Secrets of the Sleeper: True Nature Series: Book One (16 page)

“I love the way you blush at everything.” He further shocked me by dropping a swift kiss on my nose. “You really did it! You really healed us! You’re amazing!”

There was so much I didn’t understand, but being surrounded by my blue-eyed boy was one of the happiest moments in my life. However, it was over as soon as it started.

A car engine rolled up to the cabin. We pulled apart.

Zander kept me next to him as he quickly assessed the room. On the other side of the trapdoor, now just a ragged hole in the ground, sat a wood-burning stove and rack of fireplace tools. Zander ran over and grabbed the iron poker.

“Get behind the door,” he whispered. We could hear footsteps approaching. I slipped across the room and flattened myself against the wall between the doorjamb and the window. Zander headed over to the door, lifting the iron poker.

Out of the Fire

Zander didn’t give Dante a second chance to surprise him. When he stepped into the cabin, Zander was already swinging his weapon. But the guy had quick reflexes. He must have glimpsed something from the window. He ducked and rolled, missing a deathly blow by millimeters. Dante quickly scrambled to his feet, already reaching behind his back. He came up with a pistol before Zander could take another swing.

“No!” I gasped as Dante leveled the gun at Zander’s head. His eyes radiated pure panic and I knew any hope of escape was disintegrating fast. I felt completely helpless and tried to move closer to Zander, but a small shake of his head stopped me.

“Don’t even think about it, superman,” warned Dante as Zander took a step. “Why don’t you toss that stick of yours over there.” He pointed to the left, away from me.

I met Zander’s eyes for a second. Sadness. Regret. Disgust. He threw the rod against the far wall.

Dante laughed, still pointing the gun at him. “Wow. I totally wasn’t expecting that. Seriously. You really surprised me. And look at you two!” He waved the gun between Zander and me. “You’re all fixed up! How do you think that happened, I wonder? Well, I can’t wait to find out, I must say.”

“What do you want from us?” grunted Zander.

Dante’s eyes darted between Zander and me. “She didn’t tell you? Well, I suppose you haven’t had that much time to catch up, being tied up and broken and unconscious… Anyway, you two are my golden tickets. I wonder how they’ll classify you.”

He tilted his head to the side, staring at us.

“I mean, you aren’t anything I’ve seen before. I’ve been thinking, and I’m not sure if you’re Idimmu anymore. But whatever you are, The Collector is going to be extremely pleased. Which means he’ll be extra nice to me!” His eyes sparkled avariciously. “By the way, how
did
you get out of my cellar?”

“You should have stayed away a little longer,” Zander muttered.

Dante cackled. “Sorry about that. But I got everything tidied up quickly once I found a patch of cell service. The Collector was very interested in you two. To be honest, I’ve never heard him so excited about one of my catches. Yes, he’s going to be very happy with me, especially once he learns who
you
are.” Dante waved the gun at Zander. “I couldn’t resist holding out on him about that.” He cackled. “And to think I almost lost you. I really am lucky!”

I racked my brain for a plan. Obviously, Zander had some kind of super strength. Could he knock Dante unconscious before he did the same to him? Could I do something to Dante?

Zander inched toward Dante.

Dante narrowed his eyes. “Whoa, there. Not another millimeter. I’m so not messing around.” His voice had gone deadly. “I’m a very good shot, and I’m okay with just bringing in one of you if it comes to that.”

Zander raised his hands. “Whatever your boss is giving you, I can double it.” He stepped forward.

Dante laughed and swung his arm over to me. “That’s too funny! But I said, no moving! Either of you!” The gun was directed straight at my head, but Dante never took his eyes off Zander.

Suddenly I was so pissed. I mean, who did he think he was? I thought of my mom, how some stupid lunatic took her from me. No way was I going to let something like that happen again. With one last determined look at Zander, who seemed to be begging me not to move, I launched myself at Dante, the momentum throwing both of us toward the cellar.

At this point, my mind compartmentalized all three of our actions as if in slow motion. Dante noticed my attack a fraction of a second before I reached him. Zander moved toward us so fast, he was almost a blur. But he wasn’t faster than the bullet. The gun went off.

“No!” Zander roared, grabbing at me as I sailed with Dante toward the hole in the ground.

Dante fell backward over the edge, one leg still on the floor and the other dangling over the hole. He grabbed at me, catching my hair while Zander snatched at my ankle. For just a second I was being pulled in opposite directions. With a painful rip, Dante fell backward, dropping head first into the pit.

Zander pulled me away from the hole, shaking and holding me tightly. “You okay?”

“I’m fine, I think.” The back of my scalp stung. He must have pulled out a chunk of hair. I was probably bald on one side of my head.

“It’s him we need to worry about,” I said. He steadied me before letting go. We both peered down into the dark hole.

