Ez gives him a hazy look. “You knew?”
“Yeah,” Simon says. “We’re disillusionists.”
“Dis—what?” She closes her eyes. “You’re sure he didn’t puncture one of my organs? Because I feel weird.”
“You need to get checked out,” I say. “But the good thing is that organs move around inside. Like marbles inside a water balloon.”
“Marbles inside a water balloon.” Ez says. “You always know how to explain things, Justine. You’re a good nurse.”
“I’m not really a nurse.” I pull off my coat and place it over her. “I’m sorry—I wasn’t honest with you. I’m not a nurse, and I don’t really think you have parasites, either.”
Her eyes fly open. “What?”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I only pretended to be a nurse.”
“So I don’t have parasites?”
“Unlikely,” I say. “I was messing with your head.”
“She didn’t want to,” Simon says. “We get sent around to mess with people, but it’s over, because you didn’t do anything wrong. You’re innocent. You shouldn’t be penned up. I won’t let you get put back in there.”
Ez stares into Simon’s eyes. “You were sent to mess with my head?”
“He wasn’t,” I say. “I was. He was trying to help you.”
She looks so small suddenly. “I thought you were my friend. All bullshit, huh?”
“No—Ez—”
“At least I don’t have to go in your stupid dreams anymore. You and that guy.”
I touch her arm. “Wait! Did you unlink yet?”
“No.”
“Don’t do it yet,” I say.
Simon squints. “What the hell?”
“I need to revisit his dream. The one in that creepy stairwell again. Can you help me? I need to see that dream.”
“I can’t stir it up if the man won’t sleep,” Ez says.
I look at Avery’s contraption, sitting on the floor. “What if the man was tranquilized?”
“Forget it,” Ez says. “I hate being in him.”
“Please, one more time,” I say. “Tonight. Or, I guess it’s almost morning. Just, in the next couple hours. I have no right to ask, I know—”
Ez moves and winces. “Yeah, you don’t have a right.”
Simon watches me, a question in his puffy, beat-up face.
“There’s a clue to a kidnapping in that dream,” I say. “Maybe. It’s a hunch.”
Shelby and Avery shut the door on the sleepwalkers. Ez consents to keep the link and try to pull up the stairwell incident if Packard falls asleep again.
It’s decided that Shelby and Avery will take Ez and Simon to Midcity General, and they’re to stay together until Stu is located. Shelby’s going to tip off the cops on Stuart—with fervent instructions to wear gloves. Ez tells where to find a photo of Stu online to help the cops.
Before they’re gone, I ask Avery for one of the tranquilizer darts out of his dart gun. “You can take the whole gun,” he says.
“I just want the knockout stuff out of one of the darts,” I say.
He gives me one—it’s the tiniest dart I’ve ever seen, with a tiny pin nose. He shows me where to crack it open to get the liquid out. Packard has to sleep for Ez to get access to the dream. I’ll have to sleep again, too. Can I?
It’s nearly five in the morning. I swing by an early opening coffee shop for two nice tall piping hot decafs. I put cream in one, and the contents of the tranquilizer in the other. One cow brown, one knockout black.
Chapter
Twenty
PACKARD COMES TO THE DOOR looking mussed and soft, as though the lack of sleep has robbed him of his hard edges. He’s surprised I’ve turned up at this early hour. “Justine.”
Suddenly all I want to do is push my face into his chest, to have him hold me, to cry, I was trapped! They tried to eat me!
Instead I say, “I brought coffee,” I give him his cup, hoping he doesn’t notice how shaky my hand is. My legs feel like rubber.
Packard shuts the door and turns to me with a baffled expression. “You okay?” I bite back the need to tell him how it felt to be in that bed, attacked. How frightened I was. I’ll upset and agitate him, and that’s the opposite of what I’m here to do.
“Okay enough.” I walk in past him, willing myself to snap out of it. This is about people’s lives, Otto’s life. He’s out there somewhere, vulnerable and in danger, probably in pain. The way to find him is through that dream.
