No, I shook that away and concentrated on the void around me. It was little more than the yoga class we'd had all those years ago. I was nothing. It was nothing. That whole oneness and wholeness while emptiness was there, too. I had to keep my cool and consider my options.
Option one: Stay in the Dream until Allison let me out. It wasn't ideal but it wasn't impossible. She'd always let us out, eventually, even if it was just to eat and drink. Maybe grab a shower. It made me wonder about the psychic damage Nishelle had taken. Over all those years in the Dream, she had to have popped out now and then just to do basic maintenance, right?
Or perhaps Allison had walked her through every step. The idea of Dreamweaver taking that much time out of her own career seemed off, wrong, because someone so up her own ass surely wouldn't have put in that kind of effort on someone else. Right?
Option two: I could try to kill myself. That seemed to get Allison's attention, but there was a small chance she would let me do it. Maybe she'd stop me just before I did it but I'd actually be hurt, damaged beyond recovery. Hadn't I already dealt with that?
Sitting on the sidelines wasn't my vibe. I needed to be neck-deep in the action, ready to take a blow that put me down for good. Danger. Nightmares. Horrors. It was all worth it to help those who needed it. Working on the computer and playing support wasn't for me. Edwin was a wonder with all of the technical stuff. I wasn't.
Besides, what was I going to kill myself with in a nothingness void? Even if you hold your breath until you pass out, you'll wake back up. Your brain kicks in after you go night-night and you start breathing again.
Option three was the only one that had real potential. I sighed and rubbed my forehead. I wasn't really sure what the Dream consisted of, but I was trying to remember my Psychic lessons. It'd just been so many years ago, with such little tutoring. Dad had been my teacher, always telling me that he was so proud of me while I stared at a pencil on the desk and desperately tried to make it twitch.
They had assumed my superpowers were just latent, that I'd suddenly start using the telepathic network set up between everyone in the family to communicate. We Clarks saved a fortune on cell phone bills, just jabbing each other upstairs and sending messages, pictures, information at the speed of thought. Computers were faster but our system had been fine for us.
Yet I'd always been on the receiving end. I'd never managed to make a single "phone call" within our network. I'd never been able to really hear anyone else clearly, as if there were a ton of static blocking the line. Then my parents had dealt with the biggest disappointment of their life.
Me.
A Blitzer. Not a Psychic. Just a garbage Blitzer.
What a waste.
Still, I knew the rules. I knew how Psychics worked. It was like understanding how the Empire State Building was built. Just because the math made sense didn't mean you could go out and build one yourself. But maybe, with the right tools, you could start on something small.
Option three meant finding out if I was the only one trapped in the Dream and, if not, finding the others. It meant trying to break all of us out at once as, so it seemed, Allison had trouble holding on to multiple minds tightly clustered and intent on getting out.
But that still meant I was screwed if I was alone. I stood up and reached into the blackness around me. There would be a door, somewhere. If that led into my deeper consciousness, I was probably in the Dream by myself. If it led elsewhere?
Maybe I had a chance.
So I wandered, feeling my way throughout the hellish place where I was trapped. There were no doors, no windows, nothing that I could see or touch or feel. My mind drifted, trying to summon up thoughts of who I was looking for, but it was so hard to concentrate when the world seemed to be closing in on me.
That wasn't the reality, I reminded myself time and time again. No, the reality was that this was just an illusion. Somewhere, in the real world, I was just fine. I was probably flat on my back on the ground, but I was probably fine. Unless I wasn't.
What if I was stuck somewhere far and away from the others? If I was out there murdering everyone in my path? The thought shook me to my core. There was nothing I could do about it if I was, I realized, but the need to be able to affect something like that was so deeply important to me that I didn't know what else I could do.
My mind touched on blond hair, a slight smile that always looked just this side of coy. Tall, strong, the person who held us all together when we were stuck in the middle of something terrifying. He was our voice, our guide, and the one who got the ambulance there to take our injured somewhere to be treated.
Edwin.
I could almost taste his kiss, feel his arms around me. The beeping of his computer, the smell of his aftershave, even the slow, steady rhythm of his heartbeat as I rested my head against his chest; it all settled in my mind and I knew, absolutely held the truth in my heart, that Edwin knew I was there, too.
"Took you long enough to get here," he said, brightly.
I blinked down at him and gave him a sharp poke in the ribs. He grunted and I let out a sigh of relief. The Dream was still a dream primarily, and pain wasn't something that it understood very well if you hadn't experienced it personally. "I couldn't find you, couldn't figure out how to do it. Who else is stuck here?"
"Dunno. I'd assume most of the Alliance building probably is. She managed that the last time with Melody, right?"
"We assume she did. It's not like Izzy's aware of what she did or what she didn't do."
He frowned. "Did she tell you that or do you have some kind of evidence, Cassie? Izzy spent years lying to us about... everything, really. So did Dreamweaver. Who knows who's really behind those eyes?"
