Wyrmspire (Realm Keepers Book 2)

by Garrett Robinson

  “Tess,” said Sarah carefully, “have you considered that it might have just been a dream?”

  I blinked. “What? Of course not. It was real.”

  “How do you know?” said Raven bluntly. “You could have dreamed the whole thing. I know it seemed real, but dreams usually do.”

  I felt my head hunch into my shoulders a bit before I could help it. I always hated when people said I was wrong about things. It made me feel small, insignificant.

  “But he talked to me,” I said. “I’ve been seeing him in my dreams for weeks. It’s the first time he talked to me.”

  “You’ve been dreaming about him for weeks?” said Sarah. “Well, then, there you go. It’s just another dream. I’m sorry, Tess, but that’s what it sounds like to me.”

  “Wait, no,” I said, shaking my head as I remembered something. “We don’t dream! We don’t have any time. We’re never really asleep. How could I be having regular dreams when I’m always awake, either here or in Midrealm?”

  Sarah opened her mouth, stayed silent for a moment, and closed it again.

  But Raven snorted. “Whatever. However you’re having them, they’re still just dreams. I mean, we all see some strange stuff, magic and monsters and all the rest of it. But we’ve been having dreams all our lives. We shouldn’t see special stuff in them that doesn’t exist.”

  I hunched lower into my shoulders. Sarah looked at Raven like she was considering her words. But when she turned back to me, her mouth was set in a firm line.

  “I think Tess has a point, though,” she said. “None of the rest of us have any dreams. At least I don’t. Do you?”

  Raven paused, but shook her head reluctantly.

  “I think it’s at least worth asking Greystone about,” Sarah continued. “We’ll communicate with him as soon as we get to Midrealm again. Is that okay?”

  I smiled at her from behind my hair. “That’s perfect. Thanks for believing me, Sarah.”

  Sarah gave me a little smile. Then she stood up, shoving her plate away across the table. “All right. We’ve got to get going. We’ve got some speed shopping to do.”

  “Ugh,” said Raven.

  Sarah borrowed her dad’s car and drove the three of us to the mall. I was then treated to a whirlwind of shopping madness that left my head spinning. I’d never seen anything like it before.

  Sarah practically ran through a couple of clothing stores, grabbing what looked like random articles from the shelves (and once, right off a mannequin). She threw them into a basket, then hustled to the front to ring them all up.

  “Um, shouldn’t I try those on first?” said Raven, staring at a blouse with disgust. It was a deep purple.

  “I know your size,” said Sarah. “And besides, this is just for show. I know you’re never going to wear it.”

  “Truth,” said Raven.

  The cashier rang everything up. When the final number came up on the register, my eyes nearly erupted from my sockets. Sixty dollars. I couldn’t imagine spending that much on clothes, especially for just one outfit with an extra shirt for cold weather. But Sarah pulled some money from her wallet and handed it over without a second thought.

  The clothes were bagged up, and we headed out the store’s door and into the mall. I stared at the bag of clothes, which Raven held with her fingertips like it was something dirty. That was more money than I’d ever had together at one time before in my life.

  Raven led us through the doors of another clothing store. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise as hard, crunchy guitar music blared from speakers above us. Somebody was singing along with it, but their voice didn’t mesh with the guitar’s melody. And the singer sounded utterly depressed, like nothing had ever been right in his life and nothing ever would be.

  That’s when our progress ground to a halt. Raven dug through rack after rack, selecting shirt after shirt after pants after skirt off the shelf, holding each of them up to Sarah’s body, then up to her own. Each was discarded, tossed back on the shelf with a “nope.”

  After about twenty minutes, Sarah looked like she might have a conniption fit.

  “Raven, you know the actual purpose of us being here today is just to meet with Anna and Briggs, right?” she said through gritted teeth.

  “If I’m doing this, I’m doing it right,” said Raven. “You’ve been rocking cheerleader chic for way too long. It’s time you grew up.”

  “I am grown up!” said Sarah, shocked.

