by Jody Wallace
“I do care. People could die if we don’t shut this down. We gotta figure out what’s really going on.” Zeke finished cleaning the pistol and slid it back into the holster. He wouldn’t be removing his weapons until this situation was settled. Might make sleeping uncomfortable, but so would being anywhere near Karen.
He also wouldn’t be removing his weapons to shower, which meant he wouldn’t bathe until this situations was settled either. He didn’t give a shit. Karen could choke on his funk.
“Not about that.” Lill, seated close enough that their voices didn’t carry, bumped him with her knee. “Don’t let on about you and Maggie.”
“There is no me and Maggie.” He had no idea how their relationship would transform after this morning—and the all-hands-down best sex of his life. Not because it was the kinkiest foreplay or the spurtiest orgasm or because the woman had brought him a sandwich afterward, but because it had felt so…emotional.
He shouldn’t have admitted the emotions to Maggie. He could feel that damn lump in his throat right now, just looking at her, which was better than a more obvious lump in his pants.
“It’s written all over your stupid face,” Lill whispered. Zeke gritted his teeth. “I know how you feel about her, but this is not the time. The psycho watches every move you make. Hide it better.”
Zeke pulled out a dagger and tested the edge on his thumb. Yeah, Karen was watching him. Studying everything he did with her hollow, desperate eyes. Waiting, just waiting, until she got to plaster herself all over him when they tranced. Despite Adi’s orders, he’d been pretending she didn’t exist. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I remember how jealous Karen is. You want her to figure it out? It’s bad enough she’s glaring at me like she wishes I’d drop dead,” Lill muttered. “All I’m doing is sitting next to you.”
“You announced to the room if she took one step outta line, you were going to kill her,” Zeke said. Lill could try—she’d have to beat him to it.
“Yeah, so?” Lill had voiced her opinion of Karen’s continued existence in no uncertain terms. Funny—unlike when Zeke or Adi voiced their doubt, Karen hadn’t shed a single tear at the female sentry’s matter-of-fact hatred.
“She’s dangerous to all of us, no matter what I say about Maggie,” he said. “I don’t believe the snake oil she’s selling. Master wraith, my left nut.”
“Can’t deny about the healing, though.” Lill propped her elbows on her knees and her chin on her hands. He had to lean over to hear her. “That part I believe. We know she can do shit she shouldn’t be able to. She vigil-trapped you in Harrisburg, and that skill never gets passed around. If Adi won’t teach me, nobody’s gonna teach some random L5 disciple. I don’t think we can discount everything Karen says—even about her big bad.”
“I never said I was discounting everything.” He wished he could, but the discrepancies and irregularities in Karen’s story hinted at some truths—and more truths as yet uncovered.
“A leader of wraiths doesn’t go against some philosophies about the dreamsphere, you know. Many believe wraiths are representatives of a greater evil.”
“That’s fringe group claptrap,” he said dismissively, though he’d considered it too.
Sentient wraiths with a sentient leader were a crisis Zeke could barely wrap his brain around. What did it mean? That centuries of statistics and learning about the dreamsphere were wrong?
Because nobody had ever believed the earth was a flat disk at the center of the universe.
It was a lot simpler to convince himself the trouble would end once Karen was neutralized for good. But he’d been having difficulties with Maggie since day one, with the faulty shields and hordes of wraiths, and he didn’t see how Karen could have caused that.
Could she?
If she, not some Master, were directing the wraiths to…
Before Zeke hopped further down his rabbit trail, Lill leaned against him, talking intensely. “Here’s the thing. No matter why this happening, we sure as hell don’t want a curator involved. Adi and I—we’ve researched the curators. That guy who keeps showing up? She doesn’t trust him either. Shouldn’t curators engender faith in us, like the Pope or something? They’re in charge of the whole Somnium. They’re our leaders. Vigils are smart, rational people. So why’s that curator such an ass bag?”
