Revived (The Lucidites Book 3) (8 page)

White-hot anger engulfs me. At my back I sense a breeze stirring. “Trey!” I hear myself boom. “Why is it I’m only on a need-to-know basis with you? How can you keep so much from me?”

Trey’s already shaking his head before I finish speaking. “Knowledge isn’t always power. You should know that by now. Everything you know changes you. Not only that, but it can hold you hostage. Look at you now. You’re already consumed by emotions since you found out I was your father. This isn’t a productive use of your energy. I fear that any more information will just overwhelm you and right now we need you focused.”

“So let me get this straight,” I say in a measured voice. “Chase orchestrated this huge mess. He had Aiden abducted so he could get to the plans for the modifier. He’s responsible for Pearl’s death and now he’s stalking me by night. And you’re not going to tell me why? That’s ridiculous!” My attention shoots to Aiden and Ren. “Let me guess, you both know, don’t you?”

Ren nods curtly, a pleased grin on his face. Beside him Aiden shakes his head, giving me a pointed stare.

“Well, it’s not like you’d tell me if you did,” I say, staring straight into Aiden’s cold, blue eyes. “Not if Trey forbid you, right?” I fix my anger on Trey again. “Isn’t it nice to know you have such loyal lemmings?”

“Roya,” Trey cautions. “This is not productive.”

“
This
is all your fault,” I say, ignoring his attempts to control my behavior.

“It’s not.”

“Oh really? Well, if you hadn’t ordered your employees to build an emotional modifier, Chase wouldn’t have the technology. Maybe consider that the next time you sanction some evil device, huh?”

He takes a long breath, nostrils flaring. I’ve never seen him so angry, not even when he exploded at Joseph for reviving Zhuang. This rage is worse because it’s quiet, boiling inside. I’m well acquainted with that type of fuming. It burns you from the inside out. “If you’re dream traveling,” Trey says, taking each word one at a time, “and Chase shows up, you must leave. If you’re sleeping and he invades your dream I order you to wake up. Is that clear?” Trey says, his tone deliberate.

“Is that order coming from you as my father or as the Head of the Institute?”

“It shouldn’t matter.”

“Well, I don’t have to listen to either person,” I say, feeling like a selfish child, but I can’t help it. My heart is kerosene, my mind a match. I’m seconds away from igniting.

“Damn it, Roya, this isn’t a game! Don’t you get that?”

“What I don’t get is why you won’t tell me the reason Chase is after me. Tell me what he wants. I deserve to know.”

Surrender darkens my father’s face. He places his forehead in his hand. Takes a long breath. When his eyes meet mine I’m struck by the familiarity. His eyes are the exact same color as Joseph’s. As mine. A chill runs down my back. The pang which precedes tears rolls through my chest. In that fleeting moment we share a pain, one which serves to obliterate my rebellion. I don’t want to hurt Trey, not like I’m doing. All I want is the one thing he owes me: the truth.

He shakes his head, seeming to recharge his motivation. “You have to believe me when I say I’m trying to protect you. Knowing everything will make your life worse, just the same way that you’re tortured now that you know I’m your father. Save yourself this heartache…please,” Trey pleads, a cruel self-loathing in his voice.

“Look, Trey,” I begin. “Keeping the truth from me is the only thing that’s ever broken my heart. You may think you’re protecting me, but you’re not. I’m not a child. Give me a chance to decide what I can handle.”

With a deliberate shake of his head, he averts his eyes. “No, my decision is final.”

And the match is lit. The fire ignites. Fast burning. “You know what? That’s fine,” I say in a quick rush. Jerking to a standing position, I lean across the table, hovering there until he meets my gaze. “Don’t tell me. Delude yourself into thinking you’re protecting me. Meanwhile I’m going to find Chase and ask him directly.”

His eyes widen with sudden horror. I don’t catch anymore of his expression of disbelief because I pivot and stride to the exit.

“Roya! Roya! No! Get back here now!” Trey yells at my retreating back, desperation in every word. My threat isn’t empty either. I have every intention of finding Chase.