Dante lay in a halo of light, unmoving. The gun was still clenched in one hand, a chunk of blond hair in the other.

Zander rushed down the ladder, carefully lifting the gun from Dante’s grip before he gained consciousness. He peered closely at the limp form, then up at me.

I knew before he said anything. I could see that Dante’s neck was bent at an impossible angle.

“Don’t touch him,” I said. I could tell he wanted to check for a pulse. But we both knew he was dead. “We don’t know if he can still zap you.”

“I doubt it, but let’s not test it.” He climbed back up the ladder and pulled it up with him. “Let’s get you home. I’ll have Peter take care of this.”

But I wasn’t really listening. I had backed away from the cellar, pain spreading across my abdomen. I sat in a nearby chair, dazed. I pulled my hand away from my shirt as Zander stared at me. My hand came away covered in blood.

Zander grunted and touched his side as if in pain. Was he feeling my pain again? I could fix this, though. Closing my eyes, I pressed my hand against the wound again, wondering how I did it before.
Heal
, I thought.
Please, heal?

He rushed over, hovering. “Tru, you were shot! But you can heal yourself, right? Like you did to us in the cellar!”

I shook my head, giving him a half smile. “It’s not working, Zander. My cool power isn’t working.” I slumped in the chair, beginning to slide down to the floor. Maybe I was too hurt, maybe I couldn’t heal from just anything.

Zander caught me, and carefully carried me over to the couch. He laid me out and lifted my T-shirt with shaking hands.

“It’s bad, isn’t it.” My body began to tremble. “S-sorry,” I bit out, teeth chattering.

“No!” Now Zander pressed his hand against the wound, staunching the blood loss. I gasped at the pressure, but then the wonderful hum we always felt took over, but more intensely than ever. Zander sucked in a deep breath.

“It must be the blood,” I panted.

“Together,” he said. “We’ll fix this together.”

“I don’t know how.”

“It worked before. Try again, Tru,” he urged thickly. “Please,” he begged. “I’m not going to lose you after everything we’ve been through. After all this time! I just found you! So try again, Tru, please.” He leaned in closely. Was he crying?

“This feels so déjà vu.” Now I was talking gibberish and maybe seeing things.

“Tru!” he whispered unsteadily. “Let’s try together.”

I lifted a hand to his cheek. “Okay.” My voice was faint. “Maybe you did it. Maybe I just needed you.” He leaned in the rest of the way, until our heads touched. The hum was now pulsing everywhere we touched. It was like a living, breathing force of nature. Our skin began to glow.

“Tru, I don’t know exactly where we stand, but I do know that I want to get to know you better. I do know that I came here to find you. I know that there’s a lot more going on than we understand, and I want us to figure it out together. I have so much to explain. So, you have to get better!” Zander insisted.

His heartfelt words seemed to do the trick. Heat pooled where his hand pressed against the wound. Suddenly, I felt a burning explosion, and as it reached my brain, my world went black.

Sirens

I opened my eyes
to my bedroom curtains rustling in the night breeze. Releasing a long sigh of relief, I sent a prayer of gratitude out into the great unknown. Thank goodness it was just a nightmare! Had I woken up Dad? I listened. Silence. A happy laugh escaped me as I swept back the covers and swung my jean-clad legs over the side of the bed.

Jean-clad legs.

I jumped from my bed and stared at myself in my mirrored closet doors. My hair was wild and tangled, my T-shirt ripped and bloody. My face had muddy streaks across it. I was filthy.

“No!” I groaned, collapsing to the floor.

“Tru.”

I yelped and spun around.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Zander, equally disheveled, sprawled on my oversized beanbag in a corner. He ran his hands through his already spiky hair and stared inquiringly at me. He looked like he’d just woken up.

“You thought it was a dream, didn’t you? I wish it was—except for the good parts,” he said. He switched on the lamp next to him. Its soft glow spread across the room toward me.

My lips trembled against my fingertips. “Yeah.” It had really happened. The ramifications were just starting to run through my mind. It was too much. I wiped the moisture from my eyes, determined not to cry.

“What happened?” I asked. “How did I get here? Does my dad know you’re here?”

The beanbag made squishy sounds as he straightened out of it. He stepped over to me, squatting down on the carpet in front of me.

“Um, let’s see…” he started, his voice low. “Your dad got home about an hour ago—he must have been working really late. But we were already here, which is a good thing because I don’t know how I would have explained it. Anyway, I hid in your closet when he stuck his head in.” He chuckled. “That’s a first! Luckily he didn’t look too closely.”

He paused to peer more carefully at me. I ran a self-conscious hand over my fluffy hair, at the same time trying to remember if I had shoved any dirty laundry in my closet. I should have cleaned my room like Dad asked.

