Breaking Normal (Dream Weaver #3)

by Su Williams

  “He asked me, made me swear to keep an eye on you if anything should happen to him. I loved Zecharias, and Jane too. I’d have done anything for them. I, we kept watch over them, in case the Wraith came calling. And then, they died in the crash—” I winced at his words. “Sorry.”

  “It’s fine.” But I really wasn’t fine. Was life ever going to be ‘fine’ again?

  “Anyway, I started watching over you from that day. I’d followed you before, found you at Felicia’s grave. It always amazed me that of the thousands of headstones in that cemetery, you found hers.”

  “She just—called to me,” I said wistfully. “I know that sounds weird. Just—something about her reached out and grabbed me.”

  “I was angry at first…”

  “I remember.” The memories of suddenly cold, violent wind on a warm summer day filled my thoughts.

  His eyes darted to the floor. “Here, your knuckles are bleeding, let me untape them.” I gave him my hands. “So the rest you pretty much know.”

  Nick let the bloody tape fall in a pile on the floor as he unraveled my hands. The tinge of red flashed in my mind.

  “I don’t understand something—about the fight with the Wraith. Why did William die? Why didn’t he just phase and come back?”

  Nick cast a questioning glance at Sabre. “He didn’t want to,” Sabre answered brusquely.

  “What? So if I died and didn’t want to come back, that’s it? I just don’t come back?”

  Nick’s eyes shadowed with concern, as though I might be getting some self-destructive ideas. Like I need Sabre for that!

  “Not exactly.” Sabre was quiet so long I wondered if he’d bother to continue. Finally, he said, “Each time a Caphar dies, it takes a piece of his soul—if you will. It’s like it makes us less human, more ethereal, each time. Sometimes, we get tired of being here.” That phantom of sadness floated across Sabre’s face. “If the corporeal body dies and is subsequently destroyed, we can’t come back. Sometimes, some of us choose not to come back.” Sabre returned to silence and tinkering.

  “Hmm.” Choose not to come back? My mind lingered on the information.

  Nick’s hand shot out and clutched my arm. “Emari. Don’t.”

  I leered at his hand on my arm, then up at him. “Let go of me. Now.” Eddy’s head popped up from the cushion, his ears flattened and the glint of white teeth peeked from under his lips. Nick’s hand slipped away from my arm. We faced each other, nostrils flaring in anger. But Nick turned, his eyes on me until the last moment like he was keeping his eye on the enemy, and strode out of the garage. I walked over to Eddy to show him I was okay.

  While I sat rubbing the pup’s ears, Sabre asked, “So what’s the difference?”

  I waited for him to finish the thought, but it never came. “The difference with what?”

  “Your anger with Nick and your anger with me.”

  “Oh, don’t be thinking I’m not angry with you. You had all the time in the world to tell me the truth.”

  “It wasn’t my call. But again, what’s the difference?”

  “He lied to me.”

  “I lied to you.”

  “I loved him.”

  “And you don’t love me? I see how it is.”

  “Of course I do—in a bizarre, manic-brother kind of way. It’s different.”

  “Different how?”

  “It just—is.”

  “Hmmm,” Sabre hummed and continued with his work.

  “Eddy, come come. Let’s go home.” I spun my back to the melancholy Weaver, and trudged to the CX9 with Eddy in my wake.

  Chapter 9 Cold as Ice

  Icy wind slices through my skin and slashes at my hair and clothes. But hatred burns hot inside me. It keeps me warm. I stand on a barren frosty knoll overlooking a deserted freeway. Deserted, but for a single car that knifes through the darkness toward my position.

  Zecharias Sweet and his lady, Jane zoom past me. A maniacal sneer twists my mouth as I conceive my plan to kill him—she is simply a bonus. He is a friend of Sabre James, the man I loathe above all else. This man that has taken too much from me. The woman I adored. The woman who would have come to love me—if not for him. This man, who many times has taken my immortal life. And yet each time, I regenerate and return.

  I shift into the back seat of the sedan and catch Zecharias’ eyes in the rearview mirror. They widen with horror, as though he knows I am here for his harm. His knuckles blanch white as he strangles the wheel and struggles for control—of himself and the car. Then, the lovely Jane’s green eyes widen in realization and terror.

