by Sarah Noffke
Mr. Magner set his briefcase down as he locked the bottom and top locks of the front door. So that probably means the other family members are still asleep at this early hour, Morgan thought. Then the man with a head full of gray hair grabbed his briefcase and set off for the Volvo parked just outside the three-car garage. Poor guy worked for his family and didn’t even get a spot inside his own garage. It probably contained his wife’s SUV, the younger daughter’s sports car, and maybe an old custom hot rod that Mr. Magner worked on during weekends.
When the older man passed, only feet from where Morgan stood, the invisible guy whistled. With a jerk of his head, Mr. Magner spun around, his eyes tightening on the spot where Morgan stood. Then his gaze trailed up to the tree, full of leaf-covered branches. Probably assuming the strange whistle came from a bird, he turned back for his car.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“Employees are granted time off for a one-week vacation each year.”
- Olento Research Employee Manual
“Why do you think you didn’t change last night?” Rox said, pointing to a room up ahead.
“I’m not sure,” Zephyr said, rubbing the back of his neck. Sleeping on the cot in the safe room, next to Connor, hadn’t made for a restful night. However, Zephyr hadn’t changed into a werewolf, so he got more sleep than he would have otherwise. He’d switched to sleeping nights since coming to the Lucidite Institute because these people weren’t nocturnal. Now he wished he’d spent the night dream traveling since Adelaide informed him it was much more restorative than actual sleep. She told him that morning that he would have known that if he’d read the Dream Traveler Codex she’d given him; however, he’d never really liked reading. Still, he’d force himself to read the large volume when he got back.
“Usually I change once a week, but it’s not always exactly seven days apart,” he said to Rox.
“Kind of like your period. Usually it comes every twenty-eight days but sometimes less, sometimes more,” Rox said when they entered Aiden’s lab.
“You just compared a genetic mutation done to me to a woman’s monthly cycle,” he said, shaking his head at her. He actually wanted to laugh at her observation, but didn’t want her to know he found it amusing. A stone face and monotone voice was what he was trying to keep.
“Yeah, I think your little ‘change,’” she said with air quotes on the last word, “is just like PMS. You now know exactly what it’s like to be a woman,” she said, trotting over to where the guy in the white lab coat and black-rimmed glasses stood smiling. Again she was wearing heels, this time black knee-high boots. Considering last time she’d managed to successfully fight a handful of guards in heels, Zephyr concluded that he shouldn’t doubt her so much. If she got the job done while looking like a diva, then maybe he should actually be impressed, rather than repulsed.
“I don’t think I know exactly what it’s like to be a woman. You all are complicated creatures, more so than a werewolf,” Zephyr said.
“That they are,” Aiden said, having heard the last part of their conversation. “So, you two are here to learn how to use the handy-dandy GAD-C.” The scientist clapped his hands together enthusiastically.
“Is this it?” Rox said, trotting over to a machine that took up an entire corner. It in essence looked like a high-tech examining room table with a row of blue lights around its surface and a strange orb-projector above it. Buttons and knobs lined a panel behind the huge machine.
“Indeed it is,” Aiden said, strolling over and pausing beside Rox.
“I read the protocol in the Dream Traveler Codex and think I can manage the process for both myself and Zephyr,” she said.
Damn it, why hadn’t he read that manual? Zephyr thought.
“Great! Yes, just lie down on the bed, dream travel to the location for the GAD-C in Los Angeles, and then generate your body. Then you’ll take the jet to Salt Lake City from there. Sorry, but we don’t have a convenient GAD-C located in that area, so a bit of Middling travel is still needed. However, this will still make it faster,” Aiden said and then turned to Zephyr, who hadn’t moved from his spot. “You will dream travel after Rox and then she’ll generate your body. Cool?”
