Find Me If You Dare (Dreamcatcher Book 2) (5 page)

Samantha sighed, shot me an apologetic glance, then raised her fists. Kayla did the same, holding one below her nose and the other chest-level. I ran a hand down my face. She’d already forgotten to keep her fists by her temples.

Please take it easy on her,
I said to Samantha.

Kayla jetted forward, swinging at Samantha’s face. She caught her in the chin and kneed Samantha in the hip, moving faster than most beginners I trained. My jaw slacked. Maybe she was ready to practice with real people, after all.

One more good hit from Kayla, and Samantha’s resolve to play nice disappeared. When Kayla swung again, Samantha grabbed her arm and yanked it behind Kayla’s spine. My heart pounded. If there was one thing I knew about Samantha, it was that she did anything to win—including breaking limbs. Samantha pressed the toe of her shoe into the back of Kayla’s knee. Kayla yelped, and her knee buckled.

“Sam!” I shouted, and she let go.

Kayla pushed herself off the ground, tossing me a glare, then turned to Samantha, who was already mid-swing. Kayla raised her arms just in time to avoid a punch to the face and yelped when Samantha’s fist collided with her forearms. The loud
thwap
made my teeth grind. Samantha was not holding back. Every muscle in my body stiffened as the girls circled each other.

Kayla got in a couple more hits, but she also took a few big ones—some to the face. I bounced on the balls of my feet, itching to intercede. I gripped the sides of my trouser legs and flinched with every attack Kayla took. Kayla had trained for five weeks; Samantha had been fighting for one hundred years—and she was ruthless. Of all people to practice against, Samantha was the worst choice. Why had I let her do this?

Kayla swung her leg, aiming for the pressure point above Samantha’s knee, like I’d shown her, but Samantha grabbed her foot and twisted it before Kayla could land her blow. With a scream, Kayla spun and landed on the ground, chest first.
Bloody hell
.

I pushed Samantha out of the way. Kayla lifted herself off the ground again, groaning. Apparently she was desperate to get a good ass-kicking. I grabbed the back of her arm, helping her to steady her balance—then she flipped around and clocked me in the nose.

As black spots tinged my vision, I faltered backward and swore, checking for blood. At least she’d learned how to aim for the back of someone’s head.

“Crap—Daniel, I’m so sorry. I thought you were Sam,” Kayla said.

“Seriously? You didn’t even break his nose,” Samantha said.

Ignoring her, I took Kayla’s face in my hands. Her left cheekbone was already swollen and bruised, and her nose dripped blood. Her bottom lip was also split, like she’d bit down when Samantha had uppercut her. “Damn it. See, this is precisely why I wanted you to ease into this.”

Kayla smacked my hands away. “Stop babying me! I’m never going to learn to take care of myself if you don’t back off, and then what do you think will happen?”

Samantha, Seth, and Tabbi stepped away, fidgeting. My and Kayla’s quarrels had become a regular occurrence, apparently.

“Can we please talk about this later?” I asked, calming the tone of my voice.

Kayla swept her arms out to her sides. “Sure, Daniel. It’s always later. ‘You’re exhausted; let’s do this later.’ ‘No, you’re not ready; join us later.’ Let me know when ‘later’ arrives and my dad shows up on our doorstep, so I can stand there and let him kill me.”

I flinched.

Eyes narrowed, she turned and marched from the training corridor.

I ran my hand down my face. Arguing with Kayla and watching her storm away in anger cut my heart like a hot knife. Maybe I
was
being too protective. If she was so paranoid about losing her magic, maybe I did need to train and treat her like a Protector. My stomach knotted. I’d fallen so hard and so fast for her. Just the thought of helping her become a lethal fighter, preparing her for a battle she
never
should’ve had to fight, made me squirm.

“She’s right, you know,” Samantha said. “Someday the battle is going to come, and she needs to be ready for anything.”

I closed my eyes and sighed. “I know.” I didn’t like it, but Kayla was right—I was doing her more harm than good. I swallowed hard and opened my eyes. “Scouting mission at two a.m. Meet at the gate. I’m going to talk to Kayla.”

ayla was in the loo when I entered the bedroom, and water ran from the tap. I knocked on the door. “Can I come in?”

There was a long pause, and then the door flung open. Kayla didn’t meet my eyes. She drenched a rag in the water and squeezed. Light pink liquid seeped out. Stepping into the bathroom, I touched her hand and said,
Let me.
When she sighed and dropped the cloth, I slipped my other hand behind her neck and gently turned her face toward me.

“I’m sorry,” I said, removing the rest of the dried blood from her face. “I shouldn’t be telling you how to prepare, only helping you get better. I forget sometimes that you’re no longer my responsibility but my comrade.”

“And girlfriend.”

“That, too.”

