Judging by the shocked look on Claire and Jose’s faces, this is not a common occurrence.
Link begins sticking probes attached to wire onto Claire’s temples. When his fingers brush against her skin, she closes her eyes. His touch lingers longer than necessary. I have no idea why it annoys me. Maybe because Claire doesn’t seem like a nice person, and someone like Link ought to realize that. He adheres two probes to either side of her neck, one more slightly below her collar bone, then gets to work on Jose. Then Sticks, then Cap, and finally, me.
He holds up the wires. “Your turn.”
“Aren’t you going to explain what you’re doing first?”
“Sleep induction, without the drugs. One hundred percent harmless, I promise.” He wiggles the probes in the air. “They send electrodes to the part of your brain that’s most active during sleep. The transition is instantaneous. Sort of like someone with narcolepsy. And since the sleep isn’t drug-induced, everyone remains fully functional in dream world.”
“So we train in our sleep?”
“Precisely.”
“It’s the best way to practice,” Sticks says. “Our tech mastermind over there figured out a way to create a shared dream space for training purposes.”
Link flashes that lopsided grin of his.
“If you’re worried about your safety,” Claire looks me up and down, “don’t be. Link will monitor our vitals, just in case things get too intense for you.”
I press my lips together. Because if you don’t have anything nice to say …
“Since I created the space, it’s not actually a doorway into the spiritual realm. So you don’t have to worry about accidentally getting pulled through or anything.” He holds the probes up higher. “Convinced?”
More than.
In fact, for the first time since awakening from last night’s awful nightmare, I feel a rush of excitement. I take the seat between Sticks and Jose. Link places the probes on my temples, his eyes catching mine as he does. There are specks of amber in the caramel of his irises, and his hands smell like soap. He pulls down the collar of my shirt just enough to attach the final probe beneath the hollow of my collarbone. “Time to see what Xena Warrior Princess can do.”
Even though he’s teasing, the nickname makes me feel strong.
Claire, on the other hand, shoots daggers at us with her eyes.
Link moves to the computer, where all the wires now attached to our bodies run. “Showtime on the count of three. One, two, three …”
I open my eyes in a large room padded with mats that run up three of the walls. The fourth is one giant mirror. For a second, I think we’ve somehow teleported to the room beside the weight room. There are mats in there, too. But this place is bigger, with more equipment. There are dumbbells and pull-up bars, sparring pads and gloves, punching bags and jump ropes. And it doesn’t smell like Clorox or feet. This is the dream space Link created.
Claire and Jose stand at one side of the room, pulling on gloves. Sticks stands on the other side next to …
I rub my eyes, positive I’m seeing things wrong. But when I’m done with the rubbing, I see the same thing as before. It’s Cap. Same white stubble. Same salt and pepper buzz cut. Same silver eyes. The only difference? This man who is Cap, but not really Cap, doesn’t sit in a wheelchair. He stands beside Sticks, a good half a foot shorter, with legs as strong and sturdy as tree stumps.
“Welcome to the training center.” Sticks steps into the middle of the dream dojo. “What do you think?”
“How is he …?” My attention returns to Cap, who leans against one of the matted walls.
“Standing?” Sticks offers.
“Yeah.”
“Simple.” He snaps his finger, and all of a sudden, Sticks is no longer in the center of the room; he’s standing directly in front of me. I jerk back. Claire snickers. Sticks snaps again. Now he’s standing in between Claire and Jose. I’m not sure if he moved so fast as to be a literal blur, or if he somehow managed to disappear and reappear. He pulls back Claire’s arms, helping her stretch the muscles in her chest. “This is dream world. Our physical bodies are lying on those chairs. Physical limitations don’t exist. Not here. You may be short and skinny during your waking hours …”
More snickering from Claire.
“But that has nothing to do with the amount of strength you can harness as a fighter here in this realm. Take me, for example. In real life, my height has disadvantages. I’m not very fast. But here,” he snaps a third time, and in a blink, he’s standing beside Cap again, “I’m as fast as I want to be.”
