Rewrite Redemption (36 page)

And Sam?

I didn’t even want to think about what would happen to Sam if I didn’t come home.

I’m okay, I told myself. But I wasn’t really. I was starting to freak. I should have gone home by now. I thought I’d gotten through this mess pretty well so far. But what was I going to do when daylight hit?

Holding my hoodie tight, I linked to the tree and pulled more energy. It smoothed me out a little, but I was still jittery. The cottonwood just wasn’t as strong as my oak. I pulled again, wishing I could just get warm. I lay back in my hammock, huddled in my hoodie, trying to hold in my body heat. A minute later, I realized I was no longer shivering.

Okay?
Was the tree warming me up? I pulled again and thought of warmth. Immediately, heat surrounded me like an electric blanket.
Yes!
I settled back into my hammock, psyched that I was no longer freezing. But I didn’t stay psyched for long.

I mean, I was grateful to be warm. But every time I closed my eyes, images of the almost-rape kept popping into my mind: Joe leering at me with those beady, little eyes, walking towards me, fumbling with his pants. Edgar…just being Edgar. That whip had really freaked me out. In my mind, I kept seeing Joe crack it.

I sat up and checked my pocket for the knife. I patted the pepper spray. There was no way I was going to fall asleep if I couldn’t calm down. The tree was helping a little. It was compensating for what ordinarily would be utter fear. I mean, I was still in the past, and there were bad guys down below. But if I was going to deal with tomorrow, I needed sleep.

I focused on Constantine again, trying to distract myself. But there in the dark, even that went off in a screwy direction. My fixation on him had seemed confusing earlier, but now it just seemed bizarre. It wasn’t like me. I mean, I’d had my from-afar infatuations, but I’d never spent much time thinking about boys. There was no point, not with
my
secret. What I didn’t understand was why the pull towards him was so strong. I was obsessing about a guy I’d barely even met.
Me
. What was up with that? It didn’t compute.

I remembered the incident in the hallway when our eyes met. The explanation I’d given Lex and Ipod, about the vampire compulsion, came rushing back into my mind. What happened to me around Constantine was scarily similar to stuff on the net about vampire mind tricks. I couldn’t get him out of my thoughts. I longed for him. I lost all control when I was near him.

At the time, I hadn’t been serious. I knew vampires weren’t real. I was just using the compulsion thing to give Lex and Ipod an idea about what happened. But what if he was screwing with my mind somehow? What if he had hacked my brain and was
making
me obsess about him for some nefarious purpose?

I lay there, exhausted, and supremely frustrated. I was making myself crazy. Ipod would say I was being paranoid. We researched Constantine. There was no mysterious, missing past. He had a paper trail, at least where school was concerned. Lex and Ipod both liked him. He was okay. He had to be. He was probably just like me.

So I liked the guy. That was a normal thing. Maybe that’s what happened when you fell for someone—you thought about them 24/7. It had just never happened to me before. Or maybe the compulsion thing was just part of
my
strangeness and had nothing to do with him at all. Just because I was scared about tomorrow, didn’t mean that I had to turn Constantine into a scary thing too.

I struggled to get a hold on my run-a-way brain by focusing on what happened when we locked eyes in the hallway. There was nothing scary about that at all. I pulled more energy from the cottonwood. This time it worked better, relaxing me a little. I thought of his hand touching my face and that indescribable moment our eyes met. Closing my eyes, I concentrated on it. I imagined his fingers running down my cheek. I saw his beautiful, blue eyes looking into mine. I watched him run his hands through his hair.

I played the scene over and over, getting mellower with each replay—way better than freaking out. Maybe I could even go back to sleep.
I could do this
, I thought. I could make it through the night. The fantasizing, along with the energy, began to lull me into a gentle semi-trance state where thoughts of tomorrow no longer mattered. I just went with it, relaxing back into my hammock, thinking
this is really nice.

After a while, I got a hint of his energy…the savory flavor of it. It flowed softly towards me, soothing and strangely sensual. It seemed to come from far away, as if there were wispy tendrils of it just floating out in the atmosphere. It washed over me, calming and blissfully warm. I reveled in it, letting it just swirl around me.

Then, suddenly, it got stronger—like it was reaching out to me.

I figured the tree was heightening my imagination. Maybe, at that point, I was dreaming. I didn’t care. I liked how it felt and I wanted more. I reached out with my mind and pulled it closer, like I’d done with the warmth from the tree. Then, BAM!

The energy hit so hard, I gasped. I grabbed on to the limb to steady myself, breathing it in. It was like the first day I walked into Spanish, only now I was by myself, lying back, and able to enjoy it. Colors swirled around me. A strange sort of humming soothed me. Sensations of pleasure filled my body and brain, sensations I’d only felt around
him
. Closing my eyes, I floated on the buzz. How could I ever look at another guy, when just
thinking
of this one was so mesmerizing?

Funny, I could almost smell him—sandalwood soap and some kind of musky guy scent. God, I was good! I might suck at volleyball, but I rocked at this tree pulling deal. I—

A.J.

Okay, that was strange. I heard my name
inside
my mind. It was as though I had a pair of earbuds in the middle of my head.

A.J
. There it went again, soft and insistent. It echoed a bit.

Puzzled I looked down. I might have been kinda baked from the energy, but I heard something. I knew I did. The men below hadn’t moved. Besides, this was
inside
my head. And it wasn’t me faking conversations with Ipod or Lex to make myself feel better. It was his voice.

“This tree’s getting me high,” I said to no one. “I’m hallucinating!”

I heard a soft laugh…and then, my name again.

Ahh…this time I just lay back and let it wash over me. Why fight it? This was so much better than lying there stressing—

It’s Constantine…from Spanish class.

