Bring Me A Dream: Reveler Series 5 (12 page)

“Can you sneak us out?” They had a little time, considering the security on the building. In order to protect the Oneiros, Lambert would’ve made it difficult for law enforcement to enter under any circumstances.

Mirren suddenly clutched Vince’s arm. “Does this void our deal with Steve Coll and his people? I killed the person who was supposed to get us our information. Will they give us another chance? Maybe we could try again with someone else?”

Vince looked out the window again. The police were conferring. “No, this won’t void the deal.” Then he went for the truth. No deceptions, not even to make things easier. The waking world had to be filled with truth. “Infiltrating Maisie Lane’s dreamscape and calling it your own did that.”

Mirren blinked at him, as if utterly confounded.

So Vince explained. “Maze City wasn’t designed by your father with you in mind. It’s Maisie Lane’s natural dreamscape. Seems she’s extremely talented.”

Mirren began shaking her head. “He made it for me and David. He wants us to have a place to be safe.”

That was the fantasy that Agatha had given her. Funny, how that weak woman could spin an illusion that would fool even Mirren, a nightmare born for the dreamwaters. The dream of a father’s love, no matter how twisted.

“It’s Maisie’s dreamscape,” he said again. “Apparently your father has been trying to take it from her. Our showing up there seemed like more of the same.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Mirren said. “They made that up. You can’t
take
someone’s dreamscape from them.”

“You can drug a person, enslave a person, subjugate a person.”

Mirren frowned deeply, and her eyes grew wet. “Even if that were possible, if they’d let us explain—”

The full truth. “Steve said they’d be in contact to drop David off.”

Her skin paled, eyes widened. She opened her mouth, but she seemed too stricken to actually say a word.

“We’ll need to be in a safe place for David,” he said, grabbing his jacket. “But first, we need to get out of here. Now. Can you sneak us out and away from the police?”

“Jordan and Rook and Steve won’t work with us?” she asked quietly.

“Not anymore.”

“And I just shot Agatha Fleight, my father’s confidant, a major player among the Oneiros, and the daughter of a senator?”

“Defending me, but yes.”

The ramifications of their situation were impressive for one night’s work. Everybody, waking world or Darkside, was against them now. They only had each other.

***

No god at final judgment could say she hadn’t tried.

Mirren had gotten them out of the apartment and away from the building on foot. She’d spotted the security cameras in the elevator, the garage, attached to the building to view the sidewalk and street, and she had made no effort to avoid them, even though a daydream couldn’t change what they recorded. They walked up Lexington Avenue, past the still-conferring police crew as they deliberated how to get inside the residence of an elite Oneiros with a senator haranguing them to do something.

The night was black and the air was freezing cold. Each exhalation was a billowy cloud. Vincent tried to give her his tux jacket, but Mirren didn’t want comfort.

The truth was crashing down around her. The only option left was her father. In the end, all roads had led to him anyway.

This late, the traffic blew by on the street, but otherwise the blocks were deserted, and for a while, they grew longer, harsher, and Mirren couldn’t help but think of Maze City.
A dreamscape
, Vincent had said. Not her father’s genius. Someone else’s. Her father had merely wanted it, and now Mirren did, too.

She wanted it so badly.

It wasn’t fair. Maisie Lane had been born with
that
, while Mirren had been born to the Scrape. Not fair at all. And David! An innocent. Left to wander Darkside.

The moral thing, the right thing, would be for Maisie to share her city. Mirren recalled how hard Maisie had fought her, scrabbling and kicking and shrieking like an animal. If Maisie didn’t want to let them stay there? If she was going to be greedy? Then, yes, she should be forced. As Vincent said,
subjugated
.

Ugh.
Mirren swallowed hard and finally spoke aloud. “My head is sometimes a really dangerous place to be.”

“Bad thoughts?” His voice was a soft caress on her scaly soul. She was a monster inside.

There was only one way to explain. “Like father, like daughter.”

Both Rook and Jordan had said that to her at different times. Maybe it was true. Someone was dead and she was feeling sorry for herself and thinking of ways to get what she wanted, no matter who got hurt.

“Happens to me, too,” Vincent said. “I made a rule that when tempted, to do the opposite of whatever my father would do.”

“What if there’s a child involved?”
What then?

“Then multiply the action by two, just to be extra safe.” He put his arm around her. “You’re not alone.”

And that, more than anything else, was what set her crying. She wept and snuffled for the next three blocks. At one point, she swore and took off her heels—her feet were killing her—and kept going barefoot.

“I think it’s safe to take a cab from here.” Vincent leaned into the street with his arm up.

Mirren disguised their appearances, anyway. It’s what she was going to have to do every minute of every day for the foreseeable future. She’d killed a senator’s daughter. It wasn’t her fault, but no one would believe her.

They did not return to Vincent’s sexy, silver building, but ended up at a tall brick one instead.

“Senator Fleight and the police will go to my apartment,” Vincent murmured, “so we’re stuck back at Paula’s.”

“
Back
at Paula’s?”

“My friend Paula. She’s out of the country right now, so it’s safe. Jordan insisted we stay at an untraceable place when she and I were looking for Rook. She’ll know to call here to make arrangements for David.”

Paula’s place was a junked up dump. Broken ceramic pieces littered the floor by the entry—David would cut himself, and Vincent’s explanation— “the hen”—wasn’t as amusing as he thought it was. Boxes and plastic crates made leaning towers, while random books, linens, clothing, and bric-a-brac lay about the floor, on tables, and across the sofa. In the center of the main space was some Rêve tech, the cords easy tripwires.

“Can I borrow some clothes?” Mirren asked. Her green dress was dotted with Agatha’s blood. There had to be something she could wear in all the mess.

