Dreamwalkers (14 page)

“Martin, listen to me: You are a werewolf
now. You will be stronger than ever. You’ll never get sick. You’ll
heal super fast. Once you learn to control your transformations,
you can pretend to be human.” I don’t mention that all of this is
conjecture on my part. I’m assuming he’ll have the same abilities I
have. “Who knows, maybe this pack will even let you keep your job
and all that. All I need is for you to be strong and be able to
tell me some stuff, like where these wolves are living, how they’re
training you, if they have any plans on attacking my pack. You’ll
tell me all this in a dream, so you don’t need to worry about them
finding out.”

“But I like being a teacher! I don’t want to
be a werewolf! Is there a cure? Can I… eat wolfsbane or
something?”

“No!” I clench my fists. “Wolfsbane is
poisonous. Poison will kill you.”

Martin is a blubbering mess on the floor by
now.

“All right, Martin, I think I’m done here.” I
turn to exit his dream, but he calls out.

“Wait! Please, tell me how to shift. Please.
I can’t stay like this until they find me. I’ve been hiding in my
apartment for two days. I only have three sick days left.”

I take a deep breath. “Okay. First, you need
to calm yourself.”

He quiets down. “Okay.”

“Close your eyes.” He does. I prepare to give
the same speech I gave to Daniel. “Imagine yourself as human…”

Sunlight pours in through the thin curtains.
I raise an arm to block it out and crane my neck, follow the sound
of water to see Remy in the bathroom, shaving.

No shirt. Those muscles.

I prop myself up on my elbows and take a nice
long look. No plans for when he inevitably catches a glimpse of me
in the mirror and sees that I’m awake. He smiles just a little
under the shaving cream.

“Anything?” he asks.

“Martin Baker is a hypochondriac,” I say.

“And?”

“He doesn’t know anything. The wolves
attacked him while he was jogging and they haven’t come for him.
He’s been hiding in his apartment since he was released from the
hospital.” I shrug. “I told him I’d check up on him. Maybe they’ll
come for him later.”

“Interesting.” Remy barely moves his lips as
he scrapes the razor over his skin.

I can tell the gears in his head are working,
but I can’t hear what he’s thinking, so I get dressed. When Remy
leaves the bathroom he starts packing his stuff. I follow suit.
Without words, we leave the hotel room and he checks out and we get
into the car and drive home.

You’d think that after this whole mission
being about me sleeping I wouldn’t be tired. I nod off in the car
anyway, the hot sun pressing exhaustion on me through the
windows.

No dreams.

I wake up as Remy pulls off the main road
onto the dirt one that leads to our hideaway. The cabin still
stands, which I didn’t realize was a worry until I let out a sigh
of relief. Geo and his pack haven’t found us yet.

Mom wraps me into a hug the second I step out
of the car. “You’re back,” she says.

She didn’t even hug me when I came back from
looking for Daniel.

“Did you feel it?” I ask.

She nods. “Jen was really upset.”

I know this is my chance to tell them about
Daniel without revealing that I lied. “I saw Daniel,” I blurt
out.

“Saw him?” she asks, pulling away. “You saw
him?”

“Yeah,” I say, then remember that she doesn’t
know about the dreamwalking. “In a dream. I saw him in a
dream.”

“Jesus, Kayla.” And old Mom is back.

“No, I have this... thing.” I glance at Remy,
and he nods. “This ability. Dreamwalking.”

Mom raises her eyebrows.

“I can walk into other people’s dream. Remy
thought I could spy on Geo’s pack this way. So I wasn’t really in
danger.”

“Really. And you didn’t think you could tell
me about this? How long have you had this ability?”

Oh, she’s pissed. I can feel it rolling off
of her.

“Since the night Dad died.”

That diffuses her anger a bit.

“Anyway, I dreamwalked into Daniel’s head. He
was there, he went home, he saw our house burn down,” I tell her.
“He howled–you felt his howl.”

Mom hugs me again. “Felt it. I had no idea
what it was. I thought something might have happened to you. Of
course Jen thought the worst. She thought Daniel was dead.”

“He thinks we’re dead,” I say. “He saw our
houses burning and he thought we were inside. He was mourning
us.”

