Sleeper

by MacKenzie Cadenhead

  “I didn’t follow you here,” he says, but I ignore him.

  “You nearly kill Jamie, and then you show up at his vigil and think what? Flash her a smile, she’ll ride off into the sunset with you? You’re delusional.” I spit the words at him. “This is real life with real people. And I happen to like a lot of them. So no, I’m not going anywhere with you. I’m staying here, with my friends, and my frenemies, and the people who annoy the hell out of me, because that’s what you do. You don’t try to control the world. You just deal with it.”

  Wes stares at me for a long time. The silence begs for a reply, but I won’t blink first. Finally, he nods. “You know, I had our whole reconciliation planned out. Even after all your denials and betrayals, I thought, but she’s my other half. We balance each other. I push you to be cool with who you really are, and you remind me what’s real, what matters.”

  He steps in closer. I can feel the warmth of his body through the chilly air between us. “Believe it or not, Sarah, you matter to me.” The corner of his mouth curls up. “I think you’re amazing. I really do. I want to see you fly. I want to help you fly. So I’ll ask you one last time: Why can’t we just do this? Together.”

  His hand moves to my hip, but for the first time, there’s no warm rush of blood to my skin where his fingers touch. Just cold.

  I push him off. “Because there’s no way to use this power without abusing it. Do you just not get it? Every time we enter someone’s dreams, we’re trespassing. Even if we do nothing, we’re going into someone’s mind uninvited. It’s the sci-fi version of hacking the cloud for naked photos.”

  His lips return to a tight, straight line. He rolls his eyes. “Ugh. Spare me this moral dilemma again. Fine, whatever. You’re out. I can take a hint.” He takes a step back, cracks his neck, and rolls his shoulders, like a fighter loosening up before a bout. “But since this sounds like good-bye, I want to tell you something.” He puts a hand to his heart. “I honestly didn’t know the Burners could enter the dreamer. I wanted to screw with you and with Jamie, but I had no idea it was going to end that way.”

  I side-eye him and wonder if this could possibly be the truth. Even after everything, I would love to believe him, to think that he planned to give me a scare and then climb back out the window and put Jamie, unharmed, back into his bed.

  “I thought…I still think the Burners are there to counteract us and what we can do. But now”—his eyes flicker—“thanks to Captain Wonderful, we know how to protect ourselves from them. And that ain’t bad news.”

  “What?” I ask. “What do you mean protect ourselves?”

  Wes bows his head and speaks slowly, as if to a child. “Burners are supposed to protect the dreamers. From us. But they can’t enter a dreamer, like Jamie, without having a full-on fit. That’s why when we’re inside a dreamer, the Burner won’t touch us. Did you notice that the Burner who fell into Jamie disappeared when Jamie did? If we can trap the Burners in dreamers, they can’t come back to get us. We’re free.”

  Heat rages through my body as I comprehend the meaning of his words. “You want to use our classmates as pest control?”

  “If it keeps the monsters away from me, why the hell not?”

  I kick myself for my momentary misguided softness and shake my head. “Because you can just stop, Wes. You have to stop! We don’t have to take the Dexid. We don’t have to put anyone in danger.” I look into his eyes, normally sparkling wild, now dark and cold. “But you don’t want to, do you? You said it yourself: the lows are sub-basement, but the highs are miles above the Empire State. And that high is worth more than anything or anyone else. Including me.”

  He grunts. “Spare me your intervention, Sarah. Just because you’re cool with mediocrity doesn’t mean you can proselytize to me.” His mouth snarls in disgust. “You have so much potential. But what a waste you’ve turned out to be. That train station, and everything that happens in it, is one of two realities in which we live. It’s not a choice; there is no other option. You’ve been given a gift, and you just want to pitch it. Sure. Whatever. But me? I’m going to rule the world. I’m going to learn how to control every inch of dreamland, and I will drug every person here, follow them into their nightmares, and throw them all to the Burners if that’s what it takes. And nothing you do is going to stop me.”

