I couldn’t even really grasp the fact that before setting foot into the car, I’d planned to visit Sam at the hospital yet now I was headed for the highway leading out of Splendor and into the BFE district of Charity which was home to a herd of cows and endless miles of lush farmland.
I attempted to turn the Wrangler around, even issued the command to my arms, but the wheel appeared to be stuck or maybe somewhere in my subconscious I really wanted to visit Charity because my body seemed to be in complete opposition to my mind. I continued along Highway Five toward mile after mile of white fences and rolling hills, farther and farther from the hospital.
The radio suddenly flickered on and my heartbeat increased tenfold as I wondered how in the hell that was even possible. There was static for a moment and I watched the screen as it rolled through FM station after FM station. Finally it settled on something that sounded like fifties music. I wanted to turn the sound down but my hands were plastered to the steering wheel so the music continued to pour out of the speakers. I could practically see Patsy Cline in her poodle skirt and saddle shoes as she wailed into the microphone, “I Go Out Walking After Midnight.”
My brain began to protest the fact that my body had a mind of its own and was now holding me hostage. I glanced out at the night sky, realizing it was getting darker, the street lights no longer lighting my way as I entered the border of Charity. Sure enough, dark outlines of cows on the hillsides pointed to the fact that I’d just arrived in no man’s land.
Lights from behind me suddenly filled the Wrangler and I depressed the accelerator, hoping the person would pass me. I didn’t even have the chance to marvel at the fact that my body had carried out my mind’s wishes because it was suddenly apparent that the person behind me wasn’t going to pass. Instead, the car pulled up right behind me, close—as in bumpers kissing close. The headlights of the car illuminated the inside of the Wrangler and made it exceedingly difficult to see the road before me. I yanked the wheel to the right, pulling over to the side of the road and hoped the person would get the clue that I didn’t appreciate being tailed.
The car veered to the left of the Wrangler and just when I thought it was going to pass, it pulled alongside me until we were neck and neck. I couldn’t help the feeling of panic wending its way up my throat until I felt like I was going to throw up again. I glanced over and could see nothing but darkness emanating from within the car. It was so dark, I couldn’t even tell if there was a person in it. I shook my head at the absurdity of that thought—of course there was someone in it—it couldn’t just drive itself.
The fifties music continued to pour out of my speakers and the melody acted like a fire burning away at my sanity. The car beside me suddenly lunged to a stop and pulled up behind me again, flooding my car with its headlights. I wanted nothing more than to stop but my body seemed to have taken on a mind of its own again and I’d pulled back into the street and pressed the accelerator down until I was going ten miles over the speed limit. The car behind me revved its engine and kept pace.
I watched as my foot pressed the accelerator harder and the speedometer began to climb from forty five to fifty five to sixty five. I passed a white sign proclaiming the speed limit to be thirty five and somewhere deep inside me concern blossomed—this was a country road, windy and dangerous for extreme speeds. I glanced back at the speed gauge and watched in horror as it hit seventy five.
The car behind me pulled alongside me again and then suddenly sped up, passing me instantly. It veered into the lane ahead of me and before I could respond, the red of its brake lights suddenly interrupted my vision. The sound of the Wrangler crashing into the car shattered my thoughts, the melody of the fifties music still in the background. I suddenly felt myself flying forward and the explosion of glass was thick in my ears as I felt my chest smash into the steering wheel. Then before I could even gasp, the Wrangler was airborne.
I glanced down at my clenched palm and realized I’d shaken a mound of fairy dust somewhere along the way. I tossed it in the air, imagining a thick, insulating bubble surrounding me. The feel of rubber was thick against my cheek as I crashed through the passenger window and felt myself smash against the pavement.
#
“Girl, you really did a number on yourself.”
I tried to open my eyes. It was that damned beeping monitor again—thick in my ears. “Can someone turn that fucking thing off?” I demanded and my voice was so gravelly, I barely recognized it as my own.
