The corpse girl stands there, holding her clock, as a handsome boy with light brown skin and curly black hair walks up to stand next to her. A knife is stuck in his chest, his shirt completely drenched in blood. “Great idea to leave our parents’ party to taxi it up to the Bronx at midnight for a little ‘pickup.’ You said you knew some guys with excellent shit. Some ‘solid’ guys that you were tight with. I’ll bet you had an inkling they didn’t like Arabs. And it seemed so handy you had this knife on you.” He gestures to his chest.
“With the way they let you go, once I was down on the ground, one might even say it was a setup. What was the deal? Did they give you something for bringing them a ‘rich fucking Ay-rab’ as they called me, kicking me as I bled out? Or did you do it for free . . . just for fun? Maybe because you and your parents didn’t like our upstaging you at your precious social club. Bet you kept the knife too. You seem to like souvenirs.”
A second boy walks up and joins them. He is gaunt, and his eyes look like they hold all the suffering in the world. “You said you had the keys to an empty storage space. You said you had booze and weed. I didn’t even want that. I was just happy you wanted to hang out with me. You tricked me. You never came back.” He holds up the set of keys that I recognize so well by now. “What did I ever do to you? Nothing. I never did anything.”
The girl has almost completely disintegrated now, and the Arab kid’s face has begun to cave in and become sepulchral. The third boy lowers himself to the ground, rolls himself into a ball with his arms held around his legs, and becomes very still. He has taken the position of his death.
They disappear, and in fast succession come two scenes I recognize immediately.
The first is in a bombed-out house in Remi’s village. Sinclair sits next to BethAnn on the floor. “I won’t tell the others you killed your sister,” he says as she weeps.
“I didn’t really kill her. I just left her alone for a few minutes,” BethAnn manages to squeak out.
“It’s the same thing isn’t it? You’re responsible for your own sister’s death. If you think about it like that, you don’t really deserve to be alive,” Sinclair says. And then, as two soldiers pull up in a jeep, he abandons her, sprinting away to safety.
Then we are at the top of the watchtower in the jungle. Sinclair has just shot the guard and is scrambling up to stand next to a frightened Remi. “Guess you’re feeling pretty bad right now about abandoning your family”—Sinclair says—“seeing you’ve gotten us all into this dream where we’ll die the same way they did. Nothing like being responsible for other people’s deaths.”
“My family’s death was not my fault,” Remi says. His eyes are as big as saucers and filled with tears.
“I highly doubt that,” Sinclair says. “You’re the only one who lived. And here and now you know you’d save yourself and let the rest of us die if it came down to it.”
“No!” Remi says, shaking his head. “No!”
“Then prove it,” Sinclair says, narrowing his eyes, before he turns around to wave us over.
The images disappear, and the bubble bursts. The roller coaster begins moving again, picking up where it had been, and going so fast that the three knocks come almost in succession, the first shaking the whole roller coaster, the second splitting our cars apart, and the third jettisoning us into the air, flying like bullets, spinning in God knows what direction, over and over and side to side.
As the wind whips us around, a voice comes through the chaos, confident and firm. It’s Ant’s voice, but it’s Ant times ten. “Take us through the Wall!” she commands. And we are swallowed by the darkness.
Chapter 30
Jaime
I SPEED-WALK TO THE CLOSEST SUBJECT—CATA—and grab the stethoscope from the table next to her. Placing it on her chest, I hear her heart accelerate from slow and even to fast and irregular as the pacemaker loses control. But it’s not speeding up rapidly, like Fergus’s did last time. Fergus’s heartbeat is accelerating too, but not at a rate that will wake him up. Same for Sinclair, accelerating slowly. Ditto Ant.
Okay, Jaime, don’t panic.
It’s probably better that they take a few minutes to move into cardiac arrest instead of launching into death mode all at once. It just increases the possibility that the doctors will return before I’ve succeeded in resuscitating them.
