by Tracey Ward
“It’s your worst fear, right?” he asks softly. Another tree disappears. “The void.”
“Yeah. It always has been.”
“It’s what kept you from trying to affect the dreams. It’s what’s held you back with Slipping. The fear.”
“Probably, yeah. But—” The entire hillside vanishes. “What’s happening? What are you doing?”
He turns to face me, his hand holding mine firmly. His face is gentle, his tone coaxing. “This is your next challenge. This is your Jabberwock.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You have to overcome your worst fears in order to totally control your power. It’s what I did with the Jabberwock. It’s what you have to do now.” Another tree gone. “Try to stop me.”
“Stop you from what? Nick, you’re freaking me out.”
“Try to stop me from erasing everything here.”
“What?!” I cry incredulously. “Why would you do that?”
“To free you from your fears. To force you to take control.”
“How will scaring the crap out of me help me have control?”
“Because you have to overcome your fear to keep the void away. Either that or you have to face the void head on.”
The lake is shrinking. It’s collapsing in on itself, leaving an inky black nothing behind it.
“Nick, stop it!”
“No.”
“Why?” I whimper.
“I know you can do this. You altered the black stone, you just altered the white, you created the sheep once. You know you can change the dreams without disappearing, which means you can Slip without disappearing too. You don’t need me to help you every time. You don’t have to be afraid of this.”
“But I am.”
“And you’ll never master it unless you overcome that. Think of how powerful you could be, Alex. You’re stronger than Liam. Stronger than they ever gave you credit for. We both are. We can create life from nothing. We can alter the rules to make them fit our needs. We can take on any of their soldiers, because no one is even close to operating on the same level we are.”
“You mean the level you’re on. I’m nowhere near where you are. I’m not ready for this,” I remind him breathlessly. The lake is almost gone. The sky is beginning to fade to gray. “Nick, stop it!”
“No. You can be on this level. You should be. You have the power. Use it. Stop me.”
I try. I reach desperately for the water and try to drag it back out to its full size. It doesn’t go. I try to brighten the sky, to bring back the lovely pinks and yellows of the sunrise. It fades to a deep charcoal. I try to pull my hand from Nick’s to run from the dock back to safety, but he holds me tightly.
“I can’t,” I moan, turning my pleading eyes to his. “Don’t do this. You have no idea how scared I am of this. Please, please, please stop.”
“I’m not doing this to hurt you,” he says gently. “I’m doing it to help you. I can’t always be there to protect you.”
“You don’t have to be. I can take care of myself.”
“Not against what we’re going to face. Not with the weak grasp on your abilities that you have now. You can be stronger than any of them, but not until you get over the fear. You have to let it go.”
“You have to let me go!” I cry, pulling against him roughly.
He holds on tight, his grip like a vise.
The lake is gone. We’re standing on the dock over a black pool of nothing, and my heart has left my chest to live in my throat, where it pounds painful and erratic. Tears stream down my face as the sky darkens.
“No, no, no, no,” I moan.
“Stop me.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
There’s barely a sliver of light left. Nick’s face is cast in harsh shadows, blurred and mutated by my tears. I don’t recognize him anymore. I don’t know this person.
“This is horrifying,” I tell him shakily.
My hand aches where he’s holding onto me.
“Alex, it’s okay.”
“Not what you’re doing! It’s absolutely not okay!”
“You have to stay calm. You can’t control it if you’re panicking.”
“Too late!”
“You can get it together. You have to.”
The last light snuffs out.
I’m hyperventilating. Here in the dark in my nightmare of nightmares, the only thing keeping me sane is the fact that he’s still holding my hand. I’m still anchored to him and his strength.
“It’s the only way,” he assures me calmly.
“We’ll find another way!”
“We’ve tried everything.”
“So now this?” I squeak out, my throat collapsing in on itself. “Now you’re going to throw me out into the nothing and hope I can handle it? I can’t! I never have!”
“Yes, you have. You’ve lived in it your whole life. You’ve moved through it like it was easiest thing in the world because, Alex, for you it is. Remember that.”
His grip loosens on my hand. This is it: he’s leaving me here alone.
“I’ll never forgive you for this,” I whisper brokenly.
His hand flexes, tightening for just a split second, and I know I’ve struck a chord.
He takes a deep breath, then says deeply, “I hope you’re wrong.”
“I hope you’re right.”
His hand opens.
I’m alone.
My stomach is in knots that rise into my throat and choke off the air to my lungs. Every part of me is screaming, but I clamp my mouth shut and I keep it inside. I swallow it down until it’s bitter bile in my stomach that burns like rage in my veins.
I’m afraid and I’m angry. So, so angry. Blood rushes through my ears as my body panics and struggles to take in my surroundings. I try to breathe again but that’s over—I can’t manage living anymore. All I’m worried about now is not exploding or disappearing into this nothing. If I’m not careful, I could become nothing. I could be a burnt-out star in the cold black ocean of space. I could be a snuffed candle in an abandoned window, my vigil over. My memory forgotten. I could be—
An idiot.
