“Holy fuck,” Ibreathed.
When my eyes met Master Aki’s, I knew nothing would ever be thesame.
Sixteen
Brisk,Damien, Maxine, Nox, Master Aki and I were on a private jet with Santiago and four of his guys. We’d left Ronnie, and her annoying coffee-crazed cat, back with Josephine and Mr. Hansen to watch over Jeremy. We’d snuck enough explosives onto the plane to blow up an entire apartment block. Master Aki had come up with a crazy plan that I was sure wasn’t going to work. It involved me opening a gateway into the Dream Wars while the team rolled the barrels of green stuff inside and blew them up. No evidence. But when I tried to explain to everyone that I’d opened a tiny twelve-inch window,one time,and it wouldn’t work, my pleas had fallen on deaf ears. All they heard was that I’d opened a gateway, and they were now looking at me like I was a freakingghoul.
As we landed on the tarmac, Damien’s thumb traced small circles on my palm. I wasn’t used to gentle, touchy-feely boyfriends. It was weird but alsonice.
“Are you freaked out now that I’m some breeder replica or something?” I asked him in a whisper, while the others stood to unload. I was staring at our hands, afraid to meet his gaze. Ever since the full extent of my powers had been revealed, I’d been having a total existential crisis. Did it make me like them? Was I somehow evil? All the random questions had jumbled my brain, and now I was left feelinginsecure.
His fingers came up under my chin as he tilted my face to meet his eyes. His gaze flicked to my nose and he smiled. “I knew that first night when I saw these freckles on your nose, and that fiery look in your eyes, that you were going to be my undoing. I’ll admit that some of your gifts are unsettling, but it’s only because I worry for your safety. Nothing could scare me away from how I feel about you, if that’s what you’reasking.”
It was, but I would never admit it. I gave him a sheepish grin, and he leaned in to kiss me. As my lips parted and his tongue brushed against mine, a loud whistle rang out through theplane.
“Get it, girl!” Maxine hollered, and we broke away red-faced.
I would get her back for thatone.
We unloaded our gear from the plane that rested in small hangar we’d pulled into. We didn’t fly into Logan International Airport but to a tiny, privately owned one that was conveniently near the loading docks, and they didn’t check our bags orexplosives.
As our SUVs took off into the night, I found myself growing worried about this whole thing. Yes, it was totally necessary to blow this green shit up, especially after they blew up the Bisbee mine. But it was also totally illegal, and although we were going to be super careful that no one got hurt, we could still go to jail if we were caught. Jail was a death sentence. You were put in a cell with no weapons and no friends for days on end. Eventually, you fell asleep and dropped into the Dream Wars, alone and unarmed. The longest an inmate had survived in jail was thirty-sevendays.
I thought of the shock I’d felt at scanning over those papers I’d found, and it realigned me with the cause. We would do this, and coupled with the missing file, and my little‘traitors’note, the government would know that we knew. And they would know we weren’t going to let ithappen.
Damien reached across the driver seat and squeezed my thigh. “I’d rather die trying to stand up for something, than live as aslave.”
“Amen, brother,” Nox cheered, and then the entire car was silent the rest of theway.
When we reached the docks, they were easy to infiltrate. They had one guard who usually fell asleep, and after Maxine showed some cleavage and acted lost, he put down his gun to help her. She knocked him out. Now we were prying open the door to the shipping container where they stored the green stuff. As the doors creaked open, the stench hit me. The Dream Wars had that same smell, and now it was on Earth and that feltsowrong. Who knew what the long-term complications were of having this shit on Earth? Burning it into our atmosphere? Howstupid.
“Okay, Kit, Nox will rig it with explosives while Brisk gets the pallet jack. You need to start working on opening the portal, and then we’re good to go,” Master Aki informed me. He’d taken point as leader of this mission somehow, and said that entire sentence with a straightface.
“Can I talk to you for a second?” I beckoned him away from the crowd, Santiago and his boys armed and suited up at the edge of the dock, looking out onto the water. I stepped aside as Master Aki got close. “Look, I made a twelve-inch portal with my hands.” I mumbled. “I can’t make a ten-foot portal. My arms don’t even go that wide.” I held my arms out for maximumeffect.
He chuckled. “Kit, you didn’t make the portal with your hands. You made it with yourmind.”
Yoda was back and the metaphors werealive.
“Actually, I did make it with my hands,” I countered. At least I thought I did. It had closed when I shook my hands, so yeah, Idid.
He shook his head, adamant. “No.”
Ugh, this is useless.“Can’t we just blow this bitch, and get out of here?” I said infrustration.
“No, thisbitchis blowing on their turf. Now concentrate,” he scoldedme.
Whoa.That was the first time I’d ever heard him cuss. It shookme.
“Okay.” I could at least try. I owed everyonethat.
Stepping up to the dock, in front of where Brisk was now driving a huge Bobcat type thing, I took a few deep breaths and started to feel around the edges of reality. I waved my hands in the air like a lunatic until I felt that heaviness, but instead of pulling it open with my hands like I had tried so many times before, I pushed it open with my mind, with thoughts of itopening.
Peeling one eye open, I saw that a one-foot-wide hole had revealeditself.
“Holy shit, homie. You hang with some crazy people,” one of Santiago’s boyssaid.
My eyes snapped in his direction and the holeclosed.