  He steps forward and grabs my face in his hands. His touch is rough, but I do not budge. “I won’t forget you. You’ve helped me learn some invaluable lessons along the way. I wouldn’t be able to do any of this had it not been for you.”

  “You’re a sociopath,” I say.

  “And you’re a hypocrite,” he snaps. He pushes my face away and wrings his hands. “You were all too willing to haunt your friends when it suited your stupid high school vendetta. But when it’s my turn to do something bigger, something extraordinary, I’m the bad guy? No. No one is innocent here. It’s a brave new world, Sarah. And since you’re not with me, you’re just in my way. Good-bye. Sweet dreams.” He smiles. “I’m sure you’ll be seeing me.”

  With that, he turns and walks away.

  I watch him disappear, my heart thumping. I didn’t create this monster, but I helped him grow. And Wes is right; we can do things no one else can, and we understand each other like no one else does.

  Which is why I am the only one who can take him down.

  I dive into the crowd, weaving through bodies until I find Grady and Tessa. Grabbing them both by the hands, I ignore their confused protests as I drag them off the field and away from the light into what promises to be a very long night.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  I look at the two people I’ve just confessed the whole, unabridged truth to. Tessa and Grady sit cross-legged on Grady’s bed, slack-jawed. It’s a lot to digest, I know. I’ve been living with my ability to enter people’s dreams and possess their bodies, and I still have trouble believing it. But keeping this from Tessa is no longer an option. I need her. And Grady? Well, he’s my Hail Mary. He already knows something’s up, so why not tap his massive brain to help me figure out the rest?

  Pursing his lips, Grady runs his hand through his pumpkin-colored hair and says, “I knew it.”

  Tessa’s eyes bug. “You knew it? Knew what, exactly? That Sarah thinks she’s hanging out in our heads while we sleep, or that she’s dating Freddie Krueger?”

  Grady blushes. “Well, no, I didn’t know the details, but I knew something was going on, and now it all makes sense.”

  She snorts. “Oh yeah, total sense.”

  Though I know it’s unfair of me, I can’t help but feel a little crushed that Tessa thinks I’m nuts. Still, there’s no time for hurt feelings. I remind myself that Grady’s openness is what’s important. His mind is what I need.

  “So how do I stop Wes?” I ask eagerly.

  “Good question,” he says. “I don’t know. But I’m guessing the answer lies within your disorder. So let’s break it down. Seems to me that what you’re experiencing is part chemistry, part mythology. The chemistry is actually pretty simple. Dexidnipam is made up of two main components: a controlled-release hypnotic and an anticonvulsant, correct?”

  “Yeah, it puts me to sleep, and it keeps me from moving.”

  “That’s what I said,” he replies dryly. “The thing is, these homeostatic functions are a focus of our nervous system while we sleep. Maintaining them is its primary job. And the fact that your body isn’t doing them means that the things it actually does do while you’re asleep are intensified. Like how a blind person has a better-than-normal sense of smell. Since your body isn’t using energy to keep you still, it can pour that energy into the other things your body does while you sleep—so your dream state is heightened. Make sense?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I think so.”

  He goes on. “I’m guessing that when you’re given enough hypnotic to actually stay asleep and enough paralytic to ke
ep you from moving, your body proportionately increases your anabolic functions to compensate. Your EEG readings are off the charts, right?”

  “That’s what they say at the clinic,” I reply. “I have a very active frontal lobe.”

  “Of course,” he says, clapping his hands as his pitch rises. “The part of the brain that controls lucid dreaming!”

  Tessa raises a hand to halt the celebration. “Hold up. Rewind. What are you two talking about? What other things Sarah does while she’s asleep? We don’t do anything while we’re asleep. That’s why it’s called sleeping.”

  Grady shakes his head. “And I’m the one who gets picked on.”

  “Tess, I know it seems crazy,” I say.

  “Try impossible,” she shoots back.

  “Impossible,” I agree patiently. “But it’s not. I have never lied to you, and I’m not starting now. Even if you can’t believe me, could you please just go with it for the sake of this conversation? For me?”

