Shattered (35 page)

"Yeah,
well, you're not wrong. The pills made my head hurt, it was sort of
like the light was too strong, but it wasn't actually that bright
inside of his dream. Partway through my argument with my dad I just
lost my grip on the dream and went crashing back into my own head.

"That
didn't stop me from taking another dose last night though. I didn't
take as much the second time, but it still did something to me."

"Can you
be more specific?"

"I got the
shakes, racing pulse, pretty much I thought I might die. It went away
and I managed to go to sleep, but I was weaker inside of the dream
when I went to talk to Cindi and my mom. Not just weaker than the
night before, weaker than I normally am. I almost didn't manage to
pull Cindi into my mom's dream, she almost got stuck in the between
space. I thought for a second there that I lost her."

Taggart still
didn't look mad, but his face had gone all expressionless the way it
did when he was in some kind of high-stakes situation and didn't want
to give anything away. That nearly broke my heart as badly as if he'd
started yelling at me. He was treating me like an enemy, like someone
he couldn't trust anymore.

"That is
concerning. Why did you decide to tell me about these rather than
just continuing to use them?"

"I don't
know. I'm scared, Taggart. I'm worried that I've damaged my gift,
that I'll never be as strong as I used to be, or maybe that I've
ruined it completely and I can't dream walk anymore. That terrifies
me more than you can possibly know because I can't just go back to
being the girl whose biggest worry was whether there was going to be
a pop quiz in history.

"I know
too much now. I know just how dangerous the world is, and if I lose
my ability then I'm just another defenseless human with a lot of
enemies and nothing to offer any potential allies."

Taggart opened
his mouth as though to say something, but I just barreled on through.
"Most of all though, I decided I needed to tell you because you
should know what you're getting into if we go through with our plan
tonight. There was never any guarantee that I was going to be able to
pull these vampires into my dream, and even if my ability still works
and I'm able to do that, I may be too weak to help in the fight once
we get them there. Even if you win all by yourself, we no longer have
any guarantee that I'm still strong enough to hold someone inside of
the dream so they can't just escape death by running back to their
own dreams."

Taggart waited
for a few seconds as though wanting to make sure that I was really
done talking, and then he sighed. "I'm sorry, Adri. I should
have made better allowances for the amount of pressure you've been
under. When you first came out of the bathroom I was going to tell
you how healthy you look. I thought it was a sign that you weren't
letting all of the stress get to you."

My laugh was a
bitter thing. "My weight has fluctuated like you wouldn't
believe over the last forty-eight hours. Pulling Tristan into Cindi's
dream and then sleeping so late had me on a downward slope, but when
I woke up yesterday morning I was the smallest I've ever been. I
seriously looked like a famine victim, but now it's all back…plus
some extra. I haven't had these kinds of energy reserves since my
first little while on the cheer squad. I don't know what's happening
to me."

"There is
something wrong with hearing a girl your age talk about her body as
nothing more than a storage unit for the energy that she'll need to
continue waging the war she's been dragged into. I'm sorry for my
part in sending you down this path."

"No, you
don't get it, still. I love the turns that my life has taken. I spend
a lot more time scared out of my mind than I ever did before I first
manifested my ability, but I feel like I really matter for the first
time I can remember."

"I
understand, Adri, believe it or not, I really do. Knowing that you
matter, that your actions impact others for good or bad, is heady
stuff. It used to be that it was easier for us to see all of the ways
that a normal person influenced the lives of those around them, but
that has fallen by the wayside over the last six or seven decades.

"We all
want to matter. It's possibly the most important drive that is
universal to all people. It takes many forms, but there is something
inherent to being alive that makes us not want to waste our time
here. Much of the good and bad that are done in the world can be
traced back to that simple desire."

"I guess
maybe you do get it after all."

"Indeed I
do, and I have precious little advice to offer other than to tell you
that it is important to keep the time frames of what you're dealing
with in perspective. Burning yourself up in a blaze of glory is
rarely something that will pay off to the same extent that a
determined, sustained effort will. You don't have hundreds of years
of life ahead of you, but you do still have decades to look forward
to. That is a lot of time in which to make a difference. Try not to
waste all of that potential and trade it for something small that you
happen to want right now."

"What if
I've already wasted my potential? What if I've burned my talent out
and now am nothing more than a normal human girl?"

"Then you
will still be my dear friend who is welcome to come with me wherever
I go."

"I thought
that you would be mad."

Taggart's smile
was sad, but it was still a smile. "I wish you would have said
something to me sooner. I could have offered counsel that would have
probably made it so you wouldn't have felt the need to risk yourself
and your talent. To be honest, I'm a little hurt that you didn't
trust me enough to do so, but I also understand at least a little of
what you've been going through.

"More than
that though, I know that I should have remembered that you're not
just Adri, my dear friend, you're also someone who is going to have
to learn and make some of your own mistakes. I never want you to take
these again, but I'm not going to crucify you for making a mistake,
not when you clearly see the potential cost of what you've done."

"Thank
you, Taggart. I'm sorry I didn't turn to you. You're right, I should
have. You would have probably pointed out that it didn't matter if I
was five or six hours out of sync from everyone else. Alec told me
that last night after I'd taken the second dose of pills, and I felt
like an idiot, but at the time I couldn't see it."

Taggart
flinched slightly, and it took me a second to realize why. I hadn't
just chosen not to confide in him, I'd chosen to confide in Alec
instead.

"I'm
sorry, Taggart. It wasn't like that. I didn't start out planning on
confiding in Alec, it just kind of happened. After I finished with
that second dose, there was a while where I couldn't have really
managed to call anyone if not for the fact that Alec's text was on my
home screen.

