Ronnie popped in next to me just then and looked down at the carnage. “Not feeling so Zentoday?”
I just groaned and started walking. We needed to find a safe place to camp out for the next few hours. I didn’t want Tatum to drop intothis.
We hustled across the glowing green field, passing plant life and vegetation that would otherwise be beautiful if I didn’t know how deadly they were. The Venus flytrap-like pink flowers would grab hold of you, and if you didn’t cut your way out in sixty seconds, you would be food for the plant. They had a slimy acidic goop on their petals that broke down humantissue.
“I hate this place,” I mumbled as we weaved in and out of a field of pod trees and over to a cave-like rock cropping. I could hear the sound of gunfire off in the distance and was very grumpy all of a sudden. The depressing hold this place put on normal people was even affectingme.
Brisk popped in then, Nox, Josephine, Jeremy, and Mr. Hansen shortly after.Maxine and Tatum must both be having a hard timesleeping.
Finding a cave structure that would usually be inhabited by sleeping Galadrias, I indicated for Nox to scope it out with me. He nodded, flicking on a laser scope at the top of his weapon and shining a flashlight into thespace.
Ohshit.
There was a child, maybe ten years old, curled in a ball, crying. In her hand was a pathetic little switchblade knife. “Daddy,” she whimpered at thelight.
“Nox, you’re blinding her!” I scolded, and he dropped the beam to the floor so she could seebetter.
The weirdest part about kids in the Dream Wars were their spectral, not completely formed ghost bodies. As they grew older and approached puberty, their bodies became more solid. Morereal.
“Hey, kiddo. My name is Kit.” I lowered my weapon and crouched into thecave.
She looked up at me with wide glossy blue eyes. “My dad… he told me torun.”
My throat pinched. That man, the one the two ghouls had just been feeding on…. I hated this fucking place so much in that moment, that the rage tearing through me had my hands shaking as I fell to my knees before thegirl.
“I think your daddy’s gone, kiddo, but you’re with us now. We’ll keep you safe.” Lying or sugarcoating things wouldn’t make her life any easier. She needed to know the truth or she would put up a fight to stay here, and I didn’t want her to see his body. If I could spare her that, I’dwin.
Instead of falling into a puddle of tears, she just stared at the wall and nodded, a grim look on her face. Defeat. Acceptance. Shock. That’s what growing up in the Dream Wars did. You didn’t go into denial, or anger, or any of the other stages of grief. You just had to accept it and move on. It was too common fordisbelief.
A whining sound behind me pulled my attention, and I saw that Jeremy wasn’t doing so well. He may have acted like he didn’t understand things, but he did in his own way. Seeing the girl like this obviously upset him, and Josephine was trying to calm himdown.
“You like s’mores?” I asked thekid.
After a moment she nodded, and I pulled a small packet out of my duffel. I’d brought them for Tatum to pass the time while we were in the Dream Wars before I’d known she’d become a woman, but this girl needed themmore.
“Nox?” I said, and suddenly there was fire. The man carried a small blowtorch with him at alltimes.
Ronnie weaved her way into the cave and took the chocolate from the baggie I held. I wasn’t moving. I’d frozen. The normally ice-cold heart I came into the Dream Wars with had thawed, and I was letting everything affect me. If I’d only dropped off to sleep a little sooner, I might have been able to help herdad.
“Hey,” Tatum’s voice called behindme.
Get your shit together,Kit.
I spun around, trying not to look too glum. “Tate, this is my newfriend….”
I let the sentence hang open and the girl swallowed a piece of s’more. “Lucy,” she filled in morosely. This was what the Dream Wars did, made you so numb that even the death of your own parent didn’t come as too much of a shock. It’s like we expected it at somepoint.
Tatum holstered her gun now that there was no immediate threat and came into thecave.
“Hey. Where are you from?” Tatum asked, sitting next to Lucy as Ronnie made the s’mores like we were at a freaking family camp-out.
“Indiana.”
“You got family there to take care of you? I mean, when you wake up?” I asked her. I had to make sure this girl was going to be taken careof.
She just nodded, staring at the ground. “My auntie lives a townover.”
I relaxed a little. She’d be okay. She’d never be the same again, but she’dsurvive.
