He shook his head. “Nothing. I’m waking up. I’ll wait foryou.”
Oh. I nodded, swallowing hard. Truth be told, I had a fear of being the last to wake, stuck in the Dream Wars, alone while all my friends woke up around me. It never ceased to amaze me, watching someone wake up. As our souls, astral bodies or whatever returned to our sleeping selves, the body the ghouls had constructed in this place fell apart. It separated into little pixels of flesh and blood, then disappeared until the next night. But instead of waking up in Bisbee as we normally would, the ghouls had changed things. The females had changedthings.
What else could they change?I shivered thinking aboutit.
When Damien was gone, I stared out at the green hazy night sky. I was depressed to admit that I had completely forgotten what it was like before the Dream Wars. What it was like to just dream and wake up, and not even remember those dreams. To sleep in on a lazy Sunday. To cravesleep.
I’d forgotten itall.
“Waking up,” Noxannounced.
We all nodded as his body disappeared from theGaladria.
“Us too,” Josephinesaid.
I looked over to see her and Jeremy losing theirforms.
I prayed they woke up together. That Jeremy wasn’t alone in some foreign country, forced to talk to strangers in order to call hisbrother.
“See you on the flip side,” Brisk said a moment later, and then he wasgone.
It was just me, Ronnie, Maxine, and Mr. Hansenleft.
Ronnie flew her Galadria closer to me, and when I looked up, I noticed panic in hereyes.
“Kit,” she said, on the verge of tears. There was a knife in her hand, and she was fisting it like she was ready to stabMaxine.
“What are you doing?” I asked, frightened, as Dawn veered closer tothem.
“I know the statistics. I know that if she doesn’t wake up tonight, she probably never will. Comas are a death sentence. We need to wake her. Now.” Her knife hand wasshaking.
I stepped up onto Dawn’s back, the wind whipping through my hair. “Ronnie, what are youdoing?”
Ronnie glanced down at Maxine. “I read a study that extreme and sudden pain can wake someone from a coma in the DreamWars.”
“Ronnie,” I growled. “She’s been shot. How much more pain does sheneed!”
Ronnie looked me in the eye and I saw so much anguish there. She loved Maxine, that was clear, and this decision was killingher.
She raised her hand. “If she doesn’t wake up, she’s dead anyway. She’ll be stuck here forever until she’s eaten or starves!” she yelled at me, then plunged the knife straight into Maxine’sthigh.
The beauty queen’s eyes snapped open as a scream tore from her throat. Once it died, she glared down at the knife sticking out of her thigh and then up atRonnie.
“You crazy bitch!” Maxinesaid.
Ronnie laughed, tears rolling down herface.
Jesus.That was way too much for me. My nerves wereshot.
I looked around, noticing Mr. Hansen had woken up during the commotion. It was just us threeremaining.
“I had to do it! You were in a coma, and we’re all waking up,” Ronnie pleaded with her as she started to pull out the knife and pack the wound withgauze.
At that point Maxine seemed to realize we were flying. With wide eyes, she glanced over at me. “Rough night?” she askedconversationally.
I chuckled, glad our crazy Texan was back. “You have noidea.”
Then I felt it, that familiar waking upfeeling.