  She stares at me hard, a mixture of concern, confusion, and suspicion contorting her face, but she doesn’t protest.

  I turn my attention back to Grady. “So what is my frontal lobe so much better at than regular people’s?”

  “Well,” he says. “There are things we know about. Like, when you sleep, your brain cells shrink so that waste matter can easily move through your brain and get flushed out of your system. There’s a fascinating study linking this waste management process to the reduction of the protein involved in Alzheimer’s. It’s a great read.”

  “Awesome,” Tessa chirps. “Sarah won’t forget who I am when she’s a hundred!” She glares at Grady. “If I have to go with this, you need to stay on topic. So tell us, genius. What does any of this have to do with Sarah voodoo-dolling Gigi?”

  Grady pushes his glasses up on the bridge of his nose purposefully. “Well, delta wave and REM sleep are still pretty mysterious. There are a multitude of functions that we don’t remotely understand, and sleep science is a relatively new field of study. So while we can look at a brain scan and see that all these areas, which are dormant while we’re awake, light up when we’re asleep, that doesn’t mean we have a clue what these parts of the brain are actually doing during that time.”

  He pauses and takes a deep breath for effect. “That’s where mythology comes in.”

  “Mythology?” I ask.

  “Mythology,” he repeats. “Just about every culture has a favorite story or theory that explains why our bodies shut down for the night and what the visions that occur during that time mean. The Greeks had Morpheus, who delivered prophetic messages from the gods through dreams. The Ojibwe dreamcatcher was hung to trap nightmares that disrupted the restorative sleep time. And in more recent philosophical belief, Jung suggested that there’s a collective unconscious, shared by all people, that we can access in dreams.”

  “The train station,” I say. “Where Wes and I find people on Dexid.”

  “No,” Grady replies dispassionately. “But also, maybe yes. Jung was talking about an inherited unconscious way of ordering and understanding the world that each individual utilizes to process his or her own personal experience.”

  “English!” Tessa yells.

  Grady sighs. “In dreams, we all have the same basic ways of trying to work out the personal problems that we can’t solve while we’re awake. Reductive enough for you?”

  She fake-smiles.

  “But you make me wonder,” he adds ominously. “What if that shared space was in fact tangible? After you fall asleep, when you wake up in unconsciousness, you said you’re in a train station?”

  “Yeah, Grand Central,” I say.

  “Why Grand Central?” Tessa asks.

  “Yeah, why Grand Central?” Grady echoes.

  They look at me expectantly, but I have no answer. I’ve never before wondered why I’ve entered the train station every night since I’ve been on the Dexid or what the significance of the space or location is. But when I open my mouth to say as much, a forgotten truth comes out instead.

  “Ralphie, my tech, mentioned it to me my first night in the clinic. I was asking him what to expect while on the Dexid, and he told me another patient visualized the train station once they fell asleep.”

  Grady claps his hands together, causing Tessa to squeak. “That’s great! That explains it.”

  “Yeah, I totally get it now,” she sasses.

  “The train station is just a construct,” Grady says, ignoring her. “An imagined space you’ve clung to so that you could order the void. I’m guessing Wes was either the patient who first imagined Grand Central or the tech planted the same visual with him right before he fell asleep for the first time on Dexid. Either way, it was just bread crumbs to lead you to where you needed to be: an actualized shared unconsciousness into which you, Sarah, can astral project. You and Wes are like shamans, metaphysically traveling into a nonphysical realm where the rules of our reality do not apply.”

  I stare at Grady, speechless. Part of me wants to shout for joy, to thank him for not just believing but understanding my impossible reality, while the other part of me is so overwhelmed by the possible truth of it that I feel like I’m about to cry. Before I can put any of this into words, Tessa chimes in.

  “Okay, wait,” she says slowly. “Not that I’m onboard with any of this, but for the sake of argument, I think I get the shaman thing. Don’t they believe that, like, the mind isn’t in the body to begin with? And if you drink some nasty concoction, you can get into other people and sort of control them?”

