Mania

by J. R. Johansson

  By the time I sat down in the sand in Veronica’s beach dream, it took all my self-control not to lead the dream down a destructive path. I felt so trapped it was suffocating. I was running out of time. By tomorrow morning, I’d be down to seven days left. How would one week ever be enough to sort through this puzzle, especially with so many parts still missing? Would Dad’s paranoia and this scavenger hunt he’d put me on end up costing me the only family I had left?

  But what other option did I have than to keep trying? I couldn’t—and wouldn’t—give Eclipse to Cooper. Without another alternative to at least offer him, how could I convince Cooper to hand over Parker, who was essentially the only leverage he had?

  And I couldn’t even try to come up with a different plan for rescuing Parker because he’d refused to tell me where he was. He’d gotten into the terrible habit of trying to protect me lately—didn’t he know it was interfering with my job of protecting him? I was the big brother here … this was what I was supposed to do.

  When I finally woke up the next morning, I’d spent the entire night digging through Veronica’s mind and my brain felt like mush. The healing Libby had done in my mind two days before had been thoroughly undone … and I’d found no new clues to help us set Parker free.

  Groaning, I rolled over in my motel bed and found myself face to face with Finn. He was snoring with such force that it moved my hair off my forehead.

  I sat up straight and moved quietly toward the door. Still feeling mildly surprised at how Libby had only maintained a stony silence about having to share a bed with Chloe, I looked over and saw that not only was Libby the only one in the bed, but Chloe’s side was still made up.

  Chloe hadn’t slept there.

  Rubbing my hand against the stubble on my face, I tried to think where else Chloe could’ve gone. Last night, around the time everyone else went to bed, she’d said she wanted to go for a walk to calm her mind. If she’d done as planned and entered Ruby’s dreams, then she must’ve laid down somewhere.

  Or else she gave up and decided to leave us completely.

  Swearing under my breath, I didn’t even stop to put on my shoes before racing silently out the door. If Chloe had decided to turn on us now and go back to the Takers to tell them what we were doing …

  Our van was still parked in the same spot, so at least she hadn’t left us here with no vehicle. I scrambled across the rocky parking lot, ignoring the stabbing pains on the bottoms of my bare feet. When I got to the van I threw the back door open to see if Chloe had stolen any of our supplies.

  Instead of supplies, I found Chloe herself sleeping in the back, shivering under the corner of one thin blanket.

  She sat straight up when the door flew open and gave a startled yell before kicking me hard in the chest. The impact knocked me onto the gravel and scraped up my hands. She was on her hands and knees in an instant, looking out of the van at me with wide eyes—frightened eyes.

  “Jack?” she whispered, then pulled her sandals onto her feet and jumped out. She extended a hand to help me up. “What are you doing out here?”

  “Me?” I tried to get the rocks off my hands by brushing them against my jeans, but I winced as it only pushed some of the jagged pieces farther into the torn-up skin on my palms. “What are you doing out here?”

  Chloe looked at me like I was crazy. “Um, I was sleeping. Now it’s your turn.”

  I looked away, wishing I could be as capable of change as the girl in front of me appeared to be. I was an idiot and felt incredibly guilty about how quickly I’d jumped to the conclusion that she’d betrayed us. “Checking on our supplies,” I mumbled.

  Both her eyebrows shot up as she looked me up and down. “In your sweats, with no shoes on … before anyone else is even awake?”

  I didn’t meet her eyes as I clambered to my feet without any assistance. She didn’t ask any more questions, but the silence between us felt awkward and heavy.

  “Come on. Let me grab the first aid kit and help clean you up.”

  I shook my head. “I can do thi—”

  “Shut up.”

  She grabbed the first aid kit from the front of the van and spread it across her lap, working in silence. I watched her fingers move deftly across my hand. She cleaned out the scratches, then put on ointment and a clean bandage. She’d obviously done this before.

