Torn (9 page)

Her words hit me like
a physical blow. She wasn't lying, which was possibly the craziest
thing she'd done so far. Oaths were always witnessed to ensure that
someone could explain the circumstances of the oath. Once your beast
was bonded to a course of action, it would complete that action
regardless of right, wrong, or even questions of legality.

The witness served to
give mitigating evidence in the event that the oath resulted in an
action that brought punishment down on you. There wasn't generally
much mitigation that could be taken into account, but if you were
forced into an oath that could potentially result in your being
killed, the last thing you wanted to do was forgo any possible
defense.

There was a chance I
could beat it out of her, but whatever else I held common with
Brandon, I didn't like being a monster.

"You shouldn't
have done that without consulting me. If nothing else recent events
should have taught you that."

"I'm sorry. I
really am, but it had to be done. I'll undergo whatever form of
punishment you decree, but I'm not going to budge on this."

She was right. It
wouldn't matter what I did to her. Short of death, nothing was going
to impact her resolve. I left, too angry to eat.

Rachel found me in the
art room five minutes before lunch ended.

"Alec, are you
ok?"

"Oh fine, just
watching the pack splinter around me."

"It's Jasmin
isn't it? Dom told me she could smell the ritual on her."

I grunted in
response, assuming the matter was closed until Rachel wrapped her
hands around my arm.

"Alec, I know
it's hard to deal with her sometimes, but she's got a good reason for
what she's doing this time."

I heard a snap as the
brush in my hand splintered. Rachel knew what was going on, but I
already knew she wasn't going to tell me. She wasn't as
strong-willed as Jasmin, I could have tortured it out of her, but if
there was anyone in the pack I couldn't bring myself to hurt it was
Rach, and she knew it.

I threw the brush into
the trash and went to leave but she hadn't relinquished her grip on
my arm. "Alec, everyone's talking about Adri having collapsed.
What else have you heard?"

My laugh wasn't very
gentle. "You forget sis. For all that you feel isolated you
hear more about what's going on among the student body than I do. I
haven't heard a peep about any of this."

Rach looked for a
moment like I'd gone too far. I finally reached out and pulled her
into a hug. "I don't know what everyone is talking about, but
she did collapse in Physics her first day here. It seemed like it
was a trick, so I suspect she's just trying to cash in on her
newfound fame as Brandon's latest toy."

She wasn't happy with
me now. "Alec, she's not like that. We've talked a little
after school and I really don't think she's pretending."

There was no point
continuing the conversation. I disengaged myself from Rachel and
headed off to class.

Rachel had a point.
While I didn't really converse with anyone outside the pack, I had
the ability to be in the know if I wanted to be, I'd just been tuning
out the background chatter lately.

I spent part of my
time in Chemistry listening to whispers and came away astonished.
The girls in the school were being even more brutal than normal and
it looked like Britney, Adri's supposed best friend, was leading the
push. If Adri had really been hoping to generate popularity out of
her attacks, it had just backfired on her in a major way. Somehow
I'd gone from being disgusted by her antics to feeling sorry for her.

I hurried straight to
Physics, and was pleasantly surprised to find Adri had beaten me to
the class. She registered my presence about the time I sat down, and
momentarily seemed confused as she reached for her notebook.

She looked over
questioningly at me, and the sight of her with her mask removed
actually drew an honest smile out of me. It had been so long since
someone had returned my smile it took me a second to realize she was
smiling at me. She blushed and broke eye contact as the bell rang.

Mrs. Alexander
finished up the roll and opened up the floor for any questions that
the class might have regarding the light unit we'd just finished up.
Predictably, the first hand up was Sammy's. I'd shared three classes
with her over the last four years and she'd been the teacher's pet in
each of them.

Sammy launched into a
question regarding glowing blue light around reactor cores that I
promptly tuned out. We weren't going to be tested on it and when I
was really ready to learn about it I'd just jump on line and do some
research.

As Mrs. Alexander
finished up her explanation the next hand up was Adri's. Judging by
the sudden jump in Adri's pulse she was nearly as surprised as I was.

"Is the light
always blue? Is it ever a whitish-gold color?"

There wasn't any
reason for the question to set off internal alarms, but it did.

"Not that I'm
aware of. The water will actually emit quite a bit of ultraviolet
light, but for whatever reasons, the electrons don't ever seem to
release any electromagnetic radiation down in the lower energy levels
like infrared, or even the visible red. You'd need red and all of
the other colors to generate a true white light."

The reason suddenly
became evident as Adri opened her mouth again. "What about
some other mechanism? One that wouldn't just make water glow with a
dancing gold light, but plants too. Do you know of anything like
that?"

The pencil I'd been
twirling between my fingers snapped into two pieces as I realized
just how badly I'd been played. I didn't hear a word of Mrs.
Alexander's response.

She'd just coyly
described exactly what we saw when we shifted forms. Suddenly
everything made sense. She hadn't been scared about facing Cassi
down because she could have easily torn Cassie in half. She wasn't
just a wolf, not with a glow like that. She had to be a powerful
Fir'shan, one who'd knowingly impinged on the territory of two
separate packs.

That explained the
lack of history. Her identity, her mom's identity, they'd both been
manufactured just before they'd moved here. They'd been detailed
enough to pass Donovan's initial background check, but there hadn't
been anything else to them.

Only things were even
worse than that. She wasn't just some random Fir'shan. She had
allied herself with Brandon after turning down my offer of
protection. Suddenly I was completely certain who Brandon's contact
on the Coun'hij was. There was no way of knowing which one she was.
There were plenty of them that hadn't been seen by anyone.

I looked up in time to
catch Adri's smug grin and almost threw myself at her. Rage washed
through me but I kept the barest edge of control. I couldn't afford
to act right now or they'd destroy the entire pack as retribution.