Chapter Eleven

T
he sun has risen in the real world, where Middlings worry about love or whether their dreams will ever come true. How similar and devastatingly different we are as races. The Tao offers only riddles to my problems so I abandon it for the
Collected Works of Carl Jung
. After a night of drama and little rest, his words should confound my troubled mind. In reality, every sentence flows into the next creating a beautiful volley of questions and answers, insights and interpretations. The continuity of his words feels like it’s begging me to keep reading, like hidden somewhere within the passages I’ll find the clues I’m looking for. The one great truth which quells the fires within me.

The second knock that morning sounds at my door. I don’t jump this time. Actually, I’ve been expecting him. I ready my angry expression, take a breath, and say, “Come in,” through clenched teeth.

The door “shushes” as it slides back.

“Do you always just let anyone stroll into your room?” George says, coming around the corner.

I sit up in my bed with sudden surprise. “Oh, it’s you. I was expecting Joseph,” I say, letting my head fall back on the headboard, a tiny bit of relief oozing out of me with a sigh.

“Are you mad at him? Is that why your emotions are so strong?” George says, standing at the foot of my bed, regarding me with a sensitive look.

“Is that why you came by?” I ask, tossing the iPad to the side.

“Yes,” he says a bit sheepishly. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“I have crucified you too many times for being sensitive to my emotions, haven’t I? You apologize almost every time you worry about my well-being,” I say. “Most people would be grateful to have someone who cares like you do.”

“Our situation is different from most people’s,” George says, his eyes heavy like he hasn’t slept most of the night either. “I don’t blame you for sometimes trying to have some emotional privacy.”

“Well, I think it’s only fair if I return the favor and ask after you. You look exhausted. Is everything all right?”

George yawns, his eyes closing for a second like he’s about to pass out right here. “Yes, I’m fine. I want to know about you. Is it Joseph who has you so upset? I’ve felt a hurricane of emotion from you the last hour.”

“I’ll tell you all about it, but you have to do something for me first,” I say, moving over to the other side of the bed.

“Anything,” he says, swaying a little.

“Come lie down here,” I say, patting the bed. “You look like you’re going to fall over.” George’s eyes slide to the bed and back to me. “Oh, get over here before I drag you onto this bed,” I threaten.

A sly smile curls his mouth up slightly, but still he’s too tired for it to light up the rest of his face. Sluggishly he takes the spot next to me. I hand him an extra pillow. He grabs it, propping himself up.

“Now tell me first why you look like a zombie,” I say. “Have you been off resurrecting ancient villains, because if so––”

A tired chuckle falls out of George’s mouth. He closes his eyes and for a second I think he’s fallen asleep.

“George?”

“No villains,” he says, opening his brown eyes and turning his face to me. “I dream traveled last night to watch da Vinci paint the
Mona Lisa
.”

“Oh. Is that all that has you looking so tired?”

“Yes,” he says, an edge to his voice. “How did you spend that entire night following Bruce Lee around? I’m exhausted and couldn’t manage competing right now, like you did after the fact.”

“Well, dream traveling in the past is taxing and the further back you go the more draining it can become. The
Mona Lisa
was painted in the sixteenth century too. There’s a reason we can’t go back and see the birth of Christ, you know…it could kill us. What were you thinking going back that far?”

“I was thinking I wanted to see one of the world’s greatest histories being made,” he says, a meaningful look in his eyes.

“And…how was it?”

“Anticlimactic and not worth all the effort,” he says, his voice scratchy. “Watching a painter create is like watching Hemingway write: it’s all introspective until it’s complete. Even when the
Mona Lisa
was done there wasn’t any glamorous payoff. I see the painting as genius, but back then the momentum was slow to build. I realize how so many great artists and writers go crazy. They must always expect something exhilarating when they complete their work only to be stared at with long glances and indecision as the masses make their judgments. It must slowly kill them inside to know they are constantly under the scrutiny of the world.”

As usual, when George makes a thoughtful insight, I find my mind suddenly charged. A new inspiration takes residence in my heart. “How did da Vinci feel afterwards?”

“You know I can’t expose other people’s emotions,” he says, tucking his hands under his head, suppressing a smile.