I whipped up, swinging my legs to straddle my hammock. That was just a little
too
real world. I was either dreaming or those knocks on the head had done something to my brain. I was thinking of him and he appeared?
Please.
That just doesn’t happen. My hair blew wild around me in the breeze. I shoved it out of my eyes and listened carefully.

Don’t freak. You’re not hallucinating. I’m talking to you in your mind. I don’t want to wake up the men below. Wave your hand if you can hear me
.

It had to be a dream—a lucid dream. I’d fallen asleep and now I was dreaming. Still, feeling like a complete idiot, I held up a hand and waved.

Nice! I knew you could hear me.

Startled, I shut my eyes for a second. I opened them again, slowly, half expecting to see a Cheshire cat or some other wild thing sitting on the branch. It was surreal. I saw nothing but I heard his voice again.

I’ve just come from the tree house. Lex is there waiting. 

“Where are you?” I whispered to the air. Hey, I’m all for lucid dreams, especially one with him in it. I was going for it.

About four feet up and to your left
.

“I don’t see anything,” I said, hesitantly. I felt like a dork. Even though, apparently, there was no one there to witness me talking to myself.

Oh, right, sorry. Give me a minute…forgot…such an idiot!
The voice said, laughing.

Then to my great surprise, Constantine morphed into existence right smack in front of me. And he was grinning like a freakin, Cheshire Cat. Stunned, I held on to the limb. He just stood there, looking down at me. His hair was all tousled and wild and his mouth…

Please don’t freak, A.J. My bad. I didn’t realize I’d morphed in shaded. That’s what happens when there are people near. I was just so surprised to be thirty feet up in the air, that I spaced it. Are you all right?

 “What are you doing here?” I asked softly.

He smiled.
Hey, like I said, this was not the plan. I was hoping to pull you back to the tree house. Lex is pretty freaked.

“So you came to help me get home?” I hoped I remembered this dream when I woke up.

Well, yeah…I guess, now that I’m here, that will be the plan. But you pulled me here.

“Yeah, right,” I said, sarcastically, laughing a little. “I pulled you here.” I decided to just go with it. This was my dream. I might as well enjoy it. “How are you talking to my mind?” I asked, flowing with the dream.

It’s a long story. I don’t want to wake your...um… companions. You can do it too.

“Yeah, right,” I said, softly. “What do you mean, I can do it? How did you do that disappearing act?”

He sat down on the limb and ran his hands through his hair.
I’m like you,
he said.
Only I know what’s going on. As for the disappearing, I didn’t actually disappear. I was just shading, you know, like a cloaking device. We call it shade, like hiding in the shade of a tree.

My brain was turning summersaults. I took a breath and looked down for a second. It was hard to think while I was looking at him. But looking down brought my hideous outfit into focus. I cringed momentarily but then I brushed it off. You were always dressed weird in dreams. At least I wasn’t naked. I took a breath and said, “Okay, I’m okay. You’re not hacking my brain or anything, right?”

He laughed.
I’m just broadcasting audio waves at you. We call it mindspeaking. Try this. Think of what you want to say to me and then send the words to the front of your forehead. Let them kind of float out to the air and then push them towards me
.

Seriously?
I “pushed” the word to a place past my forehead.

Whoa, not that loud.
He held his hand to his head.
Apparently, you don’t have to work too hard to broadcast. Just talk to me quietly and softly float it my way.

How’s this
? I “asked” quietly.

Excellent.
He smiled and gave me the OK sign.

Wait, can you hear everything I’m thinking
? That was a scary thought, even in a dream.

No, no, no
, he laughed,
only the words you push towards me. Maybe a little more in the beginning: while you’re learning how to differentiate, how to shield your thoughts, and how to project what you want others to hear. It’s not as if I can just read your mind. And we can only do it because we’re connected by the wood. It would work under the tree too as long as there were roots beneath us.

So it’s the tree?

Well, partly the tree and partly you. We use the trees to travel through time. Your oak, by the way, is one amazing tree. I’ve been at the tree house with Lex most of the day. She said to tell you that she wouldn’t have brought me home if I wasn’t okay. She said to say, “I lie—I die.”

I lie—I die, huh
? That had to be a good omen. Maybe my subconscious was telling me to trust this guy. Maybe this was one of those symbolic dreams.
This is
just off the chart weird,
I said to him.

Yeah, but you’re okay with it, right?

Hey, I’m having fun.
I was bolder in dreams than I was in real life. I didn’t have to adhere to the code. I grinned at him. I couldn’t help it.

He grinned back at me.
I’m happy to hear that.

Yeah, well. I’m…this is…I’m not used to anyone knowing my secret, and I’ve never known anyone else like me. I’m just trying to catch my breath, here, even if it’s a dream.

He laughed.

Maybe this was one of those dreams where you got answers from your subconscious. Shrink Five was big on those. She made Lex keep a dream journal. I figured I might as well ask him what I’d wanted to know my whole life.
So, for the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question:  Am I…are we…human?

Yeah, well mostly,
w
e just have some altered DNA…long story
, he said, smiling. He stood and looked around, his hair blowing in the breeze. The moonlight bounced off his cheekbones, making them more pronounced. He looked like a prince in some kind of
Lord of the Rings
movie, all tall and regal.
God, the air here is incredible,
he said
. I love the scent of a campfire mixed with pine…it’s so…so summer camp. Do you know where we are?

Heaven, I thought. Joe and Edgar killed me, and now I’ve died and gone to the afterlife. That thought kind of jolted me a little, and I looked down to make sure my body wasn’t lying dead at the base of the tree. It wasn’t so I answered his question.
Maybe the foothills above Boulder. I’m not sure.
This is so surreal.