Exit Light

  “He needs a guide!” she cried out, not hoping for much. She wished for one, hard, but even here wishes didn’t buy beans any more than sorries did. “Anyone?”

  No guides. This was just pure bad luck for Justin, who might have to fend off his fears, after all. The crowd was closer. More volatile. She spotted a few of them carrying…

  “Oh, God, sex toys?”

  They were attacking him with dildos?

  Tovah wanted to laugh, but she’d had dreams of being chased, too. And the ones about showing up for class naked, or forgetting where she worked. Looking at it from the outside it was funny, but her sympathies roused for the man in front of her who waited so patiently to be assaulted with faux phalluses.

  “No guides?” she asked again, but didn’t get an answer. No Spider shimmering out of the grass. Nothing.

  The crowd had nearly reached him. They might look ridiculous but they sounded scary, their combined voices a low muttering hum of desire. Like wasps.

  A few feet in front of him, she shaped a ditch. A big one, too wide to jump, too deep to climb out of. One by one, the horde fell in. None of them came out. She sealed up the pit with another slight shift of her will. After a second, she covered it with flowers.

  Justin Ross opened his eyes. He did a double take, looking around. Then he sat suddenly, like his legs had given out, on the small hill that had originally tripped him. He put his head in his hands, the backs of them resting on his drawn-up knees. His shoulders shook.

  Tovah hadn’t wanted to interfere. His tears moved her, though, to step forward and place a hand on his shoulder. “Hey. It’s okay.”

  He looked up, and those arresting greenish brown eyes were shining with tears…but of laughter. He chortled breathlessly and wiped his face. “Holy shit. I thought I was a goner, for sure.”

  Texas twanged in his deep voice. Though she wasn’t as big a fan as Kelly, Tovah hadn’t noticed an accent on Runner or in the interviews her friend had sent. His hair was rumpled, and beard scrufted his cheeks. Most of the time it was impossible to know how closely a person was representing to their true selves, because most of the time she had no idea who they were in the waking world. Justin Ross apparently had enough sense of himself to accurately represent in the Ephemeros. Except for the accent, which he probably suppressed in his waking life, she thought. Interesting.

  He looked at the patch of flowers under which his pursuers had disappeared. “That never happened before.”

  “They chase you a lot, huh?” Tovah settled onto the grass beside him, fascinated by the play of sunlight on the lines of his face.

  “Yeah.” He turned to look at her. “A lot.”

  “You know,” she said cautiously, “you could have made that ditch.”

  He studied her. He might be pretty, but he wasn’t stupid. “This is a dream, huh?”

  Tovah smiled. “Yep.”

  He ran a hand over his hair, face crunching as he thought about this. “My mama used to tell me that if I was having a nightmare, all I had to do was turn around and put out my hand and say ‘no!’ And it would all stop.”

  “Your mama was a smart lady.”

  He laughed. “She said that, too.”

  Tovah had spent too much concentration on rescuing Justin, and the borders of her meadow had blurred. Something like a gray mist, the natural state of the Ephemeros, swirled along the edges. It parted now, and a man came through. She knew that easy stride, that lumbering walk, and Tovah got to her feet to greet him with a small nod.

  Ben gave her a smile, but before he could speak, Justin got up, faster than she had, and stepped in front of her. His will nudged hers. Because he wasn’t a shaper, he couldn’t control it and probably didn’t understand it. It came from someplace inside him, a tapestry woven of threads of experience, fear, desire. Tovah could resist it, but didn’t.

  He had to dream this, for reasons she wasn’t meant to know. She’d taken on a bit part in the drama of his subconscious. She and the guide who’d shown up to answer her call.

  “Hand over the bag, lady,” said Ben, who’d bulked up and become menacing. The words fell easily enough from his lips as he responded to the curling tendrils of Justin’s will. “And nobody will get hurt.”

  “No way,” said Justin, putting up his fists. “You back off and leave her alone.”

  He needed to play the hero in his dreams the way he did on TV? And she was to play his damsel in distress. Tovah stifled a groan. She should have run the moment she saw him. But here she was, her do-good instincts wrapping her up in someone else’s agenda when all she’d wanted to do was practice making hills. Ah, well. It could be fun.

