Mania (15 page)

Chloe closed her eyes for a moment before speaking again, her voice very soft this time. “And now I'm choosing to help you, Jack. Because I want better for my people than the choices my family has given them. I want better for myself. My brothers left me here with you. They would let our enemies do whatever they wanted to me. That isn't more than humanity, if you ask me. It's so much less.”

She shifted onto her knees and then looked straight at me. “Please, Jack. My kind have to stop what they're doing. My father led us toward becoming monsters. I
need
to be a part of stopping that from going any farther. I
have
to help end it.”

Before I could answer, I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye and raised my eyes to see Finn standing a few feet behind Chloe, obviously listening.

She didn't notice him and finished with, “You can trust me because no matter what happens, no matter what or who is at risk, I would
never
let you give Eclipse to Cooper. I know you say that isn't possible anyway, and I want to believe you, but if you get desperate and find a way to do it, I'd need to stop you. Even if it meant losing your brother and both of mine, I'd find a way.
Nothing
is worth what my brother having Eclipse would cost the rest of us.”

It was silent for a few seconds before she said, “You watch Wendy's dreams tonight. I'll take over her husband's body. I might not be able to access his past with the clarity you can, but I can root through his mind and his recent memories, make sure there aren't any secrets he's deliberately hiding from Wendy.”

So that explained
her
need for sunglasses. But I didn't want to support her taking anyone. I opened my mouth to argue, but she jumped in before I got a chance to speak. “Relax. I promise not to hurt him at all. I'll make sure he only feels like he tossed and turned a bit more than usual. That's it.”

Then she stood and walked back toward the driver's side of the van before I could say anything else. After she'd gone, Finn blew out a giant breath of air and stepped quietly over to sit beside me.

“She saw everything in my head, huh?” He shuddered.

“Apparently. You didn't know?” I raised my eyebrow.

“I'd suspected. And it really explains a lot. She knows exactly what I'm thinking so often.” Finn frowned and reached up one hand, tugging on the bottom of one ear. “For what it's worth, I saw some of her memories, too.”

I turned toward him in shock. I'd had no clue it could work that way. “You did?”

“Yes, and she isn't lying.” He picked up a rock on the ground nearby and threw it out in the road like it had somehow offended him. “I think she could help us find the ingredients. I think you should let her help.”

The surprise on my face must have showed, but Finn just shrugged and hopped up to his feet. I sat for a couple of minutes more as I tried to find the right answers. Eventually I decided that if the guy who Chloe had taken over was saying I should trust her, maybe it was time to start really listening.

I heard Dad's voice in my head telling me not to trust anyone. But Chloe's reasons had shaken me. Maybe it was time for me to learn something from her. If I didn't want my life to turn out the way Dad's had—keeping secrets from all those closest to me, always being on the run, and sacrificing myself at far too young an age—then didn't I need to try not to make the same mistakes?

That was yet another thing I could tell Parker about our dad, once I got Parker out of this mess—and, assuming he was still alive, I
would
get him out. For right now, there was nothing for me to do but hang on to hope and believe my brother was okay. There was no other choice.

Finn stood looking at the now-empty park in silence, waiting for an answer or clue from me as to what I was intending. When I shifted my weight to get up, he extended his hand down to help and I took it.

“At this point, Finn … I suppose I'm not in much of a position to say no to anyone who still wants to help me figure this out. I'm making zero progress, and time keeps moving no matter what we do.”

“Good.” He gave me a look of pure determination. “That's what I thought.”

Maybe I needed to learn to be more like Parker instead of trying to teach Parker to be more like Dad … and more like me. A good way to start this, I thought, might be to rely more on Finn. He'd already saved Parker in more ways than one. Maybe he could help me find a way to do it again.

I thought carefully, trying to pick the right way to reach out to him … the way Parker would do it. When it came to me, I smiled. “By the way, I've been thinking, and you're right. This new formula really will need a name. Any new ideas we should consider?”

Finn's face glowed with the widest grin I'd seen since we'd lost Parker. Seeing his face like that made our whole situation feel strangely more hopeful.

“I have
SO
many ideas … ”

Twenty
Parker

The white nothingness of the Hollow felt like peace and oblivion after the waking nightmare in that awful cell. It didn't smell like rot in this not-really-sleeping limbo, and I wasn't cold or shivering. I wasn't in pain, or hallucinating my own heartbreak. I didn't feel like I was drowning.

Apparently my standards had lowered a bit in the last few hours.

