Mania Page 2

  “But what?” she demanded. “It sounds pretty damn simple to me!”

  Zipping the bag closed, I double-checked that I’d put my cell phone in the pocket of my jeans. Taking a breath, I mentally braced myself for the fight that was bound to come after I told her the whole truth. “Look, I’m trying, but what Dad left me about the formula … it isn’t complete.”

  She stepped away from the wall, all pretense of this being a casual chat shattered. Her voice turned to a whispered hiss. “What?”

  I stood my ground and met her hard gaze, despite the fact that she was a Taker and I had made it a goal to never meet the eyes of someone like her. “He gave me most of it, and a clue to find the rest, but I need time.”

  “Time isn’t always something we can get more of.” Chloe took another step closer. She masked it well, but the roiling emotion behind her stiff expression was hard to hide. “I don’t understand. If he really created this formula to help the Takers, then why wouldn’t he give you the whole thing?”

  “Because he’s learned through years of experience not to trust people like you.”

  She looked away, but I wasn’t done.

  “Because even when he was trying to help Takers, he felt he had to build in safeguards. He had to make sure you needed his sons alive in order to make it.” I stepped a bit closer, and her eyes came up to meet mine again. “He didn’t want your kind to be able to grab the formula, kill Parker and me, and make it yourselves.”

  “Fine,” she muttered. “I get it.”

  “Good.”

  “Even so.” She rubbed her eye with her right hand and the shadow beneath it stood out in even stronger contrast. “It sure would’ve been nice for me to know this little detail before we made that deal, don’t you think?”

  “I’m working on the problem.” I pulled the duffle bag’s strap over my shoulder.

  “That’s not good enough, Jack.” Her hands curled into small fists at her sides. After our last conversation, I already knew she wasn’t afraid to use them to work out a little frustration. My quick reflexes were the only thing that had kept her punch from landing.

  Not that I blamed her for being frustrated; what she was facing was terrifying. To be dying slowly, your mind eroding away from lack of sleep, with no way to stop it—any Watcher could understand how that felt. That was why this formula was so important.

  I walked around her toward the door. “Well, it has to be enough. This is my responsibility, and—”

  “Screw responsibility! This is my life, Jack!” Chloe grabbed my shoulder and jerked me back until I was staring into her eyes. She took down her mask completely, wanting me to see the desperation and fear she was feeling. I drew it all in, meeting her gaze, willing her to believe I really was on her side.

  I couldn’t guarantee I would always be on her side … but for right now, I was.

  I understood too well the weighty responsibility that rested on my shoulders: the fate of not only her life, but the lives of many, many more. All of the Takers’ lives—plus the lives of ordinary people, which the Takers could and would destroy if I didn’t find a way to stop them.

  Watchers my age had been raised to despise all Takers. We were polar opposites in many ways—Watchers learned how to blend in when we were in the mind of someone who was dreaming. As much as possible, we tried not to disrupt the Dreamers. Takers did the opposite. They took over the actual bodies of Dreamers while they slept, and often left nothing but rubble in their wake.

  I shook the thoughts from my head. The Takers had been my enemies for a very long time, but for right now I had to focus on a different part of our relationship: the similarities. The Takers were still Night Walkers, just like me. And so no matter how much I disliked them—and yes, at times even Chloe—I would still find a way to save them. Dad sacrificed himself to save Parker and me, so I would finish the task he gave me.

  As tough as Chloe always tried to act, her fingers trembled as they gripped my arm.

  “I know exactly how important this is, Chloe.” I enunciated every syllable as I backed slowly toward the storage room door, and her hand fell back to her side. “So please, let me do what I need to do. I want to keep my promise.”

  The door opened behind me and hit the back of my shoe, but I didn’t turn when I heard my brother’s voice.

  “Uh, am I interrupting?”

  “No.” I stepped forward and shifted my bag so Parker could open the door the rest of the way. When I turned around, his gaze was on my duffel. He raised his eyes to mine and I pulled out my phone, studying it like it held some fascinating secret.

  “You’re leaving right now?” His face fell into a deep frown.

  I didn’t look up as I answered. “I told you that last night on the way home from the base.”

  “Yeah.” He rubbed his thumb along his chin and added, “You said the same thing the night before that, and the night before that.”

  Finn, Parker’s best friend, poked his head around the corner, shaggy pieces of auburn hair hung across his right eye. “You’re really going?”

  I groaned. “Yes, if you two will stop blocking the door.”

  Finn shuddered when he saw Chloe standing behind us and jerked backward out of the room. He’d been avoiding her—more specifically, avoiding eye contact with her —as much as possible. It had been very awkward ever since she’d taken over his body … not hard to see why.

  Of course, there was a lot more to the whole Dreamer-Taker connection than just making the mistake of looking at a Taker. The Dreamer, Finn, would have to go to sleep after the eye contact, and Chloe would need to lie down and enter the Taker version of sleep—which looked like sleep, but was actually more like a light coma state. And Chloe would need to do this before making eye contact with anyone else. Although Finn basically knew all of that, it didn’t seem to make him feel any better about being around her. I guess once someone has trapped you in your own mind and tried to kill people using your body, forgive-and-forget isn’t really an option.

