Before I Wake (34 page)

I was chewing on a piece of General Tso’s chicken—so fattening but so good!—when I decided to stop trying to protect him and let go of my own need for control.

“How do you feel about facing Karatos again?” I asked.

Noah had chopsticks in one hand, a carton of beef and broccoli in the other, and from the way he was sifting through the contents, I knew he was picking out all the beef.

“Face Karatos how?” he asked after he swallowed.

“My father—Morpheus—he thinks we’d catch Karatos faster if we lured him in.”

Noah nodded slowly as he chewed, the two happening in unison. “The lure being me?”

There was no other way around it. “Yeah.” And me, I guess.

“And if I don’t do this, you go back to hunting for the Terror?”

I knew where this was going, but I answered anyway. “If my father lets me, yes.”

He didn’t even pause. Didn’t even think about it. “Tell your father I’ll do it.”

I laughed out loud. Couldn’t help it. “If I had said no, would you be so gung ho?”

Noah smiled at me. “Still think I’m not broken?”

I kicked him in the thigh—not hard, of course, but enough so he knew how frustrating he was. “I think you’re exasperating and an overbearing jerk, that’s what I think.”

His expression sobered. “I want my life back.”

I knew exactly how he felt. “So do I.”

“So, we’ll do this together?” As brave as Noah was, we both knew the risks involved.

I shifted on the couch, moving over so that we were side to side, thigh to thigh. “Together,” I replied. Hopefully we’d survive it.

“Now quit hogging the beef and broccoli.”

My hope was short-lived.

Friday ended up being not a bad day at work because my appointment load was light, giving me time to work on research, and because Dr. Canning avoided me like the plague. That pretty much allowed me to do my own thing, and after I was done with my obligation to the clinic and to my patients, I sat down at my desk with a Venti white mocha latte and went to work on research of my own.

It was amazing what you could find on Google if you looked.

There were rules in The Dreaming about things such as human-world and dream-world interaction. It was what had gotten Antwoine kicked out and me born. I was a living example of what could happen when the two worlds collided, and for that reason, I wanted to appear as normal as possible for both sides.

Growing up in the human world, I had a pretty good idea of what normal entailed here. I needed to read what was normal for a Nightmare.

According to the Internet—and hey, it wouldn’t lie, would it?—Nightmares were gifted with quick reflexes, agility, telekinesis, and strength. Okay. That would explain how fast I moved that time with Verek and why I was able to hurt him. It also explained why I had been able to fight Karatos at all. Although, by rights, I should have been able to squash him like a bug.

If I hadn’t freaked out as a kid and decided to shut myself off from the truth, I would have known what I was doing because my father would have trained me. The Nightmare Guild would have trained me. And I would have destroyed Karatos by now.

Crap. Running away had seemed like such a good idea at the time.

I left work having resolved that I would work on my abilities that night, even if only within the confines of the castle. Morpheus was bound and determined to keep me safe, it seemed, but was he also determined to keep me stunted? It wasn’t as though he had taught me a whole helluva lot since my return to The Dreaming. Maybe he wanted to keep me ignorant.

Or maybe he knew that as soon as I learned what I wanted, I’d stop visiting so much. Maybe his reticence was nothing more sinister than a father’s ploy to keep his daughter close.

Maybe. Or maybe he didn’t want me to know just how bad the situation was.

I stopped by an Asian grocery on my way to Noah’s. He had planned to spend the day in his studio painting, so I offered to make dinner. I suppose I could have invited him to my place, but it seemed so much easier to go to his. Besides, Lola was having a

“sleepover” tonight with her latest, and four was definitely a crowd. It would feel weird, both of us having sex in our rooms—too much like an orgy or something.

Knowing that Lola had someone physically with her, as well as a Dreamkin watching over her in The Dreaming, made me feel a heckuva lot better about staying at Noah’s. Noah was alone. Maybe that played too much to my Cancerian “gotta be needed”

nature, but I felt wanted when I was with him. So long as he stayed out of The Dreaming, he was safe, but I didn’t want to put all my faith in the pills he was taking. A dreamer like him just might slip past that barrier.