  “Here, how about this?” said Raven. She snatched up a red plaid skirt and held it against Sarah. “No, you need blue. This one.”

  “Raven, just pick something!” said Sarah.

  “Ugh,” said Raven. “Fine.”

  But in the end, it was another half hour before we left. Raven’s bill was even higher than Sarah’s, because she got her a pair of thick-soled boots with spikes around the top. All in all I was gawking at the amount the two of them had spent on clothes. It was more money than I could imagine spending on fake clothing.

  As we stepped out of the mall and into the parking lot, Raven glanced at me and must have noticed how my eyes were fixed on the shopping bags.

  “What’s up?” she said. “You’ve been eyeing our clothes like they were made out of human skin.”

  I blinked. “I just…they seemed pretty expensive, that’s all.”

  “What, these?” said Sarah. “I mean, they’re not too bad. Not like we went to a department store or something. But it’s true that I can only do a trip like that once a month or so.”

  I nearly choked. Once a month?

  “My stuff usually runs a little more expensive than that,” said Raven with a smirk, “but what do you expect? It’s not the Salvation Army.” She gave a little snort of ridicule.

  The Salvation Army was where I got most of my clothes. Most of Kellyn and Nikki’s, too. I felt a furious blush creeping up into my cheeks. Mortified, I ducked further behind my hair, praying that the two of them wouldn’t notice anything.

  Sarah stopped walking, looking at me. “Tess?” she said softly. “Is everything all right?”

  I kept walking, putting her behind me as I headed for her car. “Fine. Why? We’ve got to go.”

  I couldn’t see them any more because I was trying to keep my face hidden. But I could feel their eyes boring into my back, into the top of my head. I leapt into the back seat of Sarah’s car and yanked my phone out of my pocket. I looked at it, pretending to compose a text or check the weather, while I used my hair to hide my view of the front seat.

  Sarah and Raven got into the front seats. I felt the car shift as they both turned to look at me uncomfortably. I ducked further behind my hair, praying neither one of them would say anything. I could feel my blush deepening, and I didn’t know what would happen if I tried to talk.

  “Tess, do you want to talk about something?” said Sarah, her voice halting and unsure.

  “What? No,” I said. I felt a lump beginning to rise in my throat. The embarrassment and shame were combining to put a sting in my eyes, and I felt my nose getting warm the way it always did before it started to run.

  Get it together! I yelled in my own head.

  “Sorry if I said something wrong,” said Raven, mumbling.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I said. “Come on, we’ve got to go.”

  I almost had it. Almost. But on the last word, my voice cracked, and a quick rush of air escaped my mouth. It wasn’t quite a sob, but it was unmistakable. I sucked in a breath of air and held it, refusing to let another sound come out of me.

  Sarah and Raven waited another moment. Then Sarah turned on the car and threw it into gear. We headed out of the mall parking lot and through the streets of Cranston toward the warehouse district. The car was silent as a tomb.

  By the time we pulled up behind the warehouse, I was under control. I just need a minute of quiet and deep breaths to sort myself out. The last thing I wanted was to have to tell Sarah and Raven about how poor my family was, how
I was shocked to the point of disgust at how much money they’d dropped down on two measly outfits without even thinking about it. It wasn’t their fault, and it wasn’t mine either. We just didn’t have to talk about it. That would be best. So we got out of the car without looking at each other, and after making sure my face was hidden I shoved my hands into my jacket pockets, hunching my shoulders to make sure I was as small and unnoticeable as possible.

  The alley was just as dirty as the last time I’d seen it. The warehouse looked the same. I was surprised. If we took our parents here, they’d immediately be suspicious. Was this their plan?

  The back door opened, and Briggs ushered us in. The others were already sitting around the table on hard metal chairs. Other than that, the warehouse was still empty.

  Blade caught my eye as I stepped through the door. He must have seen something in my eyes, because his face immediately darkened into a scowl. He glanced at Sarah and Raven, but I gave him a look and shook my head. Don’t do anything. Don’t say anything. I didn’t want him blowing up, throwing the situation out of control. I’d have to explain later.