  Reaching out one long arm, Finn yanked on the back of Parker’s shirt until he too moved out of my way. I got one quick glance at Finn’s shirt—If history really repeats itself, I’m SO getting a dinosaur—before it was out of sight. Although I didn’t know him that well yet, even I had to admit the guy was pretty entertaining.

  “Anyway, I think I know where I’m going now.” I stuck my phone into my pocket and adjusted my bag. After Chloe stepped out, I locked the lab door behind me and stepped past Parker.

  “Where?” Parker’s expression was dark as he followed me down the short hallway. Even without looking him in the eye, I could see this argument coming from a mile away.

  I looked around to make sure Chloe hadn’t followed us. I’d been worried over the past month that she might be reporting back to the other Takers, even though she’d given me no hint of it. For the first few weeks I’d occasionally

  followed her, or grabbed her phone when she wasn’t looking to check for texts or calls to her brothers. If Parker hadn’t agreed to try to help her after she separated herself from Finn, I would never have let her hang around. She was a risk … and a big one.

  “Dad and I lived in a trailer outside Logandale a few years back,” I said. “I need to go there.” I muttered the part that concerned me under my breath: “I think.”

  Parker said, “How will this help exactly?”

  “In the formula, there are numbers standing in for three missing ingredients. And the word ‘buried.’ Logandale is a place where Dad might have buried something he wanted me to find later.” I crossed to the kitchen counter and leaned against it, trying not to get bumped as Finn dug around in the fridge beside me.

  Parker popped the knuckles on his right hand. “So you think he buried a list of the missing information out on a trailer lot somewhere?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe he told people the
information and buried his address book. Or maybe there’s nothing there at all. It’s just a place to start.”

  “Could he have buried actual ingredients there?” Parker looked incredulous, and I couldn’t deny that I had doubts of my own.

  “I don’t know, Parker.” This was starting to feel like an interrogation, so I did my best to shut down any further questions he might have. “I think Danny—Dad—didn’t want anyone else to be able to make this formula without my help. It’s an insurance policy for both of us, because if the Takers hurt either of us, then I’ll burn every reference to it and they can all just die for all I care.”

  When I turned around, I saw Chloe standing in the doorway. She caught my eye over Parker’s shoulder, and I immediately regretted my words when I saw the hurt in her expression. It’s not that I hadn’t meant what I said … but I hadn’t intended for her to hear me say it.

  Finn sidled across the room in the awkward silence and took up a post in the opposite corner of the room from Chloe.

  Parker didn’t say anything, and his mouth pressed into a firm line. Then he sighed. “Fine, give me five minutes to pack some stuff.”

  “No need. I shouldn’t be gone too long if it goes well. Logandale’s only an hour away, and I’ll let you know what I find.” I walked around him and propped the door to the garage open with my bag while I lifted my motorcycle keys off the counter.

  Parker shook his head, looking frustrated. “You want me to stay here?”

  “Yes, for now.” I braced myself for the argument I could see coming. “Would you move my bike out back and throw the tarp over it? It’s probably in your mom’s way, and I need to get on the road.”

  Parker shook his head before I’d even finished my question. “I’m coming.”

  “No,” I replied, trying to make it clear from my tone that there was no room for argument.

  “You need my help.”

  “I do, but not this time.” I tossed him the motorcycle keys and he caught them on instinct before they hit his chest. Chloe had left, probably angry with me for what I’d said, but I still lowered my voice when I continued. “You can help me most by staying here in case it takes longer than I think. Keep an eye on things. Watch Chloe, and keep her out of the lab. The Takers are still too shaken to do much—what Dad did set them back years. His explosion destroyed the little bit of Eclipse he’d made, as well as their only access to the formula. But like I said, they’ll be gearing up for a fight soon. You need to watch for signs of it coming.”

  Parker still looked like he wanted to argue, so I turned and walked out the door toward the van before he got a chance. Besides, I did have a point, whether he wanted to admit it or not. Something told me the Takers weren’t just going to forgive and forget how Dad blew up half the base, all of the Eclipse formula, some of the Takers who’d held him captive … and himself.

  My heart throbbed with an empty ache in my chest, and I pushed the thought away.

  Living with a target on my back was never comfortable, but it was also the only thing I’d ever known. Dad had taught me to be smart and survive this way. He’d wanted Parker to have something different, a more normal life. I would do my best to make sure Parker still had it, even now.

  As I passed through the garage, I grabbed a shovel and some rope.

  “Planning to bury people, are we?” Finn asked in a cheery voice from somewhere behind me.

  “Could be … or to dig them up.”

  I guess they could tell I wasn’t in a joking mood, because no one commented again.

  I grunted as I hefted everything up and placed it in the passenger side of the white van we’d stolen from the Takers’ base. When I’d learned that Mason, one of the prisoners we’d rescued, hadn’t destroyed the van like we’d planned, I asked him to give it back. It came in handy for projects when my motorcycle just wasn’t going to cut it.