My face and fingertips are numb with alarm. This has got to work. I look at the sleepers and don’t even care about myself anymore. I could go to jail for the rest of my life. But at least I will have a life. If I fail, they’ll all be dead.
Chapter 31
Ant
WE’RE IN THE VOID, BUT IT’S LIKE AN ALTERNATE version of it. The couches are gone. The light is not bright like before. It’s more like the hazy air of twilight. But I can’t focus on our surroundings. All I can think about is the boy sprawled on the floor in front of me, his fake movie-star face perfectly tanned, yellow button-down shirt unbuttoned one from the top and tucked into his designer jeans. He doesn’t look like a killer. But he doesn’t even look like the real him, I remind myself. Everything about him is a mask.
“You’re a murderer.” The words are out of my mouth before he even has time to look up.
He raises his head and fixes his gaze on me, then smiles. “Ant, Ant, Ant, how many times do I have to tell you: These are dreams. This is not reality.”
Cata pushes herself up to a sitting position. “My part of the nightmare was reality.”
“Your dad beat you with a razor strap?” Sinclair asks incredulously.
Cata takes a deep breath, then crosses her arms over her chest. “Yes. And worse.”
“No wonder you left home,” I say, but she’s so focused on Sinclair that she doesn’t hear me.
“And I suppose you really got in punching matches with your dad?” Sinclair says to Fergus. We’re all rising to our feet, and from the way we face him in a semicircle, it looks like we’re going to have what old gang movies call a “rumble.”
“It wasn’t a match. I never hit him back,” Fergus says.
“Mine’s true too, more or less,” I say, “although my bullying wasn’t as bad as what you guys got. At least my family loves me.” Then, seeing Sinclair gawp in unabashed glee, I grasp for words. “That’s not what I mean. I’m sure your families love . . .” I stop. Can there be love where there is violence? I can’t think about it now. I settle for, “I’m sorry.”
“So if all three of our ‘episodes’ from the roller coaster are true, why wouldn’t yours be?” Cata asks.
Sinclair is silent. “I didn’t actually kill any of those people,” he says finally. “Not with my own hands.” His look bridges pride and vindication. Finally, expressions that I recognize.
“You are a sick, sick person,” Cata murmurs, shaking her head in disgust.
Sinclair just smiles, like this is all a big joke.
My anger is making me weak. I stagger backward and grab my chest. “Something’s wrong,” I say, just as the others make similarly alarming gestures.
Cata slumps down to sit, pressing her hand to her heart. Fergus bends over, putting his hands on his knees. And Sinclair’s hand is on his throat as he starts fading back and forth between his real dirty-blond, freckled self and his movie-star persona.
“What’s happening?” Cata says.
“The way we froze in the last dream”—Fergus pauses between words as if he’s running out of air—“it’s like what happened when we got thrown into this place after our first dreams.”
“Something’s happening in the outside world,” I say. “They’re doing something to try to get us out of here.”
“I hope it doesn’t kill us first,” says Cata, leaning her head forward weakly.
“How long until the next nightmare?” Fergus asks.
“Now,” I say as the first knock comes. The fluorescent outline of the doorway takes shape . . . hovering in the air nearby. Fergus helps Cata to her feet, and he waves me over.
&nb
sp; “What, you’re not inviting me to join the party?” Sinclair asks as the second knock comes and the wind begins to whip around us. I pick up the backpacks and hand them out, leaving Sinclair’s on the ground for him to get himself. My dagger is still strapped to my waist, unused during the last dream. The three of us link arms, leaning on one another to stay upright.
“The Dreamfall will send us to the next dream together, whether or not we hold arms,” Fergus says to Sinclair. “I can’t do anything about that. But I can refuse to help you anymore.”
Cata’s and my silence speaks for us. And then Cata turns away and starts gasping for air. “Can’t breathe,” she says.
There’s a pressure on my lungs, and I feel like I have been holding my breath underwater for a bit too long. “Not enough oxygen,” I say. “I feel like I’m going to faint.”