“And,” he added, “I sent a text back to Ruthie that you were okay and you would explain everything tomorrow because there were a ba-zillion texts from her.” He chuckled. “She almost came over here, but I said you were feeling sick and might be contagious. Hope that’s okay.”

“My phone! Oh good, then you found my backpack, too. You didn’t say it was you, right?”

“No, she thinks the texts are from you. Why? She doesn’t like me now? There’s your backpack.” He gestured to the corner of my room where the backpack sat. He pulled my phone out of his pocket. “And here’s your phone.”

“Thanks.” I tucked it into my back pocket. “It’s a miracle Ruthie didn’t come over here anyway. I kind of told her what was going on.”

“She knows?”

“Yep. After you and your brother mind-whammied me—”

“Mind-whammy?”

“Hey! That really hurt. And then you took off and pretended it all never happened…”

“Sorry. That probably hurt, too.” He sighed.

“Well, anyway, I needed to talk to someone and she’s my best friend.”

“How did she take it?”

“Surprisingly well, but she thought that since your brother had these mad mind-warping skills, then you could be messing with my mind, too.”

“That actually makes sense.”

We stared at each other. He looked like a tornado victim, but there was strength in his eyes. His eyes said that although he understood, he wasn’t messing with me. There was more, too, but I wasn’t up to examining it.

“We both have a lot to figure out,” I offered. “Maybe tomorrow things will make more sense.”

I looked down at my bloody shirt. Had I really been shot?

“Don’t worry about Dante. He won’t hurt anyone ever again,” Zander added.
Dante
! Something nagged in the back of my mind, something I had mulled over when I was stuck in the cellar. Then I remembered.

Dante had talked about how much I helped Bobby. Later, when I began to believe him, I wondered if I could help him, too. What was Dante like before he had been collected? What if I had tried? But as soon as I touched him, I would have lost consciousness. He thought I would hurt him. I had scoffed at the idea, but in the end that’s exactly what I did. I remembered Dante’s neck bent at a strange angle. Instead of helping him, I had killed him.

I covered my face, a sob escaping me. “I can’t believe I killed him!”

“It was an accident, Tru. You know that, right?”

“But I pushed him on purpose. And he died!” I pressed my fingers into my eyes, hoping to block out the sight of Dante’s bent body. I couldn’t. It would be forever branded to my eyelids. I was a murderer.

Zander gently pulled my hands away from my face, but I didn’t want to look at him. I didn’t want him to see me.

“Tru, it was him or us. He shot you. It was self-defense. I would have killed him if I could have. You saved me. You saved both of us.”

I finally looked at him, finally gave into that warm connection between us. If anything could make me forget tonight, it was that. I could get lost in his blue gaze. Something soared inside me when he looked at me like that. He seemed to notice the change in me. He let go of my chin, and my eyelids fell at the loss.

Zander cleared his throat. “I sent my brother after him. I brought you here and didn’t want to leave before you woke up. I needed to make sure you were okay.” He reached toward me again, but changed his mind, dropping his hand. “Are you? Okay, I mean?”

“Yeah,” I said. Okay, but disappointed, I thought. Why wasn’t he holding me like he had before? Suddenly I doubted my memories, my perception of our last conversation. Had it not happened like I remembered? Perhaps a bullet in the stomach could cause hallucinations. What about wanting to get to know me better? Had he really said that? People said all kinds of things in the heat of the moment. I ducked my face, embarrassed. I felt for the wound in my stomach. Everything was smooth. Nothing hurt. I wanted to lift up my shirt to check it out, but shyness prevented me.

“It’s hard to believe,” I murmured. “Did all of that really happen? Honestly, I don’t know what to think.” I looked up into his face, hoping he would understand what I was asking.

His lips thinned as he deliberated over what to say. He was quiet too long. I was tired of him squatting over me. I kneeled so that we were at eye level. Gathering up my courage, I rested my hands on his knees.

His eyes sparked bright blue and our breathing hitched. Tiny tremors rolled over our skin.

“What is that?” I asked.

His eyes darted down to my lips. Grabbing my hands, he hauled me up with him.

“I don’t know yet, Tru. But whatever it is, it brought me here to you.” He pushed me down until I was sitting back on my bed. Then he snagged my desk chair and straddled it backward, keeping several feet between us.

I lowered my eyelashes. He acted like he didn’t want to touch me.

“Tru,” he whispered, waiting until I looked back up at him. His smile of chagrin made him look bashful, which I had a hard time believing. “I can’t think when you’re touching me.”

“Oh.” I felt my cheeks reddening. “So,” I soldiered on, “you came here to Scotts Valley the same way you found me at that cabin?”

“I think so, although at the time, I didn’t realize I was searching for you. I just knew I needed to come here. I’ve been wanting to visit this area for about a year, actually since I was a kid, but this past year more than ever.” He sighed. “Man, there’s so much to tell you, there’s no way I can explain it tonight.” He looked at the alarm clock beside my bed. It read 12:00 AM.