“Ah, Dulcie is back.” It was Trey. There was relief in his voice.
I opened my eyes and the first thing I saw was a ceiling with individual white squares and fluorescent lights glaring down at me. I turned my neck and saw Dia and Trey gazing over me, both smiling. My neck hurt. I turned the other way and found Knight right beside me.
“Where the hell am I?” I insisted, even though it was becoming pretty crystal clear based on the crappy ceiling and the constant beeping.
“You’re in the hospital,” Knight answered with eyes that were smiling, relieved and happy. He grinned down at me and for as crappy as I’m sure I looked, he looked beautiful. I shook my head against the injustice of it all. Knight was like temptation wrapped in a pretty red bow and dropped on my doorstep from Hades, the King of all assholes.
“You were in a car accident,” Trey said, his voice thick with tears. “But, they say you’re going to be ok.”
I closed my eyes, realizing what this meant. “I let him get to me, didn’t I?” I asked, glancing at Knight again. He didn’t answer but squeezed my hand as if to say none of that mattered now, what did matter was that I survived. But, while it might not have mattered to him, it mattered a hell of a lot to me. The Dreamstalker had won again. Dammit! I’d sworn to take him down but all it had taken was three days of no sleep and I’d failed. Again.
“Yep, you sure as heck did let him get to you,” Dia said and I glanced at her, surprised. “You were lucky to survive, girl.”
“If this is lucky, I’d hate to see unlucky,” I grumbled.
“Do you remember what happened, Dulce?” Knight asked, rubbing my hand in his. He sat down on the doctor’s swivel stool until he was eye level with me and smiled warmly. I sighed, trying to summon up the energy to recall what had happened.
“I just wanted to rest my eyes,” I began, recreating the visual of the moments before I’d fallen asleep. “Then next thing I knew, I was in the Wrangler and headed for Charity.” I stopped for a second, remembering my cheery yellow car always parked outside my apartment. If it was possible to love inanimate objects, I loved that car. And realizing what had happened to me, I could only imagine what had happened to it.
“My car?” I squeaked.
“May it rest in peace,” Trey said and looked like he was going to start crying again. He’d always liked the Wrangler too.
I shook my head. “Dammit.”
Knight chuckled. “We’ll get you another one, Dulce, don’t even waste your time thinking about it.” His jaw was tight. “You just focus on healing.”
I nodded, not really wanting to contemplate the fact that Knight was being so caring—he was making it harder and harder not to want him, not to allow him to get closer to me. I shook off the feelings—I had more important things to focus on at the moment. Instead, I tried to remember the events that had led to this point. “I remember seeing a car behind me.” The memory of the other vehicle with the garish headlights came crashing in on me and I felt myself wince. “The car pulled in front of me and then it just stopped. I…I must have hit it.” I paused for a minute or two, blinking back tears. I hadn’t realized I was emotionally traumatized until I’d remembered the events, replayed them in gory detail, relived the feelings of helplessness and fear all over again. I dropped my head to the side, hoping to hide my tears. “That’s all I really remember.”
Everyone was quiet for a second or two, probably drumming up their own visuals of my story.
“It was all a dream, Dulcie,” Knight s
tarted and at my expression of confusion and disbelief, continued. “They only recovered one car at the scene, yours. It appears you ran into a tree.”
I couldn’t even respond. A dream? And I’d run into a tree?
“You should have been killed, Dulcie,” Knight said. “You weren’t wearing your seat belt and the Wrangler rolled. You were thrown out of the side window and it should have killed you.”
“Like I said before, I’m hard to kill,” I said with an insincere laugh, feeling pain in every joint of my body.
“Dulcie, that’s not my point,” Knight said and leaned closer to me. “You used magic…you were able to protect yourself.”
I suddenly remembered the fairy dust in my palm, throwing it and thinking of a protective buttress against the pavement. “Yeah, I did.”
Knight glanced up at Dia and she inhaled deeply. “I knew it,” she said in a tight voice. “Magic won’t work against a Dreamstalker,” she continued. “The dream world is their turf, not ours. Dreamstalkers control the dreamer.”
