by Elle Casey
“I don’t know.” He swings his legs over the side of the laundry bin and hops down to the floor, tugging me along behind him. He walks across the room to the door, then pauses. “For what it’s worth, I’ll do what I can to prevent that from happening to you. I know I’m not as effective as Liam, but what I do helps, right?”
I nod. “Thank you. I know they weren’t kind to you here, and I appreciate your help.” It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell Bastian that his brother’s wrong, that he’s not any of the things his brother thinks he is. Instead, I change the subject. “If you can transmit your power to others, why is it that you and Liam both had to touch me before your powers had any effect?”
Bastian shrugs. “Maybe because you need a stronger connection to help balance yours out?” He presses the panel to the right of the door and it slides open. As we exit, he glances down at the map, or whatever it was that Tasha gave him, and jerks his head to the left. “This way. We’re almost out.” He grins and winks at me. “Next stop: outside.”
The next five minutes pass in a blur, my mind stuck on that single word—outside—and what it might mean for me. Bastian leads me down one hallway and then another until we reach a large, high-ceilinged room.
“This is where the laundry trucks pull in.” He points to the wide rolling door at the end of the room. “With the power off, I might need your help to open that.”
Excitement with an anxious edge bleeds off him and into me. He speeds his steps, eager to be out of here and back wherever the other Psi are—home. But something feels off to me.
This has all been just a little too easy, the timing too convenient, and the escape itself too simple.
“Wait,” I say. I stop walking, and Bastian shoots a confused look at me. “There’s something…” I trail off and shake my head. “Something’s not right. We shouldn’t open that door.”
“What?”
“We can’t go out there. I just—”
“I told you I’d look out for you. You’ll be fine.” He squeezes my hand. “I promise.”
My heartbeat picks up and I shake my head. “No, it’s not that. I can’t explain it. Please, you can’t go through that door.”
“I can’t go through the door?” It takes a moment for the shock on his features to morph into a forceful anger. “Nothing but their puppet after all, huh? Or maybe just too weak.” The emotion rolling off him spikes into rage and he narrows his eyes. “No… not weak at all. Was it your job to get into my head? Or maybe… to snag Liam for their little experiments. That’s why you were asking all those questions. That’s why…”
Horror. Disgust. Betrayal. Each one cycles over his features and batters against my mind like physical strikes.
My mouth is open to deny his accusations when he drops my hand. I fall to my knees and the voices crash into my head. Pressing my palms against my temples, I force my eyes open. The warning is there, a silent scream in my head, but all I can do is watch as Bastian strides across the room, finds the manual door control, and starts to turn the crank. The door creaks and shudders on its slow ascent. And the thoughts that Bastian’s power had been muffling, the thoughts of those directly outside the door, only get louder as the barrier rolls up.
Too late, he sees the black-booted feet on the other side of the door. One man slinks through the opening, then another and another, each of them training a gun on Bastian as they rise to their feet. Somehow, in spite of all the noise in my head, I get my muscles to work and drag myself across the floor toward him.
In their thoughts I can hear the orders these men received. It’s me they want, and he’s expendable. There’s more, so much more. More lies. More tricks. More betrayal. But I don’t have time for all that now. Bastian’s been a jerk and quick to think the worst of me, but I refuse to watch him die.
At a gesture from one of the armed men and some command I cannot hear, Bastian lowers himself to his knees, his hands behind his head.
I grit my teeth and push the voices as far to the sides as I can, then reach out to Bastian. It’s too loud. I can’t find his mind among all the others, and I can’t narrow down the field. Changing tactics, I search for an emotion, something I’d only get from an Empath, something to guide me to him. The sadness tinged with resignation is not what I expect, but I latch on to it and finally connect with him.
Tell them. Tell them you can buffer me. Tell them! My last bit of strength goes into the words I shout into his mind, and I crumple onto my side with my cheek resting against the concrete and my eyes trained on the confrontation ahead.
Words are exchanged. Guns lower, rise, and lower again. Slate arrives, then Price. And Bryan, too.
How I wish Bastian could have been spared the knowledge of his brother’s part in this. Bastian was the bait, and just like he’d thought, Liam was the prey. But me? I wasn’t supposed to be here. It was a mistake that I was warned to prepare. A fluke that Liam met me in the hall and was therefore led to find me. Pure chance that I ended up here to witness Bastian realizing his brother’s betrayal.
It was Bryan who’d been selling the locations of known Psi to Slate. Bryan who told Slate about Liam’s ability, one even more rare than mine. Bryan who suggested they capture Bastian, so he’d be able to justify this so-called rescue mission. Bryan who got Liam to come along. Bryan who didn’t deliver.
And it is Bryan who Slate shoots through the head without a word.
Liam, Tasha, and the three rescued Psi got away, but I won’t be escaping today. Neither will Bastian, and without any other test subjects, he is no longer expendable. They won’t be killing him today.
If they expect my cooperation, they won’t be killing him at all.
