Dreamwalkers (16 page)

Mom folds her arms.

“Oh, you didn’t mean for us to ‘run away.’
You meant for us to hide out here. Seriously? We need to be in the
Witness Protection Program or something. This cabin isn’t hidden,
and it isn’t safe.”

I can sense the wrath of Mom coming. I’ve
never spoken to her like this in front of other people.

Instead, she unfolds her arms. “I’m done.”
Her voice is deadly calm. She leaves the room. We watch her go,
then Aunt Jenny pushes her way out of the kitchen as well.

I am off to a great start as pack leader.

Remy finds me later that evening, sitting
outside on the dangerously unstable picnic table.

“It isn’t easy, being a leader,” Remy
says.

“What do you know about it?”

“Nothing.” He examines the table and
carefully rests one leg against it. “We never had a leader when I
was growing up. You know, it was just my dad and me. We weren’t a
pack, we were just a family. I always felt like I was going to end
up alone.”

“Now you have us,” I say bitterly. “Ain’t
life grand.”

“I like being a part of something. And now
that I’ve found your family, I feel like I’m part of something
bigger, much bigger even than this pack. Pack bonds… they’re hard
to break.” He raises his eyebrows at me. “I feel like there are
other members of this pack out there. Other than the five of us
here.”

It takes a moment for his words to sink in.
“You can feel others? Who?”

He shakes his head. “I’m not sure. It’s like
this… pull. I can feel them out there, but they’re too far away to
be anyone specific.”

“Why can’t I feel them?” I ask. “I’m the pack
leader now. I should be able to feel my entire pack. Shouldn’t
I?”

“Maybe you’re just not listening hard
enough.”

Remy takes my hand. My gaze flickers up at
him.

“You seem to be cutting yourself off from
everyone,” he says quietly. “Before we came back, when you opened
up to me about Daniel, I felt so close to you. But ever since he
came back, you’re closed off.”

“I don’t need everyone hearing my every
thought,” I complain.

“I get that. But it’s okay to have feelings
and to share them.”

“Oh, God.” I start to get up.

“Wait, Kayla.” When he says my name I have to
stop. “I felt such a strong connection to you. And now… it’s lost.
Don’t you miss it, too?”

With him holding my hand, looking into my
eyes, I realize I was missing this. During that long month of
tracking Daniel and planning and living under the watchful eyes of
my mother and aunt, I had pulled away from Remy. I had been too
busy wondering what would happen when Daniel returned: would he
think I was in love with him? Would we still be bonded? Would Remy
and I still be bonded if I was bonded with Daniel?

“I do miss you,” I say. “I’ve just had a lot
on my mind.”

“You’re worried that you’re bonded to
Daniel.”

“Yes!” I am so relieved that he knows. “I
mean, I don’t know exactly how these bonds work.”

“I don’t either.”

Remy always has the answers. He doesn’t
know?

He smiles at how I’m staring dumbly at him
and shrugs. “I don’t have much experience with bonds,” he says.
“But I know this: you will choose your mate. You are allowed to
choose.”

I think about this. I don’t know if he’s
right. What if I choose a mate, and I still have these bonds with
Remy and Daniel? A normal relationship is impossible.

“We haven’t trained in a while,” he says
after a while of staring at the crystal clear sky. “Maybe we could
try some meditation?”

“Ugh, meditation.”

“To figure out the bonds,” he clarifies. “If
you listen hard enough, you’ll feel them.”

I agree, and he leads me to a soft patch of
grass. “Lie down,” he tells me.

I raise one eyebrow, suspicious.

His smile is crooked. “It’s yoga,” he says.
“Shavasana–Corpse Pose. It’s a pose of total relaxation.” He
stretches out on the ground face up, with arms out and palms open
to the sky. I lie down beside him, but far enough so we aren’t
touching.

“I want you to focus on relaxing every muscle
in your body, starting with your feet and going towards your head.
Once you are fully relaxed, try to imagine the bonds as floating
strings coming from your head and connecting you to everyone in
your pack. Try to see them, what they’re doing right now.”

“This sounds a little like dreamwalking,” I
say.

