“Love you, Dame.” Jeremy reached out for his brother’s hand. Damien held it and looked atme.
We didn’t need to hold hands, just had to be within twelve inches of each other. Something about the human energetic field, I didn’t really know. But I hadn’t slept alone in over a decade. Not many people could casually say they’d shared a bed with the President of the United States for a year, but that had been mylife.
I took a deep breath, walking over to Tatum. “Happy studying. Keep an ear out for me,okay.”
Tatum smiled, rolling her eyes. “I could hear you even if I was deaf. You speak into mymind.”
She had a good point. “See how smart you are? Now apply that toalgebra.”
She groaned before popping a fried lentil chip in her mouth and looking back at her paper. Everything was lentil, bean, corn or some other easy to grow thing. I hadn’t had meat other than rabbit since I was sixteen. The cows were the first thing to go, then the pigs. Helpless and slow, the ghouls fed off them first.A bacon burger sure would be great right aboutnow.
I turned around to find the rest of my team in bed, a gap open for me beside Damien and Ronnie. Everyone was geared up, and though it should’ve made me feel safe, for some reason I had a nagging sensation in mygut.
As I crawled in, I started my mantra.I’m in control. I project peace. I give protection. I harnessstrength.
Damien’s eyes started closing and I smacked his leg, only to be met with a rock-hard thigh muscle. I needed to go under first or he would split off from us and be on his own. Considering he only had two guns and an injured shoulder, that would be a stupididea.
“Sorry,” I muttered as he gave me a murderousglare.
I snuggled in beside him and Ronnie, wondering why the hell my best friend had given me like twelve inches of room and put me right next to the client. His sandalwood scent washed over me again, and it reminded me of Master Aki’sdojo.
“See you on the other side,” I told myteam.
“Oorah” came their reply in unison. It always made me smile. Brisk was our Marine, and when he started saying it every time we went in, it caught on. Now it was our thing, our way of saying we were together in this and ready to die for eachother.
“Are you trying to kill me, woman?” Damienasked.
Woman? Oh hellno.
As the leader, I needed to fall asleep first, and that didn’t happen in threeseconds.
“Shh,” Ihissed.
I’m in control. I project peace. I give protection. I harness strength. I’m in control. I project peace. I give protection. I harnessstrength.
After over fifty hours without sleep, it didn’t take long for the heaviness to pull me down. I relaxed, letting it take me. I was in control, I was calm, and I knew where I would end up. I’d been going there for years. There were no surprises, nothing tofear.
Chapter Three
My feet slammeddown onto the cracked surface of the Dream War, and I had my guns out and was doing a full circle within seconds. Damien appeared in front of me a moment later. That was close. Almost too close. The others would get a small vibration on their dream band when I’d entered the sleep state, and only then were they allowed to sleep. Damien must’ve fallen asleep the same time as me, mere secondsafter.
“I couldn’t stay awake.” He shrugged, pulling his gun and spinning in a circle. We were in the middle of nowhere, not a ghoul or human or other creature to beseen.
“Is this far enough away from the danger for you?” I couldn’t help it, I had togloat.
Damien pursed his thick lips, looking me up and down. “Fornow.”
Rich, hot guys were hard to please,apparently.
“So the bands your little brother is designing, how will they work?” I asked, as we started walking to a cluster of rocks and pod trees in the distance. As the team fell asleep, they would drop in right next to me, no matter where Iwas.
Damien gave me a side glance. “They’ll emit a small plasma shield whenever a ghoul gets within a certain range. Then it’ll simultaneously send a large data file through the airways that will hurt the Ghoul but not thehuman.”
“Plasmashield?”
He nodded. “New technology. Basically an invisiblebarrier.”
My lips turned down. Impressive, if he could get it to work. I didn’t understand it, but it sounded cool. “We tried nuking them though, and it didn’t do shit. How’s a plasma thing or some data text going tohurt?”
