by Jami Gray
“Well, guess that answers our first question.”
Startled, I spun to find a frowning Ricochet at my shoulder. “A little warning next time?” When he didn’t bother responding, I asked, “What answers our first question?”
He nodded at my nifty staff. “That tells me you’re a dream-walker.” Before I could stutter out a pointless protest, he folded his arms over his chest. “Okay, let’s see how strong you are.”
An eerie howl rode through the air, and a dark shape broke free of the horizon, growing larger and more distinct as it stormed closer. Recognition hit me, leaving me speechless as I stared at a charging huge snarling wolf straight out of the worst Little Red Riding Hood story. “Holy sh—”
I stumbled back as instincts as old as time kicked in with a vengeance. Turning to run, I realized that Ricochet was nowhere in sight. “Ricochet? Where the hell are you?” I darted behind the boulder. It sucked as cover, but it was the only thing available. There was no way I could outrun a wolf. Behind me, the wolf’s snarls grew louder, and I swore I could hear its paws hit the earth like an ominous drumroll.
Back pressed to the boulder, hands white knuckling the staff, I tried to think beyond my panic. This might be a dream, but something told me that getting hurt here was not a good idea. Not keen on being eaten alive, I scrambled up the boulder, which seemed to have grown while I was huddling behind it. Or maybe that was just my fear-spurred imagination—not that I cared, because it got me off the ground and that much farther from becoming the rabid wolf’s chew toy.
I managed to get to the rocky top without losing the staff and scraped only a couple layers of skin off my palms. Standing there, chest pumping, I flinched as the wolf lunged. There wasn’t much room on the uneven surface of the boulder, but I inched back.
Somehow, I found enough air to yell raggedly, “Ricochet?”
Canine snarls were my only answer. The wolf below lunged again, claws scrambling for purchase. When he managed to get his head and shoulders above the edge, pure adrenaline had me swinging the staff like a long baseball bat. It hit with an impact that reverberated up my arms, but the wood didn’t break. Fortunately, the wolf yelped and dropped away.
Think, Megan. Ricochet believed I was a dream-walker, and dream-walkers controlled the world around them, which meant that I should be able to get out of this. He also said something about seeing how strong I really was. To determine someone’s strength required testing, which meant… This is a freakin’ test?
My mental gymnastics were interrupted when a snarl came from below, followed by the overly determined wolf popping his head back up. This time, he must have found a stronger foothold because I could see the feral glow in his amber eyes and his shoulders were above the edge of the boulder.
Finding another half inch to retreat, I snarled under my breath, “I swear I’m going to kill you.” And it wasn’t the wolf I was talking to.
“Got to get past the wolf first.” Ricochet’s voice echoed around me, but he was nowhere to be found.
Fine. Keeping a wary eye on the animal in front of me, I couldn’t miss the baleful light in his eyes. Test or not, he was determined to get to me. Even knowing this wasn’t real, I couldn’t convince my body of that fact, nor could I find it in me to cause serious damage to the wolf. Which left me between a rock and hard place—no pun intended.
Even as my mind spun through options, I struck out with the staff, hoping that by knocking the wolf off, I could discourage his hunt. I hooked the staff under one forepaw, twisted it, and shoved. Ricochet was right—a walking stick would have been better. Still, the move worked, forcing the wolf to abandon his hold on the rocky surface. Without that support, the furry head disappeared, and a pained yelp soon followed.
I inched toward the edge and found that the drop to the ground had grown from inches to feet. Pacing below, favoring a back paw, was the wolf. When he saw me, his lips peeled back from menacing teeth, and he began to scramble up the boulder again, using the uneven surface to work his way back toward me, which should take him longer than before, considering that the ground now appeared to be farther away.
The unusualness of that realization stalled my mental tailspin, and it hit me that boulders did not spontaneously grow. So if my desire to stay out of reach equaled a growing boulder, then… concentrating on the boulder’s surface, I imagined the rough sides smoothing out. Before doubt could creep in, I found myself lying on top of a smooth column of stone and the wolf restlessly prowling below.