“Yes. Whatever you can find.”

Twenty minutes later she’d showered and was drowning in oversized sweatpants rolled at the waist and a T-shirt with big university lettering. Both articles smelled like they’d been folded and put away for too long. She was going to see David soon, though, so nothing else mattered.

She found Vincent sitting on the sofa staring at his hands, which just about cracked her. He had a fixation with them. Red blood was worse than black. By far.

“Just get over it,” she told him. “Now. Before I go fucking crazy
with
you.”

Wanting to curse herself, she gritted her teeth instead. Why was she lashing out him? Why did she have to ruin everything?

Vincent leaned back, his arms outstretched to rest on the back of the sofa. His wingspan was very wide, but then he was a tall man. His legs stretched long, too, taking up all the space not cluttered with junk. His shirt collar was unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up. “Going crazy with me sounds pretty great, actually.”

“I can make your life a living hell.”

He had the nerve to grin. “You don’t scare me.”

She lifted her chin. “I should.”

“Not even a little. Haven’t you figured it out yet? How I’ve changed?”

Easy.
“You’re obsessed with killing my father.”

“Lots of people are, including you. I mean beyond that.”

She shook her head and shrugged at the same time. “I’m too tired for quiz questions. Just tell me or shut up.”

He chuckled at her bad mood. “I’m not afraid of you.”

“Fuck, you already said that, you madman. We’re going in circles like crazy people do.”

“I’m not afraid at all, actually,” he continued. “Not of anything. That nightmare blood—”

“Will you quit it with the blood!”

“It cured me of fear. We’re perfect for each other because you’re a nightmare, and I’m the one man who will never fear you.”

She couldn’t take anymore tonight. “Just shut up.”

“You make me think anything is possible,” he said. “The best
and
the worst.”

The worst? Yes.
“That doesn’t make me feel better.” In order for him to comprehend just how bad the situation was, she added, “You’ll be implicated in Agatha’s murder, too.”

But the man smiled good-naturedly. “I’m thrilled to be implicated. The alternative is dead.” He leaned forward, his golden hero hair falling over his forehead. “Mirren Lambert, thank you for saving my life. It was the best outcome we could control tonight. At least I think so. Today was a good day.”

“
What?
”
She needed to get away from him. Miles and miles away.

“And how’s this? The clincher. David will never scare me either.”

Everything went very still inside her as Vincent’s last sentence repeated over and over in her mind. All the screwed-up feelings inside her tangled again, and that sweet feeling she’d discovered in Maze City—joy—was back in her heart.

“I do like that,” she finally told him. “I like that a lot.”

“I knew you would.” He stood and dodged boxes to get closer to her. “I was saving it up on the walk home.”

He was close enough that she could rest her head on his chest, and discovered, to her dismay, that after months and months of looking, she’d found her safe place. “You mean I could’ve been happier sooner?”

“Timing is critical, woman. I had to be somewhere I could kiss you.”

She lifted her face to scowl at him, only to find that he’d been lying in wait and took the opening.

He teased her first with a stroke of his mouth against her lips.

She drew a breath to complain. Which was when he gathered her up to him, took her weight—probably to keep her off balance—and loosened every one of her tense muscles with the rough press of his kiss. It was a white-hot kind of assault that poured like fire into her mouth and down her throat. And for the first time in her life, she felt like she was rising upward—fast, faster, fastest—to break the surface of the water and feel the light.

When Vincent pulled his head away, she gasped for air. He chuckled, and she scowled at him again.

“God damn,” he said and went for her mouth once more.

She was laughing, actually laughing, while they kissed a second time. She was floating. Buoyant. Soaring.

“Okay, fine,” she said when they broke apart. “Considering just how bad today could’ve been, it was pretty good.”

“Pretty good?” He looked mock-stricken, as if that were an assessment of his kiss.

She corrected herself. “
Really
good.”

He nodded, his expression thoughtful, as if considering her new appraisal but still not happy with it. His arms were around her waist. His hard body pressed against hers. Solid. Like a rock.

She understood now. She wasn’t alone. He hadn’t saved that bit; he’d said it right away, and in different ways. She just hadn’t been listening until now.

Yes. Today had been great. She smiled, warm all over. “Better than I could’ve even imagined.”

***

“
Now
you’re talking,” Vince said.

He did a little mental calculus to ascertain if he and Mirren had time to properly defile Paula’s guest bed. There were too many variables to keep track of without pen and paper, so he reduced the equation to two salient facts—Jordan knew where to find them, and she had Paula’s phone number.

“So we just wait?” Mirren asked. That grim worry etched itself back across her face.

Vince wasn’t about to bite his fingernails while the powers that be decided their fates. His fate had always been straightforward anyway. Nothing that had happened that night changed it.

He kissed her again. Couldn’t help himself. She was voluntarily in his arms, her breasts pressed up against him. Her lips were full, hot, and satiny smooth. He wanted to kiss her while burying himself inside her over and over again.

“We can’t do this now,” she said against his mouth.

“We’ll keep the phone nearby.” How best to convince her? He didn’t want to wait anymore. “If we wait, they’ll take hours to contact us. If we get naked together, they’ll call right away.”

She smiled ruefully. “That about sums up our luck.”

He shifted to lift her, but she stepped back out of his grasp. The UConn T-shirt came off in one movement, and Vince was finally treated to an unobstructed view of her breasts—full, rosy, perfect. They’d been baiting him one way or another since Chimera had set him free. But it was Mirren’s eyes, filling with the color of the dreamwaters, that made his heart beat fast, his blood heat. The will to live, to be alive,
act
alive, sizzled across his skin.