Paranoia (The Night Walkers) (4 page)

Jack sighed, reached in another pocket, and walked back to a vending machine just inside the police station. He came back with a cold can of Coke. “Better put this on your eye. Who did you want to call?”

“My mom. She’s probably freaking out.” I pressed the can against my eye and cursed. Darkness winced as the pressure sent pain through my already-throbbing head. He glared at me. In spite of the pain, it felt good to hurt him back a little after everything he’d done.

My good eye searched the parking lot for my car, but I didn’t see it anywhere. Wait—had Darkness been driving after that much alcohol? I released a big puff of air. If so, my car was probably impounded. I could only assume he hadn’t killed anyone or they wouldn’t be letting me out this easy. Nausea rose up again and I put one clammy hand on the back of my neck.

“Oh, relax already … ” Darkness muttered under his breath.

“Your mom’s fine,” Jack said. “When I saw you leave in the middle of the night, I snuck in and planted a note before following you.” He shrugged. “She thinks you ran to Finn’s house to get an assignment to turn in for him while he’s gone.”

Ignoring Darkness, I turned my attention fully on Jack. “You were watching me?”

He didn’t answer.

“How did you have time to get in, plant a note, and still follow me?”

“You, uh … weren’t the best driver. It took you ten minutes to get the car turned on and in the right gear.”

“Oh … ”

I glanced at Darkness, who rolled his eyes. “Watching you drive isn’t the same as driving myself, okay?” he snapped.

“Come on.” Jack turned and walked toward an old, dark green Volkswagen Bug parked up the block. “I’ll take you to your car.”

“Where is it?” My words barely came out between my gritted teeth. I had a million different questions for Jack, but I was still angry with him for disappearing like he had, and I couldn’t decide how to force him to stay around to talk to me this time.

“Still parked behind the bar you got so wasted in.” He pulled out some keys and unlocked the car, then hesitated before saying, “The other you isn’t as bad as some I’ve seen. But you’ve got to get him under control.”

My whole body burned hot and cold in sizzling waves of sensation as Jack’s words echoed through my mind:
the other you.
I raised my head and stared at Darkness. He gave me a little shrug and looked almost bored, but behind his left eye I saw my own burning questions.

Jack climbed inside and unlocked my door. I pulled so hard on the handle that my fingers hurt, but I didn’t climb in, just bent down and gaped at him.

“What do you mean, ‘the other me’?” My voice was low, quiet, and sounded dangerous.

“Come on. You’re not the only one who’s let it go too far.” For the first time, I saw a hint of sympathy in Jack’s eyes. “But your dad is right. You’ve got to get him under control before he ruins your life … or ends it.”

I crumpled down on the curb beside the car door and tried to force my brain to catch up to my circumstances. Jack knew about Darkness.
Dad
knew about Darkness. I had no idea how, but they knew.

You’re not the only one who’s let it go too far.

“How do you know? What do you mean I’m not the only one? Let what go too far?” I watched Jack closely, forcing myself to let go of all the anger and frustration and ignore the fact that Darkness had appeared in the backseat, leaning intently forward between the front seats. For now, none of that mattered. I could let it all go if Jack could give me the one thing no one else had ever been able to provide: answers.

“Get in.” Jack let out a slow breath, his expression grim as he put both hands on the wheel. “We have a lot to talk about.”

four

The inside of Jack’s car was so spotless I felt like breathing on it might smudge something. I squirmed awkwardly in my seat. Spending the night in jail and then puking in the bushes hadn’t exactly left me feeling squeaky-clean. Add to that the fact that my maniacal other half was busily biting his dirty nails and spitting them on the floor of the backseat, and I was more than a little outside my comfort zone.

“You can see him now?” Jack’s eyes on me were piercing as he leaned forward to start the car.

I blinked … it was amazing how many times Jack’s statements could leave me staggering in only a few minutes. “Y-yes—can you?”

“Of course not.” Now he looked at me like I was crazy. “But the way you keep looking into the backseat with disgust is a pretty big giveaway.”

“Oh, right.” Turning, I looked straight out the front windshield as Jack started the car and drove out of the parking lot.

“I think you should start.” Jack glanced at me from the corner of his eye.

“Start?”

“Yeah. You ask me questions. That way, I don’t give you answers you aren’t ready for yet.”

“At this point, I’m ready for anything.”

“Famous last words,” he muttered as he flipped on his blinker and waited in the left hand turn lane.

“Fine.” I decided to start with something simple … a question where the answer wouldn’t scare me as much as the others. “What’s up with the blind skull on your jacket? My dad had the same symbol on his wallet. Why?”

Jack looked down and touched it gently with his fingers. “It stands for seeing what other people don’t. It’s a symbol to help us identify other people like us. It started as the emblem of the Night Walkers, but for over a decade it’s been more a symbol of the rebellion.”

