Page 150 of Dragon 7

“How is this possible? Was it the baby ghost?” I closed the small distance between them, grabbed them both, and cried into the warm skin of my brothers' necks. And for a moment I didn't think about the rewind, the baby, or whether any of it was real.

I just held them.

Aki's pulse knocked against my forearm.

Yuki's breath moved warm and even against my collar.

Two hearts I had witnessed go out were loud again under my hands, and I pressed my face between their shoulders and let myself believe it for the length of one long breath.

Please don’t let this be a dream.

Neither of them pulled away. Whatever they thought was wrong with me, they stood there and carried it, the way they carried everything, together.

Behind me, Kenji whispered, “Goryū, rest.”

His saying that name made me think of the baby girl and the impossibility of everything that had occurred tonight.

Kenji had gone into that forest and did some sacrifice with our Tiger and the Silent Ones.

My niece. . .she was sacrificed. . .and now she’s a ghost with tiger eyes and she can touch me and. . .change things. . .

I let go of the twins and looked around.

Where are you? Baby girl? Appear, please.

By now, Kenji was in the back of the plane stabbing Akiro and our father in the chests as if making sure they were truly dead.

Reo returned from the cockpit. “The pilot is taking us back. He’s scared shitless we’re going to kill him.”

I went to Reo. “And this isn’t a dream?”

“It isn’t." Reo looked at me like I'd asked him whether the sky was on the floor. “You must have taken a bruise to the head or—”

"You said it isn’t a dream." I wiped my face. "Dream Reo would tell me he wasn't a dream. That's exactly what the dream would do."

“No.” He stared at me. "Dream Reo would say something nonsensical or metaphorical."

"That suspiciously sounds like a Dream Reo answer."

"Fine. You want to know how to tell if you’re in a dream or not? Read something. Anything with words on it." Reo gestured to the placard bolted by the hatch. "Read it, look away, read it again. In a dream the letters scramble. They don't hold still."

Like a deranged man, I found the placard and did exactly as he’d instructed.

EMERGENCY EXIT—PULL RED HANDLE.

I looked at Reo. “The words are correct.”

Reo nodded. “Now look at your hands and count the fingers. Dream hands have six. Seven. They even melt or grow."

I spread my hands in the red light and counted them twice like a child. “Five. Five. Ten total."

"Devastating, I know. Ten whole fingers, and still not a dream."

I could tell I was losing the Roar’s patience. “But. . .this still could be a dream. Everything rewound.”

“Look at your fucking watch, Hiro.” Reo pointed at my wrist. "Clocks run backward in dreams, or they show numbers that can't exist. Look."

I leaned in and stared. “1:11. Do you see that?”