“Come on!” urges Fergus. His face is turning red.
The third knock comes, and I weave my arms between Fergus and Cata’s. Sinclair scoops up his backpack and slings it across his shoulders. Setting his jaw, he stares at us with a hatred that must have been fermenting under that pretty face this whole time. And with a boom like an explosion, we are swept off our feet through the door.
Chapter 32
Cata
SOMETHING’S WRONG. WE GOT SUCKED INTO THE door, and then dumped right back into the Void. Sinclair sits a few yards away, his back to us. He gets up and comes over, acting like nothing’s happened.
We drop arms and turn around in circles, checking to see if anything is out of place. “Is this the Void?” I ask.
“It looks like it,” Sinclair says, reaching down and touching the ground. “Feels like it too.” He sees me staring. “What? Like Fergus says, the Dreamfall’s forcing us to be together. Might as well make the best of it.”
I back up a careful distance from him, then turn to Fergus and Ant. “Something feels different,” I say. I press against my chest. “I don’t feel like I’m dying anymore.”
“How much time went by?” Fergus asks.
“Only thirty seconds,” Ant says. She takes her notebook out of her pocket and flips through it. “This is nightmare number thirteen. The amusement park lasted sixty minutes. This one’s supposed to be sixty-one. And as for whose dream we’re in this time, it could be any one of ours. All of us”—she pauses—“who are still here, that is, have each had two.”
“Well, the last one started with Ant’s. But then when that bubble thing happened, our dreams all ran in succession in the same space,” I say.
“I don’t think we can count on anything being the same after that,” adds Fergus. “Especially if they’re messing around with us in the outside world.”
“Um . . . I think this is actually a nightmare,” Sinclair says, as the colors of the Void begin to shift to a dark shade of green that reminds me of the men’s smoking rooms in British historical TV series. Walls begin to rise from the ground, and a large solid desk sprouts up in the middle of the newly formed room. Shelves are everywhere, holding either leather-bound books or gilded trophy cups fronted with little statues of golfers or of men in suits shaking hands.
The huge redheaded man I saw during the roller coaster nightmare appears next to the desk, leaning on it with one hand as if for support. Behind him stands Fergus’s mom. She holds her hands tightly in front of her, looking like a scared referee: she has to keep the game going, but doesn’t want to make anyone upset.
“I refuse to have this discussion with you again,” the man roars at Fergus, who disappears from between us and is suddenly standing directly in front of his father. Ant, Sinclair, and I step back to get out of the way, but the man notices us and points.
“Who are these . . . people?” he asks.
Fergus looks around, clearly surprised that his dad can see us. “They’re friends.”
“Friends?” his dad roars. “They’re your friends?” He looks at us like the motley group we are. “You’ve never brought friends home before.”
“I wonder why,” Sinclair murmurs, plunging his hands into his pockets and pretending to study a nearby golf trophy.
“Don’t worry, we were just leaving.” Fergus turns on his heels to head toward a sliding glass door. Outside is a sunny patio leading to a swimming pool.
“Stop right there, young man. We have not finished our discussion.”
Fergus turns. “You just said you refused to discuss whatever it was we were discussing, so I assumed that automatically meant ‘end of discussion.’” He rubs his tattoo, and I can tell he’s trying to stay calm.
Ignoring Fergus’s attempt at logic, his father barrels ahead. “I refuse to let you live in the school dorms. I refuse to let you get an apartment, even if it is with another ‘adult’ who will take responsibility for your health, as required by your precious Dr. Patterson. That requirement is one of the only things I actually agree with him about. Because it forces you to stay here, under my authority, where you need to be until you accept the fact that your illness is all in your mind.”
“Now, Chip, really,” says the woman, “you can’t force our son into seeing things from your point of view. Because that’s what this is all about. Your point of view. Fergus does not need to accept it.”
