“I couldn’t. We were in danger.” His blue eyes shown with earnestness. “We came as soon as we could.”
She pushed his face toward the broken hull of the other ship. When I call, you come.
“I tried.”
You did not try hard enough. She shimmy-shimmered toward the rail in four blips.
The crew scattered out of her way, gaping at her with their mouths open. They reached out, but fell short of touching her, glancing at one another as they stepped further away.
The squid warriors came.
Crap. “What happened to the protections? How were they able to find her, this ship?”
Kelsi shifted toward the fallen ship, her hands melting into the rail, becoming one with it. Her black gaze landed on me. She followed you.
“That’s not possible.” I pointed to the hull. “I’ve never seen that ship before. And we weren’t even close to this location when it was attacked.”
Kelsi closed her eyes.
The world spun around us, the sea twisting. The winds tore at our clothes and hair as the waves towered over us like walls of a powerful whirlpool. We all grabbed for anything to hold onto as the force of the wind and water yanked us from our feet.
The winds died, leaving the air heavy and still. The water calmed and gracefully dropped with a bare splash, revealing a different shore. A loud, chest-vibrating horn sounded.
I swallowed.
The hull of the broken ship barely breached the ocean’s surface.
She followed you.
“We didn’t see this ship.”
Her name was Aiya, and your warrior followed this. Kelsi spun and threw something at me.
I caught it before it hit my face, ducking its trajectory. I opened my palm and groaned. A claw.
Bo took it from me. He tossed it a couple of times in quick succession and focused on Kelsi. “I don’t understand.”
I did. I glared at the claw he held. “Candi has the Who of one ship. She knows how to track the other dream killers now.”
He held the claw between his forefinger and thumb, disgust and shame crisscrossing his face.
“There is no safe place for you anymore.”
THE CORNERS OF BO’S eyes drooped as he studied the claw. “Kelsi, what do we do?”
Tears trailed down her cheeks as she walked toward her captain in that strange gait of hers. When I call, you come.
“If I can.” Bo reached out, hesitated, and then grabbed her hand. “If I had the ability to follow your Who, I would have led even worse people to you. Do you have any idea what the runners would do to you? I met one. They’re scary.”
She blinked furiously. What are runners?
“They work for the elders.”
My people.
“No,” Bo said earnestly. “The elders are bad. They’re collecting people who are diff—”
“The elders,” I interrupted, “were the people you brought here from the stars, that other planet?”
Kelsi nodded.
Well, finally, one puzzle piece made sense. I scratched my lip. “They’re collecting Dreamlanders, Kelsi, anyone who’s different.”
They are working to keep her contained.
“I’m aware of that, but what do you think they’d do if we led them straight to you?”
It is my responsibility to help them. A small smile graced her pale, brown lips. If they find us, then we can be of service again.
“And what happens to your crew?” I gestured to the men and women around us. “To your captain?”
Her black eyes lit up. They will serve with me.
“The people the elders collect are never seen again. We don’t know what they’re doing to them.” Except, I’d met one who’d been in the service of the elders.
Kelsi raised her chin.
I interrupted whatever she might say. “People change. Your elders aren’t the same anymore. Dreamland is altering herself to suit her own designs. We can’t assume anything—”
But—
“And until we know a little more, then we protect our own. Kelsi!”
She clenched her fists, glaring up at me.
“We protect our own.”
She turned her glare to Bo. What happens the next time I call and you’re helping him?
Bo lowered his chin, his lips flat.
She was a ship, sure, but she cared about people, her people. I had to try something. I couldn’t do this without her, without Bo. “There are little kids out there, Kelsi, children who need our help.”
She dug her nails into her opposite arm. While you were helping your children, my sister was destroyed.
Bo flinched, then cleared his throat. “I can’t help.”
I bit off the words I wanted to say, and focused on the sails hanging limp in the dead air. The basher’s horn blew again.
“My first loyalty is to my ship and my crew. If I could help you, I would, but—”
“I understand.” A cold knot of disappointment seeped through my gut. I was a fool. Who had told me to help those dreamers in the first place? Why had I volunteered? Because I thought I was capable? Well, if I were, I’d just have to find another way, or admit I wasn’t the savior those kids needed. “Can you just take me to Zoe? I need to make sure she’s okay. After that—”
Zoe?
I rounded on Kelsi. “Yes. The little girl who’s out there right now with nothing but a bunch of kids looking out for her. Do you have any idea what’s trying to kill her, or worse? The dreamplanes are murdering dreamers. The sea could overtake her soul. If she fell through a plane, she could be lost to the dreamweb.”
Kelsi took a blipping step backward, her arms unfurling.
I advanced, my shoulders burning with frustrated rage. “And those are the little things. They’re starving. They’re away from their homes and their families. They’re trapped on a world they don’t belong in. And if the runners or the elders were to discover their existence, those kids would have even more enemies, more disasters they have to survive. So, yes. Zoe! I need to get back to my dreamer.”
Kelsi swallowed and opened her hands. She helped Fandora, and my soul was touched by hers. I will not abandon her.
I stalked away. “Make up your mind.”
“River.”
