The skyscraper goes down, down, down, its black windows revealing nothing of the interior. The camera speeds up as it goes, and images start to appear in the reflections on the glass.
Dreambreakers are born of chaos. They don’t play by the rules of the waking world or the Dream. The rest of us are at the mercy of their whims.
The flashes of light and dark in the windows resolve themselves into different characters, there long enough to recognize them in moments of triumph and loss, and gone.
But I’ve seen enough of our world now. I know dreambreakers aren’t the scariest people out there. Seeking order in chaos? No—we are chaos. All of us Children of Hypnos. We fear ourselves above all, and what do we do with the things we fear? We hunt them.
Just when it feels like we’re descending into the pits of the earth, the camera finds the base of the tower. The entrance yawns open, a dark portal to the unknown. Emery stands with her back to us in her long black jacket, with her new hat and long braid.
I am tired of fear.
The shot closes in on her back, on her head. She turns, looks straight down the camera with those cold blue eyes.
Time to hunt.
Then she runs into Van Der Gelt Tower and disappears.
The screen goes black. I load into the game where I left Raven before, on the Fenhallow campus, but a few pop-ups appear letting me know about Dreambreaker changes and new features. These have circulated on the CoH Online website and fan forums for weeks. Alissa would’ve had guides ready for them. I’m sure someone will take her place as the top guide writer now that she’s gone, but the thought is a thorn burrowing into my chest. She should have been here to see this. She should have gotten to write the guides.
For a moment, I entertain the thought of taking over where she left off. I’ll write the guides. I’ll become the new Briory, preserve her memory.
It’s a bad idea. I’d rather be doing the thing than writing about it, and the thought of spending that time consolidating data instead of playing the game sounds terrible.
I wish I was as good as Alissa had been at anything. It was annoying, sometimes, how she always seemed better than me. She was faster in track, had better grades, did moreextracurriculars, had more friends. She was skinnier, prettier, funnier, nicer. She had more money. She had both parents. She was probably better at CoH than me too.
A surge of anger rises in me. It’s so sudden and unexpected that I have to catch my breath.
What right did she have to hate her perfect life so much? How dare she kill herself under theunbearable weightof all her gifts and opportunities?
My own thoughts repulse me.
Chapter 17
Ifinish the expansion campaign before Saturday, hit the new level cap, and gear out again. The first time was to see if Icoulddo it—to prove to the clan I was capable, that I could run raids with them. This time is for the real prize. I finish as much of my homework as I can while I’m still in class, blaze through the rest at home, and don’t worry whether the answers are right or not. It’s done, so I’m not lying to Mom when I say so.
Friday night, I barely sleep. It’s three a.m. before I finally doze off. When I wake, my alarm clock says it’s ten a.m. Seven hours and I don’t feel rested at all. I stumble out of my room and rummage through the kitchen for a breakfast of Reese’s Puffs. I sit and eat in the silence. Anticipation starts to wake me up.
Today is the day. Today, Ikelos Lair raids Van Der Gelt Tower. Today, we become world first.
As I’m rinsing out my cereal bowl, Mom comes in from the back yard. Her arms are dirty and she’s wearing her gardening shirt, the green-and-pink one that she doesn’t mind getting sweaty in.
“I thought you’d be working today,” I say.
“I took the day off,” she says. “I thought we could spend some time together today. I just finished weeding the beds. We can go to the nursery and pick out some flower seeds to start indoors, like we used to. I bet they’ll have snapdragons. Those were always your favorite, right?”
An uncomfortable band of emotion forms around my ribs, squeezing. Anger, guilt, frustration. “Um, I’d like to, but I can’t.”
Her face falls. “Oh. Is something going on? I didn’t think you had a track meet....” She turns to look at the calendar pinned to the refrigerator, where all my track meets are marked down. “Can you attend a meet if you haven’t been going to practice?”
“It’s not a meet. I have to play CoH today.”
The atmosphere instantly shifts.
“Youhaveto play?” she says, skeptical. “Evie, you’ve been playing for hours every night since I let you on your computer. I’m starting to wonder if it was a good idea to give you that privilege back.”
I take a deep breath. Exhale long and slow through my nose.If I don’t tell her, how can she know what it means? “There’s an important event today. A raid, with my clan—the people I play with. They’re depending on me to be there. We’re trying to be the first people in the world to complete it.”
Her brow furrows. “This is why you’ve been playing so much lately?”