“Wha—rebellion?” There was way more information in that answer than I’d been expecting. “Wait … so, you’re a Watcher? Like me?”

“Watcher … ” Jack nodded slowly. “That isn’t what we call it, but yeah, that works.”

“What do you call it?”

“Like I said, Night Walkers. We’re type 2, to be specific.”

“Type 2?” I popped the knuckles of my left hand, struggling to grasp the concept that not only was I not alone in my curse, but there were different types? It felt like I was running behind a car going full speed with no hope of catching up. “How many types are there?”

“Three.”

“Three?” I shook my head. “How are they different?

“Well, if we’re Watchers, then type 3 would be the … ” He thought for a few seconds before continuing. “Builders. They control dreams, and construct them. They’re the key to our survival. They can build dreams directly for Watchers, to help us sleep. They can even make us stronger.”

“Like Mia.” I’d known all along there was something different about her. This was the first thing Jack had said that made perfect sense.

He released a short laugh. “No, not like Mia. You’re lucky you’ve survived, even with her dreams. You caught a break, but she’s no Builder.”

“How do you know?”

“Because she dreamed what someone told her to with the self-hypnosis, right? And even then she often couldn’t keep the nightmares away.” He took a quick right down an alley. “A real Builder has much more control than that … once they know what they’re doing.”

“How do you know all this about Mia?”

Jack was quiet as he pulled into a parking lot behind a dirty old building with the name
The Trough
over the door in faded red letters. My blue Nissan sat in a back corner. Darkness let out a long, low whistle from just behind me but I kept ignoring him, hoping that if I pretended he wasn’t there, then soon he wouldn’t be. The bar’s front windows were filled with old neon beer signs that were coated in about a decade’s worth of dust. This was the place he’d gotten wasted last night? That Darkness … always keepin’ it classy.

“I know about Mia because I know what I’m doing. Being a Watcher can be—an asset.”

I gawked at Jack for a moment with my fingers around the door handle. I couldn’t decide whether to scoff at him for calling it an “asset” or deck him for rubbing in the fact that he knew so much more than me—which was even worse because I suspected he’d learned it from my dad.

The man who should have been teaching me.

Before I had the chance to do something I’d regret, Jack put the car back in gear and drove across the street to a little diner.

“What are you doing?”

“You may be sobering up, but you don’t look at all steady. I don’t think you should be driving yet.” Jack turned off the car and pulled the keys from the ignition. “We’ll grab something to eat here first. Besides, I assume you have more questions.”

I wanted to argue, but between Darkness hovering and the pounding in my ears, I knew Jack had a point. I’d been waiting for months for him to come back. I was going to get every answer I could before he got the chance to disappear again. Besides, my stomach had mostly stopped churning and felt achingly empty.

“I could eat.”

The hostess sat us at a back corner table and I put down the now almost-warm can of Coke on the seat beside me. It had done its job, and I could actually open my eye a little wider now. Darkness glared at the spot with the can and then at me
before hopping up on a barstool a few feet from the table. He seemed focused on leering at the waitress, but I could tell he was listening to every sound we made. I ordered the greasiest things I could find: fries and a grilled cheese sandwich.

My hands trembled as I drank some water, but I wasn’t sure if it had more to do with a couple nights of no sleep or the hangover. Probably a combination of the two. I watched Jack across the table. He brought out a phone, typed into it for a moment, and then stuck it back in his pocket. Opening his straw slowly, he put it in his Coke and took a sip. He didn’t look at me once.

“So, you going to ask questions or you learning enough by staring at me?”

“Did you just send a message to my dad?”

His eyes finally met mine and his jaw tightened. “No.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“That’s rough for you.”

I grabbed the side of his jacket across the table and jerked him forward. “Tell me the truth.”

Jack hammered one arm down across my wrist and broke my hold, sending shock waves of pain through every bone in my arm.

“I couldn’t talk to Danny if I tried.” His voice was a low snarl, but the instant the words were out he sat back against the seat, suddenly focused on the cars driving past.

My arms fell limp to my sides, all physical pain forgotten under the sudden onslaught of emotional ache.

The waitress showed up and placed our food in front of us, and I thanked her out of habit. My body was on autopilot. Jack dove into his food, but I didn’t touch mine. The strong salty smell of the fries made my stomach roll, and I considered rethinking the whole eating plan.

“Danny?” My dad’s name was Daniel. It was where my middle name came from, but I’d never heard
anyone
call him Danny. Mom called him Dan and everyone else called him by his full name. Never
Danny
. “You call him Danny?”

“Sometimes.” Jack swallowed his mouthful of burger before finishing. “So?”

