Paranoia (The Night Walkers) (8 page)

Jack smiled. “Go back to your work now. You don’t remember me being here.”

Mom nodded and turned back to her desk as Jack removed his hands. It was like nothing had happened. She even picked up the same page she’d been working on before and went right back to it.

“Dreaming is the ultimate truth serum. No one ever learns to lie in them. There isn’t a need.” Jack stood up straight. “I can find out anything I want to know and often make people believe what I want them to believe. And so can you, as long as you use it carefully.”

“She remembered you when you met, though. How many times have you done this to her?” I couldn’t decide how to feel about this information. It was so huge it scared me. I was beginning to see what Jack had said. This thing that I’d always believed was a curse could help me wield an enormous amount of power … of control.

“I don’t keep track.” Jack turned his back to me and studied some of the shelves on the walls. “Your dad asked me to make sure you both stayed safe. Since you didn’t encounter your first Taker until yesterday, I think I’ve done a pretty good job.”

“If she recognized you, doesn’t that mean your little trick didn’t work?” Even knowing that Jack was trying to help, my voice came out a little bitter.

“No. You meet someone’s eyes enough times around town and they’re bound to start looking familiar.” Jack rubbed the back of his neck with his right hand. “To be honest, staying with you, actually meeting her—it compromises my position. I can’t bump into her at the end of the day on a regular basis once I leave your house without her being suspicious. It will make it more difficult for me to keep everyone safe.”

I hadn’t thought of it like that. “I can protect her. I don’t need you for that.”

From the corner of my eye, I thought I saw Jack shake his head, but he didn’t comment. “Your turn. Try it now.”

“I’ve done this before with Addie.” I rested my elbows on my knees and leaned forward. “It wasn’t intentional, but I touched her in a dream and asked her to talk to me when I came to her the next day.”

He raised his eyebrows but didn’t comment. “Making them forget you is the hardest part. Have you done that?”

With a frown, I stood up, but Jack held up a hand. “When you focus on making her forget you, try to picture the entire dream without you in it and put that in her thoughts. Be gentle.”

I walked over to Mom’s side and touched her shoulder. She looked up at me and smiled. “Hi, Parker.”

“Hi, Mom.” Her emotions were happy and full, proud when she looked at me. Even after everything else, she was still proud of me. I honestly didn’t know how to feel about that. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes.” No hesitation, not even for an instant.

“Do you still think I do drugs?”

“No.” Feelings of guilt and sadness hit me like a punch in the gut. She still felt bad for all the times she’d searched my room and accused me.

“You shouldn’t feel bad about that. I understand.”

She looked uncertain and her eyes filled with tears. I hadn’t understood how much it had upset her. How bad she’d felt.

“Don’t feel bad. I forgive you.”

She nodded and blinked away her tears. “Okay.”

“Go back to work now. You don’t remember seeing me here.” I spoke each word slowly, picturing everything about the dream around us without me or Jack in it.

Mom turned back to her work and I let go. I felt drained. It was much like I felt when fighting with Darkness. Like every person I tried to control stole bits of me. I didn’t know how I could use these abilities on a regular basis if this was the result.

Jack was sitting in one of the chairs, and his eyes followed me as I flopped down in the other.

“And that’s where Builders come in.”

I rolled my head to the side and looked at him. “What?”

“Builders’ dreams replenish everything this drains from us, and more.”

“Well, that doesn’t do me a whole lot of good, Jack.” I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths. “Since you’re so sure Mia’s not one, and sleeping during her self-hypnosis is just a fluke, apparently I don’t know any Builders.”

Jack laughed, slow and quiet. I peeked at him. “Think that’s funny?”

“Watchers across the world spend their lives looking for Builders. In communities of Night Walkers, they’re often shared by the Watchers. So everyone can survive. This isn’t a new thing.” He leaned his head against his fist.

“Yeah, I see what you mean.” My voice dripped with sarcasm. “That’s hilarious.”

“No, Parker. It’s ironic.” Jack’s words carried a hard, cutting edge. I felt the dream around us shift. Mom was waking up. “
So ironic
—because you’ve known a Builder almost your entire life and you don’t even know it.”

ten

I woke to the sun peeking past my curtains. From the pale tint, I could tell that it was still fairly early. My clock read eight a.m. and I groaned. I always tried to sleep in later than this on weekends. I didn’t always wake up when my Dreamer did; mostly I’d just shift into my void, or, as Jack called it, the Hollow. But for some reason when Mom woke up that morning, so did I. Jack was still out cold in his sleeping bag.