  Her face was hidden behind her hair as she bent low over my other hand. When I lifted her chin, her cheeks were streaked with tears and her gray eyes were filled with raw pain.

  “Chloe … ” I could see in her eyes that she knew what I’d been thinking. It was still hard for me to believe that doubts or suspicions from me could hurt her so much. But I owed her more than this. She deserved better than me.

  “I s-slept out here because Libby obviously doesn’t want me in the bed—in the room—in her life.” She wiped the tears roughly from her cheeks like she was furious at them for even existing, but it did little good. More fell immediately to replace them. “My family hates me. Libby hates me … and no matter how much I try with you, you—you will never—”

  She shook her head hard and pulled back until my hand fell away from her face, then pushed my other bandaged hand off of her lap. She turned and started packing her few belongings into a plastic bag.

  I cleared my throat and tried to find something, anything, to say that would get us back on track. “My search last night failed,” I told her, forcing myself not to wince at a jolt of pain in my palms. “The second Veronica doesn’t know the ingredients either. I’m not sure why Dad sent me here.”

  “You need to try Ruby,” Chloe whispered. She spoke the words fast and furious, her back to me, her voice choked off and shaky.

  “What?” All I wanted was for her to stop—stop moving, stop being angry, stop pushing me away.

  “I think Ruby has your answer,” she muttered, still not looking at me. “When I took her over last night, I found out your dad did more than just spend time with her—he babysat her almost every day for six months. My guess is he buried the ingredient in her dreams.”

  Picturing Dad as a babysitter threw me, but I’d seen him pretend to be stranger things when he had a reason. And that meant there was a reason. Chloe was right. I had to enter Ruby’s dreams.

  Relieved to have a plan, I focused again on how angry she seemed and how much that scared me. The thought of her leaving me now, with my time to save Parker rapidly disappearing … her Taker abilities had helped us. There was no arguing that. But just her being here had helped me in a completely different way—and the thought of trying to save my brother without her felt impossible.

  In fact, even though I’d tried to send her away more than once, her leaving now was the last thing I wanted.

  “Stop, Chloe.” I reached out and gingerly put my bandaged hands on her shoulders. She froze but didn’t turn around.

  “Why?” Her voice cracked with emotion, and she waited.

  I didn’t know what to say or how to say it. All I knew was that I had to convince her to stay.

  “I can’t figure you out,” I growled, finally saying the only words I knew were true. Dropping my hands, I let my frustration show. “What do you want from me? You just said, ‘You’ll never.’ What will I ‘never’ do?”

  She shifted around until she was looking straight at me. All her toughness was gone and she looked broken down, completely vulnerable. “You’ll never see me as anything but the daughter of Steve Campbell.”

  I flinched when she said his name, and I could see immediately that it only confirmed for her what she was saying. She recoiled, packing things into her bag even more forcefully. But I reached out again to stop her and she pivoted to face me.

  Her eyes were on me, pain written plainly for me to see. I knew she was right; I couldn’t ever get past what her dad did. But I didn’t blame her for that. Did I? I believed she’d bee
n trying to help us—she’d already helped more than I ever expected she could. But I’d never told her I appreciated it … never thanked her. My chest ached as I realized I hadn’t treated her much differently than I might have if I’d thought she was exactly like her father.

  Reaching out, I brushed the tips of my fingers gently across her dark lashes. She froze. I knocked one teardrop off at a time, onto the back of my hand, until they’d all been set free. She looked at me with those big gray eyes, and I really saw her. The fierce determination that usually hid her pain, the pure loyalty that I’d done nothing but doubt and question, the absolute exhaustion that she carried so much better than any Watcher I’d ever known. I stared at the dark circles beneath her eyes. The knowledge that they were getting darker all the time sent a fresh wave of panic gripping my heart as I realized I had even more to lose than I’d thought.

  Tentative, I pulled her into my arms.

