Jolie.
My tainted vision is nothing. My aching muscles and bones are nothing. A surge of energy rips through me and I find the door, thrust it open, right away spotting the beam of light dancing away from me with scuffles and scrapes and muffled cries.
I’m a mountain lion and Jolie’s my cub. And whoever’s got her will face my wrath. With reckless abandon I barge through the house, trying to guide my feet by memory. Quick step to the left, avoid the table. Quick step to the right, avoid the—
CRASH! I bash into something soft, toppling it over and getting my legs all knotted up, bringing me down on top of it. There’s a muffled cry, but I’m already rolling off, because I don’t need even a shred of moonlight to know that it’s Looza, wide and soft and rough with ropes, tied up. Either Clint’s the culprit, gone off-his-mind crazy, or he’s around here somewhere, tied up too.
I move on, barely catching a glimpse of the bouncing light as it exits out the back door, taking my sister with it.
An odd numbness buzzes through my legs, but I force them forward, charging for the door, meeting it just as it’s slammed in my face. I don’t feel the impact—because it’s my sister they’ve got—just bounce off, rock on my heels, push off, tear open the door, leap out into the frozen night.
The light’s there, stopped, as if waiting for me. I can’t see past it, because it’s like a shield, glowing round and bright, blocking my vision as effectively as a stone wall. I’m unsure for a second, because up until this point, the light’s been running, so of course I had to try to catch it. But now that I’ve caught up, my bear-in-an-ice-sculpture-museum routine may not be the most effective method of getting Joles back.
Fists clenched at my sides, I take a step forward. “Give her bac—”
Just like during the fight at the pub, something wallops me in the back of the head. The light and Jolie’s muffled cries and my perfect day…all go black.
Chapter Eight
A bad dream. I know that’s what it was as soon as I open my eyes. Almost like a trick, it had good parts, like getting a job and my mother being clean and Jolie being able to come home to live with us again, before turning nightmarish with a bright light and a rock to the back of the head.
I quiver, trying to separate dream from reality. Why am I so cold?
Heavy swirls of gray and black shift overhead, spitting bits of white. Some of it lands on my face and I wipe it away.
A voice echoes hollowly from somewhere. A dream voice?
A dream inside a dream, maybe. When I wake up I won’t remember, because I never remember my dreams.
The voice again. Wes. Dream Wes. Probably just as responsible and stick-in-the-mud as the real Wes. I don’t really want to see him now, because I’m too cold, too filled with heaviness after nightmare number one. Even though I know it’s not real, it hurts like it is.
“Dazz? What the…? Mountain Heart, Dazz! There’s blood!”
“Just a dream,” I say. “Go away.” Everything’s blurry, but not because of spots from a bright light or the white wetness what floats above me. Just real blurry.
I close my eyes.
“Where’s Jolie?” Wes says.
~~~
The next time I awake it’s not dream number three.
But dream number one and dream number two are still alive in my memory, which is unusual for me. I keep my eyes closed, waiting for them to fade away so I can be happy again.
Murmurs caress the air around me. Saying something…I don’t know what. Don’t care much either, as long as the memories of the dreams are trapped in my head. “Go away,” I say, both to the murmurs and the nightmare-memories. My voice is crackly, like dry leaves.
“Dazz?” my brother’s voice says.
“Nay, it’s the King of the Yags,” I say. “All who stand before me shall tremble in fear.”
“Dazz, you need to tell us what happened,” Wes says, as if what happened is real. Perhaps he’s talking about what happened at the pub. Maybe I’m just waking up from the hit I took and everything’s been a head-injury-created dream. That would make more sense than me actually working for the king.
“Dazz.” A different voice this time. Buff. “Where’s Jolie?”
The bad dreams scream through my head, throbbing, throbbing, pounding, chucking a massive tantrum, ripping my skull apart. Buff’s two words change everything, tell me everything I already knew.
Not a dream. Jolie’s been taken.
“They took her,” I whisper. I won’t open my eyes. Can’t. Not with them looking at me. Not when I failed her.
“Who?” Wes again.