Disciple: DreamWalkers, Book 2 (7 page)

What had changed?

Maggie tried to sit up. Zeke wiggled her zipper down and slid a hand into her jeans. Callused fingers cupped her through her underwear. “You’re already wet for me.”

She was a lot of things for him. “Stop.”

“Do you really want me to stop?” He squeezed. The heel of his palm rode her clit and his fingers explored.

“It’s against policy for us to do this.” Oh, God. If he wouldn’t stop, if he slipped under the panties, she’d follow wherever he led. Her pussy thrummed, eager for that first touch. How would the tangible enhance the sensations?

He stroked the crease of her thigh. “You want me to touch you. Say it.”

“I want…” Dammit, he’d almost had her. “You think we won’t see each other again after this. That’s why you’re breaking the rules.”

“Not true. I told you. There’s no reason to reassign you.” He removed his hand from her pants, which helped her concentrate. “It’s not a concern.”

“Don’t lie to my face and expect me to have sex with you,” Maggie said. “At least be honest.” She understood the Somnium’s restriction against student-teacher relationships, but if Zeke cared for her, she was willing to compromise. They’d figure something out.

“I don’t know if I could stop them from taking you,” he admitted. He rested his forehead on her chest, his blond-tipped hair mussed from two sets of fingers—his and hers. “Curators can find anyone, anywhere.”

“And you didn’t want me to disappear without fucking me first?”

His head shot up. “It’s not like that. Jesus, Maggie.”

“Get off.” She shoved his shoulders, and he clambered into his seat. As the hard truth hit her, she secured her zipper.

“I’ll do everything I can to keep you with me.” Inelegantly, he adjusted the large bulge in his pants. “I’ll lie about your progress.”

“You shouldn’t have to lie.” Maggie returned her seat to an upright position and leaned against the headrest, closing her eyes. “If my progress is so problematic that I need to be reassigned to a curator, it’s for my own good.”

“Well, it’s no fucking good for me,” he snapped.

“You’ll get your bed back.”

“I was being an asshole. I’ve been an asshole. I couldn’t let this…” He gestured at her body. “Distract me from training you. Like it did before. With her.”

“I know.” They’d discussed this in the beginning. She just didn’t understand why having a relationship afterwards—why remaining friendly during training—had ceased to be an option. “It’s fine. Forget it.”

“I’ll ease off,” he promised. “I won’t be such a bastard. But you’ll have to be strong for both of us if you don’t want…”

He stopped talking and started the car. This whole time, not one single vehicle had passed them on the dark highway.

“If I don’t want what?”

He slammed the SUV into gear and jolted it onto the highway. “When you’re mad at me, it’s easier.”

“Easier to what?” Be a shithead? Erase any possibility of them being friends after her training, much less lovers?

He scowled at the road ahead. “Easier to be tough on you. I have to teach you to defend yourself, when every part of me wants to protect you.”

His confession only soothed her a little. “Well, when you’re mad at me, it’s harder.”

A disciple’s mentor was the person every neo depended on during training. Zeke’s horrible attitude had increased Maggie’s difficulties by half again, especially once the other alucinators and employees had begun to distrust her. The one person who was supposed to have her back was always threatening to let her fall.

Of course, he never had. It was likely he never would. He just made her feel like he resented her presence.

“I’m never all that mad at you.” His voice roughened. “Let’s get to the coma station and find out what’s going on. You can beat me up about this later. I deserve it.”

Chapter Five

Adishakti Sharma, her ugly, plastic clogs scuffling on the concrete floor, led Zeke and Maggie through the large facility’s austere corridors. She walked so fast her scrubs practically flapped in the wind.

“Where we going?” Zeke asked.

She’d wasted little time after they’d arrived, rushing them through the required processing and herding them away. In fact, Adi was almost—dare he say it—twitchy. Zeke had never seen her so out of sorts. She’d hardly even raised her voice when she and the other vigils had had to cover up the Karen situation in Harrisburg.