I tried not to heed the dread that I felt sinking like an anchor deep into each of my bones. Maybe when Cooper had forced me to make eye contact with him, he'd only been making sure I wasn't still connected to Libby; maybe his goal
wasn't
to connect to me. Since he was a Taker, there were plenty of normal people who were much more useful for Cooper to make eye contact with than a Watcher like me. And if he
had
made eye contact with some Dreamer, he wouldn't be connected with me anymore and I'd be on my own.

At least I thought that was how it worked. To be honest, some of the details of how the Takers operated were still a mystery to me.

The edges of the Hollow began to expand and contract and I kept my eyes closed, knowing what was probably coming. When the minds of a Taker and a Watcher merged, it created an inky, suffocating blackness. I'd spent two nights trapped in it before: the solid black nothing of Chloe's coma-like state, which had allowed me to unite with Darkness and separate Finn and Chloe's minds, and before that, Cooper's sleep-state, which had released Darkness in an entirely new way. In both cases, Taker-Watcher connection had messed with my brain and made it hard to breathe, and I hated it.

And it appeared it was about to happen again.

Our sleepless states merged, Cooper's smothering shadow overcoming my white void until the blackness was complete and without end. It was like the ocean and I was a tiny raft. I couldn't see where it started or ended. It was just everywhere, leaving me no escape.

It was even worse than I remembered. It was like an ink well that overflowed until it filled everything up, including me. My lungs were heavier; my eyes blinked, but I couldn't tell if they were open or closed. Everything about me was drenched in it.

But I'd been trained on how to control dreams now. This was at least half my space, my mind. If part of Cooper's plan was to keep me locked up in his thick, dark sludge all night, I wouldn't make it easy on him. Thanks to Jack teaching me how to manipulate regular dreams, I knew how to fight back now, and I was definitely going to use that knowledge this time.

I forced my pounding heart to slow its pace and then pictured the darkness lightening and fading to a violet. It started working. I pictured myself sitting on a dark floor with air around me instead of floating in the black nothing. This was more of a struggle; my brain ached and it felt like I was stretching a sore muscle, until it finally worked.

I sat in a small bubble that glowed with a slight light. I took a long breath of cool, clear air. It was sweet and the ache in my head started to subside.

Before I took in a second breath, everything I'd created unraveled. The air around me collapsed mid-breath and the sudden thickness in the air made me cough and struggle in a choking fit. The suffocating pressure intensified dramatically. The density around me squeezed every inch of my skin before my surroundings started vibrating with laughter. Cooper was aware. He was squeezing me, hurting me, and enjoying it.

One panicked thread in my brain unraveled and my furious need for air shoved back, with ferocious strength, against Cooper's changes to the atmosphere. The air suddenly cleared around me again and I curled up, panting on the ground, focused on keeping the darkness at bay for a few minutes to catch my breath. My head was pounding. There was a growling sound, low and furious. It echoed throughout the dream and I couldn't tell where Cooper was. Then I realized the sound came from me.

A drop of red landed on the back of my hand, and I realized my nose was bleeding. I'd learned while trying to separate Finn and Chloe that these kinds of battles in the mind had physical consequences on the body. Cooper had to know that. He wasn't stupid. So what was he doing?

His laughter rippled through the black air I'd pushed back. I wasn't sure, but he sounded a little tired too.

“Just stop,” I yelled out, and the laughing stopped before I went on. “This isn't easy for you either. You're going to kill both of us.”

“You act like we're the same.” Then Cooper's voice shifted from amused to cold and calculated in an instant. “We're not the same, Parker. Not yet.”

He slammed his dark fog over me again and I had to struggle to fight him off.

We spent all night like that. Hours that felt like days that felt like weeks. The battle became a reflex. Each time Cooper closed his thick black liquid over me, it became more difficult to push back and it was even more painful. Each time I did manage to push him back, he closed it up immediately. My hope shrank as I realized that maybe I'd been wrong. Maybe this was easier for him than me.

There was no more laughing or talking anymore, only pain and extreme exertion. By the time the dream ended and we finally escaped to being awake again, the pool of blood next to my face was big enough that it scared me. My nose and ears were still dripping. I was so weak I could barely lift my head, and my lungs burned like they'd been fighting for air all night long.

Each breath, each heartbeat, each thought took more effort than ever before. How could my body be this exhausted after only a day and a half here? How could I possibly survive for eight more days like this?

Opening my mouth to speak, I only ended up coughing at first. Finally, I managed to croak out, “Are you there?”

Shawn answered immediately. “Yes. Are you okay?”