  “Yeah, back off!” She shook her fist at Ben.

  The stranger-who-was-Ben grimaced and pulled a knife. A frisson of fear sliced through her, even though she knew it wasn’t real, this was a dream, she could change it all at any moment…she knew all that and still she let out an eep of terror and clutched the back of Justin’s shirt. He stood straighter. His muscles tensed. He was ready to fight to protect her, no matter what, and she…loved him?

  Oh, she loved him, her hero. Tovah took a step back as Justin moved toward the would-be assailant. The men sized each other up, circling. The knife slashed, and she cried out, covering her face and peering out through the slots made by her fingers. But Justin, her Justin, didn’t care about the knife. He kicked and punched and swung. He beat the living crap out of the other guy, who hit the earth with a thud that made the ground shudder. Groaning, the stranger went still.

  Justin turned. He took her in his strong, manly arms. When he kissed her, fireworks went off. Literally. Red, white and blue sparks set to the incongruous soundtrack of a late ’90s techno song she’d forgotten used to be her favorite. His mouth urged hers open and his tongue swept inside, and she had time to wonder why he tasted of black licorice before he pulled away to look into her eyes.

  “You never have to worry about anything, as long as you’re with me,” Justin told her.

  Tovah couldn’t stop the shiver of delight that ran down her spine at those words, though they were meant for the woman he saw in his arms and not for her. Not really. “I know,” she said, and caressed his cheek.

  And just like that, he was gone. Her arms held nothing but empty air, and the man on the ground was getting up and wiping away a streamer of blood from his nose. Tovah shook off the remnants of the encounter.

  “Wow,” she said. “That was…interesting.”

  “Isn’t it always?” asked Ben, dusting himself off. “Being a guide, I mean.”

  “I’m not a guide.”

  He grinned, tilting his head to check her out up and down. “Looked like you were being a guide, to me.”

  Tovah shook her head. “Don’t start. He was having a nightmare and I just helped him out a bit, and then you came along and I guess he just…”

  “Needed a guide.” Ben stepped closer, not at all menacing now the way he’d been when Justin was in charge. “But you’re not a guide. And yet, you guided him. Interesting.”

  She gave him a narrow look. “It’s not that interesting, Ben. I was just being nice.”

  “Are you sure?” Ben had a smile as easy as his gait, when he chose to use it. “You’re good at it.”

  Again, she shook her head. “I’m good at lots of things.”

  Ben looked around. The meadow was still here, though she noticed he’d again added a running brook. He was good. Not as strong as Spider, but stronger than she was. She refused to admit how much that annoyed her. Ben shrugged.

  Tovah lifted her chin, irritated by his silence that seemed an accusation. “There’s nothing that says all shapers have to be guides.”

  “No, of course not.”

  Tovah resisted the easy charm of his smile. At least with Justin she knew she was playing a part, however reluctantly. “He just needed a hand. I felt bad. That’s all.”

  “And when he started with that whole hero routine, you felt bad, too?”

&n
bsp; “It’s not good to disrupt someone else,” she pointed out. “You don’t have to be a guide to know that. He needed to dream that. I was here. I could’ve resisted him, but that would’ve messed with his dream. It’s not his fault he doesn’t know how to shape. And it didn’t kill me to go along with it.”

  “I could see that. Loverboy has quite a set of lips.”

  She put her hands on her hips, looking him up and down. “And?”

  “And, nothing. I’m just making an observation.”

  Tovah raised an eyebrow. “It was only a kiss. We weren’t getting naked in front of you.”

  Ben looked away when she said that. His hands slid deep into the pockets of his faded brown cords. “You’d have turned that down?”

  “That,” said Tovah evenly, “is none of your damned business.”

  Ben looked up, his blue eyes shadowed in an expression she couldn’t read. “You’re right.”

  A fight was trying to rise up again between them, and she wasn’t entirely sure she didn’t want it to. She’d known Ben for close to nine months, but time passed differently in the Ephemeros. She might as well have known him for nine years. That didn’t give him the right to judge her.

