by Jus Accardo
During the evening, Devin and I stole little moments of snooping to dig up dirt on Denazen and who they might have to heal her father. She was warming up to me, smiling more often, and going out of her way to talk when she saw me in the halls at Dromere. She even ate dinner with me twice—though she insisted it was because her normal dinner partners were busy.
At night, Devin spent her time with Brandt. Hanging out and talking. Tonight we’d gone to Disneyland—her mouse fetish originated with Mickey Mouse when she was six years old—and we’d just settled down for ice cream sundaes at the top of an unseasonably warm Mt. Fuji.
“I like it when we hang at night,” she said. “I don’t have nightmares.”
“About him, right? That guy Josh?”
She nodded.
“Can I—I mean, I don’t want to pry or anything, but what was the deal with him?”
“I was shy in school. I didn’t have many friends. I didn’t know any better. Josh came along all sweet and charming and I ate it up. It started out small. He’d yell at me, then apologize. He’d be furious if things didn’t go the way he wanted and blame me, then apologize. Eventually it amped.”
“And you were too afraid to leave?”
“He never actually hit me,” she said. There was an edge to her voice that made me ill. It almost sounded like she was defending him. “But he was mean. A school counselor heard us arguing in the hall one day. She spent a long time talking to me, and made me see that our relationship wasn’t right. It wasn’t normal.”
“So you left him?”
“I tried. He said if I ever brought up leaving him again, he’d hurt my family.” She swiped the back of her hand across her eyes. “I put up with it for a little while longer, but my dad found out what was going on. He flipped.”
“I can imagine.”
“I broke it off and Josh freaked. Dad took me to the police, but they couldn’t—or wouldn’t—do anything because all Josh had done was threaten me.” She gave a bitter laugh and in that moment, looked so much older than eighteen. “They want to wait until the guy kills you before they lift a finger to stop him.”
I took her hand. “I’m sorry that happened to you. You can’t let it control you, though. If I can control your dream, then so can you.”
She blinked. “Me? How can I do it? You’re the one with the ability.”
“I did a lot of research when I first ju—found out what I could do. There are studies all over the world about people being able to control their own dreams. Normal people—Nixes. My ability allows me to do it to other people’s dreams—but I believe we all have the ability to do it to our own.”
She smiled and squeezed my hand before pulling away. “Maybe you could teach me… You know, I did some research,” she said, spooning a glob of hot fudge from her dish. She watched it dangle for a moment as she tipped it upside-down, then let it fall back to the ice cream with an audible plop. She loved the fact that she could eat anything she wanted in here and not gain an ounce. Every night she asked for a wide array of junk food, and I was more than happy to oblige just to see her smile. “Parkview isn’t that far from here…”
“Parkview—I—Um…” Whoa. If there was an award for dipshit things to say, I’d get it.
She laughed. “Don’t freak. I’m not proposing or anything. Just sayin’… Might be nice to meet.”
“Devin…” I’d done this to myself. Made things more complicated. “I actually like you. A lot—”
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
“No…”
“Are you gay?”
I almost responded with, Henley wishes, but stopped myself in time. “Um, no.”
Pushing up onto her knees, she closed the distance between us, and whispered, “Then wouldn’t you rather me do this in person?”
At first, I was too surprised to feel anything. But when that faded, it was like chaos and peace all rolled into a perfect package and shooting through my system all at once. My head filled with the smell of her—strawberries and citrus—and even though I knew I should pull away and run like hell, my lips reacted. Hell, my whole body reacted.
Pulling her close, I wrapped both arms around her waist to be sure she couldn’t get away—not that she wanted to. If the way she kissed me was any indication, she was perfectly content to keep on doing what she was doing.
And so was I.
Our first kiss—Cain’s kiss—had been amazing. A flying higher than a kite kind of buzz. But this one? This one was rockets to heaven. Having the opportunity to kiss a girl like Devin was nothing short of a miracle. Getting a girl like Devin to kiss you first? Yeah. I had nothing.
She pulled away, giggling, and nodded to the horizon. Colorful fireworks—red, green, and blue—were exploding against the night sky. “Guessing it was a good kiss?”
I opened my mouth to say hell yes, but closed it when something occurred to me. Devin liked me—Brandt, me—and that made me happy. But she’d also started to look past Cain’s walls, and I had a better than average suspicion that she liked him, too. I’d caught her watching him several times during the day at work. When our eyes met, she’d smile shyly and turn away, cheeks flushed. I could never be Brandt again. Not in the real world. And since she seemed like she was leaning more toward him, as lame as it was, I kind of felt like she was cheating on me.
With me…
For the first time since Sheltie’s ability allowed me to be myself in the dream world, I felt regret. It was cruel of the universe to feed me this small crumb, knowing it could never, ever be anything more.
“I really like you, Brandt…”
My name is Brandt Cross, and my life used to be seven kinds of fucked up… Now it’s eight…
…
The morning was off to a not so stellar start. On the way out the door, I spilled hot chocolate down my shirt and had to change, pissing off Cynthia by being late. Then, when I got to Dromere, I tripped through the door, taking out three innocent people on my way to the ground. Now I was stuck messing with the papers from the other day.