Zeke shrugged. The curator Lillian loved to hate didn’t piss him off the same way he did Lill. “Maybe he’s a distant relative of mine. Clan Ass Bag.”
“He’s hiding shit, that’s why.”
“Of course he is. Vigils have skills the rest of us don’t too.”
“But we know what those skills are,” Lill argued. “We know the abilities that are possible if we become vigils. If it turns out curators can use the dreamsphere to heal and have been letting the rest of us croak? That’s huge.”
“You sound like Rhys.” Their fellow sentry would flip over the chance to expose some illicit machinations in the upper echelons of the Somnium. The guy had aspirations of vigildom, maybe curatordom, and was always seeking an angle.
Across the room, Maggie checked the screen of her phone and rose. She padded, barefoot, to the door of the room.
“I’m going to stretch my legs, and then I’ll go to my bunk,” she explained to the guard. It wouldn’t be far. The outbunker only had two levels.
“Don’t take long,” the guard said. “We’re T minus fifteen.”
“Thanks.” Maggie nodded and left the room.
“Hold that thought,” Zeke told Lill, in mid rant about the curator. “I gotta take care of something.”
“Don’t,” Lill warned him, but he was too intent on Maggie to heed it. He’d barely spoken to her since they’d had sex. He had to…he didn’t know.
Something.
He caught up with her on the stairs closest to the unisex restroom. She raised her eyebrows at the sight of him. “Where’s the fire?”
“I want to talk to you.”
Guards were posted everywhere. If they weren’t posted, they were patrolling. Two passed them on the stairs. There was no way he and Maggie could snag any privacy, but he didn’t want her to tackle phase two without so much as handshake.
He didn’t want to tackle Karen without so much as handshake.
“Can you talk while I’m getting a snack?” she suggested, heading down the hall.
He followed her to the small kitchen. Three soldiers sat at a table playing some kind of electronic game on their phones.
Maggie fixed herself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Without asking, she slathered a second one for him—no jelly. He hated jelly.
“So we’re setting my alarm for every two hours?”
“A precaution.” His stomach grumbled. He realized he hadn’t eaten all day. “I don’t think you need it. You aren’t going to get trapped in the sleep sphere, and if you lose your shield—which you won’t—Lill can pop out and wake you the normal way before you manifest. Or you can wake yourself. You’re not a novice. You got this.”
The soldiers pretended not to listen, but with the way everyone suspected Maggie, he knew they were cataloguing whatever was said. It was their job.
“Uh-huh.” Still standing by the counter, Maggie bit into her sandwich. Red jelly dripped onto her T-shirt.
“You had zero problems shielding last night,” he reminded her. She hadn’t. They’d been so caught up in their discussion, she hadn’t had a minute to be afraid of the wraiths or lose confidence in her barrier.
She blinked a few times as she chewed. “You helped.”
“First night in phase two can be strange.” Especially when she’d be sharing the sphere with a psycho who could vigil-trap people. He tried to think of something he could reveal in front of the soldiers. Telling Maggie how much he wished he could kiss her was not his best bet.
What if tonight went south? What if she got hurt? “Do you feel emotional, Maggie?”
She lowered her eyes to the jelly stain. “Maybe I do.”
“I know what you mean.” Would she remember their discussion this morning? Of course she would. She practically had a photographic memory.
She shifted her weight to her other foot as they scarfed down their sandwiches. When she was done, she said, “I’m going to my room. We’re T minus ten.”
She nodded at the soldiers, who’d given up the semblance of gaming to stare skeptically at Maggie and Zeke. Well, mostly at Maggie. The soldiers bore no love for Karen, but it was hard to see Karen’s fragility and tears and imagine her as a threat. Maggie, on the other hand, was vibrant, sharp, and very much alive.
If Maggie wanted to be a threat, she’d be a huge one. But she didn’t. And she wasn’t.
When they emerged from the stairs on the bunk level, Zeke didn’t spot any soldiers in the hall. Quick as a wink, he snatched Maggie and practically tossed her into the unisex john.