“Nothing.” I picked at my fries, trying to find one that looked less puke-inducing than the rest. The conversation really wasn’t helping things. I might have my dad’s blood, but this stranger knew Dad much better than I ever had.

I didn’t realize Darkness had moved until I heard his voice from directly over my left shoulder. “You should pound him. He deserves it. I
know
you want to. I’d do it, but you have control … for now.”

Swallowing back the sharp and disturbing thrill I felt at the proposal, I forced myself to focus on the answers I needed. “What do you mean you can’t talk to him?” I asked. “I thought you said he sent you.”

“No, he sent me a few months ago.” Jack’s eyes were glued to his plate, and evasiveness seemed to ooze from his skin. “Today, I said I was doing as I was told.”

“The officer said he called.”

“That was me, too.” Jack’s voice shifted a bit lower and he sounded much older. “It’s a skill I’ve picked up.”

My heart sank and I wished I could rip it out and hurl it away. Why could Dad still hurt me like this after so long? “So he didn’t care enough to call? Or he doesn’t know?”

“He doesn’t know.”

“Why not?”

Jack looked out the window but didn’t answer me.

“Why tell me to ask questions and then be so freaking cryptic?” I glared at him. “Are you going to give me answers or aren’t you?”

“Fine. Your dad was around more often last fall, when you were in your car accident and during the fire. He told me to keep an eye on you, to keep you hidd—to keep you out of trouble.” His eyes had a hard glint to them. “It’s been a bigger job than I thought.”

“Why didn’t you come back, like you said you would at the hospital?”

“You had Mia and Addie—and Finn. You didn’t need my help yet and I had my hands full with other complications.” He rolled his shoulders back and popped a piece of bun in his mouth. “Should’ve realized the second your friends left town everything would go to hell.”

“I’ll show you hell … ” Darkness growled.

“Shut up!” I finally exploded. I whirled toward Darkness but he was gone, the booth and barstool empty … and now everyone in the diner was staring straight at me. I felt a little relieved until I heard Darkness’s laugh echo inside my head. He hadn’t gone far.

I shrunk down in my seat and took a long sip of water, waiting as the people around us slowly went back to whatever they’d been doing. Jack watched me, his brow lowered,
but I didn’t feel like giving him any answers when it had been so hard to get any from him.

“Just because I’m going to survive, now, doesn’t mean my questions all go away,” I grumbled.

After a minute, Jack spoke. “That’s how we’re doing this? We’re just going to pretend your little outburst didn’t happen?”

Drawing in another long sip, I scowled at him before completely ignoring his question. “So he’s not around for you anymore either. Dad seems to be making a habit of disappearing when people are counting on him.”

All the color drained from Jack’s face and I could see anger in every muscle twitch, but when he spoke his voice was calm, soft. “You don’t know
anything
about it.”

“And whose fault is that?” My words were biting and hard.

He looked down and slid his plate aside, everything about him shifting from fury to sorrow and defeat. “Well then, let me educate you. Your dad is one of the bravest men I’ve ever known. He ran from you and your mom because he loved you enough to do anything to protect you, and there hasn’t been a single day since that he hasn’t talked about you.”

Ever since Dad had left, anger and resentment had been the glue I’d used as I’d struggled to put my world back together, piece by piece. Jack’s words shook me like an earthquake, cracking and shattering everything I’d built up and called truth. “Protect us?”

“Yes. He didn’t want to leave you. He knew he had to get as far away from you as possible so the type 1s would believe he didn’t care. The rebellion—it’s against the type 1s. They’ve hurt, even killed, so many people, and he wanted to keep you safe. So he figured if he kept them busy chasing him, they wouldn’t bother with you.”

“Type 1s?”

“The first type of Night Walkers. They’re different than the others. And there are twice as many of them as the rest of us put together. I’d call them Takers, because all they do is take. They’re like type 2s—” He shook his head and spoke slower. “Sorry. I’m trying to use names that will make more sense to you. Takers are like Watchers in that they never sleep, but Builders can’t help them like they can us. Takers’ lifespans are very short due to this lack of sleep, and most of them have essentially become anarchists. Some infamous celebrities were Takers: James Dean, Kurt Cobain, Buddy Holly. They live hard and die young. The lucky ones live to their mid-twenties. They think of themselves as superior to all other humans because, as they put it, they live more in their shortened years than most people do in a hundred.”

“Why can’t Builders help them sleep?”

“Because Takers don’t enter dreams once they reach maturity—ever.”

I frowned, incredulous. “So, even their bodies always stay awake?”

“Not exactly.” Jack leaned forward. “They make their connections with Dreamers just like Watchers do, through eye contact. But then their body enters a coma-like state and their minds take over the
bodies
of Dreamers. As long as the Taker’s body is zoned out, the Taker controls the Dreamer—completely.”