Chapter 10: That's a Surprise

Jonathan drove me back home that night because Dane had to stay and deal with everything. I hadn't even had time to say good bye to him.

I went up to my room and didn't bother changing into pajamas. I was exhausted from everything that had happened.

And even though I was exhausted, I couldn't sleep at all that night. I missed Dane and I was afraid the tiger would show up and try to get me too.

I must have fallen asleep eventually, because the next thing I knew someone was knocking on my bedroom door.

"Honey. It's three in the afternoon. Are you sure you feel alright?" My mom's muffled voice came through the door.

I slowly sat up and looked at my bedside clock. Wow. I didn't think I had slept that long, although I did have a reason to.

"I'm fine mom. Thanks. I just needed to get some rest. I had three tests this week so I didn't get much sleep."

The last thing I wanted to do was drag her into my crazy world, especially with dad and all.

"Oh. Okay. Let me know if you need anything."

I got out of bed and walked over to open the curtains. Bright light hurt my eyes and I quickly shut them again.

I walked over to my dresser and pulled on a pair of comfy sweatpants and my favorite grey sweatshirt.

I looked for my phone on my bedside table, but then remembered I had left it in my bag. I found it dropped carelessly on my computer desk.

I pulled my cell phone out and realized it was dead. Whoops. I forgot to charge it and with my three year old phone it took forever to charge. So I couldn't make phone calls or see who had tried to reach me until tomorrow, well I hoped by tomorrow.

Ughh tomorrow. I had school tomorrow. I'm sure Becky and Emily would not stop bothering me until I told them where I had gone.

I would have to come up with another lie. Lies seemed to consume my life at the moment and that was something I didn't like at all.

I plugged my phone in to charge and decided to get some homework done that I had totally forgotten about.

It wasn't too long after I started that I had once again fallen asleep, thinking about Dane.

"Riley!" Emily and Becky screamed as they spotted me across the school parking lot. I had just arrived and had parked when they began to bombard me with tons of questions.

"So where'd you go?"

"Who was that cute boy? You never told us."

"Are you two dating?"

I held up my hands. "Geesh guys, slow down. Breathe." I laughed at their still eager expressions to find out where I had gone and what I had done.

If they only knew the truth…

"Fine. His name is Michael and he's my cousin from Colorado. He was visiting some friends and wanted to say hi to me, since he was going to be staying down here for a couple of days."

They both seemed to believe my lie and I let out the nervous breath I had been holding.

"You never told us you had a cute cousin and he's around our age too." Becky said.

I rolled my eyes, "I never mentioned him because he lives in Colorado."

"So where'd you guys go?" Emily asked.

"Oh. Umm he wanted me to meet some of his friends, so he brought me to this neat fishing lodge place where his friends were staying."

Becky grimaced. "He wanted you to go fishing with him? Eww. He's cute and all, but I refuse to go fishing."

I laughed and grabbed their arms pulling them towards our homeroom.

The day was going pretty well until five minutes before lunch ended…

"Hey I texted you this morning, but you never answered." Emily said as we sat down at a table in the lunch room.

"Oh yeah. Sorry about that. I charged my phone last night, but it still won't turn on. I'm going to have to get another one. If my mother ever lets me." I started eating the slice of pepperoni pizza that they were serving for lunch. It wasn't that bad.

"I hope we can all do something this weekend!" Becky said. Emily nodded in agreement.

"Are you doing anything?" Emily asked turning to me.

I didn't know what was going to happen with Dane and I, but I missed hanging out with my two best friends.

"Nope. I'm free. Let's hang out and have a sleep over. I'm sure my mom would love to see you guys. We can do the sleep over at my house."

They smiled and we started planning what we were going to do. It was five minutes before the bell rang for our next class to start when the secretary said there was someone waiting for me in her office.

She said that it was a friend of mine that had told her he really needed to see me. I smiled thinking Dane had come down because he wanted to see me.

I hurriedly walked with her to the front office. The guy had his back to me, but I could already tell it wasn't Dane.

The secretary walked into her office and closed her door, probably thinking it was none of her business.

They guy turned once her door was closed. He had short black hair and dark green eyes. He was at least six feet tall, the same height as Dane.

He wore a leather jacket and a pair of old jeans. Becky would definetly rate this guy a 20 on a 1 to 10 scale of how hot a guy was.

To me he seemed the dangerous sort and one not to mess with and I was sure I had never met him before, so I wondered how he knew me.

"Do I know you?"

"Actually no, but I'm a close friend of Dane's." He lightly smiled.

"Oh. Did he want you to tell me something?" I didn't have my phone, so it would be hard to reach me.

"Yeah, but it's a present and it's kind of big, so I left it in my car. It'll only take a second, so if you have to get back to class… he really wanted you to have it." Dane wanted to give me something? Wonder what it was?

"Okay. Yeah. I'll just put it in my car. Where'd you park?" He thought for a moment.

"The parking lot out front. It had a name, but I don't remember what it was."

"That's okay. It's the one my cars parked in too. Lead the way." I said, eager to see what Dane could possibly want to give me.

Maybe he was in the car and wanted to surprise me?

We walked to the parking lot in silence. I didn't know what else to ask him. We reached his car, an expensive all black Mustang hybrid.

I stopped a few yards away when I noticed a sticker on the right rear window of his car. It was small, only a few inches big. It was a circle with a wolf howling at a dark sky, but there was no moon.

When I had promised to find my father's killer, I had researched absolutely everything I could about all shape shifters.

And one of the things I had found out about shape shifters was that there were two groups within their entire race.

One was for peace and equality among shape shifters and humans and the other was against it. The two groups had symbols.

The ones that wanted peace were represented by cats and the others, in some twisted way decided to be symbolized by their opposites, wolves.

And he had a sticker of one on his car. Not good. I was a complete idiot. He wasn't one of Dane's friends, he was one of the bad guys and he was probably going to kill me.

I looked up to see if he had noticed my worried expression, but he was still walking towards the car. I quickly decided the best thing to do was sprint back towards school in the hopes that he wouldn't want to make a scene and let me go.

I was about to turn and run when his words stopped me, "You don't remember me, do you? It's been a year, but I guess a few things would be a little fuzzy."

He was smiling down at me, enjoying my fear.

"Your father was meddling in things he shouldn't. It was his own fault he died that night."

Oh God. It couldn't be. It was him. The tiger that had killed my father. Tears were forming in my eyes, but I held them back, not wanting to think he had won.

"You have two choices now Riley." He leered my name.

"You can come now. No harm done. Or you can sprint off back towards your school, but know that I don't care if I make a scene. You can either die here or later. Your choice."

This wasn't supposed to happen. Not now anyways. I didn't have my phone. No one knew where he would take me. I didn't want to die.

"Fine I'll come." I took a deep breath, trying to calm my racing heart.

He seemed sad at my decision, but motioned for me to get into the passenger seat. I slowly climbed in and shut the door.

"Where are we going?" I asked looking out the window, trying to remember which way we headed.

He laughed, "That's a surprise."

Cliff hanger! Sorry about that. Chapters 11 and 12 will be up later this week. =)

Questions? Please review!! Let me know what you think!

~h~