He nodded, not at all liking the idea of dream traveling and generating his body thousands of miles from where his physical form lay. It all felt too much like science fiction. However, he was a werewolf now and needed to get accustomed to this strange new world. And he was also in favor of staying off the submarine. It wasn’t a pleasant form of travel and being cooped up in a small compartment with Rox again wasn’t something he desired.
Zephyr closed his eyes shortly after lying down on the cold surface of the GAD-C. Dream traveling was one of the strangest things he’d ever done—well, besides ripping into a man’s throat with his fangs and feasting on his blood and flesh. Strange things were relative in his new world. Over the last few days, he’d grown more confident with dream traveling, having practiced as Adelaide ordered. He’d been able to dream travel to all of the locations on the list she gave him. It was unfathomable to him at first that his solitary intention would pull his consciousness from one place to another. And yet, in one night he found himself popping between movie theaters in the suburbs of Boise and then to a research station in Antarctica. He hadn’t felt the cold or any other elements when in the various locations. But he could see the people, probably Middlings, operating in the physical realm, although they couldn’t see him. He would pass right through anything in the physical realm that had a consciousness. Adelaide had informed him that he could move objects from the dream travel realm, but doing so was against Lucidite law since it created a poltergeist effect for those in the physical world not dream traveling.
With a slow inhale to a four count, Zephyr focused on the exact location of the GAD-C in Los Angeles. This was the city where the submarine had dropped off and picked him up twice now. It was also the closest large city to the Lucidite Institute and the place where the most reliable GAD-C could be found. Zephyr wished he didn’t have to take a flight all the way to Salt Lake City while sitting next to Rox, but he wasn’t sure why the urge to put her at a distance was so intense. More and more she looked at him in ways that made him feel different. Made him want to know her differently. He shook off this bizarre new interest and focused on his location. An instant later he was pushed into the silver tunnel. It was the transport device, as Adelaide had called it. Each experience of dream traveling involved moving through these tunnels and the subconscious making the automatic decision to take certain turns until it negotiated the path, depositing Zephyr safely in the place of his choosing.
He appeared in the dream travel realm a moment after Rox. She stood appraising him, her hand on her hip and a wolfish grin on her face.
“Did you enjoy the ride?” she said.
He shook his head and stared around at the small office-like space where he found himself.
“Are you dream traveling or have you generated?” he said to her.
“I’m still in dream travel form or otherwise I couldn’t see you,” she said, giving him a “duh” expression.
“Oh, right,” he said and then focused on the machine taking up much of the small space. It wasn’t as new-looking as the one at the Institute.
“Hop up here and I’ll generate your body first. Then I’ll go,” Rox said.
“Uhhh…” He wasn’t sure he wanted this newbie generating his body for her first time around. “Why don’t you go first?”
Rox stepped forward, an uncomfortably close distance from Zephyr. “Why? Are you scared? Think I’m going to mess up and generate your body so you’re suddenly some strange monster?” she said and her eyes looked so bright from that distance. Something in Zephyr unbuttoned. A carnal yearning that he knew at once belonged to the wolf. It made him want things he shouldn’t have. Think things that obscured his reason.
“Never mind,” he said, shaking his head. “Generate the man in me and leave the wolf behind, would you
?” Easily he pulled himself up so he was lying on the table of the GAD-C. It was strange to have a body in dream travel form and then also not. Apparently, it was just the mind’s representation of the human form since it can’t be unthought. People have bodies, no matter what. Even when dreaming. He looked over at Rox and noticed how her form looked almost the same as in the physical realm: long, slender legs, lean, muscular arms, collar bones peeking out of the pink leopard blouse. However, she was a shade lighter than in the physical realm, like a ghost of herself.
“Are you ready to do some science?” she said, turning knobs and smashing down buttons.
“No,” he said with a grunt just as a violent shiver rocketed through his body. It emptied him of air. It brought with it a sea of aches and sharp pinching sensations to his skin. Zephyr’s organs all screamed for attention, as though each were about to burst. And his head seared with a blue fire, one that he was certain would kill him.
And then it was gone.