“Zone ten. Keep up, please.” That was the maximum security wing, deep in the bowels of the partially underground facility. If he had to guess, that was where they’d stash someone as dangerous as Karen.

“Maggie’s at twenty-two hours with no sleep. Is this going to take long?” Did the fact they were headed to zone ten confirm their visit had to do with Karen and not Maggie? He hoped it did, and his relief shocked him. He’d never dreamed he’d be glad that any situation involved Karen Kingsbury.

If it meant Maggie would still be his student after tonight, he’d deal. And he’d make good on his promise to quit being such an asshole. Her conclusion in the SUV—that he’d jumped her like a horny teenager because he was scared it would be his only shot—had hit far too close to home. He was worried he might lose her. Reassignment to the Orb wasn’t like moving to California. Orbis employees spent their careers classified and separated from the rest of the Somnium—or so everyone assumed, since communication with the Orb was generally through a curator.

Maggie didn’t know about Zeke’s struggle to keep his stupid hands and his stupider feelings to himself the past two months, but she did know when someone’s timing was shit.

“Adi, don’t pay attention to him. I’m fine.” Maggie trotted behind him while he stalked two paces behind Adi. As short as Adi was, Zeke had no idea how she was keeping ahead without running. Not that he was a beanpole—but she was really short.

“Maggie may require mild stimulants,” Adi said. “This is a pressing matter.”

A pressing matter? A pressing matter was needing to take a piss in the middle of a battle. Whatever was going on here was something else entirely. He could sense it the same way he sensed nearby wraiths.

But he didn’t see any reason for secrecy anymore. “Is this about Karen?”

Adi skidded to a halt. The long corridor, hospital-sterile and bunker-dim, was unoccupied aside from cameras at regular junctures. Nondescript metal doors with touchpads interrupted the walls. Looked like storage. They were at ground level, and the corridor was wide enough for deliveries.

“How did you know that?” The vigil’s long, dark braid hung over one shoulder, and she grabbed it like she was holding on to a rope. Or keeping her head attached to her shoulders.

“After you pinged me, I checked the dreamsphere and—”

Abruptly, Adi held up a hand, silencing him. “Let’s not speak of it here.”

Why? The cameras? What was the hell going on that Adi couldn’t discuss it on the security feed? Employees here had high clearance, each one personally vetted by the vigils. “I just want to make sure this isn’t about Maggie. About sending her to a curator.”

Adi frowned. “Of course not. She is mentally healthy. Her progress is slow but measurable.”

Behind him, Maggie sighed with relief. Her stress was his fault, and he hoped Adi’s statement helped. It sure as hell helped him. He was the dumbass who’d mentioned curators to Maggie because he didn’t want to think about Karen being awake.

He was the double dumbass who’d proceeded to jump Maggie because losing her to the curators was, to him, worse than Karen being awake.

Was everything he did the result of ducking something worse? Some valiant warrior he was. This was why he preferred fieldwork. Give him a weapon, some monsters and a team to deploy, and he could shine.

Speaking of which… “There been any manifestations?” he asked Adi.

She cut a glance at a camera. Yep, she was worried about being observed. “None out of the ordinary.”

“But you expect some.” Why the hell was this corridor deserted? They should have guards all over the place if they thought Karen, or anyone, was about to bust into a dream coma.

“Not here,” Adi said again and darted down the corridor.

He wasn’t sure if she was in a hurry to reach their destination or avoiding the discussion. He and Maggie followed her deeper into the facility, traversing stairs, elevators and two more checkpoints.

When they reached zone ten, Zeke realized why there’d been nobody at ground level.

Everyone was here.

Maggie snatched his arm and hung on as if fearing she might get lost in the crowd. Employees in scrubs, fatigues and street clothes hustled through the hallways, in and out of rooms. Medical equipment lined the walls along with gurneys and carts. Doors, opening and closing, revealed coma patients in beds, hooked up to monitors and tended by facility staff.

“Is this normal?” she whispered.

