The Changelings Part 4

"Inst.i.tutional clinical trial, seeking physically fit test subjects to partic.i.p.ate in fitness activities/focus group study. Compensation $500 paid to those who complete the test. Time required: five days. Must be eighteen or over to partic.i.p.ate."

"What kind of fitness activities?" asked Samantha.

"Five hundred bucks? That's a lotta spendin' cash," said Finn, obviously impressed.

Jared continued.

"Informational meeting and pre-screening to take place on March third at one o'clock p.m., Miami Hyatt, Hacienda Meeting room. Sponsored by One Eleven Group."

"That's today," said Becky.

Jared stared at the paper. I watched his eyes go back and forth, re-reading it several times. He sighed, folding the paper up and putting it in his back pocket.

"Whaddya think?" asked Finn.

Everyone sat waiting for Jared's answer.

I looked at Tony, and he shrugged his shoulders.

I was thinking about the five hundred bucks. Tony and I were pretty physically fit, probably him more than me, and it's not like we had anything else to do. Plus we needed some money if we were going to work on that not-being-homeless thing, which was pretty high on my priority list right now.

"Let's have a meeting," said Jared, turning to go back into the warehouse. Everyone but Tony and I followed him in.

"What do you think?" I asked Tony.

"Might as well go to the informational meeting ... we need some money."

"Yeah, that's what I was thinking."

Becky stuck her head out the door. "Are you guys coming to the meeting?"

Tony and I shared a look and then followed her inside. We weren't officially part of the crew, but I wanted to hear what they were going to do.

"So, show of hands, who thinks we should go check it out?"

Everyone but Chase raised their hands.

"Chase, what's up?" asked Jared.

Everyone stared at the guy who never talked. This should be interesting. Maybe he's one of those guys who only speaks every once in a while, but when he does it's really earth shattering.

"Dunno," he said, shrugging his shoulders.

Or not.

"Come on, you must be thinking something, otherwise you would've raised your hand."

"Just seems like a lot of money for a fitness test."

"That's what I was thinking too," said Jared, sounding a little bit concerned.

Becky looked at Tony and me. "What about you guys? Are you going to go?"

I looked at Tony and he nodded his head, so I said, "We're going to go check it out, see what's what. It's just an informational meeting a can't hurt just to go hear what they have to say."

Jared looked at his crew to gauge their reactions. Everyone seemed to be in agreement.

"Unless anyone has any objections, I say we all go to the meeting, like Jayne and Tony are, see what's going on with this test and if it's something we want to do."

"Cool!" said Becky excitedly.

"Awesome," said Finn, also looking happy.

"Whatever," said Samantha, getting up to go back outside, probably to go sharpen her knife or something.

Chase nodded his head once.

Spike smiled with those amazing teeth of his, blazing white, right at me. "See you there. I'm gonna catch some Zs now." He got up off the couch, walked over, and leaped onto a mattress. I heard him snoring less than a minute later.

CHAPTER SIX.

Tony and I ate a quick breakfast of granola bars and juice boxes from his duffle bag in companionable silence, while we sat on the beach listening to the rhythmic sounds of the waves and the seagulls screeching above. I picked up some thick-grained sand, examining it closely. I'd seen sand lots of times, but never paid much attention to it before. I held a million or so tiny pieces of rock and seash.e.l.l in my hand. I let the sand filter out through the cracks in my fingers, scanning the sh.o.r.eline for evidence of beat-up homeless teens, but thankfully not finding any. The sun was already soothingly warm on my skin. The sand sure felt like a more comfortable place to sleep than that concrete floor. Becky's warnings were getting farther and farther away in my brain.

Tony sucked the last of his juice from his juice box. "I think we would have been more comfortable out here on the sand last night than on that concrete."

I just stared at him, a little creeped out by the fact that he'd just read my mind. He really needed to stop doing that.

Tony noticed my look. "What? What'd I say?"

I shook my head, unwilling to speak about it.

"Tell me."

"It's nothing."

Tony stared at me for a few seconds. I wish I could read his mind. He was very busy thinking something that looked important.

"Spike has a nice smile," he said, looking at me intently.

I didn't know what to say at first. Yes, Spike did have a nice smile, and really awesome teeth, but why would Tony bring that up now? And why did he say it at all? I never mentioned Spike's smile to him, and we weren't talking about Jared's crew at that moment.

Tony kept staring at me. It was starting to freak me out a little. I realized he was waiting for my answer.

"Yeah, he does."

"See, I already knew that you liked his smile."

"Am I that transparent?" Shoot. I thought I was being all cool when I was checking him out. I hate when people catch me oogling someone.

"Not to other people, but to me you are."

"Well, you know me better than anyone else in the world, so that's not surprising."

Tony remained silent for a minute, as if he was searching for what he wanted to say a I could see it on his face. I waited patiently for what was coming; it seemed important to him.

"It's more than that."

"More than that? Like how?" I'm not sure I really wanted to know but I asked anyway. Stupid me.

Tony started drawing shapes in the sand with his finger, avoiding my gaze. "Do you want to know why I had that gun in my bag? Why I had this plan to leave town?"

Uh-oh. We were here now ... talking about stuff I'd rather not be talking about.