  “Don’t you ever want to play, Ben? Don’t you ever just come here to have a good time? Why do you always have to be working so hard? What are you, an Eagle Scout?”

  “I was an Eagle Scout, actually.” He scuffed a worn work boot along her grass and gave her a half smile.

  Ben wore his button-down rolled up to the elbows, and the sunshine cast golden light along the hairs on his forearms. He had good, strong arms, a heavy-duty watch banding one wrist. She liked Ben’s arms, which looked like they could lift heavy things and put a baby to bed with the same ease.

  “Even Spider has fun, sometimes.” She watched him bend to lift a rock and throw it. The rock became a bird and flew away. She laughed. She could do that, too.

  Ben didn’t laugh. He looked back at her, the mouth so suited to smiling turned down at the corners. “I’m not here to have fun.”

  “But why?” she demanded, pushing despite knowing she shouldn’t. “Why not just…let go, once in a while? Do something you wouldn’t do?” She leaned toward him, teasing. Flirting, just a little. She reached to run her fingers along the crease of his shirt just at the shoulder. “Get a little wild?”

  “If I wouldn’t do it there, I don’t want to do it here.” Ben’s voice wasn’t cold, but it was firm, and she pulled back her hand. “I wouldn’t kiss a stranger when I was awake, I’m not going to do it when I’m asleep.”

  His tone affronted her enough to be snappish. “You never dreamed about sex? Most people do. Hell, Ben, most people want to.”

  “Most people can’t shape. I can. I have responsibility.”

  “To who?” Tovah snapped, irritated with his calm self-righteousness, his judgment.

  “To people like that guy you were making out with.”

  “And yet you’re judging me for it,” she pointed out. “I was just going along with what he needed to dream. That’s all. Jesus, Ben, I didn’t seek him out. He found me. Just because I don’t want to be a guide doesn’t mean I don’t respect what you do.”

  Ben stared for a moment, then looked away again. This time she could see sheepishness on his face. “And I should leave you alone.”

  “Yes. You should. Unless—” She stopped herself. Unless you don’t want to leave me alone.

  “Spider’s a good guide. I try to be a good guide.” Ben shoved his hands into his pockets again.

  “Is there such a thing as a bad guide?”

  He was silent for a moment, staring at her until she blushed. “How long have you been shaping?”

  “About three years.”

  He nodded at that. “You have a lot of skill, Tovah, that’s all I’m saying. You’re strong.”

  “Yeah, yeah. And I should use it for the better of the world. I know.” She shrugged, still not looking at him. Ben could make her feel bad about that choice in a way Spider didn’t, mostly because Spider wasn’t afraid to flat-out tell her she was being a selfish bitch, and Ben just always showed her up by leading by example.

  “Listen, I have a guru already, okay?” Tovah unshaped the stream. “I’m not the only person who comes here to play.”

  “You’re right.” Ben held out his hands. “Sorry. I’m not trying to be overbearing.”

  The apology earned him a smile. “Well. That would be something new.”

  The surge of his will passed her. The stream reshaped. They were playing push me-pull you. She didn’t unshape it this time. Tovah looked at the grass between their feet. The flowers she’d shaped for Justin had crumpled, a detail she wouldn’t have thought to shape, and again she marveled at the power of the Ephemeros. “Did you do that?”

  He looked to where she was pointing. “Me, or you. One of us did it.”

  “I know that. But I didn’t think I did.”

  Ben smiled. “You don’t always have to.”

  She shaped the crushed stems back to upright beauty. Unlike Spider’s blooms, these were dead-on perfect. Tovah knew daisies. A few more pushed up from between the blades of grass. It wasn’t like magic, with a wave of the hand and an abracadabra. She had to imagine them first, then hold them there. Shaping was complicated and challenging.

  “Do you ever wish you couldn’t do it?” She looked up to see Ben staring at her with a look so intense, heat spread over her cheeks.

  “You mean, do I wish I could just go to sleep and dream without knowing what I’m doing?”