Wentz was in Busy Bee mode today, locked in his lab office and poring over notes. Sometimes it was like the guy was bi-polar. One minute he was throwing food in an attempt to initiate the largest company food fight in history, and the next he had his head in a book, more serious than a coronary. It kind of made me dizzy.
“Hey,” Devin whispered, coming up behind me.
When I didn’t answer, she tried again. “I didn’t see you at breakfast.”
“Yeah,” I mumbled, turning away. Yeah. I was being kind of a dick, but the whole thing with Devin twisted my insides into knots. I’d woken from the dream angry about the kiss and unable to go back to sleep. Once back in Cain’s body, the whole thing ate away at me like one of those belly bombs from the place on Fourth, across from Roudey’s Pool Hall back home.
“I was tired. Crappy dreams kept me awake,” I snapped. It was stupid. This really wasn’t her fault. She didn’t know both guys that liked her were one in the same. Suddenly, I could sympathize with Peter Parker. Watching MJ fawn over Spiderman had to sting like a mother.
Then there was the guilt. I felt lousy for lying to her. She thought I was trying to help her find the formula so she could save her father, when I was in it to get my own grubby hands on it. Granted, it wasn’t for Cain’s greedy means, but still…
My name is Brandt Cross, and I just want to go home…
“Oh,” was all she said. She grabbed a stack of folders from the desk behind me, hesitated, then turned back the way she came. A moment later, she was at my side again, hand warm and soft against my arm. “Look, I need to tell you something.”
“What?” For some reason, my pulse spiked. She was going to tell me she kissed someone else? That was my first thought. Obviously, it was a stupid one. What was she going to say? I kissed someone in a dream—oh and by the way, we’ve never met, but I’m hot for him.
“I need to give Anderson the formula. Tonight. He told me this m
orning today was my deadline. I said I’d definitely have it—”
“What? Are you out of your frigging mind?” Something inside me started to itch. I’d noticed it a few times with Sheltie. When emotions ran high I had less control and other personalities—Sheltie’s at the time, and now, Cain’s—had more room to break free. The fact that she promised to deliver something we didn’t have was bad enough. But knowing that even if we did have it, I couldn’t give it to her made me crazy.
It made Cain crazy.
She cringed and took a step back. “I—I didn’t have a choice. Anderson said he was giving me until the end of today, and if I didn’t have the information, not only would he not help my father, but my father might have some bad luck.”
It was time to stop jerking her around. I couldn’t keep this up anymore. It killed me to do it, but she needed to know I wasn’t on her side. At least, not the way she thought. “No way. You’re not handing anything over. ”
My name is Brandt Cross, and I’m a hypocrite because there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for my family…
“But you said—”
“Forget what I said,” I snapped. Leaning closer, I whispered, “I lied. I’ve got no intention of helping you get the formula and turning it over.”
“Wow,” she breathed, squaring her shoulders. She didn’t smile exactly, but the look on her face was justified. “Here I was thinking I was wrong about you. That maybe we could be friends. Then you go and show your inner ass. Thank you.”
Without another word, she stormed off, leaving me stuck between a horrible guilt hangover and Cain’s what-the-fuck-ever attitude. Part of me wanted to chase after her, while another wanted to flip her off as she went.
I kicked out, catching the edge of the cabinet with the corner of my shoe. It rattled, wobbling from side to side before falling still.
“Trouble in paradise?” Wentz sank into the chair beside the filing cabinet. The lopsided grin on his face told me Busy Bee time was done for the day.
He tossed a blue tennis ball up and down, and for a minute, I contemplated ripping it away and tossing it through the window. Cain again. The guy had serious anger management issues. Not that I could blame him. I was remembering more and more about his family. I’d probably be a maniac if I’d grown up like him, too.
“’Cause the last few days you two have looked pretty cozy.”
I took a deep breath, choking back an acidic remark. “Yeah, well I’m an idiot. And we idiots tend to say things of assholic proportions.”
“So, she’s pissed?”
I slammed the drawer. “Yeah. She’s pissed.”
And that was it. As fast as he sat down, he was up and off. That was Wentz. Unpredictable and strange. And sometimes, a little annoying.
The rest of the day passed molasses-slow. Wentz disappeared into his lab office, making me chase down Donna for the list of things he wanted done. After she finished asking me a billion questions about Wentz’s plans for the rest of the day, I proceeded to misplace several important folders, earning me a lecture from the file clerk.
By the time four-thirty rolled around, what little patience I’d had was gone. Cain’s personality was like poison, seeping into everything and darkening each word that came out of my mouth. I snapped at everyone and slammed things all over the building. I had one last thing to do—bring a box of the sorted folders to Wentz’s lab office—and then I’d be out of there faster than greased wheels rolling down a hill.
I arrived at the elevator to find Devin with an arm full of folders. When she saw me, she took a wide step to the left to stand in front of the second elevator doors, and turned away.
The doors in front of me opened and I stepped inside. I was still angry over our earlier conversation—and the kiss—but I was also sorry I’d been so harsh. In her position, I would do the same thing. She didn’t understand why I wasn’t helping her—only that I’d refused.