What did he mean, I’d known a Builder almost my whole life?

Tossing my blankets off, I put my feet on the floor, then casually reached out and nudged Jack with my toes. He didn’t even twitch. I pushed him a little harder and he rolled from his side onto his stomach, but still didn’t wake up. I yawned, stretched, and shuffled to the bathroom. If he didn’t wake up by the time I got back, I’d try again.

I looked in the mirror above the sink as I washed my hands and splashed some cold water on my face. I leaned
in for a closer look. Lately, I’d started to look more normal. The dark circles under my eyes had lightened, although this week they’d started getting darker again. My right eye was less swollen than it was yesterday, even though the entire eyelid—top and bottom—was now an angry purple bruise. My cheeks, beneath the healing asphalt scratches, were fleshed out a bit.

More than once over the last couple of months, Addie had said I was “starting to look human.” I figured she might not feel the same way when she saw me now.

Their flight back from Florida was supposed to land by noon, and knowing my friends, they’d head over here as soon as they got home. I was glad. Judging by the last few days, my life tended to fall apart when they weren’t around.

Leaning back from the mirror, I jumped when I saw Darkness standing behind me.

“Stop doing that,” I snapped.

He smiled as I turned to face him, but once again it didn’t reach all the way to his eyes. “What else am I supposed to do?”

“Go away.”

“Why don’t you?” His smile fell away and his gaze was icier than an early morning in January. “We’ve both always been here. Why do I have to disappear and you get to stay?”

I opened my mouth … then closed it again. I didn’t know how to respond to that question.

“That’s what I thought.” He smirked and leaned against the wall again. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“You are evil, and I’ll keep fighting you. I won’t let you have control again.”

His voice mocked me. “Right and wrong, evil and good. Not everything is so easily defined. You don’t have a clue what this is like for me. I’m not as simple as you think.”

“Complex or not, every time you have any bit of power everything goes horribly wrong. That ends now.” I spit out the words before walking out and leaving him in the bathroom.

“Maybe I need to let you
see
exactly what it’s like to be me.”

His words made me spin back around, but he was already gone again.

Stepping over Jack’s still sleeping form, I went back to my bed. I reached over onto the desk, grabbed my phone, and re-read Mia’s text:

Had a bad nightmare last night. Miss you more than I thought I would. We should talk when I get back.

What did she want to talk about? I hoped “Miss you more than I thought I would” had just came out wrong. I figured that in a few hours, I’d find out. Instead of replying, I sent a new text to all three of them:

Some stuff happened yesterday and Jack is back. Come to my house as soon as you can.

I didn’t really want to get into any more detail right then. Would telling them about the Takers just scare them? But if one of them knew something about that Cooper guy, that could help. Could I tell them I’d ended up in jail? Addie was the only one who knew about Darkness. Could I tell the others? Tell them I wasn’t always myself …

Tell them I’d killed Dr. Freeburg?

Picking up a glass of water from my nightstand, I dipped my fingers in it and stood over Jack. I shook a few drips onto his neck and face. He gasped and bolted straight up, wild eyes blinking fast and holding both hands above his head.

“What? Wh—what?” he sputtered, and I would have made fun of him if he hadn’t looked so terrified.

“It’s just a few drops of water.” I kept my voice low, not sure if I’d just heard my mom in the kitchen or not. “Calm down.”

Jack took a deep breath, but I think he was trying to burn a hole through my forehead with his eyes. “I’ve lived half my life in the desert. A couple of drops could lead to a flash flood in minutes. Not so funny.”

“Okay, okay … I’m sorry.”

In the silence that followed, Jack lay back down on his pillow and stretched. “That’s something you’ll have to learn to avoid. Getting too attached to the Dreamer.”

“What do you mean?”

“You woke up when your mom did because in
your
head somewhere, you doubted what we did in that dream. You convinced her that everything was okay, but now you need to believe it yourself. We didn’t hurt her. She isn’t at risk because of what we did. If you can’t stop worrying and separate yourself from Dreamers, you run the risk of undoing all or part of the things you said to her. She could forget the stuff you said about the drug suspicions, she could forget that you told her not to remember you, or she could forget everything.”