  I glanced around the yard to see if Chloe had come out here. I’d wanted to at least give her a quick wave before I left, but she was nowhere in sight. She must’ve disappeared again; not all that surprising. If there was anything I’d learned about her over the past month, it was that she had a tendency to come and go whenever and wherever she pleased, with no warning.

  In that respect, I guessed she was a lot like me.

  Parker was leaning against the driver’s side of the van when I walked around. I wrapped one arm around his shoulder in a quick hug that also helped move him somewhat out of the way. “Take care of yourself. They know who you are, but they’ll probably be afraid to retaliate for everything when they’re so desperate to get Eclipse back. They probably think we’re the only people who might have a clue how to make it.”

  “You’re the only one who might have a clue.” Parker pulled back and frowned. “That formula Dad gave you looks like gibberish to me.”

  “First, they don’t know you don’t understand it, and please don’t tell them.” I leveled my gaze at him, forcing myself not to react to his eyes. “Second, without the last three ingredients, the formula isn’t useful to anyone—myself included.”

  “Right.” Parker didn’t move from where he stood, blocking me from closing the door and leaving. “Are you sure you can’t wait another day or that I can’t come with you? I still have so many questions, and you promised to tell me more about Da—”

  “I’m sure.” I nudged him out of the way with my arm and closed the door. “And we’ll have time for questions and answers later … after I’ve finished this.”

  I stretched my neck to one side, forcing myself not to dwell on the hurt my brother was struggling to keep from showing on his face. This conversation was complicated, and I was itching to get moving. I was already past tired. It had been too long since I’d slept in a Builder’s dreams. Addie, Finn’s sister, was the only Builder I knew in this town, and since Parker and Addie had gotten their relationship problems worked out, it seemed weird to step in. Not to mention that she was busy being his Builder.

  The more time I spent with Addie—awake or asleep—the more I had to remind myself that she was unavailable. I’d avoided her dreams except when things were getting really bad. And although her friend Mia was no Builder, her self-hypnosis-induced dreams had helped me more than I’d expected. But still, they weren’t the same as a Builder’s dreams.

  And figuring out Dad’s formula required me to be alert and rested. That meant one thing for certain—after I checked out the old Logandale spot, I would go to the Night Walker rebel camp at Cypress Crest and see Libby. I really was tired, and she was the best Builder I’d ever met. Plus, I missed her. The two months I’d been with Parker were the longest we’d gone without seeing each other since we were kids. It felt weird being apart like this.

  And, between Addie and Parker being together and the newest romantic developments between Mia and Finn, there was yet another reason I needed to get out of here. It was getting very … gooey lately.

  Although I had to admit it was almost worth it to watch Chloe around Addie and Mia. She would get a stiff spine and a wary look in her eyes every time they were nearby—it was like she was afraid those girls might accidentally touch her and make her soft.

  I’d tell her she could use a little softening, if she asked me—which was probably why she’d never ask.

  “Well, I’d better get going.” I looked at Parker through the window of the van. “I have my phone. Keep me updated and be careful.”

  He nodded reluctantly and took a few steps back.

  I waved at Finn and put the van in reverse. The vehicle was far from nice, but it belonged to me now—I’d secured it with fresh plates after I got back it from Mason. It felt like a better choice for this mission than my bike, since I didn’t know what or who I might need to bring back with me. Also, I could sleep in the backseat if it turned out Dad’s paranoia would make this quest long and complicated.

  Parker walked b
ack up to my open window and I kept my foot on the brake. “So, three missing pieces, huh?”

  “Yep.”

  “You really think you can figure this out?”

  I let out a fast puff of air and the speedometer in front of me fogged. The tension from that one question tightened every muscle in my upper body. If we had the key to helping the Takers sleep—and survive, then there was hope they might come to an agreement with us. The Night Walker Society could finally be what it was intended to be when it was founded: a place of refuge for people who lived in a world of nightmares. A place to escape to a life worth living. It could be what Dad had always wanted it to be—what I still wanted it to be.

  “Dad thought I could.” I swallowed hard and met my brother’s eyes.

  Instantly, my heart ached. While Parker had spent years getting used to the idea of never seeing Dad again, I’d only had a month … and the gaping hole Dad left didn’t seem to be healing very fast.

  “Guess his faith will have to be enough,” I added.

  Parker put his hand on my shoulder and gave it one final squeeze. “That’s good enough for me.”

  Three

  Jack

  It took an hour to get to Logandale and another half-hour to find the remote patch of land where the trailer was parked when Dad and I had lived here. That was shortly after Mom had died and he’d come back to Cypress Crest to get me. When he took me away from the rebel camp and brought me out to the middle of nowhere, I’d wondered what he was planning to do with me.

  I hopped out, grabbing the shovel from the passenger side. The brush on the land was wild, having gotten way past overgrown in the couple of years since I’d been here. One particular bush was still misshapen in the back from where I used to climb under it when Dad called out for me to hide. I could almost hear his barking order echoing across the open air, bouncing off the empty land: “Jack, now—GO.”

  It happened regularly. Sometimes someone was heading our way. Sometimes he just wanted to test me.