I know the truth of what’s out there, and the truth of what’s in here. I’ll give the doctors what they want—for now. At some point there will be another chance for me—for us—to escape, and I will wait patiently until then. My only hope is that it comes before Slate achieves his goal, before I bear the stable Reader he’s so desperately hoping for. The one who, if under Slate’s control, could jeopardize not only the other Psi, but anyone who tries to stand against Slate’s plans. No matter what, I cannot let that happen.
At some point, the power returns, and the overhead lights flicker on… as my consciousness flickers off.
A Word from Theresa Kay
Let me start by saying I am immensely grateful to be involved in this anthology alongside so many great writers who also happen to be genuinely nice people. Always quick to offer support and encouragement, this group is full of talent and I’m honored to be a part of it.
Even though I’d wanted to be a writer since I was a kid, I never thought I’d actually do it.
And I almost didn’t.
After almost a decade off from writing, I would have never written my first novel if it hadn’t been for NaNoWriMo. Over the course of thirty days, I wrote just over fifty thousand words. Even though it was pretty awful (and will never see the light of day), writing it allowed me to prove to myself that, if I put my mind to it, my childhood dream was still possible.
“Stability” is actually set in the world of one of my other NaNo projects. When I was offered a spot in this anthology, I jumped at the chance to write this piece that had been roaming around in my head for a while. It didn’t go as easily as planned, and there were a couple of false starts, but I hope you enjoyed reading the end result.
You can find out more about me and my books at www.theresakay.com.
Dreampath
by Elle Casey
Sleep and I… well, we’re friends. We’re more than friends. Or maybe I should say we’re enemies, since sleeping has been the main cause of most of my problems in life. Certainly it’s caused me difficulties. And then again, it’s brought me the greatest joys, too. I guess you could say our relationship is complicated.
See, for most of my twenty-five years of life, I was the kind of person who would rather sleep than go to work. I’d rather nap than hang out with my frie
nds at the local bar, and I’d rather have a nice fat dream about a bunch of things that didn’t make any sense than stay out dancing and partying all night.
Call it laziness, call it chronic fatigue if you want, but no matter what its moniker, I can hardly complain when it’s also the reason I’m sitting here today telling you this story. So I guess that’s why I say Sleep and I are friends.
It all started on Thursday, September eighteenth. It had rained for twenty-four hours straight. Days like that, I call them Harry Potter days, because the sky is so gray and dismal it almost seems like it will always be that way, that we’ll be stuck in this forever dim light and eternal damp cold until the end of the world comes and snuffs out the human race and erases all its traces forever. Those are my favorite days to nap. The invitation to snuggle down deep into my sleeping cave is impossible to resist.
I fell asleep to the sound of rain slashing against my window and wind howling and buzzing through the power lines that run outside my house. Hearing those otherworldly sounds, I could imagine that aliens were real, already here, and busy doing things to secure their eventual takeover. It would have been freaky had I not been tucked into my soft, warm bed, surrounded by my impenetrable-by-cold goose down quilt. Let them come, I thought. Just don’t wake me until it’s over.
I remember thinking at some point during my slumber that I needed to get up for work soon. I had the night shift at the local grocery store, stocking shelves. This was the one job I had no problem keeping since it allowed me to work even in the middle of the night. My boss was also the owner of this small, family-owned place, and lucky for me, he was very flexible. He didn’t really care how or when the products got on the shelves, just that they did before things ran too low. It was the perfect situation for a serial napper like me. I had a key to the place and the freedom to make a schedule around my naps. There aren’t many girls who work as grocery store stockers, but then again, I’m not like most girls anyway, so it makes sense for me.
My dreams came in waves that day, some of them making sense, most of them not. Bits from one dream floated into the next, segues that upon waking I knew would make me question my own sanity.
Many nights I dreamed that I could fly through the sky, but only high enough to barely reach above the earth; I had to struggle not to skin my chin on the asphalt as I glided by. Sometimes I could breathe underwater, but there was nothing there in the sea with me to appreciate it. Millions of gallons of saltwater, and I was the only one in the entire ocean to breathe it. Everything was awesome, yet just a little bit disappointing at the same time.
Nothing in my dreams seemed strange as I was experiencing it; it was only later with the clarity of wakefulness that I’d see how weird and sometimes twisted they really were.
I had two heads! In my dream it was great. There were now two mouths to speak from instead of just one, and with two sets of eyes to see with, nothing would get past me anymore. Upon waking, it scared me to imagine myself with two brains’-worth of crazy to contend with, not to mention the looks I’d get from all those one-headed people.
So this day, during my nap, I knew I had to get up. I somehow knew it was time to wake, time to get to work, but something in my head was weighing me down, refusing to let me out of my dreamworld.
I was just about to drift back into another dream when a voice shouted in my head, loud enough to startle me. I distinctly remember my leg jerking and my foot hitting the wall next to my bed.
“Help her!” the voice shouted.
I was confused at first. Help who? I asked… myself. Actually, I wasn’t sure who I was asking. It wasn’t me, was it? I couldn’t tell.
“Help her! She’s going to drown!” came the voice again, this time a little more desperate-sounding.
