2 (19 page)

Again, I look down at my friends, clustered around, barely visible in the dim light. I look at Solaris, standing there, his arm raised. The realization hits me suddenly, like a blow to the head.

I can’t run anymore. The race is ending
.

“Maybe I did need to spend more time at the Academy,” I say to him. “Or maybe I already know how to find out whose dream this is.”

“Don’t even try it!” Solaris says. “I’m in your head, boy, you don’t stand a—”

I run hard, fast, right at his towering black form. I charge with my shoulder down low, just like my high school football coach taught me. Before he can react, I plough into Solaris’ stomach and we go flying through the air—off the edge of the pyramid, out into darkness, falling through an empty sky.

I close my eyes and concentrate.

We hit the water hard.

I plunge down into the inky depths, my arms pushing out in front of me, my legs kicking fiercely to propel myself upward. When I reach the surface, my screaming lungs suck in air and I spit out the cool water as I look around.

It’s night now. The moon is high and a handful of stars are sprinkled across the sky. I catch sight of a black shadow close to me in the water and I strike out for the shore, eager to put distance between us. I have caught Solaris by surprise with the sudden change in my dream but the advantage won’t last long.

We’re in a city—I can see buildings and streetlights surrounding us from above. I smile as I catch sight of the Eiffel Tower looming high over me, lit up against the night. To the right is the bridge where I’d landed on top of a tourist bus after Zara and I made our crazy BASE jump from the Tower.

This is my dream. I brought us here—to Paris
.

“Argh!” I shout out as Solaris grabs hold, reaching out to me with impossibly long arms. His hand grips my backpack, dragging me to shore with long, powerful swim strokes. “Get off me!”

He’s silent as he swims. I twist and turn, trying to pull against him, to swim in the opposite direction, but he’s too strong for me. The backpack straps tighten as I struggle, I cannot get free.

Think … it’s my dream, so I can control it
.

Go somewhere else …

“Don’t do it!” Solaris snarls, stopping to drag me around to face him, his voice still rasping and metallic through his mask.

I blink hard against the blinding daylight. I’m momentarily stunned by the heat in the air. Water pours off me as I scramble to my feet.

I’ve been here before, too—it’s the Grand Canyon
.

My last 13 tour, huh
.

“You can’t escape me,” Solaris says. He’s standing, facing me. He’s still and menacing, yet I can tell he is impatient, all humour gone now as he chases me through
my
dream.

“Give me the Gears, Sam!” His voice is piercing, ripping into the very centre of my mind. “You know that I will follow you, wherever you go. Paris, New York, Cairo, Arizona, Sydney—it doesn’t matter. I’ll be right there. And when you wake up? I’ll be there, too. You have nowhere to go. There’s nothing you can dream that I won’t see. You’ve lost, Sam. It’s time to give up.”

He holds up something in his hand. It is a small, shiny silver disc—it glints in the sun as it spins gently on the end of a linked chain. It looks like an old pocket watch. Solaris is looking at it meaningfully. “It was made a long time ago. Now, it’s mine.”

“Nice story,” I say. I scan the desolate scene around us.

If I can get away, lose him in my dream … then I can find the last Dreamer
.

“You still don’t understand what’s going on here, do you Sam?” Solaris says. He takes a step forward, the antique timepiece in his hand. “Your destiny is my destiny, one way or the other, until this is finished.”

Solaris turns to stare out at the expansive sky. Suddenly, everything changes. We are not in the desert anymore.

What the …? I didn’t do that
.

But this is my dream
.

Isn’t it?

I stare, bewildered, at the rolling green hills around us, snow-capped mountains in the distance. I shiver and my breath swirls in front of me in the cold mountain air. We’re standing at the top of a long valley, with a small, picturesque village nestled at the bottom of it, ringed by a dense forest.

“Maybe you don’t know everything after all,” Solaris sneers under the mask.

I gasp, the full realization of what’s happening dawning on me. “But, if we’re sharing a dream, like I did with the others …?” My mind reels, grappling with an unthinkable possibility.

“That’s right, Sam,” Solaris whispers. “Do you understand now? The last 13 is complete.”

No! It can’t be
.

But it is.

There is nothing now but the inescapable truth that our worst enemy is one of us. There can be no way to win this.

We are all going to—

Die.

James Phelan started writing his first novel while in high school. He now divides his time between writing thrillers and books for teens.

jamesphelan.com.au

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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Phelan, James, 1979-, author
2 / James Phelan.

(The last thirteen ; book 12)
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-4431-3397-5 (pbk.).--ISBN 978-1-4431-3398-2 (html)

I. Title. II. Title: Two. III. Series: Phelan, James, 1979- .
Last thirteen ; bk. 12.

PZ7.P52Two 2014 j823’.92 C2014-901818-5
C2014-901819-3

First published by Scholastic Australia in 2014.
This edition published by Scholastic Canada Ltd. in 2014.
Text copyright © 2014 by James Phelan.
Illustrations & design copyright © 2014 by Scholastic Australia.
Illustrations by Chad Mitchell.
Design by Nicole Stofberg.

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