Jose and Claire move to one of the punching bags. She holds it steady while he gives it a few powerful wallops.
“Today, we want to see what you can do.” Sticks tosses me a pair of sparring gloves.
I catch them and slide them on. They feel familiar over my knuckles, and good too. I always enjoyed my Saturday morning martial art classes with Mom. In fact, I don’t think I’ve realized until now how much I’ve missed them.
Sticks tosses me headgear.
“Isn’t this unnecessary?” I ask, strapping it onto my head. “If this isn’t my physical body, why do I need protection?”
“Why don’t you show her why she wants the helmet, Claire.”
Claire couldn’t be happier to oblige. She lets go of the punching bag and steps into the center of the room. I recognize her stance. We’re going to spar. Determination stretches through my limbs, into my fingers. Claire might be taller and stronger, but I’m quick and scrappy. Plus, she has no clue that I have training, which means I have the element of surprise on my side. I take my stance and we circle a couple times.
She throws a few punches.
I dodge them—quick, but not as quick as I know I can be. The knuckle of her glove grazes my chin. I stumble back, then shake my head in an attempt to refocus. Something’s not right. I’m more sluggish than I should be, which must mean the medicine hasn’t run its full course. Claire has an unfair advantage. As if sensing my weakness, she throws a quick one-two jab. I block them both.
“You know some self-defense,” Sticks says, making brief eye contact with me in the reflection of the mirror.
Claire throws a left hook.
I lean back, then do a roundhouse kick. My heel nicks her chin.
Her eyes go wide.
And in her momentary shock, I go on the offensive with a series of punches. The effort has my lungs pumping. “Why”—I throw a jab—“am I so winded?”
“It’s in your head.”
I block two of Claire’s attacks, then take a knee to the ribs.
It knocks the wind out of me. I double over, clutching the pain in my side.
“Link figured out a way to keep the part of our brain that feels pain fully functional,” Sticks says.
“Why would he do that?” I block a blow, but take a shot in the nose. There’s a crack of sharp pain, then warmth trickling over my lips. When I wipe at it, my forearm comes away with a smear of red.
Sticks strolls a circle around us. “Because there’s value in knowing your limits.”
Beyond him, Jose wails on the punching bag.
“The absence of pain can make a person do some pretty idiotic things. It’s important that we know our limits, even here.”
I go on the attack, my sloppy movements stirring up more frustration. I’m panting like a dog. Sweating worse than I did yesterday on the treadmill. I try another roundhouse kick, grunting with the motion, but Claire dodges my heel by doing a backward flip that defies all sense of gravity. I stare, grudgingly impressed. Her attention slides to Cap, as if making sure he’s paying attention. When it’s clear that he is, she lands a strong shot in my stomach and another on my ear that makes my entire head ring.
A mass of heat builds inside my chest. I may not believe that I’m strong enough to warrant a Keeper, but I know I’m stronger than this. I curl my arm back and swing with all my might—an uppercut to end all uppercuts.
; Claire catches my fist. “Looks like Xena Warrior Princess forgot to eat her Wheaties.” Without warning, she sweeps my arm, flips me over her shoulder and slams me flat on my back—knocking the wind out of me for the second time. “No wonder Luka was so worried about you. You’re weak. You don’t stand a chance against the other side.” With a smirk, she turns her back to me and starts walking away.
I jump up to my feet and throw a kick.
She spins around and blocks it, but this time I’m the quicker one. I grab her wrist, twist her around, and pin her hand against the small of her back. “I’ve faced the other side before.”
“More than one at a time?” She spins out of my hold. “Because I don’t think you’ll ever be able to fight more than one at a time.”
I dodge one of her jabs. “Good thing I have Luka, then.”
“A lot of good he will do without Link there to bring him through the doorway.”
“I don’t need Link. I’ll take Luka through with me. I’ve done it before.”
Her eyes go wide.