My heart rate picked up. Someone was drowning? I wasn’t sure where I was anymore. It was dark and cold. I could hear a creaking, like a submarine making noises as it glides through the deep ocean.
Who is this? I asked, tentatively. Even though I was dreaming, and I knew I was dreaming, so pretty much anything could happen, it was a little embarrassing to actually be having a conversation like this. Normally, weird things made perfect sense during my dreams, but not this time.
“Oh my god, she’s going to drown! Do something! Go get something to break that window and give it to her!” shouted the voice. She was pissed. Maybe at me.
A flash of memory overtook me. I’d bought a new set of tires at the local Pep Boys last week, and as part of the deal, they’d given me a window puncher; at least, that’s what I called it. It was some sort of device they told me I could use to break out a window if I were ever trapped in my car. I’d stuck it in my purse and forgotten all about it.
Do you mean that window-puncher? From Pep Boys? It struck me as strange that I would expect this dream-person to understand what the hell I was talking about. And then it struck me as stranger still that I believed there was this other person somehow in my head.
“Yes! Get it and give it to her! It’s very important.” The person paused before continuing, and I say the person because I couldn’t even tell if it was a man or woman. It was just a voice that had no quality to it other than a sense of urgency. I know that makes no sense, but even after all this time, I still can’t describe it any better than that.
“Don’t forget. Don’t forget. She needs that. Find her. Give it to her. Don’t forget. Don’t forget…” As she said the words, chilly water started washing over me, and when I tried to breathe through it like I always had before in my dreams, my lungs filled with an icy coldness that I can only describe as dread.
I sat bolt upright in bed, screaming my head off.
Try as I might, I could not brush off the feeling of doom that overshadowed my night. I started in the cereal aisle and worked my way into the canned goods section, opening up, emptying, and breaking down cardboard boxes filled with things the good people of Marathon Key, Florida would be purchasing tomorrow to stock their shelves before any more of this tropical storm could dump itself on our heads.
There was an alert that kept playing on the radio, telling people that we had at least another twenty-four hours of storms to suffer before we’d see any sunshine. Normally, I’d celebrate this fact; it meant no one would be giving me a hard time about bunking down and watching endless Bones reruns punctuated by catnaps. But today it just made me anxious. I kept thinking about that voice in my head… the one telling me I had to rescue that girl, whoever she was. I hated that this dream in particular felt so real.
When it was time to go for the night, I picked up my purse and threw the strap across my chest. It was way too big and had things in it from God knows where. I had a hard time throwing things out, so I just accumulated. My friends joked that if the zombie apocalypse ever came, I’d survive for weeks with what I’d find in there.
After locking up, I had to sprint to my car to avoid being completely drenched by the rain. As my bag swung against my side, a heavy metal object banged against my hipbone. I had to clamp my bag against me with my elbow to keep it from giving me a bruise.
Once I was inside the car and safely out of the storm, I dug around inside the bag to find out what I’d accumulated that felt like a weapon. My hands wrapped around something cylindrical and metal. When I pulled it out, my blood ran cold.
It was the glass-puncher that the sales guy at Pep Boys had given me.
I stared at it for a few long seconds, wondering what the hell I should do with it. Find the girl, the voice had said. Give it to her. She’s drowning!
I scoffed at my crazy brain, knowing that when I told my friends about this voice I’d heard, they’d once again go on and on about how nutty my dreams are. They always said they couldn’t remember their dreams, so to them, I was a freak; not only did I dream, but I dreamed big, outlandish stuff. Some of them probably secretly thought I made it all up.
I put the glass-puncher in the glove compartment, proud that I’d lightened my bag by ten ounces or so.
All I could see through my tiny windshield were fat raindrops splattering over everything in sight. My wipers were going to be little help in this mess, which meant I was going to have to drive home at half the speed limit to even be able to see.
I started up the engine and turned out of the tiny parking lot to head home. I went this route every day, whether I worked or not. It was the one road that led to everywhere on our tiny island, and I knew it like the back of my hand: three miles of two-lane roads, a small bridge over the water, another two miles of two lanes, and then my small little street that led to my apartment that led to my bed. It took me eight minutes on a perfect day; today, I figured it would take me at least fifteen.
I should have had all of my attention on the dimly illuminated road ahead of me, but part of my brain was occupied with the thought that I needed to find this person who was drowning, to give her this glass-breaker.
Ridiculous, I thought to myself.
Suddenly, two bright lights pierced the darkness and hit me right in the eyes. I was blinded by them, but then a sound came too and made me think that I was either about to be eaten by a dragon or abducted by very large aliens.
I had only a split second to react.
I screamed.
And I jerked the steering wheel to the right, trying to avoid the freight train or whatever it was that had appeared in my lane. My spindly tires bumped over uneven terrain and my car pointed sharply downward.
Never in all the years that I’d driven this route had I noticed a hill, and yet there I was going down one. And then there was a splash and my car stopped moving for the briefest of moments before it was suspended, weightless, floating…
So many things rushed through my mind at that point. The first was a question for myself: Could this really be happening?
It was quickly answered by the sensation of cold water covering my feet and quickly rising up to my calves.