I could be a complete idiot who stands here shaking in the shallows of nothing or I could get it together, find my way out of here, and punch Nick in his stupid, smug face for playing God with my biggest and craziest fears. I’ll kill him. I will do it with my bare hands and I won’t make it fast.
But first I have to get out of here.
How do you leave a room with no door? You make one, that’s how. That’s all I need to do. Simple.
So why can’t I do it?
Okay, new plan. No door. How would Nick get out? He would… be a rat bastard and leave me here in the nothing! What if he can’t find me again? What if I’m already done for? How long have I been here? Minutes? Hours? Years?
As the panic rises again, so does my blood pressure. The rushing is back in my ears, and it’s so strong I want to clamp my hands down over them to make it stop. I’m about to drop to my knees and cradle my suddenly aching head in my hands when I notice the rhythm. It’s not a rushing, not really. It’s a roaring—in and out.
Like an ocean.
I focus on it as hard as I can, the idea of it creating impressions of light and color in the darkness, like when the sun burns through your closed eyelids. I struggle to make it take shape—anything to fill the emptiness around me. Nothing definite forms, but the sound becomes more distinct. It gains strength until I can feel it all around me. It’s closing in on me. It’s exactly as Nick described it.
It’s the end of the dream.
I reach out with my hands and touch nothing but air. Nothing but nothing. I growl in frustration before taking a slow, deep breath. Then I reach out with my mind. It’s harder to do than you’d think. It’s like trying to piece together a jigsaw puzzle with your feet—you feel foolish, you probably look it, and you’re pretty sure you’ll never get it done.
&nbs
p; Right up until you do. Right up until the strange, surreal moment when you feel something take hold in your gut—right in your core—and you’re the Master of the freakin’ Universe!
It’s heady—this feeling. It’s strange and powerful, something wild and exciting that courses through my veins and shoves aside the anger and fear until there’s nothing left but pure adrenaline mixed with an eerie calm. Like I just dosed myself with Speed and Valium at the same time. It’s easy after that, pulling the tide in and wrapping it around me gentle as a mother swaddling a baby.
In a matter of seconds, my worst nightmare—the most horrible fear I’ve ever had to face—is over.
∞
I wake up to find myself lying in bed beside Nick, his body only a few inches from mine. What felt like light-years separating us in the dream was hardly anything—barely more than nothing.
I want so many things right then. I want to cry, I want to shout, I want to scream, I want to kiss him, hug him, kill him, thank him because as jacked up as that whole situation was, I did it. I existed in The Void and I found my way out. I survived it. I slew my Jabberwocky.
But I’m a confused ball of crazed energy with nowhere to go. The thrill of the tide, the success, the power of controlling the dream—it’s all still in me making me feel so much. Too much. This is what Nick feels all the time, and it’s such the opposite of what I’m used to that I feel sick.
My stomach hurts as my fists clench.
Nick rolls over, his eyes opening and a proud smile forming on his lips.
I punch him in the face.
Chapter Seventeen
Nick
My left eye explodes in color and pain. On instinct I grab Alex by the wrist and then spin her around until I have her pinned down on the bed.
“Jesus, Alex, are you crazy?” I demand.
Her chest is heaving. I can see her blood pounding through the vein in her neck that’s flushed red with either anger or heat. Her skin feels cool but her body is on overdrive.
“Let me go,” she insists roughly.
I release her, immediately jumping back off the bed, just in case she plans on attacking me again.
She doesn’t. She runs in the opposite direction—right out the door and into the night.
I swipe my hand over my mouth, uttering a curse into my palm.
“What the hell just happened?” Brody asks, looking between me and the open door.
I shake my head angrily. “I don’t know.”
“Really?” Campbell asks, not believing it for a second.
“I might have pushed her too far.”
“With what?”
“We were in a dream together. I wanted her to get over her fears, so I challenged her. It didn’t go well.”
“No shit,” Brody growls. “She was crying in her sleep. Campbell and I were just about to wake her up when she bolted up and threw a punch at you.”
“She overreacted. I was only trying to help her, and she did it. She’s fine. She found the power to bring herself out. She’s been inside her nightmare and she came out of it on her own.”
My defense is met with silence, something that makes me bristle with annoyance. Who I’m annoyed at, though, isn’t exactly clear.
“What?” I demand.
“You know who my favorite villains are?” Campbell responds amiably. “The ones who don’t know they’re villains. They think they’re heroes, but their god complex has taken them so far off the rails they can’t see how crazy they are. They start out with these noble goals but they blur the lines between right and wrong to the point that even the hero can’t tell if they’re good or evil anymore. Neither can the audience.”
“What are you saying? You think I’m a villain?”
“You just emotionally abused the woman you love in the name of power. What do you think you are?”
An asshole, no doubt about it. But does that make me a villain? I want to say no. I want to think that he’s wrong and being dramatic like Alex, but at some point you have to stop wondering what’s wrong with everyone else and acknowledge that maybe the problem isn’t them.