“No idea. At least we know it ain’t about you.” Two large, heavily armed soldiers marched past them. Kevlar vests added to their bulk. Mail gorgets protected their necks. For these guys to be fully suited up, in a hospital full of comatose dreamers and other patients, made him wonder how many manifestations Adi would consider out of the ordinary.

Perhaps he and Maggie should have indulged in contingency planning, like she’d suggested, instead of a grope session. It didn’t shock him at all that she was right and he was wrong at this point. Maggie was really smart.

“Probably should have listened to you earlier,” he admitted.

“Two months earlier,” she replied in an equally quiet voice.

“One thing will never change.” He wasn’t sure how much fallout there would be from his lustful lapse in the SUV, but he couldn’t dwell on that. “I don’t want you to get hurt. You and me—we’re gonna get through whatever this is. Right now this, and later this. All of this.”

She glanced up at him. He hoped she understood his awkward reassurance. He wasn’t used to talking about feelings, but he sure as hell had feelings for her.

Damn, he really wanted to kiss her again. The schmaltzy kind of kiss, not the one intended to lead to something more.

Their brief moment was interrupted by a loud, shrill beep. Several scrub-clad employees rushed into a room, yelling things about paddles and ECTs and adjusting something or other in the drip. Zeke didn’t recognize half the words.

“Down here, you two.” Adi, at an intersection, waved impatiently. She took off to the right, braid flapping behind her.

Zeke and Maggie dodged people and machines. They had to stop again for two orderlies pushing a gurney with a body on it.

The body’s face was covered. Maggie’s fingers dug into his arm.

“We better go,” he said, though it was hard to tear his gaze from the gurney as he wondered who was beneath the sheet.

An alucinator who’d recently been in a coma? A fatality from some other injury? Most often, a coma was induced by physical trauma from a wraith attack. It wasn’t usually related to a dreamsphere struggle or the ECT. With the uptick in new dreamers—more neonati meant more manifestations—there’d been more patients for the coma station overall. The coma station also functioned as the morgue for all deceased Somnium employees.

Zeke wasn’t privy to the numbers and wasn’t a freaking statistician anyhow. His area had sent six unlucky bastards here in the past couple of years, not including Karen and not including bodies. Alucinators with routine hospitalization needs weren’t housed in Wyoming.

He and Maggie caught up to Adi at a final checkpoint. This corridor was quieter. The rooms must be empty since the rest of zone ten was a madhouse.

The guard, a young man with a blond crew cut and a scar on his upper lip, nodded at Adi and smiled. “Ms. Sharma. You doing all right tonight, ma’am?”

“Hello, Blake.” Adi handed her badge to the man. This was the guy Zeke had talked to, then. “This is Ezekiel Garrett and Margaret Mackey. I preapproved their passage this morning.”

“If you could all initial the roster?” He handed Adi a tablet computer, and she signed something with her fingerprint. “I’ll notify the other vigils of their arrival.”

Adi stared at the tablet, swiping the screen. “There’s no need. I took care of that. But thank you.”

Zeke didn’t have to be making eye contact with Adi to suspect she wasn’t telling Blake the whole truth. About something. Lucky for Adi, Blake didn’t seem suspicious. He gazed at Adi like a puppy dog, nodding and smiling without question.

Blake sucked as a guard. Zeke would tell Adi later. He didn’t want to humiliate the guy. Non-dreamers were involved with the Somnium due to a need for specialized personnel—computer programmers, medical staff, and the like—and Blake had the feel of a normal with a crush.

After Maggie and Zeke contributed their fingerprints and Adi returned the tablet, Blake buzzed them through the gate. A less puppy-like soldier on the other side ran a wand over Zeke and Maggie, searching for metal and weapons. Zeke had to leave behind his knives and his gun, though he’d gotten to keep them up until this point. Alucinators who worked the field went armed whenever possible. He didn’t like giving up his weapons in what seemed to be an unstable environment.

“Where’s your gun?” he chided Maggie when she walked away from the guards without a contribution to the holding box. “You’re supposed to be armed.”

“I forgot.”