“No … did they do all of this to you at first?”

“Not all of it. Cooper seems hell-bent on making you suffer.” Shawn's tone was almost angry. “They have so many drugs they've been experimenting with—far more drugs than you've seen yet. You should brace yourself for whatever they have next. Cooper even has one that makes his mind more powerful.”

“What do you mean by ‘powerful'?” I didn't understand. Did they have their own version of Eclipse?

“He thinks it's keeping him alive longer, and it might be … ” Shawn's voice trailed off before he said, “But there are definitely some very bad side effects.”

“I noticed that it's nearly impossible to fight him off.” I rolled into a ball as another wave of pain hit and then gritted out through my teeth, “Is that related?”

“Probably. But it also seems like it's driving him crazy.” Shawn's next words were so soft I barely heard him. “He's losing his humanity.”

I couldn't keep from crying out as a pain hit that seemed like it was trying to force my spine onto the outside of my body. After it passed, I was left trembling in its wake. “I didn't realize h-he'd ever had any humanity.”

It was silent for a couple of minutes before Shawn said, “Listen, I've witnessed the worst they have to give out, and if what they've done to you so far is any indication, they aren't holding back. You aren't done yet … you need to be strong.”

Cooper had said he wouldn't kill me, just make me wish I were dead. I now believed he was absolutely capable of making it happen.

“Was there someone in here before me? Is that what you mean by ‘witnessed it'?” I asked.

Shawn hesitated, and then I finally heard him again. “Yeah. You're stronger, though. I think if you just keep trying, you might be okay.”

I slid away from the wall, staring at it like I might somehow be able to see through it. “Why are you in here?”

“Because I stopped saying yes.” His voice seeped through the wall, drenched in genuine remorse.

“You worked for them?” I whispered, horrified.

“For a while.” Shawn didn't sound like he was defending himself, just explaining. “Until I finally told them no. I said I wouldn't anymore.”

I waited for him to go on, but he was silent so I finished for him. “And that's how you ended up in here.”

“It is.” He sighed.

I curled into a tighter ball and shivered as I fought the urge to fall back to sleep. Shawn said I wasn't even to the worst of this yet. By the time my brother came back here to help me, would he even recognize me anymore?

Would I?

Twenty-One
Jack

Wendy was definitely just a Dreamer … and kind of a boring one at that. Her dreams layered one upon the next upon the next. They were filled with mostly mundane tasks like cleaning, running errands, having dinner with her husband. It was like swimming through a soup of normalcy.

I rubbed my eyes again and tried to focus on the details—looking for anything that felt odd or out of place. But there didn't seem to be anything to find, nothing to see.

Moving through the dream, I braced myself and reached out for Wendy. It was almost a habit now, knowing how and when to blend in and stand out from a Dreamer's dreams. Still, when I was
this
tired, it required some focus. I imagined myself as part of the scene around me, blending in perfectly with the kitchen until I was almost invisible. Then I nudged her mind in the direction
I
wanted; guiding her thoughts to memories of my dad.

Usually, when sifting through memories, the most recent ones were the ones that came first. So I frowned when a memory from when they were teenagers rose to the surface instead. Wendy had said she'd seen him more recently than that, hadn't she? I sorted quickly through each memory, making sure it wasn't important before moving on to the next one. It wasn't until I got through almost all of them that I found her most recent memory of dad. For some reason, it wasn't coming to the surface the same way the others were, but I could feel it in the corners of her mind … yet I couldn't make her remember it fully, which was weird. This was so easy with other Dreamers.

Standing there in confusion, I watched her revert again to one of the earlier memories. This didn't make sense. Something weird was happening here.

I frowned and focused, trying to guide her thoughts where I wanted them to go, but stopped when Wendy winced. When I pulled harder, it caused her physical pain. Carefully withdrawing my hand, I let her whirl through all the memories of my dad I'd pulled up as I tried to figure out what was going on here. This wasn't right. I'd never encountered
anything
like this in dreams before. Could a Taker have messed with her memories like this?

No, that didn't make any sense. Takers couldn't enter, let alone control and manipulate, memories and dreams.

But Watchers could.

Dad.

My heartbeat sped up, and I felt for the first time in hours like I might actually be close to making some real progress. I took a slow, calming breath, and reached out for Wendy again. I sorted back down through the other memories and grasped for the one I knew I wanted. When it resisted again, I closed my eyes and felt around the edges with my mind.

All of a Dreamer's memories were intertwined. They're tied to other memories, thoughts, and feelings, all making up one convoluted ball of personality. Dad had taught me to find those connections, to locate the place where one memory bonds with the next.