“I guess that’s one way to do it.”
Ricochet’s wry tone had me rolling to my back to find him crouched beside me. He held out a hand. I took it and let him pull me up. He didn’t let me go until I had the staff planted on the column’s weirdly smooth surface and found my feet. Only then did he walk to the edge, with a casualness I couldn’t match, and peer down.
Dropping into a crouch, he kept his eyes on the wolf. “Yeah, not the route I would’ve taken.”
Forcing my body to chill out, I moved to stand next to him, though I kept an eye on the ledge. Since my knees were still shaking, I leaned into the staff and tightened my grip. I was fairly certain it would not be wise to smack him in the head with it.
He turned to look at me, and I swore he knew what I was thinking because laughter danced in those dark eyes. “You’re not all that keen on confrontation, are you, Megan?”
“Depends on the situation.” My brain kept turning his question over and over, things starting to fall into place. “The wolf represents a threat.”
He stood up, put a hand under my elbow, and drew me back away from the ledge. “He does.” When we returned to the center of the column, he let me go.
Now that the immediate threat wasn’t trying to eat my face, I was able to think things through. “You didn’t like how I escaped?”
He shrugged. “It’s not a matter of liking. I just found your choice for how to avoid the wolf telling.”
Truly curious, I asked, “Why?”
“When faced with immediate danger, instead of eliminating it, you chose to get out of the way without use of lethal force.”
“Lethal force?” Granted, I didn’t know Ricochet from Adam, but he didn’t strike me as someone who would take the most violent option first. Maybe if he was backed into a corner… “Seems a bit extreme in this case.”
He shrugged. “When it comes down to a question of escape versus survival, you’d be surprised at what option you’d choose.”
Hearing him lay it out that way, I had a sudden insight about why my decision bothered him. “Maybe you chose the wrong scenario.” I tried to pick my words carefully. “Until I was taken, violence was something I understood on an intellectual level, but on a personal level?” I shook my head. “It was supposed to be used only as a last resort.” I looked back to the side of the boulder, where faint snarls still drifted up. “I knew the wolf posed a threat, but his actions were based on instinct—I was the intruder, and he was doing what was natural for him.” I turned back to Ricochet and gave him a small grin. “My sister works with dogs, I grew up around dogs, and to me, a wolf is just a dog in a wild fur coat.” My grin faded. “If you were hoping to see how far I was willing to go, a wolf wasn’t what you should’ve used.”
Before the last word left my mouth, the scene around us had changed with breathtaking speed. It wasn’t really a conscious decision but more a reflection of what I was feeling and thinking. When it was done, I was in that damn stone cell, with a storm raging outside and that hated voice demanding information I refused to give. The only way I knew I wasn’t really back was that this time, Ricochet was with me.
“This is what you should’ve used.”
If I was hoping to rattle the man in front of me, I was doomed for disappointment. He studied our surroundings, and the only sign he heard the same damn voice I did was the darkening of his eyes as the lines around his mouth deepened. “That voice…” Instead of finishing his thought, he flexed his jaw, and the voice stoppe
d as if a switch had been thrown. Only then did I realize I had backed up to a wall, my shoulders hunched as I clutched the staff to my chest.
“It’s not him, Megan.” Ricochet sounded curiously gentle.
I managed a nod. This wasn’t real. I forced my shoulders back and straightened.
Fortunately, Ricochet switched tracks. “This is where Wolf couldn’t reach?”
Determined not be a cowering mess, I answered, “Yes.”
His gaze went beyond me to the sketches fluttering on the wall as the winds from the storm snuck in through the high window to dance around us. “You hid here when they tried to interrogate you.”
Since it wasn’t a question, I didn’t answer.