“I can do it again.” I fake jab left, then throw a right hook. I anticipate the connection—my glove, her nose. But when I make the swipe, my fist hits nothing but empty air.
Claire is gone.
I spin around.
So is Sticks and Cap and Jose. All that’s left of him is the swinging punching bag. I’m standing alone in the center of the room and then suddenly, I’m not. My eyes are open on the dental chair. My ears no longer ring. My nose no longer throbs. I swipe at my upper lip, where the blood had pooled. There’s nothing but dry skin. I’m not even out of breath.
Everyone is staring at me as though I just did something incredibly odd. Or maybe amazing. I can’t tell.
“Why’d you all leave like that?” Link asks. “We were just getting started.”
Sticks cocks his head. “Did you say that you’ve taken him with you before?”
I look from him to Cap, confused. “Yes.”
“When?” Cap asks.
“When Luka and I were visiting in our dreams—”
Link’s eyes practically bug out of their sockets. “You and Luka visit in your dreams?”
It has me shrinking back a little. I look at Claire, who stares with her mouth ajar, and Jose, whose shock doesn’t manifest itself as overtly as the others, but whose quirked unibrow suggests at least a measure of disbelief. I return my attention to Link. “Is that a bad thing?”
“Explain what happens, when you visit each other.”
“I don’t know. It’s just something we do.” My cheeks burn. It’s a private matter, actually. I’d rather not go into details. “One of the times, when I felt that weird pulling sensation, I grabbed his hand and took him with me.”
The silence is deafening.
“Have you visited anybody else’s dreams?” Link asks.
Summer. Leela. I think that’s it. “A couple.”
“You’re a dream hopper.”
“A what?”
“You’re a Fighter,” Link says. “But you’re also a Linker. Like me.”
Chapter Eighteen
An Anomaly
Cap whispers something to Sticks, then tells me and Link to follow him. He doesn’t say where we’re going or why the discovery of my linking abilities put an end to my very first training session. The severe set of his mouth—his lips a thin, diagonal slash across his face—has me thinking it’s nowhere and nothing good. Cap stops in front of the room I first mistook for the dream dojo. He rolls inside and returns a moment later with Luka in tow, who looks from Link to me with a face clouded in confusion.
I shrug.
Cap leads us down the adult corridor—where Anna and Fray, Sticks and Non, Cap, and I’m assuming Gabe, if ever he sleeps, have their rooms. At the end of the hallway we reach a door. Cap motions for us to step inside. The room is the size of a large supply closet, just big enough to fit a cheap-looking card table and several metal fold-up chairs. To my astonishment, Gabe sits in one of them, as expressionless as ever.
I turn around. “Who’s guarding the door?”
“Sticks has it covered.” As Cap rolls to the table, I can’t seem to take my eyes off of his legs. It’s bizarre seeing the shriveled uselessness of them in his wheelchair compared to their sturdy strength in dream world. “Have a seat.”
Link obeys, wearing a Christmas-morning grin that never falters.
Luka, however, is not nearly as eager to oblige. “What’s going on?”
Cap rubs the stubble on his pouched cheek. “Non said you threw a force field on your second attempt.”
“So?”
“So it usually takes several days of intense training before a Shield can do something like that.” Cap clamps his hand over the back of the empty chair beside him and pulls it out. The legs scrape against the floor. Luka still doesn’t sit. “I’d like to know how you did it.”
I hold my breath, waiting for him to share the theory he shared with me while I washed lunch trays. Part of me wants him to share it. Cap witnessed my fighting. Claire owned me in that dojo, which means he can laugh Luka’s theory into its grave and we can all move on. But surprisingly, Luka folds his arms and shrugs. “Beginner’s luck, I guess.”
Cap narrows his eyes, then turns his attention to Link. “You will be taking over part of Tess’s training.”
Luka shifts. “Why?”
“Because Tess is turning out to be quite an anomaly.” Cap takes hold of the chair on his other side and pulls that one out too. “Please have a seat and I’ll fill you in.”
Luka sits. So do I.