“Like hell he doesn’t!” the man yells, pounding his fist on the table. “I am supporting this family. I am paying for his school. And for his ridiculous medical bills. My point of view is the only one that counts.” He twists around to glare at Fergus’s mother. “And quit your bitching, Amrita. This isn’t about you. Don’t you have some pottery to make? I didn’t have that studio built for you in the garden just to have you creeping around undermining my authority.”
“Oh my God,” Ant says, and then presses her hand to her mouth like she can’t believe she actually said it out loud.
“Is there something you want to say, little boy?” the man asks, directing his fury toward her.
Ant just kind of gapes at him, and then says, dead serious, “It’s just that I didn’t know that there were actually people out there who were as misogynistic and . . . offensive as you! I mean . . . I didn’t think they actually existed outside of bad reality TV.”
Sinclair gets this look on his face like he’s about to explode with laughter. Fergus’s dad turns beet red and heads for Ant with hands outstretched like he wants to throttle her. With a quick motion, she draws her knife from its sheath and holds it protectively in front of her. The man stops in his tracks, face frozen in surprise.
“What the hell is going on here?” he asks in a strangled voice.
Fergus looks at Ant, who seems ready to take on his huge father with her tiny frame and simple knife, and something seems to click. “What’s going on is that I am leaving,” he says.
His father lets out a guffaw. “Now that’s a good one! What are you going to do? You don’t have money to live on. You can’t drive. They wouldn’t even hire you at McDonald’s because you could have one of your ‘attacks’ and set the place on fire. You’re completely dependent on me. You have nowhere to go.”
Fergus hesitates, and then his shoulders slump.
“Yes, he does.”
The words are out of my mouth before I’ve even thought them through. Fergus turns and looks at me like I’ve grown a second head. “Cata, what are you talking about? My dad’s right. I’m stuck.”
I shake my head. “No. You’re never stuck. Barbara”—I’m coming up with a plan even as I talk—“my mom’s best friend, she took me in. Agreed to be my legal guardian. But you don’t even need a guardian; you’re eighteen. She has a huge house and dogs and horses. I know Barbara, and she would be thrilled to have you come stay and help her with the place—for as long as you need until you found a job and a school.”
Fergus just stands there staring at me. “But . . . you don’t even know me.”
“For God’s sake, Fergus, I’ve been inside your head. How much closer do you have to be to actually know someone?”
“Really? Barb . . .
your friend . . . she would . . .” He can’t seem to get the words out, he’s in such shock that a stranger would do something kind for him.
“Really,” I say, laying a hand on his arm.
“But Mom,” Fergus says, turning to the woman cowering behind her husband. “How can I leave you alone here with him?”
His father looks like he’s just been slapped, and then turns in astonishment to look at his wife.
“You go,” she says, a strength in her voice that wasn’t there before. “I’ve put up with a lot to make sure you got what you needed. If I know you’re safe, I can take care of myself.”
“Now, wait just a bleeding minute here!” Fergus’s dad yells. He grabs his son’s shoulders and draws back one arm as his wife scrambles to pull him off.
Fergus just watches his father impassively.
“Go ahead. Hit me,” he says. “You’re bigger than me and you’re stronger than me, and you can knock me off my feet with a punch. We both know that. But I’ve got witnesses this time. And for some reason, I think you care a little too much about your public image to ruin it by assaulting your son in front of his friends.”
His dad looks at me, then at Ant and Sinclair. He lowers his arm and shakes it out like it was all an empty threat.
“Well, I obviously can’t stop you from going, son.” He chokes on this last word, like it irritates him to claim such a close relationship to Fergus.
“You got that right,” Fergus says and, taking me by the hand, starts toward the door. He slides it open, and a fresh breeze comes in from outside, along with the tinkling sound of water falling over rocks coming from the pool.
As his foot crosses the threshold, he turns and gives his mom one last look. “Love you, Mom. Take care of yourself.” And then it’s like a huge eraser sweeps the entire landscape clean and we’re back in the Void.