He walked to the walls and studied the images. It hit me that maybe bringing Ricochet here wasn’t such a good idea, especially considering what those pictures contained—not just the nightmarish scrawls and the indistinct lines of an imaginary protector of a broken mind but also older visuals buried under the others, containing aspects of familiar faces, one in particular. But it was too late for embarrassment.
He was rifling through the images, and the moment he recognized Bishop’s face, Ricochet’s shoulders stiffened, not much but enough. My breath caught, and for an anxious moment, I thought I caught a familiar flutter of a shadow. Since I had a visitor, I figured it was best to ignore it. No sense in giving Ricochet more reasons to question my sanity.
I’d managed to bury the broken pieces under a false sense of calm by the time Ricochet turned to me, although I wasn’t sure that would last because the person who faced me wasn’t Ricochet the teacher but was, instead, the ruthless PSY-IV team member. “The ones who held you… did they ever follow you here?”
“No.” I cleared my throat. “No, this is the only place I felt safe, the only place they couldn’t follow. It didn’t do much for blocking their voices, but here, they couldn’t touch me.” Memories, some sharp, some indefinable, pressed close, and a shudder ran through me. “When the pain got bad, this was all I had left to hold on to.” This and the protector my desperation created. After watching Ricochet check out the sketches, I wasn’t too keen on sharing that little tidbit.
His gaze moved from me to the walls. “There’s no door.”
Here was something I could easily answer. “If I can’t get out, they can’t get in.”
His attention came back to me. “For someone with no training on how to fight a telepath, you were damn smart.”
The harsh lines of his face eased. I decided compassion was better than pity, but it was a close race. Uncomfortable with his praise, I looked at my feet. “I’m not sure I was all that successful at fighting back.”
“Because you think they’ve managed to program you to hurt the teams,” he said in a hard tone, the softer emotion gone again.
Grimacing, I met his gaze and nodded.
He folded his arms over his chest. “I won’t lie—it’s highly probable.”
As much as I appreciated his directness, I couldn’t stop my wince. “Can you find out?”
“Actually, you could do it yourself.”
That was not the answer I was expecting. “What?”
“Sit,” he ordered as he did the same, taking a cross-legged position on the floor. He waited until I was settled, my staff lying on the floor next to me, before continuing. “Before I answer, there are some things you need to understand, one of which is why this”—he waved his hand to the tower room—“worked.”
Remembering Wolf’s assessment, I said, “Wolf believes it’s a representation of my mental protections.”
“It is, and it isn’t.”
“Cryptic much?”
“All the time, but I’m not doing this on purpose.” His wry humor made my lips twitch, but Ricochet wasn’t done with his lecture. “Psychic abilities are far from easy to explain.”
He didn’t need to tell me that. I was feeling way the hell out of my depth.
“Wolf is a telepath, so when he goes into someone’s mind, he’s pitting his mental strength against another. Most people aren’t expecting someone to come in and mess with their thoughts, so most people’s mental protections are few and far between. The fewer the protections—”
“The easier it is for Wolf to do his thing,” I said.
“Right.” He paused as though picking his next words carefully. “But Wolf being Wolf, he isn’t keen on using his ability offensively unless he’s left with no choice.” His dark eyes flashed, but otherwise, his face remained stoic. “A telepath can either tear through a mind and leave behind a vegetable, or they can maneuver with the precision of a surgeon and never be noticed until it’s too late.”
My stomach pitched as his words hit deep. How close had I come to truly turning mindless? My hands curled into fists as I breathed through the knee-weakening fear. “I’m assuming Wolf is the latter variety.”
“He can do both,” Ricochet confirmed. “He chooses to do the second.”
I flexed my stiff fingers and lay them flat on my thighs. “Good to know.”
But Ricochet wasn’t done. “When Wolf works with a happy individual, he’s expecting the scene to be a symbolic representation of that personality.”
Thinking through Ricochet’s explanation, I asked, “So if he goes into the mind of a happy person, he finds what? Sunny fields and frolicking puppies?”