“Unless we’re training to face a madman, right?”

“Exactly,” he says, humor in his voice.

I don’t throw in his face that he recently told me when Aiden was jealous. This rule has never applied to the Head Scientist, not when it’s worked in George’s favor. “Fine, don’t tell me,” I say, pushing him slightly with my fingertips. “But you’re going to have to let it all spill if we find out daVinci is an evil villain we have to take out.”

Another smile. “He wasn’t evil, but he was a Dream Traveler.”

“Figures,” I say. “All the greats are.”

“All right, your turn,” George says. “I actually would have just returned from my dream travels and gone to sleep, but when I got back I was assaulted by your feelings. You’ve had some pretty exhilarating emotions, but never before have I felt
that
much from you.”

“More than when I found out that the Head Asshole of this place was my father?”

“Yeah, more than then.”

“Seriously, you look like you’re about to faint with exhaustion. Why don’t I tell you later?” I say.

“Roya,” he reprimands in that way he does that I half enjoy.

“Why is it that people keep using my name to scold me?”

“If you don’t want to tell me––”

I wave him off. “There’s no one else I do want to tell,” I say, sliding down so our heads are a bit more even. I tell George what happened, omitting the fact that I made out with Chase. I more or less make it sound like he cornered me and then Joseph swooped in to the rescue. I explain that Trey is once again keeping secrets regarding my personal life.

“I told him I was going to find Chase and ask him directly. I’m fairly certain I’ve been grounded for my outburst.” I laugh.

“You’re not being serious, are you? You can’t go seeking Chase.”

“I actually am. Chase won’t hurt me,” I say and immediately regret it.

George graces me with a single punishing glare before returning to staring at the ceiling. “Honestly, Roya, sometimes you’re too impulsive. Chase is dangerous.”

“I know. It’s just that I need the truth. I don’t know how else to find out and the whole thing is driving me crazy.”

“I sense that,” George says in a restrained tone. He lays his arm over his eyes like the dim lighting of my room is hurting him. “At least you’re feeling better than you were when I first woke up.”

I do feel better, partly because of Jung and also because of George. Critical thinkers put me at ease.

Time passes with only the sound of George’s gentle breathing. Silence with George is usually comforting with a cathartic quality. Finally he says, “I’m not sleeping, if you still want to talk.”

I coerce a piece of hair from my ponytail and twirl it around my finger. “Can you feel the emotions I have for Chase, right now?”

George removes his forearm from across his eyes. “Yes.”

“Do you still sense them as not real, as imposter emotions?”

A sour remorse briefly blankets his face. “No, they’re becoming more real. You’re asking because you can’t feel the difference anymore, between your love for him and real love.” It’s not a question and his definitive tone empties me of hope. “He appears to have perfected the modifier. I’m sorry, Roya,” George adds.

“I am too,” I say with a melodramatic groan. “In my brain I don’t want to feel this way...but I’m becoming possessed by something so strong I can’t battle it.”

“Don’t worry, Aiden is going to fix your bracelet and then this will all go away.”

“And until then?”

He peeks one eye open, closing it with a half-smile before he says anything. “Until then, you can lean on me.”

“Thanks, George,” I say, bending over, kissing his forehead. “Now you get some rest, you look awfully tired.”

He tries to get up, but I tug his arm back to the bed. “Stay,” I say, a question in my voice.

“Here?”

“Yes, here. How am I supposed to lean on you if you’re not present,” I say.

“What about you? Are you going to sleep?”

“No, I’m not sleep material, and dream travel is out of the question right now, until my protective charm is updated.” I pick back up my iPad. “Thanks for everything, George.”

“Thank
you
,” he says with a smile, then within three breaths he’s asleep.

Jung’s words, again a steady streaming of comfort-producing philosophy, lull me further into an introspective state. With George sleeping peacefully beside me and Jung’s verses trailing across my vision, I feel for a moment that in all this mess there’s a delicate balance I need to achieve. George once spoke to me about synchronization. The idea strangely hones my eyes on a particular sentence, one that makes me gulp. Knocks on my chest.

“Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”