  For several seconds, she tightened up in shock and I wondered if she might pull away—if I’d made a mistake. Suddenly, she wrapped both arms around my back and pulled me tight against her.

  There was nothing else for me to do or say, so I whispered the only three words that meant anything against her tear-streaked cheek: “I see you.”

  Any remaining tension drained from her and she buried her face in my neck, setting my skin on fire with each breath. “I’m scared, Jack.”

  I thought about finding words that might make her feel better. About telling her that everything was going to be okay and trying to sound like I meant it. Or maybe I could just tell her I would be here no matter what … because that was true.

  Instead, I decided to tell her she wasn’t alone in a different way. In a way I wished my dad had told me—so I’d have known the fear I felt living in this messed-up world everyday was okay.

  I pressed my lips against her temple, held her even tighter, and whispered, “I’m scared too.”

  We sat there, together, in the quiet early morning light. We held tightly to one another while everyone else in the run-down motel was asleep, and for the first time in as long as I could remember, I wasn’t wishing I could be too.

  As soon as everyone was up, we drove to pick up some more supplies and then to a new motel. This one had two beds and a pull-out sofa, so that Chloe wouldn’t feel she had to stay in the back of the van again. We spent the rest of the day checking in with those we cared about—at least the ones we could. I called Mrs. Chipp, Finn called his parents, and Libby called Randall. That evening, we headed back to Veronica’s, and as soon as she opened the door, I recited the excuse Finn and I had come up with earlier.

  “I’m sorry to bother you again. I don’t have the address my dad used to live at written down in his papers.” I gave her my best apologetic smile. “Do you happen to remember which condo was his?”

  Veronica nodded quickly, accepting the excuse. “He lived in the one on the corner.” She pointed to a front porch two doors down.

  “Thank you,” I said as my stomach tightened. I was surprised it still affected me the way it did … I knew he’d lived around here, but seeing which condo he’d actually been in felt different somehow.

  Ruby peeked around her mom’s legs and waved up at me, reminding me of the reason we’d come back here to begin with.

  “Hi Ruby.” I squatted down slightly, just enough to make eye contact with her, and she smiled. I gestured to her purple shorts and striped T-shirt. “Not a ballerina today?”

  She frowned at me. “These are just normal clothes, but I’m still a ballerina whenever I want. See?” She went up on her toes and did a little spin.

  “Oh, my mistake.” I laughed and then looked up at the sky. Pretending to squint at the brightness of the sun, I pulled out my sunglasses and put them on. I turned back to face Veronica. “Thank you for your help. I really appreciate it.”

  “No problem.” She gave a quick nod and pulled Ruby back inside. Just as she was closing the door I heard her say, “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

  Walking down the path toward the van, I whispered to myself, “I really hope so too.”

  Ruby’s dreams were a myriad of strangeness. They were filled with faceless adults, disappearing playgrounds, and other children who didn’t see her half the time. She went to a zoo with animals that initially seemed mostly normal in shape, but then there was always something off about them: a purple horse with no hooves, a giraffe with two heads, and penguins with black stomachs and white wings. I realized about halfway through that I couldn’t remember the last time I’d watched the dreams of a child. They hadn’t completely absorbed the laws of reality yet, so everything was even more strange than usual.

  Somewhere, buried in the middle of everything bizarre, I found my dad, and the next riddle. Dad said, “I weaken men for hours day by day. And display bizarre visions while you’re away. I steal you by night, by day return you home. None suffer who have me, but they do when I roam.”

  This one took me almost no time to figure out. “Sleep.”

  He hadn’t left a message for me this time, simply the next ingredient, which I recognized as a type of acetylcholinesterase inhibitor: C24H29NO3. I remembered Dad had told me once that it had some kind of an effect on REM sleep and lucid dreaming, but that was all I knew.

  Still: two ingredients down, only one to go.

  After that, Dad revealed the next name: Mason Butler.

