An Unwitting Siren and an Unwitting Sailor Beholden to Its Power
The afternoon was eventful. We successfully taught Bobo to lead us to Brady’s buried explanation of our true natures, should we die or otherwise forget. And we helped one another search for the infamous chips we didn’t know if we actually had.
Although it was Griffin’s hands that roved my bare skin, feeling for any unexplained bumps or scars, and though I’d scarcely stopped daydreaming about our earlier lovemaking, nothing sexy came of his touch—or of my later examination along his skin. Layla made sure of it with her constant heckling and obnoxious inquiries that demanded to know if Griffin and I’d reached Pound Town or if the rocket-in-your-pocket train hadn’t yet left the station. It was fortunate I loved the crap out of her, or I’d have been tempted to strangle her.
The good news was that we found no disturbances to suggest buried chips in any of us. The bad news was that Hunt suggested the chips might have been laparoscopically implanted inside our heads, the resultant tiny incisions concealed by our universally thick hair. The embedded chips could possibly be kill switches, Hunt further theorized. If that was the case, and we were reallyrunning around with tech in our heads that could blow at their command, we were so beyond screwed that there was no point fretting about it. At least the end would arrive swiftly and without warning so we wouldn’t dread it.
After all that, we trained with Homer, Yolanda, and Armando for several hours. If my not-dad informed them I supposedly wasn’t feeling well, they didn’t let on. As usual, they kicked our ever-loving asses, pushing and pushing us until Layla whined nonstop into our secret chat, and we collapsed to the forest floor, our chests heaving, muscles quivering.
While we completed their exercises and sparred, we carefully observed our instructors. We searched for any sign whatsoever that at least one of them might be a willing ally in our fight for our freedom, that even one of them had a conscience that was worth a damn. There were a couple of lingering, pensive looks from Armando, and a prolonged perusal by Yolanda, which Brady insisted was her checking out his “hot ass”—though he was the only one to think so.
In the end, it wasn’t enough to risk revealing we were in the know. Their loyalty probably aligned with their no-doubt generous paychecks.
Between the full-body-melt orgasms Griffin gave me that morning, the giddy high from knowing that the boy I loved very much loved me back, and the pummeling of our ninja training, my body was totally spent and ready for sleep when I finally slumped into bed that night. My mind, however, was wired.
After Bobo’s shocking revelations, I was going to try to dreamwalk tonight while he kept me safe from his position next to me on the bed. Allowing an animalcompanion, who couldn’t even pronounce the word but who seemed to know more about me than I did, to protect me as I ventured into the unknown, where my friends wouldn’t be able to reach me, and which was probably populated by creepy aliens à la Fanny … wasn’t exactly reassuring.
At first, my friends camped out on the floor of my bedroom and kept guard as much as they could while I presumably dreamwalked. In practice, I couldn’t settle into slumber with all their eyes on me.
If I managed to dreamwalk—some-fucking-how—and to travel somewhere useful—where, who knew—and to return with helpful information—a fucking tall order since I had absolutely no clue what I was doing—we might secure another significant advantage. How absolutely wonderful that would be. Perhaps even lifesaving. It might be the answer to our freedom.
No pressure at all.
When all I did was toss, turn, and sigh—andnotsleep a wink—my friends eventually capitulated and prepared to leave. But not before Griffin slid a hunting knife under my pillow as he kissed me good night. I couldn’t imagine how a physical blade would serve me as I walked throughdreams, but it was always better to have a weapon than not, that was a given.
When they began hemming and hawing, wondering if they should sleep over, just in another room, I shooed them away with a promise that I’d text if I needed them so they could dash right over. We didn’t want the lie-rents curious about why they were reluctant to leave me alone, especially during nighttime. They were very well aware that I could dreamwalk.
If only I was as well…
Even after my crew was gone, nerves kept me awake for a while longer. But eventually, the scent of Griffin on my sheets, of our joined bodies, of the love we shared, lulled me into that peaceful space between waking and sleeping. I was no longer alert, barely aware of my surroundings. Sleep was only moments away—or perhaps I was asleep already, I couldn’t tell, and was careful not to wrangle my thoughts into something coherent.
However this dreamwalking worked, it made sense that I’d have to be asleep for it.
At first, I sensed only Griffin, his warmth, the comfort of his embrace. I felt his kisses dragging along my skin, his hands caressing me. When I could all too easily conjure the sensation of him plunging inside me, loving me, I drifted toward it. Asleep or awake, Griffin had long been my tether to everything good in this world. My entire body heated and grew supple as I drifted without notion of time or reality. My body pulsed, its reactions visceral, but without becoming too aware, it was impossible to tell whether or not this was indeed sleep. It didn’t feel like dreamwalking. It barely felt like dreaming when it was what I’d experienced mere hours earlier.
At some point, Bobo stretched his body lengthwise along mine. At another, I lost the ability to retain awareness of my dream, even though I always wanted to hold on to Griffin.
Sometime later, awareness returned, as if it were purposeful, attempting to snag my attention. By then, I didn’t remember what it was I was supposed to be doing, and, groggy, I resisted.
Slowly, gradually, lights like elongated, blurry stars began to appear behind my closed eyes. There was one, then two, then suddenly five. A warm, coral hue, they overlapped, like a series of afterimages after staring at too-bright lights the color of the sun.
More long, glowing figures appeared around them, intertwined with them. The new lights were of varying colors. Some were a cool blue, others a deep indigo, some brilliant white.
Their whispers swam through my sleeping mind next. They sounded like the murmuring of waves, cresting and crashing to the shore. They were soft, then insistent. Soft and insistent again. The undulating whispers morphed into a song I instinctively understood didn’t belong to this world but refused to coalesce into words.
The starry lights stretched longer until I could almost believe they were people. It was as if I were seeing auras without thephysical bodies at their centers. Their colors thrummed in tune to a melody that was so harmonic, so balanced, so utterly perfect, that it couldn’t be human.
Am I dreamwalking? If so, where am I? More importantly, who are they? And what do they want from me?
I tried to formulate questions for them, but the lure of their song was too great. Every time I tried, I succumbed to its beauty. They were sirens, and I an unwitting sailor beholden to the song’s power.
I tried to think harder, to formulate words, to engage them in some way, to do anything but just lie there listening, taking in the striking melody they offered me.
Time passed—a little or a lot, I had no way of determining—and I knew peace, I knew safety. I knew completion and contentment.
But then … it changed. Their combined voices grew frantic, their song chaotic and disturbing.
Their starry lights swarmed at me, converging. What felt like hands but didn’t look like them reached for me—
