“And now she’s in over her head,” he said. “For the most part, Rêve is all they say it is—safe and wonderful. For a special few, Rêve can be deadly, and your sister is one of them.”
Jordan didn’t like the word deadly in the same sentence with sister.
“What are you saying?” Was he threatening Maisie?
Jordan’s muscles engaged to rise; it was an act of will to keep her butt in the chair. She had to make a call. Maze would just have to stay at her place, defer her classes if necessary, until this blew over. Until Michael Reese and the people Maze couriered for forgot about her.
Reese had the audacity to continue. “You can help her.”
Suddenly, she got it. Someone had recruited her sister, and now this guy was—
“You’re recruiting me.” He’d applauded how quickly she’d entered into the Envoi’s Rêve. He’d started chatting her up, and then Maze had come, and after that, Vince.
He smiled. “Aptitude and intelligence. Yes.”
“So that’s how you think I can help you.” Make her a courier, too? “How do you propose to help me? Deal with my sister’s issues?”
“That’s exactly what I propose.”
And if she didn’t cooperate, what? He’d just let her sister hang? The offer was just shy of blackmail. What would he want her to do with her aptitude?
What a load of bullshit.
No. This guy couldn’t be her only recourse. She could call NIOD, the National Institute on Dreaming. They had to know what to do, or whom to speak to locally.
“And if I refuse?”
“You can’t. It’s too late.”
So he was a thug, just like that man choking her sister in Rêve, forcing a course of action.
“When next you fall asleep—and eventually you’ll have to—you’ll understand. There’s no going back to the way you were before. Wish to God there was, sweetheart.”
She wasn’t his sweetheart. Standing, she said, “Get out.”
He opened his hands, an asking gesture. “You have to experience it to believe.”
“Not happening. Leave, please.”
With a growling sigh, he stood, too. “I’ll be seeing you.”
“Unlikely.”
Two steps of a goddamned long stride and he was at the door, but before he pulled it open, he turned back. “I’m actually trying to help here. You don’t trust me, and all things considered, you shouldn’t.”
Finally, a little honesty.
“But wield that sharp common sense against everyone, please. Don’t trust anyone else, either.”
***
He’d have thought the woman would’ve taken his warning to heart at least a little, but she was even now leaning in to kiss Mr. Millions, aka Vincent Blackman, on the cheek.
“Highlight of my day,” she said to him. Mwah.
Rook stood in a dark alcove across the street from the outdoor café where the two had met for lunch. Millions was as shiny as he’d been in dreamland. Must be some damn expensive hair product.
Jordan sat back, opening the menu. “Mmm. What’s good here?”
The other night, she’d made herself a target with her brilliant entrance into Rêve. Her little sister’s rendezvous had compounded the issue. It would help if the woman would cooperate. Rook was bad, but there were worse.
The job was supposed to be simple: ID someone with talent. Usher them into Rêve, which Jordan had done of her own free will. Once a break had been made in that thin protective barrier of sleep, take her deeper into the dreamwaters to awaken her to the world of Darkside. She’d never dream the same, be the same, live the same. And there’d be no earthly refuge left to her but Chimera.
Would help if she’d gone to sleep last night. He could’ve met her there and demonstrated how dreaming would be for her now. But no, the stubborn woman had fought the pull hard. He’d had no choice but to join the surveillance team assigned to her building and watch over her, his darksight keen to anyone else approaching her apartment.
In fact, two suspicious persons had tried to approach her place last night. The first was a Seeker from the Envoi, but Rook had dropped him before he made it across her parking lot. The second one, however, had slipped away as soon as Rook had spotted him down the street.
Her life as she knew it had ended, but she still smiled up at the waitress and ordered—Rook waited—lemon water and a Sai salad. Girl food.
He’d love to get rid of Millions too, but Jordan was there of her own free will. Rook could do nothing but watch and wait. Unfortunately, patience wasn’t one of his virtues.
Millions was talking about some molten brownie, called it decadent, which for some reason Rook found irritating as hell.