Packard follows me into the living room. I turn and soak in his piney smell, the fiery look of his eyelashes, the sound of his voice, and most of all, the way he looks at me. Sees me. I’ve never felt it from anybody else, and I don’t know what it is.
He pulls the lid off his cup. “You sure?”
“Yes,” I whisper, unmoored.
“We’ll find him,” Packard says. “We’ll find him and we’ll put this all right.”
Otto. I settle onto the big comfy couch, asking about the investigation.
He stays standing, full of brief assurances on leads. I get the feeling it’s not what he wants to talk about. He’s got one hand shoved deep in his jeans pocket, clinking coins; it occurs to me that he’s busying his hands to keep himself awake.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he says suddenly. “There’s something you need to know, and it can’t wait any longer.”
“Yeah, I need to know what happened at that old school,” I say. “And the Goyces.”
“There’s nothing there to help us.”
“I think there is.”
“And I think you have a vibrant imagination.”
“Fine.” I cross my legs.
He squints. “Just like that? Subject dropped?” He takes a sip.
I say, “Maybe I’ll come back around to it.”
“I won’t,” he says.
I smile at him, trying to decide if this is day five or six of no sleep. He regards me with a lightly suspicious air and gestures at the couch. “Sorry, but I shouldn’t sit on anything soft.”
“Oh, come on. I’m here.” I feel horrible for what I’m doing, but the key to the Dorks is in the dream—I’ve never been so sure of an intuition in my life. Packard can’t see the dream; he’s too upset during it.
“I can’t,” he says, eyeing the spot next to me. He’s trying to keep up his resolve, but he wants to sit. The lack of sleep has made him pliable. “I can’t.”
“I could kick you in the face every five minutes.”
He laughs softly. “An offer like that …” He trails off. “Oh, maybe I can sit for a little while. But I should get to HQ.” He settles on the couch, a chaste distance away, holding the tall paper coffee cup in both hands, elbows resting on his knees. He stares down into it.
“They’ve had him for over forty-eight hours,” I say. “Shouldn’t we have heard something from them?”
“They won’t kill him.” He takes a breath, like he’s steeling himself. For what?
“There are some things worse.”
“He’s stronger than you know,” Packard says. “Those years he spent in those caves. He withstood a lot.”
“He was in the caves voluntarily.”
“Voluntary is a state of mind. Otto knows that.” He keeps looking into his cup with a troubled expression. Does he suspect? It makes me nervous.
“What the hell do they want?” I ask.
Packard shakes his head.
“This investigation feels like it’s devolved into a process of deduction.”
Softly he says, “It has.”
“What about Riverside?”
“I had them check the old site for the hell of it. All around the grounds of the condos there.” He rotates his cup in his hand, then drinks deeply from it. I exhale silently. He pauses, then drinks again. Good. He’ll be drifting off soon. Time to get his mind on the dream.
“Packard, I want to go through your recollection of the Goyces coming out of the wall—that whole scen
e. I’m telling you—”
He looks up with a haunted expression. “Trust me, there’s nothing there for you. Nothing. And I need to tell you this thing about Jarvis.”
“About Jarvis? What about Jarvis? He’s not worse, is he?”
“No,” Packard whispers.
Jarvis? Whatever he has to tell me about Jarvis, it’s not easy.
“Packard, I know you feel guilty about what happened to Jarvis, but we have to focus on Riverside. That old spray-painted, crumbly stairwell. The bodies entombed in the wall.”
He peers at the bookshelf across the room, head tilted, as though he’s having trouble focusing. The knockout drops are taking effect. He gulps some more coffee. “I shouldn’t be sitting on this soft thing.”
“That’s silly,” I say.
“Why am I so sleepy?”
“Hmm, let me think,” I say brightly. “Maybe because you haven’t slept for days?”
“I can’t let Ez get in.” He closes his eyes, drawing his brows together, as though he’s thinking very hard.
“She won’t. You have done such an excellent job of it, Packard. You’ve kept our dreaming minds apart. I know you’re doing it to keep your pact, but I do appreciate it.”