“Oh, thank god,” Mom says, and turns to run
inside.

When Mom said Aunt Jenny was upset, it was
the understatement of the year. Aunt Jenny had emerged from the
bedroom by the time Remy and I brought our things inside. Her eyes
were puffy and red and there were scratches all over her face.

“So, I have something to tell you,” I say to
Aunt Jenny. “There’s this thing I can do... it’s called
dreamwalking.”

My days develop into a routine: waking,
training with Remy, napping–dreamwalking, waking, planning with
Remy, scanning through newspapers to find new people to dream
about, sleeping–more dreamwalking. I visit Martin, who becomes
slightly less of a mess as time goes by. I try to avoid Ben, even
when I land in his dreams. I find other victims, other newly turned
wolves. A man named Terry, who never notices I’m there. He’s too
busy watching himself transform in front of a mirror and freaking
out. A woman named Laura, who dreams about walking into social
situations. “Your ears look really pointy today,” someone will say,
or, “Did you forget to shave your legs?” Cue the freak out.

Daniel doesn’t seem to be dreaming, which
frustrates me to no end.

“We can use the time to strengthen our pack
bonds,” Remy suggests. Mom and Aunt Jenny join Remy’s and my game
out in the woods. We learn to move silently. We learn to pull on
the pack bonds to find each other. We learn how pushing ourselves
through the pack bonds lets us hide our scent... it’s tough, and
when we’re really sweaty and disgusting from training, there isn’t
enough magic in the world to conceal our scent.

In my dreams I find a young woman named
Misty–a long shot, really. Her name comes through in the police log
section of a small town in South Dakota. No idea what she looked
like. Just the name: Misty James, age 28. Report of dog bite.
Sounded like it wasn’t even bad enough for her to end up in the
hospital.

Her dream was dark and full of eyes. Her dark
skin blended in with the shadows, but I could see the whites of her
eyes. When she saw me, she threw her arms around me. “They’re
watching me,” she whispered. “Are they watching you, too?”

The next night they had taken her. She was
even more terrified, but she was able to tell me where she was:
Lawrence, South Dakota.

“Right in the middle of Black Hills National
Forest,” Remy says. “Makes sense.”

We put our plan in motion. We go into town
and buy supplies and pack the car.

That night, I dream.

The trees tower overhead, obscuring the sky
and making the darkness nearly complete despite the full moon. I
can see Misty’s skin shining just a little. She’s curled up on the
ground. At first I think she’s holding her arms really awkwardly,
until I realize that she’s tied up.

I move to take a step, then see the shadow
slide through the trees. By his scent I know it’s Ben.

Luckily this is not Ben’s dream. Ben can’t
become aware of me. But he is still dangerous, and I know something
terrible has happened to Misty by the fact that she is having a
nightmare about him.

I summon all of Remy’s training and move
silently toward Ben’s back. A knife, a sharp knife, I need
something dangerous. My fingers realize they are curling around the
hilt of a katana blade.

Sweet.

“No,” Misty croaks, but not at me. She sees
Ben. In the dark darkness it’s hard to see how her skin is broken
and bruised and bleeding. The stench of urine fills the air.

Before Ben can get any closer, I crouch and
leap–with kung-fu moves I’ve only seen in movies, I’ve knocked him
unconscious, then I cut off his head for good measure.

Misty looks up at me with tears streaming
down her face. I cut her hands loose and she stumbles back, rubbing
the rope burns on her wrists.

“Where are they holding you?” I ask her.

“I don’t know,” she whispers. “We keep
moving. They keep me chained up—” she sobs, “like a dog.”

“Have you heard them talking about anything?”
I’m not even sure what to ask her. “Anything at all?” She shakes
her head. Desperately I blurt, “Have they mentioned anyone named
Daniel?”

Her eyes tell me yes.

“What have they said?”

She glances around, then looks back at me
warily. “They showed me your picture,” she whispers.

I am suddenly cold. I take a step back. “How
did they get my picture?”

Misty watches my reaction, and decides I’m
not a threat. “It looked like a school picture.”

Shit. They got it from my house, I know they
did. They took it before they burned it down, the bastards.