  “You’re going to die tonight,” I tell them.

  Like a prayer, Jane breathes, “Oh God!”

  I dive into his mind, show him all the horrible things, the torments I will wage on his darling daughter. It doesn’t take much. She is his one true frailty. I show him how I will ring her neck and feed off the terror…just because I can…just as I’d done to the lovely Sarah Rose. I speculate on his daughter’s potential gift, if she truly becomes Caphar. It is a gift I will consume with relish as my own.

  Jane shakes his arm to wake him from my tortures, but their time is up. As the car propels toward the bridge abutment, I wait until Jane’s side of the car takes to the air, then phase from the back seat to watch the glorious destruction. The scream of metal is a lullaby in my ears. The shattering glass like chimes. The screech as the car slides across the asphalt, wrong side up. The mother’s screams as she beats the glass to escape the flames that now cavort around her. Blood drains across her pallid skin and smears on the unrelenting window. The melodious cacophony of the car exploding and the roar of flame—all music to wrench the night terrors from the gentle mind of a child. The child I prepare to devour with savor.

  Eddy’s deep-throated growl drew me from sleep. My lungs groped for air, and cold sweat trickled down my back. “Son of a bitch!” That seemed to be my new favorite curse. Eddy parked himself in my lap, his body tense and aware of the presence of a Wraith nearby. I buried my face in his fur and tugged on his long velveteen ears. “He killed them because they knew Sabre.”

  “No.” Nick sat in shadowed corner of the room. Somehow I wasn’t shocked to find him there—maybe even a little relieved. “Not just because of Sabre. The torment was meant for you. He meant for it to push you over the edge—to birth your nightmares—so he could feed.”

  “Then it’s my fault they’re dead?” Most kids of divorced parents blame themselves for the break in the relationship. If they’d behaved better…if they hadn’t argued so much… Were my parent’s deaths on my hands?

  “No. It’s Thomas’ fault they’re dead. His plan. Not yours.” Nick tried to appease my guilt, but the knot twisted in my insides anyway. “You can print my memories of him if you need proof.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “I can’t know your memories aren’t tainted.”

  Nick hauled in a frustrated sigh and stood. The light from the setting sun fell across his dark eyes. “No,” he said again. “I don’t suppose you can. But—someday, Em, you’re going to have to learn to trust me again.”

  I scrubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands and groaned. “Yeah—I suppose. Someday.” Silence filled the room with a heavy apprehension. “So he was around, darkening my moods, even before he killed my parents?” Nick simply nodded. I thought of the darkness that had infiltrated my mind. About the desire to slice a razor-thin blade through my flesh. How many others with urges to self-harm were out there somewhere? Alone and hurting? Because of Thomas, and others like him. “So, Mom was just—collateral damage?”

  Nick nodded again. “Thomas didn’t care. As a Wraith, the only thing that truly drives him is his desire for the high of the nightmares. All he wanted was to invoke your dreams for his fix. And perhaps, discover and absorb your burgeoning abilities.”

  Nick held fast to his oath to my father to protect me. He watched over me each night outside my home, hidden amongst the Ponderosas and saplings. He
was keenly aware of the darkness that Thomas cast into my dreams, and batted away the night terrors as he soothed my vanquished soul. He kept me in the dark about the Caphar—until my powers overtook his. Until I cornered him—until I tased him and left him writhing on my bedroom floor.

  “I only came to watch over you while you slept. I’ll leave you to your thoughts.” His voice resonated with misery, but I couldn’t let his emotions sway me. He was right about one thing: I needed to learn to stand on my own two feet. He tipped his head. “Goodnight then.”

  “’night.”

  He stepped back into the shadows and evanesced from the room.

  Chapter 10 Survivor

  Rico DeLaRosa. The rapist. He sat only feet away from me, and only a cold, one-way mirror separated us. Probably a good thing—for him. Sweat trickled down my neck, despite the chilled the glass pressed against my hands. Two Spokane City detectives sat with him in the claustrophobic room with barren walls, a battered grey desk, and three chrome office chairs from sometime in the last century. Rico sat facing the mirror, his hands and feet shackled, and a chain around his waist. The ‘interrogator’ sat in front of him and a second detective sat quietly on the other side of the desk.