  I drew a quick breath. Mason was the man we’d saved from the prison at the Benton Air Force Base, who’d ridden out of the base in Parker’s stolen van. What a twisted chase this was becoming, with the final clue to saving Parker and Chloe’s lives hidden with someone we already knew. This ornery old man hopefully had the last piece of the puzzle that might bring some kind of peace to all of the Night Walkers.

  And I’d had his phone number and address on a paper in my wallet for over a month.

  Only six days remained now, but with two ingredients down and only Mason left, we were finally making progress. Maybe Parker would be okay. Maybe all of us would.

  After checking us out of the motel and turning in the key card, I tried to calculate how long it would take to get to Mason’s address. I’d tried calling him twice since waking up, but there’d been no answer.

  I made my way alone through the parking lot, toward the end of the building where we’d parked the van. Quick footsteps sounded behind me, but before I could even spin around, I got hit from behind, hard and fast.

  Thor and I were rolling across the ground before I even got a good look at him. His fist pummeled my face and I tried to get my arms up to block his blows. I’d been distracted by my own thoughts, and now I was paying for it.

  Finally my instincts kicked in, and the next time he was on the bottom, I kicked up with my knees, shoving into his gut in an effort to push myself out of his reach. It was a little awkward because he grabbed hold of my shirt, but I got myself into a squatting position before he could pounce on me again. My eye was throbbing, but most of the other damage was superficial.

  “Where’s Chloe?” Thor growled out.

  Something in me reacted violently to the idea of him coming here for her. “Why? Do you guys want to throw her away like garbage again?” I spat a little blood out of my mouth and onto the ground.

  “I’m here to remind her where her loyalty should lie.” Thor moved in for another swing, but now that I was ready for him, his movements were lumbering and easy to avoid. I jabbed out and punched his side with two quick swings before he could back away. This was exactly what I needed right now: a good fight to take out all my frustrations in. I smiled when he gave me another opening and landed an uppercut against his jaw.

  Thor winced in pain and staggered back a bit, trying to draw in a full breath. “All your family does is hurt my family,” he gasped. “You all lie and steal and kill.”

  I stopped for a minute, dropping
my hands in confusion because he seemed to actually believe what he was saying. “Whoever has been telling you that is the one you should be after … ”

  Footsteps were approaching from behind and I didn’t want to be surrounded, so I took two quick steps to my left. But it was Finn and Chloe who ran up. Finn looked like he couldn’t decide whether he could help more by jumping in or by just staying out of my way. Chloe’s skin had paled to the point where she looked like someone had drained all her blood into her feet.

  My excitement for the fight dwindled. If beating up Chloe’s brother would hurt her, then it wasn’t worth it—not anymore.

  “Thor stopped by for a visit,” I said with a grim smile, dabbing the blood dripping from my eyebrow with the bandage on my right hand.

  “His name isn’t Thor. You know that.” Chloe looked at me with eyes that begged me not to add fuel to this situation. “Please call him Joey.”

  “Joey? Ah, yes … Joey, then.” I kept my tone even and calm. This would probably end better for everyone if Chloe could talk Thor down before he ended up getting hurt.

  “Joey … ” Her voice was soft, like she was trying to be gentle with the hulk across from me. “What are you doing here? How did you find me?”

  “That doesn’t matter.” Thor’s—Joey’s tone lost a little of the bravado.

  “Of course it matters. How did you know I was here?” Chloe sounded a lot sad and a little angry.

  Her brother didn’t respond this time, just glanced down at the phone in her hands. It was quick, but I noticed it and so did Chloe.

  “You didn’t … ” Chloe turned her phone over and pulled off the back, a look of shock crossing her face. She pulled a tiny metal tracker out, threw it into the gravel, and stomped on it.

  Joey’s posture shifted to defensive, and he grunted, “You expected me not to be worried about you? You’re my sister—”

  Chloe whipped up her head, her face twisted into a snarl. “Funny how you and Cooper only remember that when it’s convenient for you.”