"That's not fair," I said, then sighed. "But this isn't the place for that, I guess. You haven't seen hide nor hair of anyone else?"
Edwin shook his head. I pinched the bridge of my nose and thought as deeply as I could. There was something like a fog, a mist, creeping through every moment I tried to get my mind to grind into gear. It wasn't helping, and I assumed that it was some literal form of the Dream. It wasn't as if I was aware of what was happening to put me there.
No, the Dream would just kick in and screw me over. I pinched harder, digging in my nails and hoping that I would be able to focus on that. Perhaps the pain would edge me on, force me into actually thinking and putting something together. But it was like swimming upstream, losing a foot for every inch I gained. Frustration didn't begin to cover how that felt.
The nails dug deeper and a flicker of something crossed my mind. Claws, too-sharp teeth, a growl that left my lower belly quivering. Nate. I was thinking of Nate, wasn't I? I tried to remember what he looked like, what he sounded like. His scent was alien in my nose, wrong and incorrect. I pressed my forehead against Edwin's shoulder and he wrapped his arms around me like I belonged there.
Nate had done the same. I tried so hard, pushing and pulling at my own conscious wave of thought, but he felt as though he were falling away from me. Edwin cleared his throat. "Something I can help with?"
"Tell me about Nate."
I felt Edwin's collarbone move as he tilted his head. "Well. He's tall, a shapeshifter, smarter than we give him credit for. He's brave. Dark. Recently involved with you and Adam, and to be honest, I'm starting to feel a little left out."
When I laughed, he continued. "He's got this hair, and these eyes? And his smile?"
He let out a dreamy sigh and I shoved him away. "That's Aladdin, you dope."
"Well, he's not all that far off. Maybe if you start in on Arabian Nights-"
"You're just jealous," I said, smiling.
I didn't want to admit it, but it'd helped. There was a fragment of a memory, of all of us being small and innocent together, like a bunch of puppies tumbling out of a basket. Nate was taller than me. He could reach the countertop but I couldn't. So, he took my popcorn from me and ran it under the instant butter drip. Well, "butter". But when you're a kid, you don't think
about calories.
Concentrating as hard as I could, I stirred up the image of Nate in my mind. An animal's keen met my ears, feral and promising. There was the scent of raw earth, of shredded pine bark. And the touch of...
Gosh, that touch.
I shivered and took Edwin's hand. He didn't get his question out before I tore through the Dream once again, Edwin in tow, and we walked into a savannah the likes of which I'd never been to. There were scents of prey animals, all heightened and advanced far beyond what I smelled when I fried a steak. The grass wove and darted around our hips, slapping us with seed pods.
"Well, that wasn't what I was expecting," Edwin said, looking around us even as he tightened his grip on my hand.
I did the same. The last thing I wanted to do was to lose the one person I'd managed to find. "Nate? Savage? Are you in here?"
My voice carried across the land for miles, the first human to speak across it in eternity. It was more than a little overwhelming. If the city was my comfort zone, was this where Nate felt his best? If that were true, what did he experience when he was stuck in the city like the rest of us? I tucked that conversation away for later, worried about his sanity if he were trapped in his apartment all the time. Was that why he'd had so much trouble reining in his wilder side all those years ago?
Something shifted to our right. I frowned and looked, trying to sort out if there was a predator or another creature creeping up on us. A small piglet, perhaps the size of a beagle, came trotting out of the grass and grunted at us.
"Does he turn into a pig?" Edwin asked, teasing.
I glared at him. "You know he doesn't. Wolf, bird, bear, cat. Those are the only ones I know of."
"I suppose he could be anything here in the Dream." Edwin bent to examine the piglet.
I saw the pounce a second too late. Crimson claws on the tips of enormous paws, the dark beast going straight for Edwin's head. I grabbed him and yanked him away, but Nate caught Edwin's shoulder and the three of us rolled through the grasses. The piglet screamed as it ran away, the grass waving in the distance as it escaped.
The animal turned to us, its lips raising in distaste. Those teeth were a promise I didn't want to tangle with. I had no idea if my powers would work in the Dream or not, especially given that they weren't entirely reliable at the moment. Instead, I moved back slowly. It was one of the few things I'd remembered from scouts; if a wild animal were to approach you, the best thing to do was to move away from it carefully and not rush yourself.
Running only enraptured a predator's mind, especially since we people were soft and kind of squishy. Think about it. We don't have any natural armor and our fur is pretty sparse to begin with. We're easy prey for the big cats, if they want to risk it. Most don't because they learn from the mistakes of others. They come to understand that we have weapons. Humans are one of the most dangerous animals alive, but we're not very good at protecting ourselves without tools.
Except in cases like mine, of course.
I guess Edwin had forgotten his lessons. He got up and ran as if he were on fire and the nearest lake was a hundred yards away. The cat's attention snapped from me and on to him, its pupils squeezing to paper thinness.