  Anna rose to greet us, smiling at each of us in turn. “Hey again. All right, now that we’re all here, let’s take a tour.”

  “A tour of what?” I said. “The place is empty. Are we really going to bring our parents here?”

  Anna blinked. Then she laughed. “We’re not using this place as the Medicorp facility, Tess. This is our HQ. We’ve got another building ten minutes away.”

  I ducked my head, feeling myself blush for what felt like the hundredth time. Of course. “Oh, right,” I mumbled. “Sorry.”

  Sarah looked like she might reassure me, tell me it was okay, but she hesitated. She was probably afraid of saying anything at all after my breakdown. I didn’t blame her.

  “All right, let’s hit the van,” said Briggs.

  We filed out of the warehouse and into the windowless van Anna and Briggs drove. Briggs climbed in behind the steering wheel. He had the seat pushed all the way back, but he still made the cab look tiny as he shoved his massive frame into it. The rest of us took seats in the back. I climbed all the way to the back row and buckled myself in. To my relief, Blade came into the back with me, sitting on the end so that the rest of the row was blocked off. Once the others had their seats, Briggs fired up the engine and drove us out of the warehouse district.

  “What happened?” Blade’s voice was barely above a whisper, inaudible under the rumble of the van’s engine. Only I could hear.

  “Nothing,” I said. Blade was the absolute last person I wanted to tell about my family. “I just woke up in a bad mood.”

  “Did they do something?” he pressed. “Say something to make you upset?” His voice climbed to a low rumble.

  I shook my head vigorously. “No, I swear. They didn’t do anything. They’re just as confused as you are. I tried to tell them they didn’t do anything, but they don’t believe me. I feel bad.”

  Blade gave a long sigh. I could practically feel the tension seeping out of him. “Don’t feel bad. It’s not your fault. I know how it feels to just be fed up with things sometimes.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “I’ll get over it. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Okay,” he said. His trademark smirk leapt across his face. “Good thing, too. I was about to bring the smackdown.”

  A little smile found its way to my lips. “You would not. They’re girls.”

  “No, I’d probably beat Calvin up just to take out my frustration.”

  I giggled, putting a hand to my mouth to stifle the sound. Sara glanced back and saw the two of us. I saw relief spread across her features. I really did feel bad about making her worry about me, especially when she didn’t actually do anything wrong.

  Ten minutes of driving brought us to the front parking lot of a nondescript white building. The streets around it were lined with trees, and birds chirped happily in their branches as we stepped out into the open air once again. The front wall was all glass, showing a wide and spacious lobby with a marble floor. A young man sat behind a dark mahogany desk inside. He glanced out the front windows at us and gave a little smile and a wave.

  “Oh my God, Anna,” said Sarah. “This is unbelievable. Where did you find this?”

  Anna chuckled. “It took some searching, let me tell you. Money wasn’t an issue—like I said, I’ve handled the Association’s digital ‘fundraising’ for years. But I couldn’t just pick any spot I wanted to without raising red flags. It had to be far enough out of town that we wouldn’t accidentally be discovered by some innocent passers-by. And every place I found didn’t have the right facilities inside.”

  “So how did this place come up?” said Miles.

  Anna chuckled. “Well you see, a local dentist had been doing very well for himself in recent years, and had started investing money in the stock market. He woke up a few days ago to find out that his investments had paid off very, very well. So he retired and moved out of the country, just like he’d been emailing his friends he was going to do for years.”

  Calvin stared up at her with his jaw hanging open. “You did all that?”

  Anna gave a self-satisfied little nod.

  “Can I be your padawan?” said Calvin.

  Anna laughed.

  I felt like my eyes would bug out of my head. It looked exactly like what I’d expect if I showed up at a building handling clinical trials for some kind of physical disorder. Kind of like a hospital, but a little bit more friendly, like a family doctor’s office.