My comment earned me a long slow blink from Ricochet. “Sure, let’s go with that.” Then, regaining his serious demeanor, he said, “Once Wolf can shift the person’s thoughts and perceptions, that scene changes. He can influence it, but he can’t control it.”
Strangely, that made complete sense to me. “So me creating this tower, that was me controlling the scene, fighting the monster’s influence?”
“Exactly.” Then he asked, “Monster?”
I gave an embarrassed shrug, but there was no point in not sharing. “Until we have a name, it’s how I think of him.”
He made a low sound of agreement but returned to our conversation. “Remember how I explained that dream-walking is a form of telepathy? How a dream-walker controls the scene, not the individual dreaming?”
I nodded, bracing. Something told me this was going to lead somewhere that would leave me less than happy.
“While your kidnapper couldn’t access the core of who you are, outside of these walls, he could convince you to shape the world to his parameters.”
That made a cruel sort of sense and explained why he kept using the faces of my family to torment me. I’d lost count of how many times that hated voice used a mockery of my loved ones to twist and break my mind. Eventually, I clued in to his game because the tiniest things began tripping him up—an expression, a turn of phrase, a mannerism—that didn’t ring true.
I admitted, “It was his favorite game.”
Ricochet dipped his chin in acknowledgement. “I’m not surprised. Once a telepath gains the upper hand, it’s hard to get it back. In your case, his attacks eventually triggered your latent ability.”
“Which is why this”—I indicated the tower—“exists.”
He nodded. “A dream-walker, no matter how skilled, is not without offensive capabilities.”
“Offensive capabilities?”
“What happens in the dreamscape translates to the waking world. You get injured in the dreamscape, your body will believe the injury is real in the waking world and react accordingly. And it wouldn’t just be you—it would also impact whoever is sharing that world with you.”
It took a moment for his implication to sink in, and when it did, I felt my jaw drop. “Wait, you’re telling me if someone gets hurt or killed while in whatever dreamworld I created, they’re, like, really hurt or dead?”
There was a grim light in those dark eyes. “Yes. One of the best defenses a dream-walker has against a telepath is the ability to take control of the dreamscape from the telepath and turn it against them. Which is exactly why we needed to see how strong you were.”
; So the success or failure of Bishop’s plan would rest on my ability to turn the tables on the one who hunted me. I rubbed my hands over my thighs as I tried to come to terms with this latest piece of information. “Maybe you should be the one to do that part.”
“Don’t underestimate yourself, Megan,” he chastised me. “You managed to hold him off without even knowing what you were doing. Not for an hour, not for a day, but for months. The amount of will that requires is staggering.”
Knowing I’d managed to put some protections in place eased some of my concerns but not all of them, because this tower didn’t always exist, and it couldn’t keep that damn voice out of my mind. Even now, my memory was seeded with dark pits of nothing, and not knowing what lay in them was almost more frightening than the idea of facing the monster who’d created them.
“But there’s no guarantee I did lock him out. This tower wasn’t always here.” I might not remember much, but I knew that the protection had come into being after the first few days or weeks. Only when the pain became nearly unbearable had I found myself lying on the cold stone.
“How long does it take a telepath to break a mind?” I asked.
“Depends on the mind.”
Part of me was grateful he wasn’t pulling his punches, but part of me wanted him to shut up. “How do I find out if he planted something in my head?”
“We’ll have to go looking for it.”
That did not sound good, not at all.
My panic must have shown because he covered the hand fisted on my knee. “Megan.” He waited until I met his gaze. “No matter what you think, he didn’t break you. If he had, you never would have walked into the colonel’s office and admitted your fear. Whatever trigger he buried, I guarantee it’s not as solid as he thinks.”
There was no way to hide the emotions tumbling through me, so I didn’t try. “You can’t know for sure.”
“Yes, I can.” He let me go, got to his feet, and went to the sketches on the wall. He searched through them until he found the one he wanted. Tearing it free, he came back and crouched in front of me, the sketch extended. “Who is this?”