Page 96 of Barbie: Dreamscape

I feel her.

She didn’t follow the rules. She carved her own path.

I do the same, until I finally screech to a halt, knowing exactly where I am. Callie nearly crashes into me, arms flailing as she slows.

Paige doesn’t stop in time and crashes into both of us, and we go flying into Sunny’s room.

“This is so much worse than what I did to the classroom.” Sunny sits on the edge of his bed, unfazed, like explosions and people crashing though his walls are a completely normal part of his existence.

He casually leans to the side, looking through about a half dozen cookie-cutouts of me in the walls, a clear view all the way back to Callie’s room. His gaze slides to me. He shakes his head as a grin overtakes his face. “You’re my hero, Barbie.”

“Not yet,” I murmur as screeches begin echoing through the tunnel we formed. I look through the series of holes just at the moment that a cloud of feathers bursts into Callie’s room. They’re in.

Iron-solid beaks start banging against the wood. Apparently, the walls between the dorm rooms weren’t as sturdily built as the doors, because it isn’t long before Callie’s gives entirely. They’re one room closer now.

Callie’s eyes widen. “Whoa. I didn’t think those birds could get any creepier.”

“Yeah,” I breathe, watching the wall turn to dust as they break through it. Now they’re only a few rooms away.

“What do you need?” Callie says, straightening, looking braver than I’ve ever seen her. I hate to ask anything of my friends. They were imprisoned because I left. All this was my fault, even if Robin was the one who caused the destruction. Part of me wants to just tell them to try to get away, leave Swancrest if they even still can.

But I can’t do this alone.

And even if I told them to go, I have a feeling they wouldn’t leave. All of them—even Paige—have a gleam in their eye, ready to help me finish this.

“I need you to distract them.” I’ll never get to Robin with the monster-birds in the way.

“Distraction is my middle name,” Sunny says.

Callie lifts a brow. “You have a middle name?”

“Yeah.” Sunny shrugs a shoulder. “Distraction. I just told you.” His gaze drops to the gossamer bag I have strapped to my shield. “We can use those.” At my questioning look, he says, “I know explosives when I see them.”

Explosives? I narrow my eyes at the star-, heart-, and butterfly-shaped baubles. Wow, Mom. You really did contain multitudes. Carefully, I hand the bag over.

Paige sighs. “You guys are so getting sued for this,” she says. Then she turns to me. “I’m guessing you’re going to go sacrifice yourself to save us all and slay the monster that’s taken over Swancrest, like some perfect knight in pink armor?” she says, her tone oozing disdain.

But I see a flash of something else there. A little jealousy and an old hurt grown inflamed. I feel myself empathize with Paige for the first time—we’re more alike than we thought, both of us in pursuit of a level of perfection that’s always just beyond our reach.

I want to show her that being perfect doesn’t matter.

The birds are just two rooms away now. Their screeches are ringing through my skull. Still, I take Paige’s hands (she looks at me as though I’ve lost my mind, and maybe I have), and I say, “I’m not perfect. I never have been. I’ve fallen flat on my face, and landed in Rock Bottom, and questioned everything about myself, and ugly-cried, and been thrown into a prison.” I shrug. “I’m perfectly imperfect. Just like you.”

She just stares at me. Her mouth opens… then closes.

I turn to my friends. Both of them look more shocked by what just happened than when I crashed through half a dozen walls wearing my mother’s armor.

Callie blinks, snapping out of her shock as the final wall before Sunny’s bursts into splinters. “Go!” she says to me.

I do. I run right through Sunny’s door, into the corridor, then sprint toward the stairway. As I reach the first step, I feel the floor beneath me tremble.

An explosion sounds close by.

Another.

Another.

Another.