“Okay, Obi-Wan. I’ll try not to doubt myself.” I scratched my elbow. “So who is it?”

“What?” He tilted his head to look at me.

“Who is the Builder you said I know?”

“Oh.” He closed his eyes and relaxed back into the pillow before finally answering. “It’s Addie.”

I watched him for a minute, waiting for the joke … the punch line that had to follow. Addie couldn’t be a Builder. It made no sense. I shook my head. “No, she tried to control her dreams once, back before the fire. She couldn’t do it. Not enough for me to sleep.”

“You’re kidding.” Jack didn’t open his eyes, but a sarcastic smirk snuck across his face. “A Builder with no training couldn’t control her dreams? That’s unbelievable.”

“I’ve seen her dreams. There wasn’t anything obvious. How can you tell?” Jack was really rubbing me the wrong way, and I’d spent less than twenty-four hours with him.

“It isn’t very easy to tell, but it has to do with her amount of control. She can change dreams when she wants to. She doesn’t get stuck in nightmares like normal people would.” Jack spoke with absolute certainty, but was frowning when he continued. “I knew for sure when I watched a nightmare she had about Finn dying, and by choice turned it into a memory of them having a snowball fight. Normal people can’t do that.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed she has more control … I just didn’t realize what it meant.” I picked up my running shoes and grabbed some socks from my drawer. If Addie was a Builder … an entire wonderful future seemed to open up before me, but I closed it before I could consider taking even the first step. There was a lot to consider here. I wanted to be with Addie because of who she was … not what she could do for me. I shouldn’t get ahead of myself. “So how does she learn, then?”

“I’ll teach her.” A small smile curved up the corner of Jack’s mouth, but it disappeared when he opened his eyes and found me glaring at him.

“How?” I asked, even though I knew what the obvious answer was. I hoped I was wrong. Jealousy flared inside me at the idea of Jack spending time with Addie in her dreams.

“The same way I taught you.” Jack stared straight back at me and I could almost believe he didn’t notice that this bothered me. “I’ll start tonight.”

But then that damn smile popped up at the corner of his mouth again.

“Don’t you have a Builder already?”

“Yes, but Libby is shared between several of us … ” He let the insinuation hang in the air.

My voice came out more like a growl than I’d intended. “Why don’t you go back to
your
Builder and let Addie practice on her own?”

He lowered his chin and frowned. “Because being left on your own worked so well for you?”

My hands clenched into fists at my sides as I struggled to control my rising anger. “But … don’t you have more to teach me?”

“No. For right now, you should focus on practicing what I’ve taught you so far.” Jack sat up. “Mia should be the perfect person to practice on. Plus, you can catch up a bit on whatever form of sleep she offers you.”

Every word out of his mouth was making me angrier: Jack spending time in Addie’s dreams, acting like Mia was some sort of lesser person just because she wasn’t a Night Walker. I tugged my shoes on harder than necessary and threw on a sweatjacket. “I’m going for a run.”

As I grabbed the door handle, I heard Jack’s voice behind me. “Try not to bump into any Takers this time.”

“I’d probably prefer them to you,” I muttered as I pulled my bedroom door shut and walked to the kitchen. Mom sat with her coffee at the kitchen table. I stared at it, wondering if her desire for it this morning might go back to what I’d said to her in her dream last night. I didn’t like the idea of controlling people that way. I’d have to be very careful with my newfound power.

“Good morning, honey.” Mom smiled and looked down at my shoes. “Going for a run?”

“Yeah … ” I thought for a moment before asking the question on my mind. “How did you sleep last night?”

“Pretty well, I think.” She took another sip and then gave me a knowing look. “Don’t worry. I haven’t had any more middle-of-the-night breakdowns.”

I winced at the memory of her sobbing on the beach. She didn’t
remember
any breakdowns, anyway. I tried to cover it with a grin. “That makes two of us.”

“Good. Oh, I was wondering, I had a few appointments added to my schedule this morning. Could you run a few errands for me when you’re done?” She handed me a paper with a list scribbled on it. “Pretty please?”

“Sure, Mom.” Stuffing it in my pocket, I jogged out the front door into the still-cool morning air.