I bought all the fixings for a stir-fry, including fresh ginger, bamboo shoots, and bok choy. I bought stuff for hot-and-sour soup as well, but the stir-fry would be more than enough food for dinner tonight. It never seemed to matter how small an amount I tried to make, I always ended up with enough chicken, veggies, and noodles for six people.

Juggling the bags—why couldn’t they use plastic?—I rang the buzzer at Noah’s shortly after six. He answered barefoot, in baggy jeans and an old Nine Inch Nails T-shirt. He took the bags from my arms and kissed me. Maybe it was my imagination, but he seemed happier to see me than usual—no, not happy. He seemed relieved. Weird.

He helped me cook and asked about my day. He let me do most of the talking, which wasn’t all that strange, but just off enough that it made me suspicious. Occupational hazard maybe, but I’m usually pretty good at knowing when someone has something on their mind. I gave him until we finished eating to tell me, and when he hadn’t said a word, and we were sitting on the couch drinking coffee, I finally came out and asked.

“What’s wrong?”

He looked up from his cup. Maybe it was the lighting, but I saw shadows beneath the slight arch of his brows, a slight bruising on the skin just beneath his eyes. There was a grayish cast to his skin that I had never noticed before. He looked sick.

“I can’t paint,” he announced, the words coming out precise and slow, as though he had chosen them carefully.

I frowned. “Are you blocked?” I’ve heard of writers hitting hard patches in their work, maybe the same happened to artists.

“No.” He stared at me, his gaze boring into mine, trying to make me understand. “I can’t paint. It’s like that place inside me is dead. There’s no inspiration.”

It was strange, that was for certain, but Noah was acting like it was something more significant than that. “Maybe the stress of all you’ve been through—”

“Doc, I’ve never not been able to paint, even when my father put my mother in the hospital. I’m telling you it’s gone.”

The look on his face scared and confused me, even though my brain lurched toward a rational explanation. “It can’t be gone. It’s part of who you are. How can you simply not be able to paint anymore?”

“It’s not the ability, it’s the capability.”

I was still confused.

“I can’t dream either.”

Oh, now I understood. I wasn’t sure how it was possible, but if my mere existence taught me anything, it was that strange things sometimes happened. Noah’s painting was closely tied to his dreams, so if he couldn’t dream…

“It’s the depressants,” I told him. “Once you stop taking those, you’ll be able to paint again.”

Noah dropped his gaze, and with it went my stomach. He couldn’t even look me in the eye?

“I haven’t been taking any depressants,” he confided softly.

“But…” For once in my life I was at a loss for words. “But you haven’t been in The Dreaming. Karatos…you…”

Now his gaze met mine. “I think Karatos did something to me.”

Sweet God. “You haven’t taken any sleeping pills, no anti-anxiety meds, no booze?”

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

Anger pierced my concern. “Not even when I asked you to?”

He didn’t even have the decency to look sorry. “No.”

“Asshole.” I think I might have snarled at him. “You let me think you were safe when you were really risking your life? For what?”

“Obviously I wasn’t risking anything if I can’t dream.”

“Don’t argue semantics with me. You didn’t know you couldn’t dream at the time.” I rubbed my forehead with the heel of my hand. “Maybe Morpheus banned you from The Dreaming, too.” I was stretching, but it was possible.

Noah looked hopeful. “You think?”

I glared at him. “I can’t believe you’d be so stupid to risk yourself like that.”

His eyes narrowed as his nostrils flared. He was on the defensive now. Good, because I was feeling decidedly offensive at the moment. “I can take care of myself.”

“Who the fuck are you trying to kid? I can’t even take care of myself in The Dreaming, and I’m from there!” I jumped to my feet.

“Jesus, Noah. What did you think you’d do if Karatos came after you again? I can’t go anywhere but my father’s castle. I wouldn’t have been able to help you.”

He stood as well, face tight and flushed with anger. “I swore I’d never hide from a bully again, and I don’t mean to start now.”

There was something for me to think about later. Right now I was too angry to think of anything else. I got in his face. “Karatos is a soulless being who lives off fear—not just a bully.”

“I’m not afraid of him.”

“There’s a fine line between bravery and idiocy, Noah, and you’ve crossed it.”

“Fuck you.”