  An inferno of loathing boiled in my stomach and every nerve screamed to get at him, to forcefully extract the names of the girls he’d raped. But Molly stood in the corner of the observation room in her traditional cop pose, and Ives sat sulking behind me. She hated that I wanted to be there. She hated that this ‘man’ was related to our sweet friend Jesse. She stuffed down her bitterness and finally came to stand by my side. With a forced, playful smile, she nudged me with her shoulder.

  “He doesn’t look anything like Jesse. I’m glad,” she said, like her images of Jesse would be tainted if his rapist brother looked even remotely like him.

  “No. He looks more like their dad,” I said, but knew immediately I shouldn’t have.

  “How would you know that?” Ivy gaped at me.

  “I—um—saw some old pics of Jesse’s family. Jesse looks more like his mom.” I tried to be nonchalant, act as though this was common knowledge. But the truth was, the only images I’d seen of Jesse’s family were the ones from his memories. The ones that held the brutal murder of his cherished mother and his fond remembrances of her. A pang of lonesomeness twisted inside me. I missed my friend. But he was still playing scarce.

  The detective on the other side of the glass slammed his fist down on the desk and shouted something we couldn’t hear. Veins stood out in the cop’s forehead and his face glowed crimson. He made a sweeping motion with his arm and the other cop helped Rico up and escorted him, waddling and jangling, out of the room. The detective stared at me through the mirror, despite not being able to see me. Then, he turned and ambled from the room.

  I stared at the empty room for a few more moments, then turned to Molly. “Could I go in the room?” I asked.

  Molly’s eyebrows crunched together and Ivy scolded, “Emari! What are you thinking?”

  “Yeah, Emari, what are you thinking? You’re not changing your mind are you? The ID still sticks, right?”

  “Sure, sure.” I smirked at Ivy.

  “Sure, sure,” she echoed with a tiny giggle.

  “It’s not that. I am absolutely certain that he’s the one who attacked me. I just…I don’t know how to explain it. I just really feel like I need to see that room where he was being questioned.”

  Molly continued to scowl and search my face for an answer that appeased her. Finding none, she sighed, long and heavy, and gestured for us to follow. Down the hall and around the corner, she lead us. She stopped at the grey metal interrogation room door, propped it open with one hand and waved us in with the other.

  My fingers tingled with nerves and layer upon layer of violent memories embedded in every surface of this room. The images battered my mind, the ingrained memories of scores of crimes seen through the eyes of each perpetrator shackled to this chair. I jerked my hand away from the wall. I couldn’t solve the crimes of the city. All I wanted was to save those anonymous girls. All I needed was to extract the memories I was sure left a signature during the detective’s questions. My hand froze on the arm of Rico’s vacant chair and knives of electricity sliced up my arm…

  I watch through his eyes…In an alley behind a theatre, a girl walks unescorted to her car. His mouth twists with a malicious grin. He creeps up behind her as she digs for her keys in her back pack and slaps a glove-clad hand over her mouth. He drags her behind some bushes.

  I couldn’t follow the memory farther—out of respect. Out of abhorrence.

  ‘Just tell me her name.’ I know he knows it. Just like he knew mine. He’ll take her name as his trophy—after… He dislocates her ring finger prying off a garnet ring, a gift from her grandmother. ‘Thanks for the party, Angela,’ he murmurs before sauntering away and leaving her in a heap in the bushes…

  At the mall in one of the underground passages, another girl staggers under the weight of her shop’s trash at the end of a busy day. His shoe squeaks against the linoleum, spoiling his stealth attack. When she turns to face him with fear in her eyes, he opts for a blitz attack. Before she can swing the heavy bag at him, his fist catches her right in the mouth. Her head snaps back and she falls….Haley.

  Angela…

  Haley…

  The images scatter and rush back together, then spiral out again like the colors in a kaleidoscope.

  Angela…

  Haley…

  “Angela. Haley…” I murmured. The sound of my own voice startled me away from the images.