"No, but that's okay. I'm sure you had your reasons and I'm here to support you." Maybe he'd go for the distractor.

"Listen, Jayne, we have to talk about this."

I sighed. He wasn't going to let it go. I started to feel sick again.

"Whatever." My usual sarcasm wasn't jumping to my lips. All I had left was helplessness a and that just p.i.s.sed me off.

"I want to tell you something that happened to me a couple weeks ago," said Tony, still swirling his fingers around in the sand.

This sounded safer than talking about me, so I was feeling a little bit better already. "Okay ... "

"I was in bed, ready to fall asleep ... maybe I was already a little asleep ... and suddenly I heard you yelling. At first I was thinking it was there in my house, the yelling, but then I realized it was in my dream a but I wasn't dreaming. I was in some sort of sleep state, but not totally asleep ... do you know what I mean?" He looked at me for confirmation.

I had to be honest. "No, not really."

"Well, anyway, I couldn't help myself a I fell deeper into this state, whatever it was, and I was suddenly with you. I couldn't see anything, but I could hear you and feel your panic, your anger ... your fear."

My face started burning. I knew the night he was talking about. It was the first night that my mother's boyfriend had come into my room.

"I didn't have to see to know what was happening, Jayne. He was there. Your mother's boyfriend."

"I get it! You don't have to say it!" I yelled, standing up and unintentionally spraying sand all over Tony's lap. "I don't want to re-live it, okay?!"

I started walking towards the water, leaving my bag behind. I just needed to get away from what he was saying. I'd tried to forget that night and the few others that had happened since. Nightmares. His beer-stinking breath, fumbling hands. I learned after the first night to lock my door. When that didn't work I had weapons ready. a.s.shole didn't know what hit him.

Tony was struggling behind me, carrying both of our bags. "Wait! Jayne, wait! I'm sorry!"

I stopped, giving him a chance to catch up.

Tony was practically wheezing by the time he got to me. "I'm sorry. I'm ... " He had to stop to catch his breath. "I didn't mean to ... make you upset. I just wanted ... to try and figure out ... ," He dropped the bags at our feet. " ... Why it is that I'm in your head sometimes ... "

I realized what he was trying to say. The horribleness of my situation was starting to be overshadowed by the strange otherworldly stuff he was describing.

"In my head?" The idea of Tony in my head was both scary and entertaining at the same time.

"Kind of a yeah."

"What's it like in there?" I was smiling now, thinking of all the ways I could torture Tony without lifting a finger. Too bad the kid was as loony as a ... loon.

"Why aren't you taking this seriously?" he asked, frustrated.

"Because, Tony, it's ridiculous. You had some crazy, effed up dream, and now suddenly you're in my head."

"It wasn't a dream, Jayne. I heard you; I felt your feelings. Don't try to tell me something didn't happen with him."

"You're just projecting or something," I said, defensively.

"Oh yeah? Well how did I know you liked Spike's smile or his teeth or something? And by the way, that's a little crazy, liking someone's teeth, don't you think?"

I didn't know what to say. I guess it was weird to like someone's teeth, but how the heck did he know I'd thought that?

I was starting to consider his arguments, but still wasn't convinced. "You just liked his teeth and now you're acting like it's me who liked them. Or, you're trying to do some kind of brainwashing thing."

"I've got one thing to say to you," said Tony, a defiant look on his face. I hate that look; I usually see it on those rare occasions when Tony finally puts his foot down and I have to let him have his way. Not this time, buddy, I was thinking.

He said two words: "Tom Sawyer."

My eyes bugged out of my head. "No!"

"Yes!"

"Tony, that is just rude!"

"What's rude?"

"Getting in my head like that! Those thoughts are private!"

Tony nearly exploded. "I know that! Do you think I want to be in your head? Do you think I want to wander around in that crazy place you call your mind? I don't want to be in there! I care about you, you know that, you're my best friend. But seriously, no offense ... I could never ever go back there again and be perfectly happy for the rest of my life. Do you know how busy your head is? Like, all the time busy. You never stop flooding your brain with thoughts and emotions and ideas and feelings ... it's exhausting!" He stopped to catch his breath, but before I could get a word in edgewise, he was off again. "I would do anything to stop it, but I can't control it. One minute I'm drifting off to a nice, quiet, uninteresting sleep and then all of a sudden I'm there in your bedroom ... or I'm in your brain in history cla.s.s, or psychology or health cla.s.s. Health cla.s.s! Can you imagine what that's like for me in your head during Health?!"

I couldn't help it; I started giggling. We had just recently been going over the male genitalia in that cla.s.s. It was super hilarious, and I did spend an inordinate amount of time running some internal commentary in my head while looking at the pictures we were seeing on the teacher's slideshow.

"It's not funny. It's been torture for me, not saying anything to you. We have to figure out how to turn this thing off." Tony was trying to stay serious, but he couldn't help laughing along with me, particularly since my giggles had turned into hardcore cracking-up laughter at this point.

"What am I thinking ... right now?" I had a hard time saying it because I couldn't stop laughing. I was focusing really hard on recalling the picture of a cross section of a t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e from page fifty of our textbook. Don't ask me why I remember the page number.

"It doesn't work like that a thank G.o.d. It only happens sometimes and not when I try to do it."