Damien looked at me critically then, scowling. “Your instructions didn’t explain much about why Tatum was here. I assumed she would monitor some heart machines, but with the new dream bands that’s notneeded.”
I sighed.Here wego.
“Ever since the ghouls landed, I’ve had some… abilities, one of which is enhanced mentalcommunication.”
His eyebrows hit his hairline. “You’re atelepath?”
I couldn’t read minds. Well, that wasn’t true. I tried once and it worked, but it freaked me out so I pushed it away. However, I was a master at mental projection. “I don’t receive, I just give. I can communicate with Tatum from within the Dream Wars.” I could also make Damien bark like a dog, but I drew the line at controlling others. I’d done it only once, when Maxine was having a major PTSD flashback and nearly shot usall.
Jeremy stood up quickly, stepping into my space and circling me while staring at theground.
“Fascinating! I’ll bet the ghouls’ presence ignited some type of pineal gland response, which mutated to express ahidden—”
Josephine put a hand on his shoulder, stoppinghim.
“What?” I was curious how his mind worked. Clearly he wasn’t mentally deficient when it came to cognitive abilities, but obviously there was a social decline. Either way I didn’t care—he was kind of captivating, and I’d always found smart peopleintriguing.
“He wants to study you, hook you up to his machines and find out more about your abilities,” Josephine toldme.
Ahh. That was a hard no. “Oh, I see. No, thanks,” I said aloud, unsure how he wouldrespond.
He just frowned and sulked back to the bed. Messagereceived.
My gaze flicked over to Damien, whose eyes were drifting closed where hestood.
“Hey!” I shouted loudly, and they sprang opensuddenly.
He was more tired than I thought. It had been a while since I’d had to spend four days awake, and I’d forgotten how much it sucked. I also didn’t think the rest of the family had gone that long. Most likely Damien didn’t want to go in with an injured shoulder or with his ghoul attraction and get his family killed, so they’d gone in without him last night, or maybe the nightbefore.
He shook his head to wake himself. “We done introducingourselves?”
Dick.
“Yeah. Get in bed and let’s do this,” Iordered.
A slow grin crept across his face, and I realized I’d set myself up for a dirtyjoke.
“I don’t normally like a bossy woman in bed, but I think I can let it slide this one time.” He winked and crawled into the middle of the bed, giving me a nice view of his tight glutes. I didn’t know what to say, and I was pretty sure my entire team caught me checking out hisass.
Dammit, why is he sopretty?
“Ha-ha. Everyone link up,” I said, flustered, and began to fiddle with my new dream band. I didn’t need an instruction manual—I’d been playing with the 4.0 demo dream band at the Depo, where we bought all of our gear, finding it seamless and user-friendly. I picked a frequency, made myself the team lead, and also sent a message to scroll across my team’s bands, telling them the ghouls were attracted to Damien. I wanted them extra onguard.
As the message went out, I saw them collectively look up at me and nod, before adding more and more weapons to their bodies. When we fell asleep, the ghouls somehow scanned our DNA and replicated a twin body of us into the Dream Wars. Our scientists thought it had something to do with the entanglement particle theory—what one cell did here, the twin cell did in China without anyone touching it, that sort of thing. So in order to bring guns and clothes in with us, it had to have a substantial amount of your DNA on it to be duplicated by their scan, thinking it was part of your body. Our guns, my samurai swords, they all had little hollow capsules in them filled with our blood. This confused the ghouls, and they would copy it and bring it in with us. We didn’t know why, and we didn’t care. I only cared that the ghouls could be killed over there, and that we could sneak in weapons. It was the only thing that kept me from goingcrazy.
Jeremy suddenly started breathing hard. “No. No,” he mumbled, rocking a little at the edge of the bed. It was weird to see a grown man acting like a child. A brilliant man. My heart ached for him, for his loss, for his mental trauma, foreverything.
I took a required psychology class at the academy, and I never forgot this one statement my professor made. He said two people can witness the same traumatic event, and while one can walk away resilient and fine, the other could have extreme PTSD and psychological issues. Everyone was wireddifferently.
“Shhh,” Josephine said, patting his back. “I’ve gotyou.”
He chewed his lip, clearly trying to control hisbreathing.
“Come on, buddy. I’m tired,” Damien grumbled in the middle of thebed.
Jeremy looked back at his brother and nodded, scooching back until he was lying next to him. Josephine picked up a large black briefcase, and lifted it onto the bed between her and Jeremy before snuggling besidehim.
“Love you, bud. It’ll be okay. I’ll protect you,” Damien told his little brother, and I had a hard time calling him a dick anymore. Even in my ownhead.