Little indents on his cheeks. Pain dimples. He’s trying hard to stay awake, to protect his secret, but he’s losing his battle. Does he realize he’s losing now? “It’s been sort of gentlemanly of you, staying awake,” I say.
“No,” he says. “But it has been good. I’ve made a decision.”
“That’s wonderful,” I whisper soothingly. “You look sleepy,” I say. “Drink some more coffee.”
He sighs, complies. “I never pretended to be good,” he says. “Except that one time when I let you think I would cure you.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not.” He rests his head on the back of the couch. “Should’ve told you. Minute he let me out of Delites, but I wanted to be free. I thought it would be over. Just get through and then tell you. But it never ends.”
“Shhh,” I say. A long silence. I scoot closer. “We have to talk about Riverside and the Goyces. Remember when Henji discovered them in the wall? And he knew the truth?”
“Stop,” he whispers, eyes closed. “Please stop, Justine.”
“You have to think about it.” I push a reddish curl off his clear, pale forehead and this seems to soothe him, so I stroke his forehead again. He’s drifting off. Carefully, I extract his half-empty cup from his hands and set it on the coffee table. There’s something so sweet about him dozing, as though all his pricklers are gone. I have this urge to trace my finger over the little jut of his cheekbone, down to his lips. He stirs, trying to rouse himself, rubs his eyes, and mumbles, “’s I asleep?”
“Shh.” I lay my hand on his shoulder. My touch seems to calm him; again he closes his eyes. He looks so alone, even in sleep—furrowed brow, jaw clenched. When I take my hand away, the lines in his face deepen, so I put it back. “Come here,” I whisper, coaxing him sideways. He nestles his head onto my shoulder. I slide my arm around him.
“Justine?”
“I’m right here.”
He nuzzles closer, so that he fits perfectly against my neck; it’s heartbreaking and wonderful, all at the same time. I kiss the top of his head. He feels so good. Too good. I close my eyes and just feel him—the good feeling of being with him, side by side. I’m tired, too. And my stomach bite stings. It was scary to be so vulnerable. I hold on to him, like he might comfort me. This is totally out of line, but I don’t care. I need this for a little while, even if it’s pretend.
I touch his hair. He stirs, and I adjust us so he’s totally comfortable, watching him fight sleep. I lay my cheek on his forehead. “You just wanted to be free,” I say softly. I sit there, slightly stunned at myself, but the old anger is far away now. “All you ever wanted was to be free,” I say.
He shifts.
“Shhh.”
“—falling asleep.”
“It’s okay.” I hold him tighter.
“No—” With a jolt of energy he pushes away from me. “Ez.”
“It’s okay. A little sleep won’t hurt.”
He’s fighting to open his eyes, and he manages a slit. “She’ll get in.” He shakes his head, bewildered, but sleep is reclaiming him. I pull him back to me.
“Shhhhh,” I say, smoothing his hair. I kiss the top of his head, keep my face pressed to his hair, breathing in his scent.
“You don’t know,” he mumbles. “Jarvis.”
Where is this energy coming from? “I know you feel bad about Jarvis. It’s okay.”
“You don’t know.” Packard pulls away, shakes his head vigorously, like he’s trying to shake off the sleep. “An actor. Have to tell you.”
“Jarvis was an actor? Like, on the stage?”
He shakes his head in frustration. “Hired him. I hired him.” He scrubs his face with his hands, trying to rouse himself. “To scare you. All of you. Help me keep control. Not brain-dead.”
“Jarvis isn’t brain-dead? Yes, he is.”
“No. He’s not. God, why’m I so sleepy?”
“Wait—what are you telling me?”
“Not …” He closes his eyes again.
This haze of shock settles over me. “Not brain-dead? Jarvis is an actor? You mean, Jarvis is acting like he’s brain-dead but he really isn’t?” I shake him. “What do you mean?”
“Right. Just acting. No such thing as blowback. You don’t have to zing anymore. No more zinging. You can if you want, but …”
“What?”
“Jarvis is an actor. Never any danger.”
“I don’t have to ever zing again? Or I can zing anyone? Is that what you’re telling me?”
He mumbles unintelligibly. I shake him. “Don’t fall asleep, Packard! This is important!”