"God damn it, Edwin," I muttered and hurled myself at the animal.
There was a hiss and it evaded me, launching back into the grass. I saw it heading for Edwin, realized I was too slow, and tried to run after it anyway. If Edwin was slaughtered in the Dream, even by something that didn't exist, did that count? I didn't know. I assumed so.
"Oh, knock it off," Nate sighed, wrapping his arms around me. "Edwin, get back here. Cat, with me."
Oh, to be in his arms again. I leaned back against him and he kissed me. Edwin came trotting up and so I kissed him too, perfectly happy to sandwich myself between these two wonderful men. I didn't have any other priorities. Was there anyone else? I was certain there was, I just couldn't-
"Nishelle? Adam?" Nate asked. "I'm glad to see you two."
Ah.
Right.
Adam was the easiest to find. He was goofy, good-hearted jokes. He was the laugh in the dark, the first ray of sunlight in the day. He was those damn fudgsicles that tasted like they'd expired three weeks before you ate them.
More so, he'd been there for me. He'd been first, after prison. And he'd reignited who I was in that awful space and time.
I took a breath and held my hands out for either of them. "I think I can get us to Adam. Do the animals need to come with you?"
As I asked, Nate took a breath and there was a flicker of power around him. He reached out and took my hand. "They're always with me. Let's go."
Stepping forward, there was that now-familiar, bizarre sensation of walking between worlds. As if everything had changed and yet, I was almost certain, that the Dream was one single entity. Perhaps we were crossing through the minds of others in the way? I didn't know that much, but it was a hell of a good question to ask when we went home for the holidays and visited my parents.
It'd be a really good counter-question to why I had three boyfriends and maybe, if I was lucky, a girlfriend.
Speaking of which, we lucked out. Nishelle sat with Adam's head on her lap. She stroked his hair, gazing off into the fires beyond. Everything was burning in this part of the Dream, but none of the flames dared to touch any of us. Instead, it felt as though they were welcoming, encouraging us to walk into them and burn right along with them. Creepy.
"Nishelle?" I asked.
Her head turned to look back at me. Adam sat up and followed her gaze. As one, they stood and crossed to us. Embraces were traded, Edwin holding Adam for a moment longer than I'd thought he would.
Nishelle sighed. "It's bad."
"What happened?" Nate asked.
She looked at Adam and motioned for him to speak. He shook his head, fighting it for a moment or two. Then he gave in. "I killed Allison."
"Then the Dream should be disappearing any time," I said. "We'll all be free to go home and settle down."
"I killed her, Cassie," he said as if I didn't quite understand. "I killed her hours ago in real-time, we think, and she thanked me for it."
Oh. The bottom of my stomach dropped past my knees and kept going. Spectral Psychics were a legend, the sort of thing that you had nightmares about. There was no stopping them until they'd given up and crossed over. There was no coming back from it, either. Once you were gone, you were gone. Nishelle was a rarity, but she'd never actually died.
As far as I knew, Allison was the only one who could release us.
We were fucked.
Chapter 20
I squirmed as I lay upon the hospital bed, irritated by everything that opened my door. I wanted nothing more than to head back to the Alliance and work on straightening everything out. How many months had I been side-lined?
Edwin wouldn't let me down. Mr. Noll knew better than to do that. But he still wasn't me and I wanted my hands on-deck for the problems that they were seeing.
Especially when it came down to Allison.
I'd known it was a bad idea when I'd taken up with her. She'd been a mature adult, plenty capable of making her own decisions about whether or not to get in bed with the boss. I'd been a mature adult, capable of making my decisions about getting involved with one of the people I managed. The date had been delicious, the night a powerful reminder that I was a man who needed the sort of affection only a woman could give me.
And two months later, we'd found out she was pregnant when she got her ass handed to her during a fight with some villain-of-the-week sort. Couldn't remember that asshole's name if I tried, you know? That kind of garbage.
Even while she was pregnant, she'd decided that she was going to take out the trash. The doctors had given her the thumbs-up to fight for another month before she went on maternity leave.
She was frustrated. Any of them would be. Those women were made to bring down walls, not sit at home and watch television. Plenty of pregnant women work. I apprecia
te that. But Allison had been confined to her bed after the fourth month, stuck staring out the window and watching her life go by.
I should have known how it would turn out. She stopped talking to me about her thoughts, her feelings, around the seventh month. I asked our psychiatrists if I should be doing something else, asked Allison what she wanted me to do for her. I couldn't get a straight answer no matter how hard I tried. Pregnancies were just too different and no matter what I did, it was always wrong.
But I tried. I kept trying. She asked for pretzels? I got her four different kinds. She needed the dishes done? They were already drying in the dishwasher before she woke up the next morning. But she'd wanted a fifth kind of pretzels that had been discontinued two years ago, and I'd used the dishwashing liquid that smelled like oranges, not the one that smelled like a spring valley.
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