Maybe it’s you.
Maybe it’s me. Me as I am, as I always knew I someday would be.
Unfeeling.
Inhuman.
A monster.
The coward in the cave.
Drip…drip…drip.
I’ve lost that part of me, that fear, that hate, that self-loathing. I never thought I’d miss it, but as I stop to think about what I’ve done, as Campbell puts that mirror in my face that the cave always did, I can’t believe I went that far. That I was that cruel to Alex, of all people.
“What do I do?” I ask Campbell gruffly, choking on my remorse. My disgust. “Should I go after her?”
“Depends on what you’re planning to say.”
“I was going to start with ‘I’m sorry.’”
“Worth a shot. Worst case scenario is she punches you again.”
“Or never speaks to me again.”
“I don’t see that as a bad thing.”
When I go outside I find her instantly. She didn’t go far. She’s sitting on the lowered tailgate of the truck, her eyes focused up on the star-filled sky.
I stop behind her, not sitting down. “I’m sorry.”
“Good.”
“Can I sit down?”
“When have you ever needed permission?”
“Alex—”
Her head snaps around, her eyes falling watery and heavy on mine. Tears are streaking her cheeks. They take hold of me, drag me under, and drown me in the agony of knowing I’m the cause.
“Why?” she whispers fiercely. “Why would you do that?”
“Because I’m a jerk.”
She scoffs, turning back toward road. “Don’t hide behind that. You don’t get to do that anymore. You’re better than that.”
“Obviously not.”
“Sit down.”
I hesitate, surprised by the invitation. “Are you sure?”
“Sit your ass down, Carver.”
I do as I’m told.
“You’re losing it,” she tells me bluntly.
“I know.”
“What’s happening with you?”
“I don’t know.”
“I do.”
“Are you going to enlighten me?”
“Are you going to listen to a quivering little thing like me?”
I roll my shoulders, fighting the tension in them. “I know what you’re going to say. Campbell said it too.”
“What did he say?”
“He said I think I’m a hero but I’m really a psycho.”
“I don’t think you’re a psycho,” she says, her tone softening slightly.
“I might be misquoting him.”
“He’s not wrong, though. You think you’re this big hero, that you can take on anyone or anything and nothing is above you. You’re getting out of control.”
“Ha,” I chuckle, picking at the peeling paint of the truck bed. “That’s great.”
“What?” she snaps. “What’s funny about this?”
“Nothing. It’s ironic is what it is. Here I thought I was totally in control and teaching you how to be in control too, but according to everyone else I’m spiraling out.”
She pauses before asking quietly, “What are you going to do about it?”
I have no idea.
“Say I’m sorry again?” I ask carefully.
I’m relieved when she snickers. “You’ve said it once. We’re good.”
“I really am sorry.”
She scoots closer to wrap her arms around one of mine, leaning her head on my shoulder. “Stop saying that.”
“Gladly.”
“Never do anything like that again, though,” she warns, her voice turning momentarily hard. “And you’ll just have to accept the fact that I’m going to be angry at you for a while. A long while.”
“Okay.”
“It was a dick move.”
“With what?”
“Staying grounded. Humble. Remembering right from wrong.”
“You know right from wrong,” she says dismissively.
“Not like I should. Not like I want to.” I take one of her hands off my arm and thread my fingers with hers. “I need you to keep me on course.”
“To world domination?”
I hesitate. “Are we being funny or are you serious?”
“The fact that you have to ask…”
“Proves how bad I am, I know,” I admit reluctantly. “Do you see why I need you? I’m turning into the Joker over here.”
“No you’re not. You’re Batman,” she whispers. “Cara and I always thought so.”
“If she said so, then okay, I’ll be Batman. But even he needed someone to keep him on course now and then.”
“I’ll be your Alfred,” she swears solemnly.
I chuckle, trying not to shake her body resting on mine. “This is a very sexy arrangement we’re building.”
“I make indentured servitude look good.”
I squeeze her hand, loving the warm feeling of her skin against mine. Of the forgiveness she’s giving me for the unforgiveable thing I’ve done. Of the unconditional everything about Alex. “You make everything look good.”
Chapter Eighteen
Nick
“Hawkeye and Black Widow to base. Over,” Campbell calls out over the phone.
I groan, bringing it to my mouth. “I thought we agreed no code names.”
“I never agreed to that. Over.”
Alex leans toward the phone. “You’re not on a walkie, genius. You’re on speaker on a cell phone. Stop saying ‘over.’”
“You’re just bitter because you hate your codenames…Over.”
“I don’t even know what mine means! Nightcrawler? Is that a bug?”
“It’s better than Aqualad,” I grumble.
“Nightcrawler can teleport,” Campbell explains to Alex. “It makes perfect sense for you. Over.”
“What I want to know is why I’m not Hawkeye?” Brody demands. “I’m the sniper, not you.”