Authors: Dean Murray
Taggart came
out to let me know when he'd finished preparing dinner, but I'd had
so much junk food by that time that I wasn't actually very hungry. I
went in anyway just because I didn't want him to think I was still
mad. That and I figured it would probably be a good idea to get some
real food inside of me. It seemed like dream walking mostly used up
calories, but there was always the possibility that it also consumed
trace minerals and vitamins that I wasn't getting from my steady diet
of chips and chocolate.
Dinner was a
short, strained affair. Taggart was obviously still desperately
trying to come up with a solution that would let us find my family,
so once I'd finished cleaning off my plate I pushed it back and
cleared my throat.
"I know
that you and Isaac are working on a set of options, but I've been
working on a plan of my own. I had my dad show me what the head
vampire looked like last night. Between that, knowing the sound of
her voice, and the sheer strength of the anger I feel towards her,
I'm hoping I'll be able to pull her into my dream tomorrow night. If
it works, then I'm hoping that you'd be willing to help me kill her."
There was a
long, awkward pause after that which seemed to beg some kind of
further explanation, so I threw some more words out there in the
hopes that doing so would fill in the silence.
"I know
it's kind of hypocritical of me to ask you for something like that
after not having been willing to do the same kind of thing for you,
but it just feels like the best option. If I can get pictures from my
mom and Cindi of the rest of the vampires then there is a possibility
that we can take them out one at a time over the next few nights
without them being able to do anything to stop us. We might even be
able to use it to make them back down altogether, but in the
worst-case scenario we still end up reducing the number of vampires
we'll have to face when we go in after my family…"
Taggart held up
a calming hand. "I wasn't trying to condemn you, Adri. I was
just trying to decide if this was a good thing. You've held so
resolutely to your desire not to turn your ability to this end for so
long now. I've wished many times that I could convince you to change
your mind, but now that the moment has arrived I'm not sure it is
what I really wanted. The price suddenly seems too high."
"It's not
going to be too high of a price because we're going to get my family
back."
"That's
not what I meant, Adri, but I suspect you know as much without me
even having to say so."
"Yeah. My
dad had the same kinds of worries, but at the end of the day I'm not
going to just stand by and put Isaac and the rest in more danger than
I have to. I'm going to try to stop these vampires on my own if I
have to, but I'd really like to have your help."
"I will of
course help in any way I can, Adri. You know that."
"Okay,
thank you. It means a lot to know that you have my back in all of
this. I think we should try to kill the vampire tomorrow night after
I've had a chance to talk to my mom and Cindi. That way if the first
fight goes well we can possibly take another two or three vampires
out before the night is over. What do you think?"
"Assuming
that your strength holds up, that is fine. It will certainly serve as
a greater shock to the remaining vampires when they wake and find
that more than one of their fellows has died during the night."
"Okay,
it's a plan then. I'm going to go back out to the pit and try to work
myself into a state of exhaustion so I don't have any problems
falling asleep tonight. I'll leave my door unlocked tonight and I'll
make sure to set my alarm, but if I'm not up by seven thirty please
come physically pull me out of bed—I don't want to sleep
through the deadline and miss calling that vampire."
Adriana Paige
Marauder's Gas Station
Central Wyoming
My time in the
pit was grueling. I lost count of how many loads of dirt I'd carried
up around fifteen. Tired and dirty, I decided to call it a day about
the time the sun started to set. Under other circumstances I would
have stayed to watch the sunset, but instead I simply dumped my last
load of dirt along a section of the hill where the trees and other
shrubbery would help conceal the fact that the shape of the ground
had changed quite a bit over the last week or so and then turned
around and headed back inside.
I'd run out of
food, so I made a trip up to the gas station before going back to my
room. I'd half expected Taggart to prepare some kind of light snack
before letting me go to bed, but it turned out that he was tending
the convenience shop instead.
He had his
phone out and seemed to be talking to Isaac, so I merely waved to him
before grabbing more sustenance and heading back down into the
bunker. There was an unexpected surprise waiting for me when I got
out of the shower.
Alec had texted
me earlier in the day, but since I'd left my phone in my room after
lunch I hadn't noticed his message before then.
I know I'm
supposed to give you space while you deal with everything that is
going on right now, but I'm really worried about you. If you need
ANYTHING please tell me.
Putting my
phone back down on my desk unanswered was even harder than I'd
expected. A part of me wanted to call him back right then and tell
him how worried I was, but I knew it wouldn't actually fix anything.
I needed to get back to sleep, preferably without having to overdose
on sleeping pills, and then I needed to talk to my mom and Cindi.
Alec was
important, but not as important as my family and I couldn't risk him
getting me worked up and distracted from what I needed to be doing.
If Alec was the right guy for me then he would still be waiting and
ready to forgive after my family was safe.
I debated
taking another sleeping pill. I'd spent the last couple of hours
fighting a headache and I'd started feeling shaky about the time I
got out of the shower. I figured it was because of the sleeping
pills, but there wasn't any way of knowing whether the shakes were
because I'd overdosed or if something about my physiology had changed
since I'd started dream walking so that drugs no longer had the same
effect on me as they had on other people.
Under other
circumstances that would have freaked me out. If drugs didn't work on
me the right way now then there was a distinct chance that I wasn't
actually a human being anymore. Considering what I was about to do,
the fact that I was going to try and assassinate not just one person
but multiple people, the idea of no longer being human should have
left me rocking back and forth in the corner, but I forced myself not
to think about it.
My worrying
about it wouldn't change things one bit and I didn't have time for
some kind of psychotic break. No, I was a lot more worried about the
fact that I'd lost my hold on the dream partway through my
conversation with my dad.