“Maybe you were right, Dia,” Trey said, biting his lower lip. “Maybe it’s not a Dreamstalker.”
“I told you it wasn’t,” she said and shook her head. “If this isn’t proof enough for y’all, I don’t know what is.”
I couldn’t say I was really paying attention to their conversation. My mind hadn’t quite progressed past the point of realizing that I’d been able to use my magic while under the power of the Dreamstalker. And that was the key to defeating him—it had to be. “Knight, if we can manipulate the dream, we can defeat him.”
Knight glanced at me, his brow furrowed. “That is a dangerous thought.”
Dia scoffed. “Dangerous isn’t even the word for it. Suicidal is more like it. Didn’t you hear me when I said the dream world is their turf? If this thing even is a Dreamstalker, we’d be idiots to think of defeating it on its playground.”
Knight nodded. “She has a point.”
“So, what, we’re just going to sit here and let it claim its victims?” I insisted. “I, for one, sure as hell am not going to let that happen.”
Dia shook her head. “We stick to the plan. If it’s a Dreamstalker, I can track it and if it’s pretending to be a Dreamstalker, it will still follow the same pattern. Either way, it will be coming for its victims and when it does, we’ll be here to stop it.”
Apparently it was two against one—Trey was silent so he didn’t count. I sat up and everyone came nearer, concern drawing their faces like they thought I was about to break into acrobatics ala Cirque Du Soleil. “I need to get out of here,” I started.
“You can’t leave, Dulce,” Knight said sternly and stood up. “You haven’t been released yet.”
I shook my head. “This sucks, Knight. I have too much to do to be stuck in this damn place all day.” I glanced down at myself, taking in the white hospital robe, complete with mini pink rosebuds repeated across the white surface. Couldn’t they make hospital attire a little less grandma-like? I leaned forward but Knight pushed me back into the downy pillows.
“Take it easy, Dulce. There’s no rush,” he insisted.
“There is a rush,” I argued, suddenly remembering the fact that Sam was in this same hospital, still fighting the Dreamstalker. There was an absolute rush. Rush wasn’t even the word for it. “Is Sam okay?”
Knight nodded. “She’s fine. She’s in the next room over.” He grabbed my hands again, as if to say he’d ensure I was immobilized if need be. “You just need to relax and let yourself heal. Even though you don’t have broken bones, your muscles are bruised.”
“I don’t have time to rest,” I said, even though I could already see the writing on the wall. If the hospital wasn’t ready to release me, I’d stay. Knight would see to it. He was definitely the most annoyingly bossy person I’d ever met. If he thought I needed to stay and heal, I’d stay and heal. Dammit. “I have to get this guy.”
“Nope, not happening,” Knight said and his jaw was set with that stubborn defiance I’d only otherwise seen in myself.
I frowned and sighed, realizing I’d been bested. “So, what’s wrong with me?”
Knight arched a brow, apparently surprised by the fact that I wasn’t still arguing. “Nothing, as far as they can tell.”
“So if nothing is wrong with me, why can’t I leave?”
He shook his head and chuckled. “They want to keep you here for a day or so to make sure everything is okay—they’re still running tests to ensure you didn’t suffer internal injuries.”
“Great,” I said with as much irritation as I could muster.
“You need to just sleep and heal,” Knight continued.
I glanced up at him, anger suddenly overtaking me. “Sleep?” I demanded. “Are you insane? Look what sleeping did to me!”
He ran his finger down my cheek and I attempted to push it away but the IV in my arm punished me with a smart, stinging pinch.
“You’ll have Dia here with you. She’s volunteered to stay,” he finished.
I glanced at Dia and she smiled at me like she was some great gift. “No offense to Dia but how the hell is she going to help me when I’m sound asleep and the Dreamstalker decides to take me for another joy ride?”
Dia laughed. “Girl, have you not listened to a word I’ve been saying since we met?”