I slashed the air. “I’m tired, Bo. I don’t know what to do with them. The more I learn, the bigger everything—”
He gripped my shoulders and shook me.
I raised my face to the sky. I was so tired and didn’t know what to do. When he didn’t say anything, I lowered my head, meeting his gaze.
He let me go. “We’ll figure something out. Okay? Kelsi, can you take us to Zoe?”
She frowned, raising her chin.
He took in a deep breath. “Kelsi.” He licked his lips and gestured in my direction. “Please. Then you can leave Riv and Zo behind, and we can save your sisters as we have for so long.”
A frown flickered between her brows as she glanced up at me.
I didn’t know what else to say. She had her own priorities. Without her and Bo, I wasn’t sure how I could help those kids. For cracking dreams’ sake, I didn’t know how to help them in any case, or if I was even the best person for it.
Obviously, I wasn’t. I wasn’t much of anything. Ideas didn’t count for anything if I couldn’t make them happen. Maybe the best thing I could do for them was to find someone else to help them.
The sea didn’t change, but the landscape did. The blow-horn went silent in mid wail. A wild, violet hillside stretched before us. A grove of white-barked trees with flowing, red-and-gold leaves waved on the crest of three wide hills, their voices ebbing and flowing with the tides.
I couldn’t see Zoe though. Couldn’t see any of the kids. I knew the location. We were in another one of Rulak’s favorite spots. He would go there when we needed to hide. It was between the Burbs, but strangely unattached to the rest of Dreamland.
“Zoe’s here?” Before Kelsi could answer, I felt my dreamer’s empa
thic signature ping my heart with a cord of curiosity. I smiled and answered, sending her a response of happiness that I’d found her.
Bo cuffed my neck and grinned.
I dodged him, glancing at Kelsi. “Well, we’re here. You’d better be off, then. Right?” I didn’t give either of them much more of a chance. I latched onto Zoe’s empathic pull tied to the feel of the pink sands beach, and teleported.
My feet touched the sands as time ticked backward, then rolled forward again. A large camp, Rulak’s entire caravan, sprawled along the thin beach and onto the rolling, violet hillscape. No one walked among the wagons. It seemed completely deserted.
I took a step forward.
The air popped, and Kelsi and Bo appeared next to me.
I glared at Kelsi with a confused frown. “I thought you had to leave.”
She sent me a dark glance out of the corner of her eye, and walked with a blipping purpose toward the encampment.
Bo kept pace with me. “Why couldn’t we see them from the shore?”
“Different time spaces.” I studied the encampment for movement. Nothing.
“You’re talking about time travel.”
“Not really.” I’d watched enough on the Discovery Channel while surfing people’s dreams to know what real time travel was. In Dreamland, in order to get anywhere, you had to walk through time. It was just how this universe worked, how it was folded together.
Bo let out a long breath. “If we have the power to travel through time, then why don’t we go back and save that ship?”
“I don’t know. Why don’t you ask the ship who won’t take you?” It was a valid question.
He canted his jaw to the side and nodded. “Where is everyone?”
We took another step and the air shimmered, shifting from a blazing ice blue to a raging red.
The people of the caravan suddenly appeared as if they’d been there the entire time.
Oh, the time zones of Dreamland.
Punka sat on the bottom step to his father’s blue wagon restringing his fiddle.
Karlotta wrung out a sock, pausing in the motion of putting it on the line.
Wiflin froze as he was about to toss out a loaf of bread, his eyes on me.
Well, me, Bo and—wait. Where was Kelsi? I turned and saw her frozen just two steps behind us. I reached out for her.
Wadji stepped up to me and put his hand on my arm.
I pulled back. “What are you doing here?”
Concern laced his lightning-filled eyes. “Obtaining provisions for the children. Where did you go? How did you find us?”
Kids screeched in the distance, further up the hills.
“Kelsi followed Zoe’s Who.”
“Ah,” he said with a smile. “You’ve met the ship. That is good news. And the runner tracking you?”
Why did talking to him always feel like I was on the butt end of a mystery? “How do you know about that?”
His gaze flickered to Bo and back to me. “Much has happened.” He spun, moving deeper into the caravan’s circle.
“We can’t just leave her there.”
“When you go, it will be as if you never left her.”
It suddenly made sense. “This is a frozen moment in time.”
Everyone returned to their chores.
Wadji stopped at Rulak’s wagon, and pounded on the gold inlaid door. He glanced at me and clasped his hands behind his back
The wagon jostled from side to side before the door opened. “Well comes on, then. I can’ts wait all day.”
Wadji walked up the stairs. I followed, moving to the side to allow Bo room to join us.
Rulak’s wagon was crammed with stuff. Two large couches dominated the area to the right. Red wall hangings hung from the ceiling, collecting on the edges of chairs like spider webs. A large, gold chandelier hung between the two couches.
He stood with one hip propped against a black, leather chair. “Why is you here?”
How could he ask that? “I followed Zoe’s Who.”
“You is not the best for her and hers.”
I shot Wadji a look of askance, silently demanding to know if he agreed.
He frowned and stared at the floor.