I was running
risks that I didn't want to run, but at the same time the amount of
control I'd had over my surroundings had been incredibly seductive. I
needed to be able to sleep, and I needed to be able to talk to my mom
and Cindi—at the same time if possible. In the end that proved
to be too much of a temptation to resist.
I popped two
pills into my mouth and swallowed them with a glass of water. I told
myself it was just the recommended dose this time, but a quiet voice
in the back of my mind warned me that I was going to have a hard time
coming back from this if I took too many more steps down this path.
I dropped down
onto my bed and started waiting, but that was about the time that my
headache started really ramping up and just a few minutes later the
pain got to the point where I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep.
I had ibuprofen
in my travel bag, but when I tried to get out of my bed my legs
refused to function. I caught myself on the bed as I started to fall,
but still ended up on the floor panting and breathless.
The crawl over
to my bag was nothing less than torture. It was a good thing it was
only two feet from my bed—if it had been any further away I
never would have made it. I managed to get my bag unzipped, but my
fingers didn't work well enough to get the ibuprofen out of its
bottle.
I considered
screaming for help, but Taggart wasn't going to hear me. My room had
been designed to be completely soundproof so that the master vampire
who'd ruled the bunker wouldn't have to be disturbed by his minions.
I could have yelled myself hoarse and Taggart wouldn't have heard me
even if he'd been next door in his room. With him all the way up in
the gas station, he might as well be up on another planet. I rolled
over onto my back and reached for my phone. I couldn't grab it off
the table, not with as bad as my hands had gotten even in just the
last few seconds, but I managed to knock it off onto the floor.
My heartbeat,
was getting weak and thready, but even so I almost couldn't bring
myself to call someone. It felt like I was dying, but if I wasn't and
I called Taggart there would be consequences. He wasn't just going to
let me scare the crap out of him and then tell him I was fine and
needed to get to sleep so I could pay a visit to my Mom and sister.
I needed an
insurance policy, some way to make sure I could call Taggart if
things got really bad, without actually calling Taggart until I was
positive that I'd overdosed. After several seconds of panting I
finally rolled over onto my side and dialed Alec. I probably couldn't
have managed it if his text hadn't still been on my home screen. A
single long push with a quivering finger made the phone dial him and
I managed to get the phone flipped over so it would switch to
speakerphone mode before my strength ran out.
"Adri, is
that really you?"
"Yes…Alec,
I need you to listen carefully. Something is wrong with me. If I stop
talking then I need you to call Isaac and have him ask Taggart to
come get me in my room."
The eagerness
in his voice was instantly replaced with worry. "I'll call him
now."
"No!"
Getting so many words out so quickly nearly made me black out, but I
knew I had to keep going or he would call Isaac despite my
protestations.
"Taggart
can't know that I'm in trouble unless it becomes absolutely
necessary. I did something stupid, and if he knows he'll try to stop
me from dream walking for the next couple of days."
"You sound
pretty bad…maybe it would be better if he stopped you."
"You don't
understand, Alec. My family needs me right now. I'm the only one who
has a chance in hell of finding them. Taggart can't do it, Isaac
can't do it, just me. What would you do, what would you risk if it
was your family, if it was Rachel on the line?"
The shake had
gotten worse, it was starting to affect my speech, but
something—maybe just the sheer desperation in my voice—got
through to Alec.
"Okay,
you're scaring me right now, but I understand at least a little of
what you're going through. I would run any risk to save Rachel. If
that's really what you want then I won't call Isaac unless you become
non-responsive."
I knew I wasn't
far from becoming unresponsive. Part of me wanted to give into the
darkness that was slowly circling like a shark with blood in the
water. I couldn't do that though. There was a line between forced
unconsciousness and natural sleep and if I crossed it then I wouldn't
dream tonight. I forced out a response despite the fact that my words
were slurring together nearly to the point of being unintelligible.
"Thank
you."
"What's
going on, Adri? I mean, I know your family is missing, but what are
you doing to yourself?"
"I got off
my sleep schedule…only I need to be sleeping at certain times
to use my ability. I got some sleeping pills and I took more than the
regular dose."
"That's
really dangerous."
I wasn't
getting any better. My words were still hard even for me to follow,
but I also wasn't getting any worse. I was ready to count that as a
win.
"I know.
It wasn't that much more than the recommended dose, but it did
something to my ability. It made me stronger while I was in the
dream, but at the price of a splitting headache and increased energy
consumption. I thought I was okay, but tonight I took just the
regular dose and now I'm falling apart."
Alec cleared
his throat. "I wish I was there right now. I wish there was
something useful I could do to help."
I finally
realized what the background noise was.
"You're in
a car?"
"Yeah. I
left earlier today. I had to stay long enough to confirm that my
people were going to be able to keep the remnants of that gang under
control, but now that I'm up and mobile again and they have a couple
of successful wins under their belts it seemed like I could get away
with leaving."
"Where are
you going?"
Those were the
first words since the beginning of the conversation that didn't come
out sounding like I was drunk, which wasn't as odd as the fact that I
hadn't realized I was feeling better. It was like talking to Alec was
so comforting that I hadn't even noticed my pain once we got started.
"We're
headed east. Isaac mentioned that you were somewhere in southern
Wyoming, so I thought that was the best place to head for now. As
soon as you know where your folks are let me know and we'll reroute
there."
"You're
coming to help me?"
"Of course
I am. Like I said, I would have left yesterday, but I could barely
walk and I didn't want to leave until I knew there wasn't another
super-vampire waiting in the wings."
"Wait,
what did you mean by
we
?"