I'd never encountered another Watcher who could navigate a Dreamer's mind the way Dad could—and he'd taught me well.

So this could be another one of his traps. Some new way he'd devised to make sure no one else could get the information except for the one person he'd fully trained. Just one more way to be certain that
only
I could uncover this answer …

One spot in the memories was a little more flexible than the others. I pulled on that spot and it gave way while the rest stayed in place. My eyes flew open to see what thought or memory I'd released … but my breath caught in my throat and my lungs froze at what I saw before me.

It was like I had become the frozen memory—while a living, breathing version of my father had broken free and now stood before me.

He smiled at me but didn't speak.

My chest burned in response to a lack of oxygen, and I finally remembered to pull in a ragged, painful breath. “Dad?”

As if my speaking gave him the cue he needed, he said, “I make you weak but also keep you safe. Your hands sweat when I am near and your heart may grow cold. I often sit with the weak, but rarely the bold.”

I blinked at him and shook my head in utter confusion. “What?”

He said again, “I make you weak but also … ”

I walked around him in a circle, ignoring the words but noticing everything else. The way the clothes hung the same on his body no matter how he shifted to face me, the way his eyes stared at the same spot, even if I moved a couple of feet to the left or right. A sad smile curved up the corner of my mouth. Dad had always wanted to be able to insert something like this … he must've finally figured out how.

“You planted a looping memory,” I whispered, and he stopped speaking. The word “buried” written on Dad's paper came to mind, and I shook my head. It looked like he'd been referring to more than just the puzzle box.

Dad's image waited for me … this was a riddle. He'd always loved riddles and puzzles, sometimes violent ones with real consequences if you made the wrong choice—as had been so clearly demonstrated by his exploding box.

I focused toward Wendy again, since all of this had been planted in her subconscious mind. “Please repeat it.”

Dad did as I requested. “I make you weak but also keep you safe. Your hands sweat when I am near and your heart may grow cold. I often sit with the weak but rarely the bold.”

We'd played this game a lot when I was younger. He only gave me one chance to get the right answer. If I didn't get it, I lost.

I repeated the riddle to myself a few times until I understood how to make sense of it.

“You are Fear.” I spoke the words quietly, and suddenly the image smiled and my heart filled with the overwhelming pain and loss that I'd been trying so hard to keep at bay.

My correct answer unlocked the full memory. It opened around us like an image spilling from a giant paint can and seeping over every surface until it coated the inside of the dream. I released Wendy as I watched it unfold.

Dad and Wendy stood next to a car in a grocery store parking lot. He was speaking softly to her.

“I need your help. My sons are in danger and if anything happens to me, they're going to come to you. You need to remember to tell them this.” He held out a piece of paper in front of her. In big letters he had written, three times:
C10H13N5O4—C10H13N5O4—C10H13N5O4.

My brain whirled through all the compounds Dad had taught me, and I knew this one looked familiar. It had been a while since I'd really studied up on them so it took me a minute before I recognized it: adenosine. It was a purine nucleoside that dealt with energy transfer. That actually made sense.

Finally, I'd found one of the missing ingredients!

Wendy, however, looked confused. “What am I supposed to do with that, Daniel? How could I use it to help them?”

“Don't worry about how. If they find you, Jack will understand. Also, remember this.” Dad flipped the paper over and the other side read:
Veronica Nelson—in Franklin.
Then he lowered the paper.

“Danny, I can't possibly remember all of that.” Wendy looked sincerely worried, and of course her concern made perfect sense. Given the few seconds she'd seen it, no person would be able to retain that information for long without writing it down or something. But the truth was that Dad didn't expect her to remember it. He expected her
brain
to remember … and then he'd gone into her dreams that night to make certain it would. He'd reinforced the memory and protected it in a way that made sure it couldn't disappear or get into the wrong hands.

Even when he was Divided, with an entire war weighing down on him, he was still smarter than anyone else I'd ever known.

Another detail I swore I would tell Parker … as soon as I got him back safe.

Dad smiled and hugged Wendy. “Don't worry. You'll remember. I promise.” Then he looked her straight in the eye and said, “Tell them both that I love them and that I'm so sorry for everything.”

Wendy patted her hands across Dad's shoulders. “I'm sure you can tell them that yourself.”

He gave her one more hug and then, as he helped her into her car, the memory faded away. I fought to push back the grief. The pain was fresh again and I suddenly remembered Marisol's words about losing my mom:
We miss her because she mattered so much to us. Don't take that away from your mama. Let her loss matter
.