  She nodded. Something invisible passed between them. An understanding of sorts, perhaps. Something mutual yet unwilling to be spoken.

  “All the time. You?”

  “No.”

  “Now, see,” Ben said. “That’s why you should become a guide.”

  This time, his insistence didn’t rub her quite so fiercely the wrong way. “No. Too much responsibility.”

  “C’mon. You can’t tell me it was such a chore to let that guy make out with you.”

  Tovah laughed. “Why are you so fixated on that? You were helping him, too.”

  Ben snorted. “I was the one getting the crap kicked out of me.”

  Maybe she was being too sensitive. “True. But it’s not like it hurt you.”

  “I can assure you, it hurt. Just because it’s not permanent doesn’t mean it didn’t. I felt every punch.”

  “You chose to guide.”

  “I know.” Ben stretched and rolled his neck on his shoulders, a very normal gesture that was nonetheless incongruous in the Ephemeros where his neck didn’t need to hurt. “Next time, I’ll just have to make sure it’s a pretty lady who needs the help and maybe I’ll get to make out with her instead of getting my jaw broken. Oh, wait,” he added with a tinge of sarcasm that seemed out of place in his usual placid demeanor. “I don’t have to be a guide to get it on with a sleeper. Right?”

  This dig at her set her back a step or two. “Well, this has been fun,” she said, tone making it clear it had been anything but. “But I’ve got things to do. Goodbye, Ben.”

  In the waking world she’d have turned on her heel and stalked off, chin held high. It was a little easier here, where she simply unshaped the meadow around her and reshaped something else—minus Ben. Take that, she thought a trifle smugly as he faded from view, replaced by a stone wall complete with moss.

  “Nice,” said Ben from behind her.

  Tovah whirled, heart lurching into her throat. “What the—”

  “It’s not that hard to follow someone if they’re not trying too hard to hide from you.” Ben shrugged. “I didn’t want you to walk away mad.”

  Tovah backed up a step. “Why do you care?” She sounded snippy, and didn’t care.

  “I think that should be obvious,” he said.

  Silence passed between them.

  “Well, it’s not,” Tovah answered.

  She couldn’t hold on to her anger and the
rest of the Ephemeros, too. It faded into the gray swirl, interrupted now and then by silhouetted figures on their own journeys. Ben looked around.

  “Well, for one thing, when you’re mad you lose focus.”

  This was not the answer she wanted, and she set out to prove him wrong by shaping more concrete surroundings. “So?”

  “If you’re not focused…bad things can happen.”

  His concern should have been flattering, but it didn’t feel that way. “Since when are you my guide, Ben?”

  It turned out he wasn’t always so unflappable, himself. “Since you seem to need one!”

  “You arrogant son-of-a-bitch!” She ground the words between her teeth like powder and tasted dust. “I don’t need a guide, and if I did, you sure as hell wouldn’t be the one I’d choose!”

  The faintest look of hurt flickered in Ben’s eyes. “Hey. Tovah. Listen—”

  “No, you listen.” She took a long breath and tried to shape herself as calm, but it wasn’t working. “I know you and Spider have this…idea…about me. But I’m not some fair young maiden needing a big strong man to come in and rescue me, okay? That’s stuff for fairy tales.”

  “Last time I checked, most of the stuff here was the stuff of fairy tales.”

  She shook her head slightly. “No, Ben. I don’t need a prince in my waking life, and I don’t need one here.”

  “I’m not trying to be a prince. I’m trying to be your friend.”

  A simple word but layered with meaning. Friend. Not boyfriend, not lover. Certainly, as he’d just declared, not prince.

  She’d pissed him off, she thought, watching the emotions twisting on his face. Ben could get angry; she’d seen him in a fury when he couldn’t complete some task Spider’d set, or when he’d come across a sleeper at the mercy of shapers who were taking advantage of them. Ben was a champion. He just wasn’t hers.

  “Then just be my friend,” she told him. “Not my guide or my guardian. Okay? I’m fine.”

  “Fair enough.” Ben backed up again. “But just be careful, Tovah. Okay?”