I faced Rulak. “Are you what’s best for them?”
The caravan leader shook his head. “We has a plan what’s to take them to a dustman. That’s their only ways back.”
“That sounds like a great idea, but how are you going to get in touch with a dustman? You work the Burbs. The planes are controlled.”
“It’s been decided, River. We be working with someones the Wadji-saun knows.”
“We have this—”
A pounding thundered into the wide space.
Rulak peered around me to see the door as it opened.
I turned. A short man with a green, floppy hat over his dark, curly hair stood just outside it. “Rulak.”
“Jeomy. What brings your caravan to the likes of mine?”
The little man glanced at the rest of us before landing his gaze back on Rulak. “Best you listens. Dreamland’s gone and exploded, fair as quick. She sure be with the needing of your help.”
“We has issues of our own.”
Jeomy’s dark, still gaze unsettled me. “Not anymore. The elders has made their move.”
I STRAIGHTENED FROM my slouch. “What do you mean?”
“Who be’s you?”
I opened my mouth to answer.
Rulak put his hand on my arm. “He be’s with me.”
Jeomy met Rulak’s gaze squarely then tipped his head to the side. “So he be’s one of them.”
“He be’s one of us.”
“As you say, but we never with the have your faith.”
“It’s not about faith, Jeomy.”
The little man turned and headed back out the door. “Does he with the has a means of leaving?”
“I have no clue what they’re saying,” Bo muttered. “Listening to them gives me a headache.”
I waved him off. “We do. Master Jeomy, what’s going on?”
Jeomy took the steps out of the wagon one at a time, his arms lifting with each step down due to his short stride. “Because the sickness takes what’s strongest and different first.”
I followed him out the wagon. A cool breeze shot down my back, hitting the sweat between my shoulder blades. I hadn’t even realized it’d been so hot in there. “What sickness?”
He spun back around, but didn’t look at me. His eyes lit on someone behind me.
Bo stood beside me.
“It be with the happening.” Jeomy’s large hands fell to his sides.
“It’s early,” Rulak grumbled, the wagon creaking as he exited.
“Who cares? It be with the here now. All we’s can do is follow our plan. We wills not be erased. Not again.”
“The elders has a plan, they does.”
How did the travelers know what was going to happen, that Dreamland would be shifting, changing, that they would be erased? What was so special about them?
Jeomy took a step forward, jamming the air in front of him with a thick finger. “We has a chance to act, but with the now. In the later, and it’ll be too late. Too late. Might be already with the talking and the standing.”
I heard Rulak’s deep breath. “What does you need us to do?”
“Find what people you can what’s not infected with the sickness, and takes them away, someplace safe. Those be sick, find my Har-boo.”
Rulak stopped beside me. “I has a place.”
“Big with the good, but keeps it to yourself. Travelers be safe from the sick. But them’s?” Jeomy shook his head.
“Do we have a Place for your Harley?”
“We will,” Jeomy said. “I’ll sends someone with it.”
“Where does you need us first?”
“Spinner’s Delta. They’s been hit the first, but not the hardest.”
“Where’s you be?”
Jeomy glared at the ground. “I
be’s with the creators in the Kinship. They be crazed with the sickness.”
“Your niece. Is Roshni safe?”
“Don’t knows. Can’t be with the finding her. Dives is worried with the sick.”
Rulak ground his jaw and clenched his fists. “Jeomy, the dragonman has come back.”
Jeomy paused as he turned away. “Well, then, I guesses we be right on time then.” The little man took three steps and disappeared.
I faced Rulak. “What’s going on?”
He glanced at the sky, then pounded on his wagon, raising his voice. “Get out here! Everyone, get out here!”
Bo glanced at me, then scoured the gathering troupe.
They talked in hushed tones. Mech joined the group on the far side, but stayed on the outskirts.
Rulak raised his fist.
Everyone quieted.
Someone wiggled through the crowd. A pounding of wild excitement pummeled me before I saw Zoe pop out between two burly men’s arms. She pushed her way through them and launched herself at me.
I wrapped my arm around her slim shoulders, burying her head in my chest as I focused my attention on the caravan leader. I couldn’t help notice that every nerve in my body suddenly relaxed with her presence.
“The call has come. We goes now to the place we secured.”
A few people winced. Punka frowned at the ground. Mech closed his eyes and raised his face to the sky.
“Mam Dika,” Rulak continued, “you be’s the first to go to the location. Sets up the camp and be ready-like for the refugees.”
“Refugees?” I asked. “What’s going on?”
No one paid attention to me.
“Master Pitivo, we needs to ensure the safety. That must with the be our first priority.”
The older man nodded.
“Master Mech—”
I jerked. Master? So they’d accepted him as part of the caravan? Did that mean he had a wagon, a wife?
“—we needs a mechanic’s station. Bringings we be with the sick.”
My old friend nodded once.
“Captain Bo.”
Bo looked at me, his lips pulled down, before turning his attention to the leader. “At your service.”
“Good. We may be with the needing of your ship.”
“If she’s willing, we will.”
Dream Killers - Complete Season 1 (The Dream Killers Book 3) Page 19