He takes a deep breath and exhales slowly. I
follow suit, closing my eyes and trying to do what he said.
Relaxing is hard. If I don’t focus on each of my muscles, my mind
wanders back to the bond quandary.

It takes a long time. So long I’ve lost track
of time. I could have been lying here for one minute or five.
Eventually, though, I relax into the earth, letting myself become
attuned to the sounds of nature and Remy breathing beside me. My
eyes are closed but I can almost see the starry sky above me.

I can almost see the bonds shimmering above
me.

The softly glowing strands come from my
forehead and branch out in different directions. I’m amazed at how
many there are. Way more than five.

The strand between my head and Remy’s is
tight. I can see him where he lies in the grass, his face lit by
the stars. He’s beautiful, but I want to explore the other
bonds.

At random I choose one. Almost immediately I
know it is my mother’s. I float up and follow it into the house,
into our little bedroom. Mom is a ball of fear. Fear? Yes, that is
the flavor of her essence. She is afraid. Why don’t I ever feel
that from her? It’s worry and fear and anger. Her memories flicker
violently, and I am seeing that asshole Matthew coming at her.
There are no words for inhuman creatures like him. I feel myself
getting angry and have to step away.

I choose another strand. Aunt Jenny’s. Hers
is sad, and a different kind of fear. The fear that she will lose
Daniel again.

Another strand and I find Daniel. He’s
sitting by the fire, reading. He looks strangely peaceful. This is
probably the safest he’s felt in a long, long time.

I look at all these other strands. So many. I
reach up and out and follow one.

My consciousness is dragged through space. I
don’t know which direction, but I feel considerable distance. I
don’t feel any strong emotions, not like those of Mom and Aunt
Jenny. I feel this strange separateness, a vast distance between
myself and others, and a suspicion of being watched. I can’t quite
see this person I’m attached to, but whoever it is has no love for
other people. I imagine he is like Remy, having grown up alone. A
lone wolf. Maybe another of the lost Loupes?

Many of the other strands lead to places like
this: lost, lonely places filled with paranoia. But some are less
paranoid than others. Some feel simply like a strange building on a
strange street.

I reach for another. I want to find all these
lost members of my pack. This strand, however, vibrates like a live
wire, and I am immediately catapulted to a muddy clearing in a
forest.

I know this place. I have been here before.
Fear fills my mouth with a bitter tang. Not all of it is my
fear.

Misty.

My desire to help her bounces me out of the
meditation. I sit bolt upright, breathing hard. I was so sure I
could have grabbed her, pulled her right out of them.

Beside me, Remy raises himself up on his
elbows. “Kayla? Are you okay?”

“We have to help her,” I say.

I get up and head inside to tell the
others.

“There are other members of our pack,” I tell
everyone.

We sit in the living room before the fire, in
a semi-circle. Daniel has put his book down.

I see the questions in Mom and Aunt Jenny’s
eyes.

“I can feel my bonds with them. I’m not sure
who most of them are. But Misty is one of them. I connected with
her through a dream, and now I can see that they are torturing her.
Maybe because she’s already formed a bond with me, and can’t become
one of them. Whatever the case, we need to help her. She is one of
us.”

Daniel nods.

“I think with more practice, I can use the
bonds to locate them,” I say. “But I can dreamwalk with Misty, and
that means I can find her first and fastest. And wherever she is,
there are probably others.”

“Once we find them, how are we going to get
them out? If they’re keeping her captive somewhere, surely there
will be guards.” Aunt Jenny sounds nervous. She glances at Daniel,
and I can almost hear her concern that we will be sending Daniel in
alone to rescue these wolves.

“We won’t really know until we get there.
We’ll have to do some reconnaissance, find out the situation. I
don’t think they’re expecting us to infiltrate–they think they’re
stronger and smarter than us.”

“Because we’re women,” Mom says bitterly.

“Yes. But we’re strong women, and they will
learn that they shouldn’t underestimate us. We got Daniel back,
didn’t we?”

Remy is watching me, smiling slightly. I
smile back a little. In the corner, Daniel notices and his brow
furrows.