“It appears she is both a Fighter and a Linker.”
“And all this time I thought I was unique.” Link shakes his head in mock disappointment.
“What will this training entail?” Luka asks.
“I’m afraid that’s top secret tricks of the linking trade.” Link winks at me so quickly, I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who sees it. “It’ll be fun.”
Luka’s green eyes flash. Somehow, I don’t think he agrees.
Cap folds his hands on top of the plastic table. “Gabe, I’d like you to take over Luka’s training.”
Wait—what? My attention darts to Gabe, who doesn’t even twitch at the news. “Why would he take over Luka’s training?”
“Because Gabe is a Keeper.” The words are like a glass of cold water to the face. Gabe is a Keeper?
“And since Luka is your Keeper, he’s the best man for the job.”
“You know?” How is that possible? Luka and I haven’t said a word about his dreams.
“I had my suspicions when the pair of you arrived. They grew when Non told me about Luka’s first training session. They grew again when I witnessed your training firsthand.”
“But you saw me spar Claire.” Cap’s growing suspicion makes about as much sense as sending little Rosie out on the streets of Detroit by herself. Claire came away from that match with nothing but a grazed chin. And what did I get? A bloody nose, a full body slam, and more knees and kicks to the ribs than I care to admit. “I was weak, not powerful.”
Cap sets his hands on the wheels of his chair, his silvery blue stare so invasive it’s as though he’s cutting me open and looking inside. Seeing for himself what I’m really made of. “My first lesson to you is this. When it comes to what’s true, how we feel matters very little.”
His lesson leaves me squinting, and not because I’m attempting to see better either. How we feel matters very little? What does that have to do with anything that’s happening right now?
Luka shakes his head slowly. “So that’s all it was—a suspicion?”
“Until Tess confirmed it several seconds ago, yes.”
Dirty trick. Dirty, dirty trick.
Cap claimed to know something, but really, he was bluffing. If I would have reacted differently, if I would have said anything other than you know, nothing would have been confirmed. Cap would be none the wiser.
I look down into my lap,
hating the implications. Everyone here seems to think that only the most powerful Fighters have Keepers and that Luka is my Keeper. But what if I’m the exception? Cap said so himself—I’m an anomaly. What if the reason I have a Keeper isn’t because I’m incredibly strong, but because I’m exceptionally weak?
“I know this is not what you had in mind.” Cap speaks the soft words to Gabe. “I hope you understand why it’s necessary.”
Gabe gives Cap an emotionless nod, and that’s that. He’s going to train Luka. As I look into his dull eyes, an incongruity surfaces. One that demands to be voiced. “If you’re a Keeper, where is your anima?”
For the first time since I’ve met Gabe’s acquaintance, something in his expression flickers, so fast I almost don’t recognize it for what it is—pain. A deep, dark, inescapable anguish that leaves his eyes more lifeless than before.
It’s all the answer I need.
Gabe’s anima is dead.
*
I stare morosely at my tray—instant mashed potatoes, steamed corn, and two slices of what I suspect to be canned ham. Yum. When the impromptu meeting ended, Luka asked to speak with Cap privately. I wanted to stay too. Whatever he had to say to Cap, I should be able to hear. But Luka didn’t invite me, and Gabe ushered me out of the room like a troublesome delinquent. So now I’m here in the cafeteria all by myself, the object of curiosity.
They all must know I’m a Linker. Surely Jose or Claire told everyone already. This place is like a condensed version of high school and we all know how fast word travels there. How long before they all find out that Luka is my Keeper? I stab a piece of ham and twist it into my potatoes. I hate that Luka didn’t include me in his conversation with Cap. I hate that even here, in this place, I am Tess the Freak once again. The weight of it all perches on my shoulders like a heavy bird with sharp talons that doesn’t release its grip, not even when a chair scoots out beside me.
I look up to find Link.
“You’re really dragging down the mood in here.”
He’s teasing. I know this. But still, I have to bite back a sarcastic apology.
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