

I wasn’t in the mood for that kind of stuff. Besides I always wondered about their family. They lived with their aunt and uncle, who were their legal guardians, but I still didn’t understand why they came here -- so far from where they lived before. When I asked Leighton questions, she just told me they wanted to start fresh. Then, each time, she quickly switched the conversation to another subject. I wasn’t fooled: this was all lies. The more time I spent with them, the more I thought there was something wrong about the Wates’ family. The fact that they hung out with us, with me in particular, reinforced this feeling. I wasn’t good company since the death of Tess and yet here they were always there, near me.

“Uh um,” my friend overly coughed before giving me an unmistakable look and turning her attention to Garreth’s table.

Wearily, I sighed and threw a glance in his direction. The evidence that Hayden rambled was that Garreth didn’t look at us and seemed always absorbed in his reading. In observing him more, I noticed his tight jaw. What got into him? It couldn’t be his reading that put him in such a state or he should change his book. Again, the more I watched him, the more the need to run away from him overwhelmed me. Suddenly, no longer able to endure it, I exclaimed:

“Can we go out and get some fresh air?”

Hayden appeared suspicious but eventually, she gave me a small nod in approval. I took my bag and headed for the exit without looking at him, Hayden on my heels. It was absolutely necessary to stop letting myself be surprised by that boy. He turned my brain upside down and most importantly, I felt that something was wrong with him. I reacted at his sight like a moth when seeing the light of a flame. He was dangerously attractive and I had to fight against the urge to approach him. But I couldn’t or I would burn my wings. And I had enough problems in my life like that. I didn’t want new crises, which fortunately hadn’t occurred since the incident in the cafeteria. From now on, it was decided, I would do anything to avoid thinking about him, seeing or talking to him. This last point shouldn’t be too difficult as he never spoke to me since having fled my room. Now all I had to do was get him out of my mind, if not my very existence.

“Are you still with me?”

I turned to Hayden who threw me a worried look. I made her understand with a nod that everything was okay.

A lie, of course. If I hadn’t been afraid to be seen as insane, I would have told my best friend about the horrible nightmares that tormented me every night. And for some time, the recurring dream that assailed me, had been fragmented into several pieces. But I finally saw it in its entirety and understood that it was the death of my parents. The only problem was that this dream was completely different from what Tess had told to me.

In my horrible nightmare, the car had swerved off a deserted road for no apparent reason. That was similar to what she had told me: my parents had died in a car accident on a straight road with no other vehicle involved. However, the rest had nothing to do with what I knew of this tragedy.

I was in the backseat, in a special child seat, as I was just four years of age. The car crashed violently against the trees and my parents found themselves unconscious. I sobbed while a vaguely defined figure approached the car. My father regained consciousness and awkwardly got out of the vehicle. Voices filled with anger rose. A cry, then my father returned to the car and my mother got out of the cabin. He came back a moment later and tried to open the back door to get me out but it wouldn’t budge. In a hurry, he got in the front, his bloodied face dripping on the seat as he tried to extricate me from the back seat, but it was in vain. The seat belt was stuck. Away from the car, a figure collapsed to the ground. A feminine silhouette. My mother. An inhuman howl later, my father screamed while being dragged from the car. Cattle bellowing mingled with his screams. A spurt of blood was suddenly projected onto the front window of the car. The silence fell again. The little girl that I was in this dream was mute as if she knew that if she let out the slightest noise, she would die too. The gigantic forms disappeared at the edge of the forest. A few minutes later, a dark shadow was projected against the windshield. It was growing before my eyes. A huge, black and terrifying shape. Tremors shook the car. Gradually, everything became blurred. Suddenly, the front window was shattered. I started to cry. A beast, halfway between dog and wolf, stood on the hood. His mouth penetrated the cabin, his obsidian eyes on me. The door next to me was torn away by a shot. And suddenly, all was black.

I woke up, covered in sweat and horrified. Every night it was the same nightmare, the same rude awakening, the same tears. But this nightmare couldn’t be true. It made no sense. Firstly because the girl I was at the time had never been in that car. Secondly, because my grandmother told me that it was a car accident. She couldn’t have lied about it. And then, I had never heard of wolf attacks of this magnitude. Besides if it really happened as I saw in my dream, the police would have known that this wasn’t a simple accident. My imagination was just too overwhelming and downright unhealthy. I had to constantly invent myself fanciful scenarios. Bloody and atrocious, incidentally.