All the pain, the torture. Totally gone. Everything had disappeared at once and all that remained were the howl-like screams that had started when the agony set him ablaze. Zephyr clapped a hand to his mouth and shot to a standing position. He was alone in the small room, but he knew that wasn’t really true. It was merely that he couldn’t see Rox because she was in the dream travel realm and he was now in the physical world. With a cursory glance down, Zephyr let out a breath of relief that his body appeared the same as it was, unchanged by the GAD-C.
Zephyr pulled the blacked out Audi SUV up to the curb opposite the Magners’ mansion. The Lucidites had arranged everything from the private jet to the vehicle waiting for them at the airport. This was a well-endowed organization that provided the best of everything for its employees.
Rox’s eyes trailed over the hand resting on the shifter and then up to the bicep flexing under Zephyr’s shirt. He was surprisingly not an awful driver like most. Her PTSD always flared when in a vehicle with a new driver. Maybe it was the claustrophobic space or the feeling of being trapped. For whatever reason, the painful memory always bolted to the forefront of her mind when in a car. She still tensed her jaw subconsciously when she thought about the night spent as a child trapped in the tiny shed at the back of her parents’ property. That memory was her greatest weakness and then also her very strength. The boys who had teased her for wearing messy cutoffs and a face full of pimples were the reason she had graduated early and gone on to pursue the FBI. They had always been her motivation for succeeding. Those boys maybe knew that fourteen-year-old Rox was stronger than most, but not that she had a superpower that made her resistant to pain. That’s why on that warm summer night, they quit wrestling Rox and instead overpowered her and locked her in the one-room shed. For hours she’d screamed for her parents, but when the dead of night filled the shed with pitch black, she gave up. Rox had nearly impenetrable skin. A resistance to abrasives, punches, and most attacks. However, she could be trapped and then become powerless. She could suffocate or starve or die from disease. Her skin made most medical treatments null and void anyway.
But Zephyr’s driving hadn’t spooked the usual fear. He didn’t drive too fast or too slow. The car didn’t ride the bumpers of other cars and he used the brake with perfect timing. It was the first time in a long time that she’d felt a strange sense of comfort, like he was maybe just as competent as she was.
“I wish I could get close enough to the house to use my x-ray vision,” he said, breaking into Rox’s roaming thoughts.
“How close do you need to be?”
“Ten to fifteen feet usually,” he said, leaning forward and squinting at the house with two turrets in the front, one on either side of the atrocity. It didn’t remind Rox of the lake house where she grew up in the country. It reminded her of the horrible McMansions that rich socialites built on tiny lots after tearing down cute bungalows. No one knew she came from nothing and had built a small nest egg which she’d use one day to buy a cottage on the top of a mountain. Something perfectly quaint.
“So, this x-ray vision,” she said, her eyes traveling over to the giant oak tree in the front yard of the Magners’ house. It was the only thing she liked about the place. “Are you a pervert with it, checking out my lacy panties and bra when we’re in meetings?”
Methodically, Zephyr turned his head and regarded Rox with a repulsed expression. “What? You’re a girl? One who wears a bra? I had no idea,” he said, and she guessed he was working hard to keep his eyes off the tight blouse she was sporting. She revolved toward the backseat, pulling her leather jacket from where it had been resting.
“So, I’ll take that as a yes, then,” she said, pulling the jacket on and zipping it up to just where her cleavage began.
“And no, I don’t. It takes effort and expends energy to use my x-ray vision. Those are both things that I won’t waste on you,” he said, his eyes now on the house again. “But since we’re playing the curious question game, if your skin is resistant then does that mean you’re numb?”
“Pretty much, but not in certain areas. You know, the ones that count for pleasure,” she said with a wink, turning again to fetch something from the backseat. When she spun back around she held up a blue leash.
“What’s that for?” Zephyr said, his eyes going skinny with anger.
