Whoa. Brisk didn’t just do stuff like that. I mean, technically they were all our clients, but it showed me that this cause meant something tohim.
“Me too,” Maxine said, holding her gun against her hip. She never seemed to be without some sort ofweapon.
Nox lit his lighter, watching the flame dance. “You got me aswell.”
Ronnie looked up from cleaning the coffee table. “Well, you’ll need a doctor, so I’m in too. As long as Damien is back here to keep Kit awake, I’m okay with all of us goingin.”
Damien cleared his throat, seemingly overcome with emotion. “Thank you,guys.”
We were going to change the world. I could feel it in mybones.
* * *
Two and a half days later,I took my first stim canister. Ronnie loaded it into the gun for me and shot it into the back of my neck. My heart jackknifed in my chest as adrenaline and euphoria pumped through me in equalmeasure.
“I hate this shit,” I told her as my handsshook.
“I know.” She winced. “But you’ve been awake almost three days, and I don’t feel right going into the Dream Wars, and leaving you and Damien alone together without a stim. You could both fall asleeptogether.”
Damien had taken a stim shot too and was currently pacing thehallway.
“Okay, but this is the only one,” I growled at her. Stims made you moody. I hatedthem.
Jeremy was barely standing, and he looked so tired. He’d been working nonstop on the new cuffs. He and Damien had set up a workshop in one of the upstairs bedrooms. They couldn’t be tested because we didn’t have anything close to what the ghouls were here on Earth, so when we went in in a few days, we were totally going to wingit.
Nox wore the one prototype cuff that Jeremy had put together. The young genius was touching the rough edges of the carbon fiber. “This time it won’t overheat because I used a different cooling mechanism. I also fixed the EMP glitch. I’m just not sure if I remembered the data stream right. The way they talk, it hurts them if you senda—”
Josephine placed a hand on his arm, stopping him mid-sentence. “All right, buddy, you ready to get somesleep?”
Jeremy sighed, looking at the ground. “I’m very tired. I should’ve made the edges smoother. They might cut his arm. But Damien said it didn’t need to look pretty, it just needed to work, so I spent all my time on the innermechan—”
Josephine squeezed his left arm. It seemed to be some kind of cue betweenthem.
“When Josephine squeezes my arm, it means I’m talking too much,” he told the room as though sensing my silent question, and Ronnie smiled. She didn’t talk about it often, but she’d had a younger sister with special needs who didn’t live past age five—I think it was some kind of brain malformation. She’d told me it’s what made her want to become a doctor. I knew she had a special spot in her heart for sweetJeremy.
I enjoyed his talking. He was so smart, and I wanted to soak it all up, even if I didn’t understand what he was talking about half thetime.
“Okay, I’m going to be taking us in,” Ronnie said, programming her dream band. I couldn’t remember the last time they went in without me. It was weird and unsettling. I trusted Ronnie not to get them to ground zero though. She had the calm and stable mind of a surgeon. Control was her middlename.
“I’ll wake you in four hours,” I toldher.
She nodded. In the past, we’d tried sleeping in shifts and waking every hour to check in and see what situation people were in. What we found was that it was harder to control where you went going back in—because you were half-asleep, the ghouls were about to control you more at that point, bringing you right into the battle. It was best to let them sleep the full four hours and be awake for the day at thatpoint.
“How are you doing, Maxine?” I asked my wildcard.
She tapped the gun on her waist. “My guns have been getting cold. Can’t wait to warm ’em up.” She grinned, showcasing that beauty queensmile.
I smirked. “All right, that’s what I like to hear. Staysafe.”
She nodded. “Remember, I’m yourfavorite.”
Ronnie laughed. “Keep dreaming, Cross. I’m listed as her next ofkin.”
Maxine crawled into the large bed. “Because you’re a doctor! Hell, I listed you as my next of kin too. If anything happens to me, I want you calledfirst.”
I chuckled at the old argument. “I love you both the same,” I said, and then winked atMaxine.
“Hey, I saw that!” Ronnie pointed atme.