  “Let’s get you inside,” said Briggs. “We need to go over some details for when we bring you and your parents in. Follow Anna’s lead when we get in and talk to the talent.”

  The talent? I thought. But Anna and Briggs were already guiding us in through the wide glass doors in the front of the building.

  “Jason!” said Anna. “These are the leads. Now remember, it’s their first time on a production this big. So please try to make them feel welcome.”

  “Of course,” said Jason. He was a good-looking twenty-something guy with light brown hair and hazel eyes. His teeth were almost too perfect. He looked nice enough, but kind of artificial. “Hi, guys.”

  Calvin stepped up to the desk. “Oh my gosh, is he like an android? Does the Association have that technology?”

  Jason’s perplexed look was interrupted as Anna stepped between them, laughing easily. “Oh gosh, Calvin, of course not.” She turned to Jason and leaned across the desk confidentially. “At one point we’d talked about using animatronics for most of the roles, but of course we decided that you just can’t beat a live performance.”

  Jason grinned again and gave a knowing wink. “Of course. Should I run through the routine now?”

  “Not just yet,” said Anna. “Let me take through the rest of the set, and then we’ll come back through and do a rehearsal.”

  Briggs gently pushed us all through a door to Jason’s left. The next room was a waiting lounge with plush chairs and paintings on the wall. We were the only ones there.

  “What was that all about?” asked Sarah, staring at Anna and Briggs in utter confusion.

  “Okay, so here’s the deal,” said Anna. “Briggs and I will be posing as the managers of this facility. But we’re going to need more staff than that when we bring you in. People to look like they’re doing diagnostics, filling out paperwork, doing all of the usual stuff that your parents will be expecting. So we went out and got some talent.”

  “Wait, you mean actors?” said Blade, his voice rising to a near shout. “You hired a bunch of out-of-work baristas to pretend to be medical staff?”

  “They’re actually quite good,” said Anna, nonplussed by Blade’s anger. “Don’t worry. They’ve got an exact script to follow, and they’re all very good at improv.”

  Blade’s mouth opened again, ready to unload. Sarah shot him a quick look. He stopped, glaring at her, then closed his mouth again, fuming.

  “How long can t
hey keep this up?” said Sarah. “And what if they talk to our parents like they just talked to us? That would blow everything.”

  “They don’t have to perform for very long,” said Anna. “We really only need most of them on the first day, when you’ll come here for the first time and enter the ‘system.’ As for your second question, you don’t have to worry about it. All of them think this is a reality TV show meant to trick your parents. They all know not to say anything to your folks, and to remain in character at all times. If they don’t, they don’t get paid, and they don’t get a credit.”

  “Who cares about a stupid credit?” said Blade.

  Anna fixed him with a hard stare. “You have no idea how much actors care about credits.”

  “Fine,” said Sarah, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I guess if you say this will work, I believe you. Let’s run through this and make sure we’ve got it down.”

  So for the next two hours, that’s what we did. We went through the script with Jason at the front desk, then to an old, genial-looking woman who gave us a standard physical. She seemed to know what she was doing, at least. A third person, a middle-aged woman with perfectly coiffed hair, gave us official-looking forms in which we filled out our entire medical history. We handed them back when we were done, and she filed them away in a deep desk drawer.

  Along the way, Anna and Briggs asked questions as though they were our parents. The actors responded perfectly every time, and when they didn’t know the answer, their reply was always the same: “I don’t know, but I’ll send that question up to management and they’ll send you a reply via email as soon as possible. Is that all right?”

  It was efficient, it was flawless, and it was utterly creepy. I felt like I’d entered some sort of dreamworld where everyone was a little too beautiful, smiled a little too much.

  “God, I hope this works,” Miles muttered as we walked back out the facility’s front door.

  “It’ll be great,” said Anna with an excited grin. “Trust me.”

  “Okay, so how do we move in here?” asked Calvin. “And the sooner the better. I’m tired of the stares I’m getting every time I have another ‘episode.’ My parents are creeping me out.”