My chest burned from trying to hold back my grief, so I slowly released it. It was definitely time for me to let Dad's loss matter.

The quiet of the mellow dream that followed reflected my sense of loss. Wendy was painting her fence in the afternoon sunlight, birds chirping overhead, and I finally let myself remember everything about my dad and what I'd lost … what Parker and I had both lost.

Here, in this dream world he'd altered, I'd found Dad's last-ditch effort to save the Night Walkers. And this was the perfect place to really say goodbye to him. I bowed my head low as sobs racked my shoulders. Seeing him again was much harder than I could've imagined.

As Wendy's dreams carried on without me, I let go of the fight. I'd been trying so hard to keep my painful memories of Dad from floating to the surface. It was a battle that needed to end now, and I felt the burden of it lift, piece by piece. The memories hurt me, but they helped me too—and I desperately needed his help. I wouldn't ever stop missing him, but at least now, thanks to this clue, I had real hope that I'd found the path Dad wanted me to follow. There was a real chance I could see Parker again.

And for now, that was enough.

Chloe didn't learn anything new from Aaron … mostly because, as I'd learned in Wendy's dream, they really hadn't been hiding anything.

But my dad had.

Since we'd slept in the van, we stopped at a full-service truck stop to shower and grab some food before we got on the road. Interestingly, the person who was complaining the most about this arrangement was Finn.

“Ugh … I thought I'd finally gotten away from public showers when I finished my last gym class,” he groaned, and then went in anyway.

The city of Franklin and the two Veronica Nelsons who lived there were only three hours away. Finn called their numbers, but since he only got voicemail, he couldn't really eliminate either one of them. And then he insisted we swing home and explain what was going on to Mrs. Chipp, Addie, and Mia before driving any farther.

As much as I really didn't want to tell Parker's mom what had happened to him, I'd promised to let Finn make this decision. And since Oakdale was technically on the way from here to Franklin, I couldn't find a good reason not to do it … no matter how hard I tried.

Besides, the more I thought about it, the more I realized I should get Parker's mom out of that house. The last thing I needed was for Cooper to decide he needed more hostages.

Chloe grabbed the keys from me as we walked out of the truck stop, back toward the van. In two steps I caught up with her, but she put them in her pocket and shook her head when I held out my hand.

“What do you think you're doing?” I asked.

“Driving.” She looked at me like that was a really stupid question, and maybe it was.

“Why would you think I would let you do that?” I put my hand on the driver's side door, holding it closed as I stood over her, trying to intimidate her into giving me back the keys. From the way she crossed her arms, it didn't appear to be working.

“You need to get some sleep. From what we saw with Wendy, you may need to go into this Veronica person's dreams tonight. You need to spend the drive letting Libby heal you a bit.” She raised one eyebrow and tilted her head forward. “And don't try to tell me you aren't tired or you don't need it. If anyone can recognize exhaustion, it's a Taker.”

I started to argue about being tired, but she was actually dead-on in her assessment, so I changed tactics. “You're exhausted too.”

Chloe swallowed and looked down. “All the more reason we need to get on the road. There isn't anything here that can help me with
my kind
of tired.”

I drew in a sharp breath. It felt like I'd been hit across the face with her mortality. As much as I wanted to get the formula to save Parker … I wanted it to save Chloe, too. The idea of her dying because I couldn't find all the pieces of this puzzle in time made me feel oddly nauseous and panicked. I hated that feeling—and I really disliked how confused it made me to feel it about Chloe. Suddenly I just needed to do something to fix the situation, but I knew with certainty that I was already doing everything I could.

So I simply stood there, looking as useless as I felt.

Finn walked around the end of the van. He was wearing a new, clean shirt that read,
And yet, despite the look on my face, you're still talking.
He nudged Chloe just hard enough that she fell against me. “You two stop arguing. I'm driving. You both should get some rest—or whatever it is your kind calls it.”

He held out his hand for the keys. Chloe righted herself and stood up straight, digging the keys out of her pocket. I thought I saw her cheeks flush before she jogged around the front of the van and climbed in the front seat.

Libby was already sitting in the backseat when I opened the door. She patted the seat beside her and gave me a half-smile, but it didn't reach her eyes. I wondered if she would ever be the same again. If there was anything I could do to help bring her back. She went back to staring straight out the side window as I moved in and put on my seat belt.

“Libby?” When she didn't answer, I asked, “Could you help heal me on the drive? I'm getting pretty tired.”