“Okay, can I ask a few questions before you go?” I needed a few things answered tonight. The rest would have to wait until tomorrow.

“What do you want to know?”

“You say what I did was self-defense, but the police may not see it that way. What did your brother do with Dante?”

“Don’t worry about it. He’s not going to be found. You’ll never have to worry about him again.” He paused, staring at me. Worry lined his forehead. “Tru, it’s not your fault. Besides, he shot you! You would have died.”

I just nodded my head numbly. Of course I knew that. Of course I knew I didn’t mean to kill him. I still took a life. Maybe I didn’t need to, maybe I could have done something different. Maybe if I’d tried to help him instead…

“Thank you, Tru, for doing what you had to do.”

Our eyes locked again and I hurt thinking of how close Zander had come to dying. I was happy he was alive.

I couldn’t help wondering about Dante. I didn’t know what his life was like before, what this “collector” had done to him. He had been mentally unstable for sure. He had hurt me, and I didn’t understand his reasons or his motivations. But I suspected his behavior was manipulated and I couldn’t hate him. I couldn’t hate him for being insane.

Sanity was a fragile thing.

There was hate in my heart, though, directed at someone I didn’t even know. Should I tell Zander his father was the Collector? What if Dante was just messing with me? I hated the Collector, whoever he was. Mixed in with that hate was fear. He knew about me. And he wanted to collect me. He would come for me. I knew it and it scared the crap out of me. But I wasn’t going to wait for him to come for me. No, I would not go quietly. I would tell Zander what Dante said, but not right now. It could wait another day, right?

Zander watched the thoughts flit across my face, patiently waiting for a response. Oh yeah. He said I saved him.

“I think we saved each other,” I replied. “When I heard you above in the cabin, it was the happiest moment of my life. I didn’t think anyone would find me.” I stalled there, wondering if I had said too much.

“I didn’t tell my brother everything that happened.”

My eyes widened. “Why?”

“I don’t trust him.”

“Why?”

“He doesn’t like you.”

“Why?” I sounded like a parrot. Zander smiled.

“He thinks you’re a siren.”

I stopped before I repeated myself. Zander was looking expectantly at me. I chuckled.

I took the bait. “O-kaaay… What’s a
siren
?”

He looked a little overwhelmed.

“Wait,” I said. “Dante mentioned sirens, I think, back at the cabin.” That brought a scowl to Zander’s face. “He also told me about Akharus and Usemis.”

“Just Akharu and Usemi. You don’t say the ‘s.’”

“Well, he told me about Idimmu, too, these half-breeds. They are known by other names, too, like sirens. He said I was one, but different. And that you are like me.”

“A siren is a type of Idimmu. A siren can force you to do or feel things that you don’t want to. Peter thinks you are making me feel drawn to you.”

“What?” I sputtered. “That’s crazy!”

Zander laughed.

“I mean, I don’t do that, do I?”

“Well, it certainly feels odd to constantly want to be near you. But sirens don’t see in the dark or magically heal, so I’m guessing, no, you aren’t. Besides, my friend Conrad has been researching this for me, and he doesn’t think you’re a siren. Idimmu usually only affect the mind. They can’t physically change things, like you do when you heal. I’ve never heard of anything that can do what you do. Yeah, I know Dante made me unconscious, but I wonder if he just makes a person think they’re asleep. I don’t know.”

My jaw dropped at his first words. He wanted to constantly be near me? It warmed me from head to toe because I wanted the same thing. It took me a moment to register the rest of his words.

“What? Then what am I? What are
we
? I remember in my dream that you and Conrad were talking about some prophecy?”

“Believe me, I’ve been wondering the same thing. I need to call him back. He was talking about some old legend that helped me figure out that I could find you just by opening up my senses. I didn’t finish my conversation, you know, running through the woods, damsel in distress, evil villain, and all…” His mouth curved up on one side. “But I know now I can find you anywhere.”

I giggled. “That could be a little annoying.”

“Yeah, get used to it.”

“Hey, what about me saving you?”

“Did I say damsel?” He laughed. “More like…what is the opposite of damsel anyway?”

Now he rested his chin on the back of the chair. My eyes felt watery and he sighed like he was giving in to something. I met him halfway as he lifted his head and leaned his chair forward, lightly rubbing his lips against mine. Then he withdrew, shaking his head as if to clear it.

“Maybe you are my own personal siren.”

“Can guys be sirens?” I asked.

“I never heard of it, but who knows.”

“Well, I think you’re my siren, too.”

We just stared at each other for a while. Then we heard police sirens off in the distance. They got louder and louder, then faded away. I couldn’t stand it. A girly giggle rose up in my throat.