The sign had fallen off the other set of doors, but I knew from earlier that the other elevator was out of order. Without saying anything, I simply nudged my foot and held the door open. When Devin realized her doors weren’t going to open, she huffed and stomped into mine, mashing her finger against the fourth floor button.
We started on the first floor and were both heading to the fourth. We never made it. As the light over the doors flashed two, the car shimmied and shook—and stopped moving with a violent jerk.
“Oh my God!” Devin cried, dropping her folders.
“It’s okay,” I said, setting my box on the floor. I pulled open the call panel and hit the button. It rang six times before someone picked it up. “We’re stuck in the elevator. Between floors two and three.”
“Yep,” a voice said. “I know.”
“Wentz?”
“Cameras are on—I can’t figure out how to turn the stupid things off—but the sound is off and that car isn’t going anywhere until you two play nice.” The line went dead.
“What did they say? Devin asked, “How soon can they get us out?”
“Um… It was Wentz.”
“Mr. Wentz?”
“Yeah, he hates being called that by the way.” I slammed the receiver down and turned to face her. “He says we’re stuck here until we stop fighting.”
Her panic turned to anger. “Why? Why would he do that, Cain?”
I threw my hands up. “I didn’t tell him to do it!”
“Sure you didn’t,” she said, turning her back on me.
She slid down to the floor on the other side of the car and I did the same on my side, doing my best to make myself comfortable. Knowing her—and Wentz—we were going to be here a while.
Chapter Fourteen
“You know he’ll do it, right?” I said after almost an hour had gone by. Neither one of us had said a word. At this rate, it would be morning before Wentz let us out. “He’ll leave us in here until Tuesday if he has to. The guy is cracked…”
Nothing.
I sighed and kicked the wall. The air smelled of mothballs and it was getting stuffy. I didn’t know how much longer I—or Cain—could stand it. “I feel like I’m always apologizing to you. It’s exhausting.”
“Don’t be such a bastard and you wouldn’t have to keep apologizing!”
Finally! Not the best response, but at least it was something.
I shifted so I could see her. She still had her back to me, but at least she was talking. “What I said earlier was stupid. Words tend to just kind of explode from my mouth way before my brain can stop them…”
She didn’t respond, but shifted sideways and some of the tension in her shoulders evaporated.
“What I said was, well, true, but I shouldn’t have said it that way.”
She whirled around to stare at me. “Are you for real?”
“I understand where you’re coming from and I know you think I’m being heartless, but that’s just not the case.”
“That totally explains why you’re still going to try and beat me to—” She glanced at the camera, then finished with, “it, right? Because someone’s life isn’t a good enough reason to help me?”
“Look, I’m sorry about that. And it’s not that I won’t help you—it’s that I can’t.” The words slipped past my lips before I could stop them.
“Can’t—more like won’t. And you were an asshole about it, too. You could have just told me up front you wouldn’t help instead of making me think we were on the same side. There was no reason to lie. And then to be so mean about it, to boot?”
“No. Can’t. There are things you don’t know. Things you don’t understand… And me being mean,” I swallowed the lump rising in my throat, “wasn’t your fault. It was all on me. We were starting to become friends and—”
“And, what?” She pinned me with a steely glare. “What excuse could you possibly come up with for all this? You’re right. We were starting to become friends. I thought I could trust you.”
What was I supposed to say to her here? I’m pissed that
you kissed me—the other me? Somehow I had a feeling that would go over like Tony Hawk playing professional croquet.
Time to just do it. Balls to the wall and get the truth out there. At least, a small bit of the truth. I stood and said, “I think that’s what it is.”
She climbed to her feet, as well. “What’s it?”
“Being your friend. That’s what’s making this a thousand times harder. The truth is, I have no desire to be your friend.”
Her cheeks flushed and she leaned against the elevator wall, cringing like I’d just kicked her puppy or something. “That’s not an excuse.”
I let out a growl. Making sure my head was turned away from the camera, I said, “You’re not the only one with something to lose here.” I was treading on super thin ice, but I managed to reel it back before I spilled everything. “The way I feel about you is making this complicated. It can’t be complicated. There’s too much at stake. Too many other people at stake.”
“What are you talking about?”
I backed her into the corner. She didn’t understand. There was only one way to get this through her thick head…
“Fair warning,” I said, voice low. “I’m going to do something, and just so we’re clear up front, there won’t be any pushing involved.”
“What are—”
Heart spastic, I cut her off with a kiss. Like the first time, she was kind of surprised, but after the initial shock wore off, she responded.
Holy crap, did she respond.
Pushing up onto her toes, she deepened the kiss, and wrapped her right hand into my hair. Cain’s hair was much longer than mine, and the slight tugging sensation was an entirely different kind of thrill. A leftover kink of his—or something new of mine—it didn’t matter. I liked it.
I ran my hands up bare her arms, over her shoulders, then to her cheeks. Warm, soft perfection under my fingertips. My body gave an involuntary shudder as a soft noise escaped her lips. In the back of my mind a nagging voice reminded me that we were on camera. Being watched. But it didn’t matter. The sensation was too much of a high to ignore because of a silly little thing like an audience.