The show of confusion
that flashed across her face gave way to understanding as she
realized I'd finally seen through her facade. It was all I could do
to remain seated through the rest of the class.

I tracked down the
rest of the pack between classes, told them to stay clear of the new
girl, and then spent the last hour refusing to answer Jasmin's
questions. Her mood deteriorated in pace with the minute hand on the
clock and by the time the day ended I wasn't sure I was going to be
able to stall her long enough to explain developments to everyone
simultaneously. Luckily the rest of the pack was just as antsy as
she was, and they all but ambushed me.

I followed everyone to
the cafeteria.

"Ok, you kept me
in suspense the entire time I was trying to grind through stupid math
problems. What is going on?"

"Adriana Paige,
the new girl, she's a Fir'shan."

"That's
impossible. Sure she glows, but I've never got any kind of shape
shifter vibe off of her."

James' tone was
insulting but I let it pass.

"She's got the
glow of a Fir'shan, a powerful one at that. She faced down Cassi
when any normal human would have been running away in terror.
Donovan hasn't been able to track down any information about her or
her family that wasn't in the initial, basic background check we ran,
and finally she just described exactly what we see in wolf form to
the entire class under the guise of asking about the light unit we
just finished up."

The reactions varied
from outright disbelief on Dom's face to cautious doubt from Isaac.
I thought for a second I was going to lose them; but then Jasmin,
who'd been pacing since she came into the room, almost fell down.

"He's right. I
saw her do something else today that didn't gel with normal human
actions. She's got to be one of us, and extremely powerful to be
able to hide the fact she's moon born." The pack instantly
devolved into a whispered argument.

Again, there was a
range of responses. It was obvious that whatever Jasmin had seen was
linked somehow to the oath she'd taken earlier, which didn't exactly
endear her to anyone. Isaac was cautiously in favor of waiting Adri
out until her purposes became more obvious, while James wanted to
ambush her before school and kill her.

I let them bicker for
nearly an hour before I finally shut them up and told them that we
were going to adopt a wait and see posture. There were several
questions, and it wasn't until I told them that I didn't want anyone
leaving Rachel alone with her that I realized Rachel had just spent
the better part of two hours in the tutoring lab, the same one that
Adri had started working at just a few days earlier.

Rachel wasn't happy
when I told her our suspicions about Adriana. Somewhere along the
line she'd decided that the new girl was going to be her new best
friend and she refused to believe that Adri could possibly be someone
sent to help Brandon bring us down.

My normally-composed
little sister ran the whole gamut of teen angst over the next two
hours. She cried, yelled, threw things at me, and generally did all
of the things I'd never have let anyone else get away with.

I left partway through
the tantrum when Isaac sounded the warning that we had Brandon's pack
inbound. Brandon's people proceeded to all but run us into the
ground over the remainder of the night. We saw each individual in
the pack at some point, but never all at the same time. It was
obvious they were rotating people out on a regular basis so they
could wear us down. Unfortunately knowing that was what they were
doing didn't help.

By the end of the
night we were all tired and sloppy. Vincent chose that opportunity
to set up a little ambush and only sheer dumb luck put Isaac close
enough to Jasmin to drive him off. I finally stumbled back home just
before seven and found Rachel awake and waiting for me.

"Ok, Alec.
Here's the deal. I won't fight you on this Adri thing on two
conditions."

She didn't even blink
at my exhausted stare, so I finally nodded for her to continue.

"One, I still
get to go to tutoring. You can assign whomever you want as
bodyguards, but I need to be able to go there or I'll never pass Mrs.
Campbell's class."

I slowly shook my
head. "We can tutor you here."

"That will never
work and you know it. Everyone's already spread too thin trying to
keep up with Brandon's latest series of provocations. The last thing
any of you can do is spend an hour or two holding my hand through
basic algebra."

"Not that I'm
agreeing, but what's the second condition?"

"I need your
help starting a rumor. A counter rumor really."

I already knew where
this was headed, but Rachel went ahead and said it outright.

"Adri needs
someone sticking up for her. Whoever started the gossip about her
collapsing is ruining her life and we need to help."

"It was Britney,
and the last thing she needs is help from us. You realize if we're
right that she's probably one of the Coun'hij. One of the really
terrible ones that nobody can put a face to because they can't risk
what would happen to them if we all knew who they were?"

Rachel shrugged
unconcernedly and the matter was settled. I assigned Isaac and James
to take turns chaperoning her, and then the two of us pooled what we
knew about her and Rachel came up with a counter rumor that I thought
was a little over the top, but which she was positive would do the
trick.

I showered and then we
all motorcaded into school. Rachel filled Dom in on the plan on the
way, and then it was time to execute.

I was surprised at how
much fun it was. Dom and Rachel got started right away, but I didn't
get my first opening until English. When I heard Tina Jones and
Nikki Thomas begin discussing Britney's rumor I leaned over and
interrupted them.

"You guys should
really get all your facts straight before you go off half-cocked like
that."

I thought it was a
little gruff, but Rachel and Dom had both suggested I play the role
of high and mighty king of the social food chain to the hilt.

"What do you
mean? I've talked to three different people who saw her collapse in
physics her first day here, and everyone knows she's odd. The only
reason Brandon ever even noticed her is because she pretends to be
clumsy and throws herself at him every chance she gets."

I shrugged
nonchalantly. "I'm not saying she hasn't collapsed, but hasn't
it occurred to either of you to wonder why it is she's doing so?"

"Um, like
because she's a freak? I'd think it would be pretty obvious that's
she's faking it for attention."

"Try again.
Nobody's that good of an actress. There's something in her past
that's got her pretty messed up, everyone else is just too dense to
see it."