“Zing anyone. Or not at all. You were never minions. Never.”
“All this time?” The enormity of all this takes awhile to sink in. “All this shit about us needing you? You having to clear our targets? Us in a symbiotic relationship? That was all made up?”
“Made up.” He pulls up his head, eyes me through slits. “Zing anybody, or nobody at all. All people are compatible with you. All contain all emotions.” His eyelids lower. “You don’t belong to me, Justine,” he whispers. “You never belonged to me.”
I hold him upright, digging my fingers into his shoulders. “But remember last summer when I quit? And my hypochondria came back twice as bad?”
“Imagination.” He just shakes his head. His eyes drift back shut.
“No, stay with me! It came back twice as bad, remember? And if I hadn’t zinged again, I would’ve ended up brain-dead like Jarvis.”
“Reverse placebo. Suggestible. You’re all suggestible.”
“No.”
“Only your imagination.” He mumbles some more. “ … never any danger.”
“So we were never your minions?” No answer. I raise my voice. “If we stop zinging do we revert to what we were?”
A mumbled yes.
“And Jarvis is a fucking actor?” I let him go and he flops sideways. I grab his collar and pull him back up to a sitting position, slap his cheek. “Wake up! We were free this whole goddamn time? I was never your minion?”
He’s out.
Again I let him go, and again he flops sideways. “Fuck!” I stand in front of him. “All the people I zinged. All the people we disillusioned. Not being able to lead my own life. It was all a ruse? You have no power over us whatsoever?” The layers of outrageousness pile up on one another. “All this time? All this agony?”
He begins to snore softly.
“You act like you care about me, see how I’m struggling, and this whole time it’s bullshit? Jesus!”
No reply.
I flop onto the small side couch, but I’m far too steamed to sleep. I call Shelby and get her voice mail, but this is too huge to tell on voice mail, so I just say I have unbelievable ne
ws. I sink into the cushion.
This is what he tried to tell me the other day. For a few days now.
“Damn right you should’ve told us a long time ago,” I say. “Can I be any more of a fool?”
Snore.
I mutter some more about his outrageousness, arms crossed. It’s not the ideal state to get to sleep in.
How could he?
I was starting to trust him again. I wanted to trust him. I curl up, feeling bereft, like nothing’s real, like nothing matters.
It’s stupid. I should be happy; I’m free, after all. Isn’t that what I wanted? Except I don’t feel free at all.
Chapter
Twenty-one
MOLD. PIGEON DUNG. Stale air. Blood in my mouth. Something gouging my back. The ceiling comes into focus: RIVERSIDE ELEM. I sit up just in time to see Henji jerking the body out of the wall. It collapses onto the stairs—a dirty old body with scraps of clothes stuck on his bones and gray tissue on his skull face.
I call to him: Leave it, Henji!
No! He’s shaking it, brushing it. I stumble down. I grab his arm, but he flings out of my grip. He’s such a strong kid. He’ll be big when he grows up. Bigger than me.
He’s ripping the shirt. Too late now. I grab his arm but he’s crazy now. Suddenly he has the name patch. He’s coming at me with it. It says Goyce, doesn’t it? Goyce! I know it says Goyce on this.
No, Henji!
He smashes the little patch against my cheek. Say it!
No, Henji!
He pushes me against the wall, smashing the patch against my face with force that gouges my cheek against my teeth. Blood pools on my tongue.
I sit up with a jolt, sunlight streaming through the windows, a ring tone sounding somewhere in the next room.
The patch. It doesn’t say Goyce; it says Joyce!
Packard sleeps peacefully on the couch on the other side of the coffee table, twisted a bit unnaturally. The phone stops.
It’s such a simple clue. The boys dropped out of grade school. They could barely read, and certainly couldn’t read cursive. They’d mistaken a cursive capital J for a G this whole time. Surely Packard can read cursive now, but once you accept something a certain way for years, you cease to see it. This is what irked me—they kept saying Goyce when my dreaming mind read the badge as Joyce. Unlike Packard and Otto, I completed the third grade.
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