Luckily, there was nobody inside.
“What the hell?” Maggie exclaimed. “T minus eight.”
He locked the door behind him and stalked her until her back hit the wall. “That’s not much time.”
She stared up at him. “For what?”
Zeke kissed her. She opened for him immediately, clinging to his shoulders and pressing herself against him. With a groan, he picked her up and wedged himself between her legs. His cock, hardening, ground against her.
Feverish, he absorbed the taste of her. He needed so badly to fuck her right now and forget what was happening around them. The tangible bade him closer. His skin zinged like a shockwave where they touched. The good kind of shockwave, not the stomach-walloping lurch he felt with Karen.
Maggie wasn’t Karen. Maggie was stable. Smart. God-help-him sexy. She wrapped her legs around his hips and kissed him eagerly, petting his hair, his shoulders. Whispering things he needed to hear.
That it was going to be okay.
That they’d be together again eventually.
That she trusted him.
He wanted to eat her up, she was so sweet—even the taste of the damn jelly.
A loud banging on the door interrupted them. “T minus four. Everyone report to their stations.”
“Shit.” Zeke let her slide to the floor. His cock felt like it could hammer nails. Her breathing hitched. From the rosiness of her cheeks and the redness of her lips, it was obvious what they’d been doing. “I hate this.”
“I know.” She splashed water on her hot cheeks.
His hands fisted. He felt impotent. Ironic, considering the state of his dick. “I hate Karen.”
A little unsteady, she walked to the door and unlocked it. “I know.”
What else could he tell her? To keep her here—to make her understand. She was the one he wanted to be with. It wasn’t the tangible. If anything happened to her, he didn’t know what he’d do.
Before he fashioned the right words, she slipped out of the restroom.
He stayed another two minutes, giving himself a breather. When he returned, Lill waited in the hallway for him.
“Dumbass,” she muttered when he walked past her. “Karen tried to come after you. Lucky for you she can barely walk.”
Yeah, lucky him.
The dreamsphere wasn’t as chaotic as it could be—wasn’t as black as Zeke had seen it with Maggie—but the extra helping of wraiths outside the group’s five point network unnerved Constance and Roberts, who hadn’t experienced it before.
Zeke could tell. Their shields were stable, but the full link required for them orate with him—and combine shields once they matriculated Karen—allowed him a whiff of their inner emotions.
He did his best to keep his inner emotions muffled with regard to Maggie. He didn’t care if the others cottoned on to how much he detested Karen.
She clung to him like algae on a dock post. With her stuck to his ass, he couldn’t stretch past her annoying tangible buzz to check if Maggie had entered the sphere. He couldn’t ask Lill about Maggie because he wasn’t an idiot.
Karen would go after Maggie if she realized he felt more deeply about her than he would any other student. Lill had warned him needlessly.
“Karen, you have to concentrate on opening yourself and broadcasting your signature.” He unwound her arms from his neck. Again. “I know you can orate. You did last night with Adi, and now you need to repeat it. I have to matriculate you.”
She tried to worm her way into an embrace. He locked his elbows, keeping her away from his body.
She gazed at him worshipfully. It was creepy as shit. “We’re together again. That’s all I can think about.”
“We’re not together.”
“I’m not alone,” she said. “That’s what I mean. I was trapped with no one but the Master for a year, Zeke. Tortured. Abused.” She quit angling for a hug and crept to the edge of his shield. “I know the other L5s think they can protect me. I can almost sense them. Can they read my signature?”
The other L5s were stationed around them like points on a star, waiting patiently to accept Karen’s hail. He hadn’t convinced her to open up. No one, not even Karen, had reported any demonic visitations from this Master guy—and they hadn’t reported on Maggie.
It annoyed him Lill wouldn’t risk an update. They’d agreed on a coded sentence in case Karen could overhear more than his side of conversations. But Karen hadn’t tried to link with the others yet. She’d spent the past twenty minutes sliming herself all over him.