Like hell she had. He’d reminded her to strap on her holster when they’d gotten their rental car, and she’d postponed it, claiming it bugged her while seated. Then he’d reminded her when he’d parked the car and unloaded their bags from the back seat. After that he’d been distracted by the environment, the guards, the nervous vigil, and his ruminations about the future.

“You got a lot better aim than skill in hand to hand.” This corridor was narrower, and they had to walk close. His arm brushed hers. The doors to the various rooms were reinforced, the inset windows tiny and thick. Unlike the rest of zone ten, zone ten-and-three-quarters, or whatever it was, was sparsely populated and quiet. “A bullet will sidetrack most manifestations long enough for you to remember the pointy end of the sword goes into the bad guy. There’s no reason to be unprepared. Guess how many weapons Adishakti’s carrying?”

“One?”

“Four.” As a vigil, Adi only had to surrender her weapons at the Orbis and in areas dictated by conventional law. “Two guns, two knives. May have spikes in her braid. Check her hips at the edge of the scrubs. Gun belt.”

“I don’t have to be armed if Adi and the guards are.”

God, Maggie pissed him off sometimes. He couldn’t talk her out of her fear of dreamspace, and he couldn’t talk her into taking self-defense, much less offense, seriously. And, of course, he hadn’t been able to talk her into a quickie on the way here, though that was wisdom on her part, not a reluctance to step up.

She had to step up. And he had to step up his training. Or something. Once the vigils separated them after her matriculation, how the hell would she survive?

“If weapons were so important,” she added, “they’d have let you keep yours.”

“I could…” he began, but Adi finished keying in a long sequence into a touchpad. The door bleeped and opened with a shush.

Reinforced? Understatement. The door was like a vault. Why’d they bother with that? It wouldn’t keep wraiths from materializing inside if that was where a conduit opened.

But then, if wraiths popped up in a place with reinforced steel doors, the facility could go on a proper lockdown. The monsters would get stuck in rooms or corridors and be easier to kill, and noncombatants could find hideouts. It wasn’t as if wraiths could rematerialize somewhere else once they entered the physical plane.

Adi led them into the small room. A thin woman lay pale and unconscious in an angled hospital bed.

It took Zeke a minute to recognize Karen Kingsbury. She was a skeletal shadow of her former self, her former self being a blond bombshell with a flair for the dramatic that apparently went hand in hand with murderous psychosis.

Zeke halted at the threshold. Tubes and wires pronged off her body like porcupine quills. Machines surrounding her beeped in various sequences.

His stomach bottomed out like a jon boat on a sandbar.

Maggie gazed at him questioningly. He leaned against the doorjamb and shoved a hand in his pocket.

He’d been relieved to find out this was about Karen. He’d known on some level he was going to see her. Walking into a room with a vegetative Karen Kingsbury was preferable to walking into a room with a curator bent on taking Maggie away from him, right?

Where were his balls?

Shriveled up and hiding.

The pitiful woman in the bed represented everything Zeke had done wrong as an alucinator. Maggie represented everything he was determined to do right. Having them in the same place at the same time was blowing his mind.

What if he’d met Maggie first? Would he have screwed up with her instead? Would she be the one lying in the bed?

He’d had sex with Karen and wanted to have sex with Maggie. They were both his students, both L5s, and had both formed tangible bonds with him.

The similarities ended there.

Goddamn. If Karen woke—some kind of shit was going down with her, else he wouldn’t have been sent for—Maggie would be the first person she’d target. Karen hadn’t just been murderous and crazy. She’d been neurotically jealous. He had to protect Maggie.

But he couldn’t creep closer to that bed.

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to move into the room and not block the entryway.” A stern medical type, incongruously wearing a sword, spoke to Zeke from a nurse’s station in the hallway. Monitors displaying camera-eye views of beds surrounded the employee, and two soldiers trooped down the hallway, making rounds.

“The door is programmed to shut itself.” Adi approached him like she might a snarling dog. Or a whimpering, cowering dog. “A blockage will set off the alarms. They’re loud. Please come in.”

Reluctantly, Zeke held up the wall beside the entry instead of the jamb. The door eased itself shut.