I take a deep breath. “We need to be mobile.”
When they look at me blankly, I continue. “I think we’re sitting
ducks in this cabin. We can’t just hunker down and expect that they
won’t find us. The safest place is on the road. We trade in our car
for an RV, pack it up, and get out there. They can’t sniff out our
trail that way, and then we can stay on the road longer, tracking
people down. Our car can barely fit us all, anyway, now that
Daniel’s here,” I add.

“Good idea. We’ll go into town tomorrow,” Mom
says to Remy. “We can probably find a used RV that isn’t too
expensive.”

“It’s my car,” Remy states bluntly. “I’m not
trading in my car.”

I should have known there’d be a snag. I’m a
little hurt that it’s Remy doing the snagging, though.

This is when it’d be nice to be a little
older than sixteen.

“Um… well, then, does anyone, I mean, do we
have enough money, like, in a bank?” I ask.

I can’t stand how naïve I sound. Money has
always been a sore subject for our family, and for Daniel’s family.
Our fathers weren’t exactly great at keeping their tempers in
check, which made finding work hard, and Daniel and I both knew our
mothers worked hard just to make ends meet. I don’t expect we have
a few thousand dollars in savings to buy an RV spur of the
moment.

“Actually, there is some money,” Aunt Jenny
says slowly. “It’s… it’s Daniel’s college fund. All of Frank’s life
insurance money went in there, what didn’t go toward the funeral.”
She looks at Daniel again.

Now I’m thinking there might be life
insurance money from Dad, but a quick glance at my mom tells me it
ain’t so.

“We’ve been living off of your father’s
money, Kayla,” she tells me. “There’s not a whole lot left.”

What, I don’t get a college fund?

I can tell by my mom’s face that she’s a
little ashamed about not thinking of my future. Especially given
that Daniel disappeared, and Aunt Jenny still didn’t touch his
college fund, while I was still there. Still there, still going to
school, still thinking I had a future as a normal person.

My fists clench up. So Mom doesn’t have any
money. But Aunt Jenny doesn’t seem to want to offer Daniel’s
college fund up for the good of the pack, and Remy doesn’t want to
give up his precious car. Everyone wants to save the pack, but no
one actually wants to fight or give up their money or sacrifice a
goddamn thing.

With one last glare in Remy’s direction, I
stomp out of the room and head to the backyard. I’m not used to
being the angry one. Back when it was just Daniel and me, I always
had to do the calming down.

I pace around, thinking it might be nice to
turn wolf and burn this anger off. The evening air is cool and
helps a bit, but a sudden wave of calmness fills me and I find
myself slowing down, my fists unclenching, clambering up onto the
picnic table and laying there. Staring up at the stars.

The picnic table bench creaks and I know. I
understand how I got calm so fast.

(Hi, Daniel)

(hi)

(Thanks)

(no problem… you did it enough for me)

His presence is comfortable. I don’t have to
try with him, to get all nervous like a giddy teenage girl. He’s
just Daniel.

(I’m not a very good leader)

(you’re doing fine… it’s a lot of
responsibility… I’m going to talk to my mom… she might be willing
to use that money)

(My mom didn’t bother with a college fund for
me)

Even the thought tastes bitter.

(you’re smart. you would’ve gotten a
scholarship)

(Doesn’t matter)

He doesn’t answer back for a while. Daniel
knows that words can’t change much of anything, but I feel
something coming from him. It feels like a hug. Just an emotional
mind hug.

It makes me want the real thing.

I roll off the picnic table and climb down to
sit beside Daniel. I look at him. He looks at me. I pull at his
elbow, loosening his arm from where it is crossed over his chest,
and weave myself inside until I am around him and he is around
me.

We sit like this for a long time.

The middle of the night. The dark corners of
this little house are filled with deep breathing, relaxed bodies,
sleepers who haven’t been thrown out of dreamland by a nightmare
that’s real. For a long time, the shadows paralyze me and I can’t
move for fear that Geo’s men are here, they are right here and they
are going to hurt me, and my mom, and Aunt Jenny, and probably
Daniel and Remy, too.