It didn’t hurt—I was too scared and angry to feel anything else. “Oh, nice. Did you once stop to consider how I would feel if Karatos seriously hurt you? Or worse, if he killed you? What about Warren or your mother or your sisters?”

He paled a little, and I knew I was getting through his layers of self-defense.

“I’m sorry if I’ve offended you,” I told him, my voice shaking with emotion. “But you’ve offended me. You don’t trust me, and you obviously don’t care about me at all to lie to me.”

“Doc…”

I held up my hand. “Don’t. Rationally, I understand you have reason to behave like this. But emotionally, I don’t understand at all.” I couldn’t be much more honest than that.

He shoved his hands in his pockets. “So what do we do?”

Back to “we” now, huh? Oh, I could have slapped him silly at that moment, for all the good it would have done. He hadn’t done this to hurt me, and I knew that, but it drove home that little fear I’d had ever since we got involved—that we wouldn’t have a relationship at all if not for Karatos. When this was all over—and if we both lived through it—I expected that Noah and I would soon cease to be anything at all to one another.

And the thought broke my heart.

“We find out exactly what’s been done to you. That’s what we do now.” I turned to the side and held out my hand. I probably didn’t have to do that to open a portal, but for now it helped me focus. I didn’t even try to relax, I just pushed hard with whatever power I had inside me.

Which was much more than I ever thought because one push was all it took for a portal big enough for me to walk through to zip open. I didn’t have to tug or wiggle through.

“Jeez-us,” Noah breathed behind me, and I knew he could see The Dreaming from over my shoulder.

I reached back and grabbed his hand. There was no time for preparing him or coddling, and I wouldn’t have bothered even if there were, I was that pissed at him. His fingers tightened around mine, but he walked behind me, not even hesitating at the threshold between the worlds. Maybe he trusted me more than I thought.

We walked into Morpheus’s study. He was there along with my mother, Verek, other members of his Royal Guard, and a few other Dreamkin I didn’t recognize. They all turned and stared at us—at me—with open mouthed astonishment.

“Good gods!” someone exclaimed.

I looked at my father. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I need to talk to you. Now. It’s important.”

He nodded, still staring at me as though he had never seen me before. “Leave us,” he commanded.

It must be nice to have people obey your every whim. Some of his companions obviously didn’t want to leave, and those same ones shot daggers at me with their eyes as they left. Verek, however, looked at me as though he felt sorry for me, and that bothered me more than anything else.

My mother didn’t leave, but she looked equally shocked to see me. What the hell was the big deal? I had opened a portal to The Dreaming before.

But I had never brought company. I looked at Noah, who was gazing around the room with thinly veiled wonder. Was it against the laws to bring a human into the Realm? Personally, I wasn’t all that worried about decorum at the moment. I was pretty sure Karatos had broken more laws than I ever had, so I was vindicated in breaking as many as I had to in order to stop him.

“What did you need to discuss with me?” Morpheus’s voice was softer than usual, his expression caught somewhere between pride and alarm—a bizarre combination if you ask me.

“Noah hasn’t been taking sleep aids.” I felt like a third grader tattling to my teacher. “And he hasn’t been able to dream.”

My father turned his pale blue gaze to the man beside me. Noah stared back. “Do you feel strange at all, Mr. Clarke?”

Noah nodded. “Like something’s missing.”

Morpheus walked toward us. My father didn’t look much older than I, and his uniform of jeans and a sweater didn’t help. The way he looked never bothered me before, but right then I wished he looked more fatherly—like someone capable of protecting me from bad guys and monsters.

He stopped in front of Noah and looked him over. “Something is missing.”

My heart jumped. “What?”

Both men turned their attention to me. Noah’s face was relaxed as usual, but his fingers tightened around mine.

“He’s like a zombie,” my father explained. “Part of him is dead inside—the part of him that dreams.”

“How is that possible?” I demanded.

Morpheus glanced at Noah. “I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but I think Karatos took it.”

No, that couldn’t be right. But I had seen Karatos plunge his hand into Noah’s chest. What if he had ripped out his dream-self?

“But a person has to be able to dream. Without dreams they’ll…” I stopped then, because my father was watching me, and so were Noah and my mother. We all knew what happened to persons without dreams.