“The others can sense you. Now do your part,” Zeke said. In fact, Adi had just asked for a progress report, which had been short. Very short. “Adi is five paces to your left outside the barrier. Try talking to her. Like yesterday.” Matriculation was intimidating to many. Allowing others—allowing all others—an open invitation to your psyche wasn’t comfortable. But it was necessary, and Karen, like Maggie, had demonstrated the initial glimmers.
“I’m too frightened, Zeke. If the L5s can tell I’m here, he can. The Master is going to come after me. He won’t care who gets in his way.”
It had been forty minutes, real-time, according to Zeke’s internal clock. When Karen wasn’t weeping dream tears on his shirt, she was shaking with fear and puling about how awful it would be if he got hurt because of her.
Too bad she hadn’t felt that way in Harrisburg.
“Come on. It won’t take long. All you have to do is relax your guard and let Adi assess you. It’s not like it hurts. I mean, it’s invasive, but it won’t send you screaming out of the sphere,” Zeke urged.
“This was a mistake.” Karen wobbled along the barrier, almost as unsteady in the sphere as she was outside it. “He could already be on his way. We’ll never escape.”
“If you’d try to do what Adi wants—just a little—I bet she’d agree to call it a night.”
“I would not,” Adi corrected in an annoyed tone, since she and the others could receive Zeke’s end of the conversation. “We will accomplish what we’ve set out to do before exiting. You’re not soothing her, Zeke. Take her hand. She seems calmer when you express physical affection.”
Karen gave no sign of overhearing the vigil. She continued to gnaw her nonexistent fingernails and pace.
Physical affection, his ass. Zeke ignored the vigil’s suggestion. “When we come out of the trance, Karen, I’ll barricade you from the sphere for the rest of the night.”
“Oh, could we, Zeke? Could we?” She clasped her hands as if he were the answer to her prayers. “I would feel so safe, sleeping in your arms again.”
Zeke had to congratulate himself. He didn’t gag. “Sure. We’ll leave the dreamsphere as soon as you actually orate instead of whining on and on about—”
“Sentry,” Adi snapped. “Don’t express n
egativity. She is fragile. She must be cajoled. Tell her that you care for her wellbeing and that cooperating with us will enhance our ability to protect her.”
He stopped himself from an ugly response. He could hear Lill chuckling. Adi had ordered him to let Karen touch him if—and how—she wanted. He was supposed to comply with whatever it took to make Karen feel comfortable, safe, and willing to show them how the healing worked.
Adi was his fucking pimp.
“If you can link with the others, they’ll have more power to help you,” he bit out to Karen. “Lots of people will be able to help you after you let Adi assess you.”
He hadn’t matriculated anyone since before Karen, but he’d processed over a hundred students in his time. For the final assessment, a disciple had to expose herself completely while maintaining a shield. A tricky balance. Sometimes this phase could last several nights.
He wanted to be done with Karen tonight.
He wanted to be done with Karen now.
She gazed up at him with a hungry expression. “I don’t need them. I don’t need anyone but you, Zeke.”
The way she always repeated his name when it was obvious she was talking to him unsettled him.
“If the bad guy gets you, we’ll ECT you out of the sphere again,” he promised. “That worked like a top. You’re going to have to try to link with the others. You agreed to show Adi the healing.”
She placed a clammy hand on his arm. “I could show you instead. I would love to show you. I would give you anything, Zeke, for saving me.”
“I’m not a vigil. I might not be able to do it. We already discussed this.”
“You’re my savior,” she insisted.
“Adi saved you. I followed orders. You need to matriculate and teach her.” While he was curious about the healing ritual, it took a qualified assessor like Adi to really understand what another alucinator was doing metaphysically. If healing turned out to be a specialized talent, what use was showing Zeke?
Anyway, teaching Zeke so Zeke could teach Adi was a roundabout way to accomplish a simple task. He’d learned all the lessons he cared to from Karen Kingsbury—lessons about what a dumbass he was.