“Which means you can’t treat me like I’m another one of your soldiers who has to follow your every order.”

“I know.”

“And I’m not breakable.”

“I know. Starting tomorrow, no more dummies. Just you and me.”

Kayla moved so that the rest of her body faced me. She put a hand on my chest as I shut off the tap and dropped the washrag in the sink. Her touch warmed me, and I tucked a loose strand of dark hair behind her ear. Each day, I fell more in love with her. Her beauty, her kindness—her bravery… I had to quit pushing her away.

I thumbed her bruised cheek as gently as I could. “Do you want to see a healer?” Though Kayla had the ability to heal others, she couldn’t mend herself.

She shook her head. “No. If I’m going to be a warrior, I want to feel like one. Pain and all.”

The corner of my mouth twitched as I tried to smile—and failed. I kissed her forehead and, against my better judgment, told her of tonight’s plan to visit New Mexico.

“Do you want to come?” I asked.

Kayla’s eyebrows scrunched. “Wait, you
want
me to come with you?”

“Your magic is strong, and I doubt we’ll run into any trouble. Just promise me you won’t leave my side.”

If I was going to prove to her that I trusted she could take care of herself, there was no better way than to include her. Besides, she
was
a powerful witch—I’d seen her practicing—and we could always use another Magus on our team. The odds of the coven still being in Albuquerque were low, anyway. At most, we would ransack their old meeting place for some clue as to where they’d moved. As far as missions went, tonight’s would be easy.

Smiling, Kayla lifted on her toes and pressed her mouth against mine. An ache of longing ricocheted in my chest. It’d been too long since we’d been more intimate than a kiss here and there, or passing out in each other’s arms after exhausting days. Warmth seeped through my chest. I ached to be with her again. Tugging her hips closer to mine, I dug my fingertips into her hair at her nape and kissed her harder. She jumped back with a wince and held her fingertips to her bottom lip.

“Blast, I’m sorry,” I said, frowning. “Sure you don’t want to have someone fix that? It doesn’t make you weak, you know.”

She dropped her hand and shot me a pointed look before rolling her eyes. “Fine. Let’s go find a healer.”

At exactly two o’clock, eight of us met in front of the tunnel that led to Caelum’s gate. Seth slept on his feet.

“Need to stay behind?” I asked.

He shook his head and blinked rapidly, forcing his eyes open. “Coffee. Need coffee.”

Nolan pulled a small can from his pocket and handed it to Seth. An energy drink. I raised an eyebrow.

“What?” Nolan asked. “I was going to drink it when we landed, but he looks narcoleptic.”

“Oh, great. Give the guy with ADHD a shot of straight caffeine. That’s smart,” Samantha said.

Seth snatched the bottle from Nolan’s hand and unscrewed the cap. “Hey, I’m not ADHD. I just like to move and talk. A lot.” He swallowed the liquid and coughed. “Man, that tastes like camel piss.”

“You’re welcome,” Nolan replied.

“All right, then.” I held out a hand to Kayla. We needed to get moving. “If everyone will link hands, I’ll evaporate us to our destination. Remember to stay quiet and invisible until we’re clear, which means: Nolan and Chad, you two need to hang on to a Protector once we land.”

Nolan nudged Samantha. “You’ll keep me safe, right, baby?”

Samantha pushed him away, and he laughed, but the glower she usually held for men who hit on her was gone. Instead, her brown eyes sparkled a little. Maybe he did have a shot.

When the group linked hands, I evaporated to the exact spot Nolan had marked on the map, blinking slowly. As soon as I opened my eyes, my teammates’ widened.

“Uh, Daniel?” Seth said, pointing over my shoulder.

I turned. A sea of fifty Nightmares marched back and forth across the front lawn of what used to be an asylum. I squeezed Kayla’s hand like a python. Any Protector knew the insane were the number one targets of Nightmares—large, black creatures with beady red eyes and claws that feasted on humans’ terrors like starved lions on raw meat. Nightmares acted on instinct and would do anything to satiate themselves. They were demonic and ruthless. But why was an entire horde lingering around a building that looked like it’d been shut down for a century?

I wavered on my feet. I never should’ve brought Kayla.

A tall, black, iron fence surrounded the premise, and the brick building was in shambles. If I weren’t so terrified by the number of Nightmares slithering about, I might have laughed at how everything seemed straight out of a horror movie. The sign above the door swung on one hinge; the squeak from the chain was the only sound in the dry, hot, August air.

Closing my eyes, I tried to evaporate to the front stoop. No luck. I sighed. We’d never be able to take them all down, but we had no choice—we were going to have to battle our way through the horde.

For you Magus who can’t see, this place is crawling with Nightmares
, I said to my team.
Run as fast as you can, and stay close together. Any Nightmare inside the building should come out as soon as the rest swarm us. We’re going to have to fight our way in.