I glanced at her and frowned so she continued. “I’m a sleep goblin.”
So sue me if I wasn’t following but I hadn’t slept for three days and I’d just been in a major accident. “So what?”
She shook her head like I was a slow kid. “So, I can chaperone your slumber to make sure nothing interferes.”
“You can protect me in my sleep?” I asked, my tone sounding like she also had a bridge to sell me.
She nodded proudly, like she was the shit. Well, if she could protect me while I was asleep, she was more than the shit in my books. And, hell, I’d even buy any bridges she was selling.
“I told you I’d come in handy,” she said.
“So, why can’t you protect my dreams all the time?” I demanded, suddenly angry again. “You mean, I could have been sleeping all this time? Why couldn’t you have saved me from totaling my car?” I didn’t mean for my voice to sound so shrill but I really couldn’t help it.
“It takes a huge amount of concentration to maintain the psychic protective walls around you,” Dia started defensively. “I can do it for maybe an hour at the most and afterwards, I’m exhausted for days. It’s not something that’s easy to do.”
I nodded, relinquishing my anger. “Sorry, my nerves are just a little bit shot.”
“No need to apologize, Dulce, I gotcha,” Dia said and winked.
The sound of splashing interrupted our conversation and I craned my neck to the right, glancing at the perpetrator—a Hyacinth Water Pixie sitting on a fist-sized rock in a glass bowl, surrounded by water and lotus blooms. Anger coursed through me—I detested pixies. “What the hell is that and why is it in my room?”
The pixie looked at me with distaste and began pouring water over her back, taking a bath and ignoring my outburst, like she was the bigger person. Ha. That was one reason I despised pixies—they were so damn patronizing. And more so, the pixie I used to work with at the ANC was constantly digging me about this and that—mainly because she’d been in love with Quillan and he and I had been…tight.
“It’s a Hyacinth Water Healer,” Trey said, his tone repeating the “duh” sentiment that must have been going through his head.
“I know what it is,” I spat out. “I don’t want it in here.”
Hyacinth Water Pixies were known for their healing powers and Netherworld creatures sent them to each other to help promote healing. They were like a better version of “get well soon” flowers. Only I hated pixies so it wasn’t doing much of anything for me, other than pissing me off.
Dia laughed and seized the fish tank, the pixie nearly falling off the rock as she grabbed the sides of the tank to stable herself.
“Can’t stand these darn things, myself,” she said and headed for the hallway, her laugh trailing after her.
I faced Knight again. “Nice joke.”
He shrugged. “It wasn’t my doing.”
Trey suddenly looked especially guilty and pretended extreme interest in his shoes. Realizing I was acting more than bitchy, I reached for his hand and smiled. “You’re awesome, Trey.”
He grinned from ear to ear and hopefully the pixie was forgotten. I glanced at Knight again. “Since I obviously can’t leave this bed, I need you to do me a favor.”
He leaned forward and eyed me speculatively. “I think I could be persuaded into doing you a favor.”
“Go to the library and get me every book you can on dreaming,” I started and watched his expression fall. No doubt he’d thought I was flirting with him. Sigh.
“Dulcie, I thought we were sticking with the plan?” Knight said grumpily.
“We are,” I ground out. “But, since I’m going to be stuck here with nothing to do and all day and night to do it in, I need some reading material.”
“Trey, are you taking notes?” Knight asked and turned to Trey.
“Of course, I’m the grunt,” he muttered.
Knight didn’t respond and I just shook my head. “Thank you, Trey.”
“Yeah, yeah, Ms. I’m so smart, I read books.”
“Smart and beautiful,” Knight said and threw me a boyish smile.
Trey shook his head and started for the door. “You two just need to do it and get it over with.”
Knight was right behind him. “I couldn’t agree with you more.”
I watched them walk into the hallway and then they were gone. Minutes after Trey and Knight left, Dia entered, minus the Hyacinth Water Pixie, thank Hades.