“Okay, buddy, we’ll talk about it when we wake up. Let’s run now,” Damien said just as the ground shookagain.
Jeremy took one more look at my forehead and then started running, dragging Josephine along withhim.
“What did he say?” I askedDamien.
Brisk and Nox were still catching their breath, no doubt exhausted from running with Maxine’s weight. They both looked at Damien then, as if wondering the samething.
Damien scratched the back of his neck. “His mind is different. I’m sure he needs to rethink what he’shypothesizing—”
“Damien. What did he say?” Now I was scared. That kid might be a little jumbled in the mind, but he was freaking brilliant, and his thoughts were important tome.
Damien sighed. “He said, ‘Kit is aweapon.’”
Nothing could have prepared me forthat.
“Kit is aweapon.”
I didn’t even know what that meant, but it was scary. I was a woman, a lover of eighties rock, an okay cook. I didn’t want to be aweapon.
The ground shook again just as I looked up and saw the most beautiful sight—a dozen glowing Galadrias in every color of therainbow.
Help hadarrived.
Six
We’d beenable to fit everyone on the Galadrias and were circling the skies, buying time until we all woke up. Hopefully in pairs. Damien and I rode Dawn together, and watching the various mountains across the Dream Wars ‘wake’ was truly horrifying. It was more chaos than normal. Not just humans ran for their lives, but sentries and grunts as well. The only comfort we had was that the giants couldn’tfly.
Ipressedmy fingers to my temple.Wake up,I told myself for the fifteenth time. I didn’t want to be there anymore. I didn’t want to deal with the madness, or think about what had happened with the females, and most importantly I wanted to forget what Jeremy said about me being aweapon.
“You okay, freckles?” Damien reached out and rubbed my shoulders. He was straddling Dawn and facingme.
“No, I’m not. I feel like this is day one all over again. A new enemy. A new terror. We were just getting the upper hand,” I said,defeated.
“We still have the upper hand. We’re protected from the smaller ghouls.” He shrugged, trying and failing to soundoptimistic.
“Damien, there are giant ghouls who tuck back a hundred and fifty humans a night. The sentries called me by name, and your brother thinks I’m a weapon.Nothingabout this isokay.”
Damien nodded, looking off across the horizon. “You’re right. And being a billionaire can’t buy me safety. Not really. But it does afford me the ability to outfit my brother with anything he needs, and trust me when I say this, Kit, Jeremy will have ten ideas on how to bring those giants down by the time we wake up, so take comfort in that fact. My brother is special, and together we’re going to figure thisout.”
He believed in his brother so much that it brought tears to my eyes. Hewasspecial, and he’d gotten us this far. The plasma cuffs, dream bands, and every other innovative thing Striker Industries had thought up, that was mostlyJeremy.
I looked over at his brother, rocking lightly on top of Roger, another Galadria, with Josephine massaging his back. I noticed that she was the only one he let touch him like that. Like a mother affectionatelywould.
“He’s the most important one out of all of us,” I agreed. Now I understood why Damien’s contract had said to protect them before him. Not only because he loved them, but because Jeremy was our best chance at stopping thiswar.
“You’re pretty important too.” Hewinked.
I chuckled. “You’re such a smoothtalker.”
He grinned. “You have no idea. Just wait until ourdate.”
“Hah! This elusive date.” I laughed. For a second, I could almost forget that we were in Hell, and just be a normal girl,flirting.
Almost.
He smiled, but then it turned into afrown.
“What’s wrong?” Ipanicked.