"I
wouldn't have called anyone, but I was half convinced that I was
dying. Besides, I knew if I called you that you would forbid me from
using the pills again…"

"You're
right, I would have, but you are your own person. You could have
always decided to ignore my wishes and continue to use."

"I didn't
want to risk losing you."

My voice came
out small and timid, but that was because I knew what I was saying
was wrong. Taggart knew it too.

"By using
in the first place you had already accepted the possibility of losing
me and to a very real extent made a farce out of certain aspects of
our friendship, but I rather suspect that you knew that all along. It
doesn't matter though. Alec wouldn't have been my first choice for a
confidant for you, but I understand the appeal. You're the same age
and going through many of the same things.

"Just be
careful, Adri. There is a lot riding on the decisions that you're
making right now, and I'm not talking about the rebellion or any of
that. The things you do now will shape your future, and depending on
chemicals for anything that isn't truly necessary is a dangerous road
that goes places I wouldn't want to see you have to go."

Taggart looked
like he was nearly ready to tear up, but I was the last person who
should be throwing stones. I was already bawling like a little kid.
Taggart wrapped his arms around me and I felt something cold and hard
inside of me melt away.

"Now, if
you're still willing I think we should go eliminate some of the evil
in the world and free your family at the same time."

Adriana Paige
Sleep Tight Hotel
Albert Lea, Minnesota

I fell asleep
with surprising ease. Maybe it was the fact that I no longer had such
a guilty conscience, maybe it was the exhaustion that usually sets in
after a good cry. There was no way of knowing for sure, but it was a
profound relief to climb under my covers and close my eyes. Taggart's
slow, even breathing from across the room put me to sleep in just
minutes.

I'd enjoyed the
privacy of having my own room to sleep in back at the bunker, but I
was glad we still shared a room when we were on the road. There
wasn't any compelling financial reason to do so—not after we'd
gotten our hands on the gold that had been stored in the bunker—but
I felt a lot safer knowing that anything that tried to get to me was
going to have to go through him first.

This time when
I fell asleep I found myself inside my room in the bunker. It wasn't
something I'd anticipated, but it probably meant that I was finally
starting to think of the bunker as home. It wasn't the kind of place
most people would choose, but I didn't mind it. It felt safe in a way
that very few places had ever felt safe before.

I only had a
few moments to look around before I felt Taggart arrive inside of my
dream.

"I thought
after being cooped up down here for so long that you'd be eager to
get away."

His manner
seemed to reaffirm the fact that as far as he was concerned the pills
had never happened. He was ready to move on, and so was I.

"Yeah, at
first being underground made me feel a little stir-crazy, but lately
I haven't minded so much."

"Well, how
do you feel?"

"I don't
know. I was going to say good, but just the fact that you were able
to come to my dreams doesn't actually mean that I haven't lost my
gift, does it?"

"No, I
suppose it doesn't."

I shrugged.
"So, with that one proviso I guess I feel…good. No
weakness, no headache."

I envisioned
the far wall turning into a doorway that led to a featureless white
plain and then pushed the vision into the fabric of my dream.

"That
wasn't any harder than normal."

"Very
good. That is something, at least. Shall we?"

I led Taggart
out into what felt like the center of the plain and then turned and
made the portal back to the bunker disappear.

"Can you
think of a better place to engage a vampire?"

"No, I
think this is as good a place as any. I suggest that we both mask our
presence and then you can try to pull the leader into your dream and
we'll just go from there."

I took a deep
breath and then nodded. "Okay, here goes."

Shifting my
body and clothes took only a second, but by the time I looked up
Taggart had already gone transparent and started moving away from me
so that there was about ten feet between us. A moment later I felt
him shift forms and turn himself into his dream-version of his normal
hybrid form. He was the same height and his limbs were all the same
length, but inside of the dream his body became even more massive,
with much more than normal in the way of muscle mass, and sometimes
he even added on chitinous plates designed to protect his body even
more than the modified skeletal system of a hybrid already seemed to.

It probably
wasn't as important for me to put my game face on considering that
these vampires more than likely already knew exactly what I looked
like, but I did so anyway, shifting my face, making it longer and
fuller at the same time that I changed my hair color and eye color. A
few more tweaks to my bone structure and then I was ready to go
except for one thing.

My last
addition was my gun, which I manifested underneath my arm in its
normal spot, hanging from my shoulder holster. One thing that the
fight with Kaleb had driven home was that inside the dream the things
that worked best were the same things that worked inside of the real
world. My gun worked awfully well inside of the real world.

Next I sat down
and started the process of trying to find our target. I'd been
carrying a spark of anger deep inside of me ever since I first found
out my family had been abducted and it took only a tiny effort to fan
it into a roaring fire.

I wrapped my
arms around myself, enjoying the way the anger felt as it surged back
and forth inside of me. Maybe it wasn't the healthiest of emotions,
but it was a good, solid link between me and the person who'd taken
my family away from me.

To the anger I
next added in my memories of how the female vampire had sounded on
the phone, both when she had left me that original message and then
earlier in the day when I'd called her. Something inside of me felt
like it was balancing on the edge of a precipice, but as soon as I
added the memory of what she looked like, the presumably perfect
simulacrum that my mom had made, and the slightly rougher model my
dad had provided, the wobbling stopped.

I was no longer
in danger of losing my connection to her. Instead it felt as strong
as any other connection I had to anyone else in my life. That meant
there wasn't anything else left to do but send out the threads that
would turn the connection into something tangible enough to actually
be used.