“They want you and your mom,” Misty says. “I
didn’t tell them. I didn’t say I’d seen you before.”

“Thank you,” I whisper.

“I mean, who would believe me? I saw you in a
dream?” Misty laughs bitterly. “Ben says he saw you in a
dream.”

“Shit.” Shit shit shit.

“He told me not to tell you anything if I saw
you.”

Misty isn’t the victim I’ve been seeing her
as. Ben and the others in Geo’s pack have hurt her, I can tell.
They have made her afraid of them. And still she didn’t tell them
about a stupid dream she had. She kept that from them. Possibly
they beat her even more because she refused to tell them. She
endured torture for me.

I step to her and hug her.

“Girls gotta stick together, right?” Misty
says, returning the embrace. “Let me tell you what I heard of their
plan...”

“She said,” I repeated, “they were planning
to attack someone who lives on Wells Road. They were going to
attack her, and let Daniel know about it. To lure him out
there.”

My mother listens with her mouth open.
“Kayla, that doesn’t make any sense.”

“We can Google Wells Road…” Remy says, mostly
to himself.

“I feel like…” I struggle to find the right
words. “I get the sense that Geo’s pack is much bigger than we
think. They have scouts out looking for the right people to attack.
They have people following Daniel. They want to capture him, not
kill him, but they know how strong he is. They’ve been planning
this for months.”

“If they capture him…” Aunt Jenny starts, and
cannot finish.

If they capture him, she will join Geo’s
pack. She won’t be able to fight them if Daniel’s life hangs in the
balance.

“We can find Wells Road,” Remy states. “We
have their location narrowed down enough. We need to get there and
ambush them as they try to capture Daniel. They won’t be using
lethal force, won’t be expecting an attack.” He turns to me. “We
will be silent so they don’t hear us. But we need to get there
first.”

Mom is the first to get up. “We leave now.”
We are piling into the car less than a half an hour later, Mom and
Remy in front, Aunt Jenny and me in the back.

The drive is a blur. Remy can’t figure out
how to use Mom’s phone, so Mom gives it to me and I start Googling
for the street. There are several in the vicinity of our
search.

The drive into South Dakota will take a few
hours. I close my eyes and try to sleep, but my heart is racing and
sleep won’t come. Can I use my bond with Daniel to find him? I’ve
never tried it.

“The last victim was in Belle Fourche,” Remy
says to himself. “If I stay on 212 East…”

I feel the connection in my head tighten.

“Head south,” I say suddenly.

“South?”

“Yeah.” I lean between the two front
seats–and grab the road atlas from Mom’s hands. “Here, get on Route
85.”

“Kayla?” Mom stares at me.

“Trust me,” I say.

I’m not sure why I’m so certain, but I know
Daniel would head south. He always talked about heading south.
Remy’s eyes flicker to mine in the rearview mirror.

The closer we get, the stronger the pull. I
bark out directions to Remy, which isn’t always helpful as Daniel
isn’t traveling by road.

Mom soon finds a Wells Road that seems
likely, and takes over directions. I begin to feel a weird pull as
the distance between Daniel and I grows. We pass a sign that
declares we have entered Black Hills National Forest. Yes, this is
right.

We pay for a campsite in cash and set up our
tents. The March temperatures do not make for good camping. We have
to lay down tarps so the mud doesn’t leak through the bottom of the
tents, and it isn’t long before I wish for a warmer jacket. I guess
we should be lucky it isn’t raining or snowing.

Also, the whole time we set up, I feel
uneasy.

“Do you feel that?” I ask Remy quietly.

“What?”

“There are other wolves here,” I say.

He looks around at the trees, devoid of
people.

“Not here here.” I move my hand around. “Just
around here.”

“Like how far?”

I shrug, glancing around uneasily. “They’re
here.”

“Maybe you should take a nap,” Remy
suggests.

My shoulders slump. “I’m so tired of sleeping
and not actually doing anything,” I whine.

“You are doing something when you sleep. Why
do you think you’re so tired when you wake up from one of your
dreamwalks?”

“I guess.” I unzip one of the tents, kick off
my mud-caked shoes, and crawl into my sleeping bag.

he’s coming he’s coming he’s coming