We’d been walking the Dream War for an hour and had somewhat let our guard down. But the sound of bullets snapping near my feet brought me to full alert. A quick glance over my shoulder, I paled. A freaking group of about five sentries and two breeders were coming up behind us.
Fast.
“Open the thing!” Nox yelled. We still hadn’t given a name to my gift. Opening? Portal?Thingworked too.
We’d all started to run, shooting at the advancing horde over our shoulders.
“Should I get the chopper?” the pilot asked, looking fearfully at the group.
“No, don’t split up!” I told him. They’d pick him off easily if he were to do that.
Taking a deep breath, I started to feel for that thin space between our two worlds. It was harder to do while running, but I could sense it, and opening the portals, or whatever they were called, was getting easier and easier. Until a headache slammed into me with the force of a truck.
Fucking breeder.
I must have cried out. Damien grabbed me under the armpit. “What’s wrong?”
“Breeder is trying to stop me.”
“Kick her out of your head!” Ronnie shouted.
Yeah, easier said than done.
We stopped to crouch behind a thick group of trees as we traded gunfire.
Master Aki had told me since I was twelve that I had anger issues, but that anger was a good tool to use for mental control. So, taking his advice, I pulled up that anger now and used it to funnel through my mental link to the breeder whom I could feel invading my brain.
Master Aki said to visualize anger as a solid object, and for me it was always hot lava, packed and ready to burst from a volcano.
“They’re advancing!” Nox called out, but I pushed all stress from my mind.
I imagined that lava shooting up the volcano inside of me and bursting outward, latching on to the breeder and her mental hooks and eviscerating them. There was a hissing inside my head and then the pain was gone.
She was gone.
I wasted no time. Flipping around on my heels, I spun and started to open a hole into Earth behind me.
I had the sudden horrifying thought,Please don’t be in the middle of a crowded shopping mall.
As the opening grew wider, I sighed in relief at the sight of what looked like dried up farmland or just an unkempt field. Without issue, I pulled the opening wide enough to fit a semi truck through and then let out a loud whistle.
“Wrangle them in!” I called.
Nox and Maxine burst from their spots and ran to the left and right, quickly surrounding the group of sentries from behind. I stepped to the side, holding the gate open, and met the gaze of one of the breeders. She looked… afraid.
I grinned.
She knew. She knew that she would die if she came to Earth, and she knew what I was doing. I just knew that in that moment.
She started to move backward, but that’s when Nox threw the firebomb. It crashed into the ground behind her and she and the others in her group ran forward, closer to my opening in order to avoid blowing up.
“Can you move it closer?” Damien asked, pumping a magazine full of bullets into the sentry nearest him.
Sure, I’ll open a portal into another world and just move it closer. No big deal.
I growled in frustration.
As I started to walk, I was surprised to find that the opening moved with me if I concentrated hard enough.