  “What?” asked Ivy.

  I shook my scattered thoughts into place. I hadn’t meant to say their names out loud. Hadn’t wanted to see through his eyes what he’d done to them. Fury flared inside me and I reached out with my senses to find his skanky mind amidst all the other skanky minds in this place. And I found him—reliving the glory of his conquests alone in his cell. Apparently, he’d forgotten the little lesson Sabre taught him. So, I gave him a booster shot.

  Rico’s heart gallops and his stomach turns to stone as I plunge Sabre’s manipulated memories of the assault into his mind. I tug on the warped images that changed the attack into an assault on Rico instead of me and inject all the pain and terror into him. I enhance the rage and cruelty of his faceless attacker. I gloat over every mind-numbing memory as the stark cruel details overpower him.

  His screams echoed from the holding cell. A satisfied sneer twisted my mouth. Am I enjoying this too much? Nah!

  “Em? Are you okay?” Ivy was kneeling in front of me and Molly hovered over me.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.”

  “Who are Angela and Haley?” asked Molly.

  “Um—I don’t know,” I lied. “Is that what I said?”

  “Yes,” said Ivy.

  I had to be careful. Careful not to expose all the Caphar who preferred to remain anonymous, if I didn’t handle this properly.

  “Ya know, Ives, how sometimes I get a feeling something is going to happen, and then it does?”

  “Yeah, but that’s only with dead people, right? I mean, you usually know if someone’s dying or dead—like that girl that went missing in sixth grade. As soon as they announced on the news that she was missing, you told me ‘she’s dead.’ Just out there, like that. Like you really did know.”

  “Yeah, like that.” Geez, I was gonna have to fudge this—a lot. “I don’t know—I just get the feeling that those names mean something—in relation to Rico. Does that make sense?”

  Ivy eyed me uncertainly and Molly gawked at me like I was crazy.

  “Never mind. It’s probably just my imagination.”

  “Can we go now?” Ivy whined. “This place feels—dirty. No offense, Molly.”

  “None taken,” Molly said with a coy smile. “In all honesty, it feels a little dirty to me, too.” I stood and shook Molly’s hand, and watched as Ivy started in for a hug. But she stopped in mid-step and re
ached her hand toward the cop. Molly enclosed Ivy’s tiny hand in both of hers and held her there longer than necessary. Ivy tittered nervously and her cheeks glowed crimson as she followed me out the door.

  Ivy and I stopped by the mall to see Tess at Urban Blends and, of course, get some coffees. And of course, Tess had to know about the hot boy I’d been seeing. Her eternal smile faltered a moment when I told her I wasn’t sure it was working out—like a cloud blocking her internal sunshine. But the storm evaporated quickly and she offered me a smile of encouragement. We chatted a few moments more, then waved goodbye to Tess. After a stop at the Goth store, I dropped Ives by her apartment on my way out of town. My phone was ringing as I pulled into the carport. Caller ID flashed a local number I didn’t recognize.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello. Is this Miss Emari Sweet?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is Sunny Sykes from channel five news. Chief Houser from the Police Department gave me your contact information regarding doing a human interest piece.”

  “Yes. I told him I wouldn’t do an interview with anyone but you.”

  “Thank you, Miss Sweet. That means a lot to me.”

  “It’s just Emari.”

  “Emari.” I could hear her rolling my name around in her head, getting comfortable with it. “Well, I’m very honored that you would grant this interview with me. I understand it’s regarding an assault back in December.”

  “It’s actually about more than that, Miss Sykes.”

  “Sunny. Only my kid’s friends call me Miss Sykes.”

  I gave her a small laugh. Well, I’m now on first name basis with a local celeb. “Chief Houser explained that there might be more victims of this creep out there, didn’t he?”

  “Yes. But I’m just as interested, and I think the rest of Spokane will be too, in you. In how you survived. How you’ve healed.” She was quiet for a breath, then said quietly, “I did the report. That night. We didn’t air all of the details that we got—from the police report and witnesses—because you were a minor. I’m very sorry Miss—Emari. What happened to you wasn’t right.”