  Grady and I stare at her, impressed.

  “What?” she says with a shrug. “I know things too.” Dexterously, she grabs a brownie bite from the bag I bought at the bake sale and tosses it into her mouth.

  “Today’s most potent concoctions come in pill form,” Grady says. “The Dexid must have allowed you to connect with other people who had been narcotically induced into this state of literalized collective unconscious.”

  “Like you were,” I say.

  “Like I was,” he agrees. “But when I took the Dexid, I became a passive participant in that realm. Unlike you who, thanks to those mysterious functions that grow exponentially when you take that drug, is able to be in total, active control. And the more you took, the more control you had. Not just of yourself but of the entire Dexid-shared unconscious space and anyone in it.”

  “But not just me,” I say.

  “No,” he replies solemnly. “Not just you.”

  The specter of Wes has entered the room and brought us back to terrifying reality.

  “Why me and Wes?” I ask. “There are other people in the Dexid trial, but they’re not jumping into anyone else’s skin.”

  “Anyone else with RBD?” Tessa asks. “Any other kids?”

  I shake my head.

  Grady taps the side of his glasses. “Maybe it’s your disorder. Maybe it’s your brain. You know the brain is still very much under construction in adolescence, developing key parts of the cortex and contending with more gray matter than scientists once thought. Add to that the incredibly volatile and unpredictable hormonal changes of the teen years, and it’s no wonder you and Wes have a unique response to an untested drug. But whatever the reason, the fact remains, you are special. And so is Wes.”

  For a while, we’re all quiet, not knowing what else to say. Tessa shoves more brownie into her mouth. I join her.

  Finally, she breaks the silence. “Oh, I know. Why don’t we just keep the Dexid away from Wes? I mean, without it, he’s just a creep. So if we make sure that Wes can’t dose anyone or take a pill himself, we’re in the clear, right?”

  Grady smiles. “That’s brilliant. All things being equal, the simplest answer is the right one. Occam’s razor.”

  “Uh, sure,” Tessa says.

  “I took the Dexid myself,” Grady offers. “Bu
t how did you guys dose Gigi and the rest without them knowing? I assume you used the stash I gave you?”

  “Yeah,” I say, feeling the absolute definition of ashamed. “But Wes was in charge of the dosing. And to tell the truth, I never knew how he did it.”

  “Well, he definitely didn’t hand them a pill,” Tessa says. She begins to yawn, speaking before she’s finished. “There’s no way any one of them would take drugs from a stranger. Except maybe Amber.”

  Grady nods. “Gigi and Kiara never did anything harder than alcohol. Maybe the occasional joint. Generally, jock girls don’t do much for my business.”

  “Poor you,” Tessa says as she stretches. She leans in for the last brownie bite, but Grady snatches it in protest and shoves it in his mouth.

  “Regardless,” I say, “we used up all the pills you gave us, and the clinic only doles out a week’s worth at a time. So, Wes probably has only two or three left after he dosed Jamie and took his own pills last night. On the downside, that’s one full night of damage. On the upside, it’s only one night.”

  A pained grunt escapes Grady’s lips as all the redness drains from his face.

  “What?” I ask.

  “In my defense,” he says, “I had no idea about any of this at the time. I just assumed he wanted to rough up Josh for letting Gigi take the photos of you.”

  “Who wanted to… Wes wanted to beat up Josh? Grady, what are you talking about?”

  Tessa yawns loudly. “Sorry, sorry,” she says as she lazily rubs her head. Her eyes start to glaze over. “I’m just going to lay down for a minute.”

  My spidey-sense begins to tingle as she leans back on Grady’s bed.

  “Yesterday Wes asked me to set up a meeting with Josh,” he says. “He gave me some cash and made me promise never to bring it up. As I said, I thought he wanted to kick that loser’s ass, which was fine with me. Josh is a douche. I had no idea Wes was after more Dexid.”

  I register this very bad news, but when I try to gasp, a yawn comes out instead. I look over at Tessa, who is cuddling up with a pillow.