“It’s your excuse for getting close to the house. You lost your dog and are going door to door to find him. Let’s call him Kay-Kay, just to be cute. You know, for Kaleb,” Rox said.
“That’s so fucking cute,” he said, grabbing the leash with an irritated force.
“Go round up your doggy,” Rox said, smiling wide.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“Dreaming and dream traveling are both conducive to keeping the balance of the consciousness.”
- Lucidite Employee Manual
“I thought I’d find you here,” Connor said, pulling a chair out from the conference room table.
Adelaide lifted her eyes from her father’s book and regarded him with indignation; it was a look she wore often. “Wow, you’re a bloody detective,” she said dryly.
“You’re British,” he said, no question in his voice.
“You’re a drug addict,” she said on the cusp of his words.
His green eyes closed for a half beat when he took a seat. She observed the steady breath he pulled in and he looked less flustered when he opened his eyes again. “Information from my file? I’m guessing the Lucidites know everything of relevance about me,” he said.
“You guessed right, but you’ve lived a fairly boring life. You don’t even have any hobbies. Like isn’t it required for American boys to play football or baseball?” she said, her eyes back on her book, her attention on Connor.
“Those are some detailed files. I played video games growing up, does that count?” he said, his eyes on her hand resting on the thick pages of the leather-bound book.
“No, it just confirms that you’re a loser,” she said.
“What are your hobbies?” he said, and for Connor to show any curiosity in another person was rare. Adelaide knew that from his file. He’d been described by a so-called friend as not really a wallflower, but more of an apathetic large piece of artwork. Connor was as sturdy as a statue and usually just as still. And yet people noticed him because of his piercing green eyes that seemed to be judging the world harshly.
“I grew up penniless, so not a lot of money for riding lessons or whatnot,” Adelaide said, her eyes narrowing on a phrase from her father’s book.
“You don’t choose what makes you happy, or who, but when you find it, never fucking let it go.”
She didn’t like that phrase and she didn’t know why.
“But now you’re a hotshot agent for what the Dream Traveler Codex calls ‘the most powerful organization in the world,’” he said and then watched as Adelaide’s face transformed. “Why’d that make you smile?”
“What? I didn’t smile,” she said, tucking the book up higher to cover her ex
pression, which she realized had actually contained a smile of sorts. Those were Ren’s words: “the most powerful organization in the world.” He was a prideful man and spoke highly about the Lucidites. She remembered the first time she entered the Institute, she’d been extremely pregnant. Her father, who hadn’t approved of her “ruining [her] life by having a monster,” had hidden away from her for a month. However, later, she firmly believed he thought that Lucien was the best thing to happen to the family. He made Pops happy. Sometimes her son made her happy. Usually, though, he just made her feel like a failure, but Ren had said that was typical. “Our children bring out our greatest weaknesses,” he said to her one time. However, Adelaide wasn’t giving up on Lucien, even if the boy still ran from her. She had started off by hating her father and now he was the most important person in her life, even being dead. One day she’d fix things with Lucien, she’d make him fall in love with her, but first she needed to fall in love with herself. That message, in so many words, had been the first thing she read from the book that morning. Randomly she’d open Ren’s book upon waking, as it was always the first thing she did every day. And from the artificial light of her room she read:
“You can save the world, but if you don’t save yourself then it will never matter.”
“You did just smile. I saw it,” Connor said, challenging her. And now he was almost smiling too, she observed. The scarf he wore partially obscured the tattoo on his neck, under the gauge in his right ear. It was cold in the Institute, but she thought he wore the scarf to cover the tattoo, rather than to stay warm. Strange place to put a tattoo and then try and hide it. For coverage, he should have grown out his brownish hair, which had an essence of red to it. Connor’s hair wasn’t vibrant red like hers, but rather the softer shade that people go to great lengths to dye their natural color to. His hair stuck up on the top a couple inches and was mostly shaved on the sides. He wasn’t bad to look at, although most people’s faces made her want to puke.