The Awakening (17 page)

“Nothing,” I mumble.

She eyes Luka like a cat on the prowl, then turns her icy blues on me. “Sticks told me to come get you for training.”

I turn the faucet back on, eager to finish up.

“Is the training safe?” Luka’s intensity slips through.

His question makes my blood boil, especially since he’s not directing it at me. He’s directing it at Claire, who looks more than a little amused by his inquiry.

“Are you afraid Tess will get hurt?”

I wait for Luka to defend me, to extend the smallest measure of faith.

He says nothing.

“You don’t have to worry. Sticks won’t let anything bad happen to her. She’s perfectly safe.” With a look of pure condescension, she flips her braid over her shoulder and saunters away.

*

Cap stops his wheelchair in front of the only locked room in the hub. He pulls out a key on a chain tucked beneath his shirt and lets us in. Sticks, Jose, Claire, me, and Link. I guess today, his services—whatever they are—are needed. There are six chairs inside the room that look as though they belong in a dentist office and upright trays beside each one that hold gadgets and gizmos and wires.

Link boots up the computer at the front of the room. The rest of the mysterious technological devices blink to life as well. Claire and Jose hop onto chairs, fully aware of what’s about to happen. I wait for Sticks to do the same. Instead, he scoops Cap into his arms and sets him on the chair at the end.

Judging by the shocked look on Claire and Jose’s faces, this is not a common occurrence.

Link begins sticking probes attached to wire onto Claire’s temples. When his fingers brush against her skin, she closes her eyes. His touch lingers longer than necessary. I have no idea why it annoys me. Maybe because Claire doesn’t seem like a nice person, and someone like Link ought to realize that. He adheres two probes to either side of her neck, one more slightly below her collar bone, then gets to work on Jose. Then Sticks, then Cap, and finally, me.

He holds up the wires. “Your turn.”

“Aren’t you going to explain what you’re doing first?”

“Sleep induction, without the drugs. One hundred percent harmless, I promise.” He wiggles the probes in the air. “They send electrodes to the part of your brain that’s most active during sleep. The transition is instantaneous. Sort of like someone with narcolepsy. And since the sleep isn’t drug-induced, everyone remains fully functional in dream world.”

“So we train in our sleep?”

“Precisely.”

“It’s the best way to practice,” Sticks says. “Our tech mastermind over there figured out a way to create a shared dream space for training purposes.”

Link flashes that lopsided grin of his.

“If you’re worried about your
safety
,” Claire looks me up and down, “don’t be. Link will monitor our vitals, just in case things get too
intense
for you.”

I press my lips together. Because if you don’t have anything nice to say …

“Since I created the space, it’s not actually a doorway into the spiritual realm. So you don’t have to worry about accidentally getting pulled through or anything.” He holds the probes up higher. “Convinced?”

More than.

In fact, for the first time since awakening from last night’s awful nightmare, I feel a rush of excitement. I take the seat between Sticks and Jose. Link places the probes on my temples, his eyes catching mine as he does. There are specks of amber in the caramel of his irises, and his hands smell like soap. He pulls down the collar of my shirt just enough to attach the final probe beneath the hollow of my collarbone. “Time to see what Xena Warrior Princess can do.”

Even though he’s teasing, the nickname makes me feel strong.

Claire, on the other hand, shoots daggers at us with her eyes.

Link moves to the computer, where all the wires now attached to our bodies run. “Showtime on the count of three. One, two, three …”

I open my eyes in a large room padded with mats that run up three of the walls. The fourth is one giant mirror. For a second, I think we’ve somehow teleported to the room beside the weight room. There are mats in there, too. But this place is bigger, with more equipment. There are dumbbells and pull-up bars, sparring pads and gloves, punching bags and jump ropes. And it doesn’t smell like Clorox or feet. This is the dream space Link created.

Claire and Jose stand at one side of the room, pulling on gloves. Sticks stands on the other side next to …

I rub my eyes, positive I’m seeing things wrong. But when I’m done with the rubbing, I see the same thing as before. It’s Cap. Same white stubble. Same salt and pepper buzz cut. Same silver eyes. The only difference? This man who is Cap, but not really Cap, doesn’t sit in a wheelchair. He stands beside Sticks, a good half a foot shorter, with legs as strong and sturdy as tree stumps.

“Welcome to the training center.” Sticks steps into the middle of the dream dojo. “What do you think?”

“How is he …?” My attention returns to Cap, who leans against one of the matted walls.

“Standing?” Sticks offers.

“Yeah.”

“Simple.” He snaps his finger, and all of a sudden, Sticks is no longer in the center of the room; he’s standing directly in front of me. I jerk back. Claire snickers. Sticks snaps again. Now he’s standing in between Claire and Jose. I’m not sure if he moved so fast as to be a literal blur, or if he somehow managed to disappear and reappear. He pulls back Claire’s arms, helping her stretch the muscles in her chest. “This is dream world. Our physical bodies are lying on those chairs. Physical limitations don’t exist. Not here. You may be short and skinny during your waking hours …”

More snickering from Claire.

“But that has nothing to do with the amount of strength you can harness as a fighter here in this realm. Take me, for example. In real life, my height has disadvantages. I’m not very fast. But here,” he snaps a third time, and in a blink, he’s standing beside Cap again, “I’m as fast as I want to be.”

Jose and Claire move to one of the punching bags. She holds it steady while he gives it a few powerful wallops.

“Today, we want to see what you can do.” Sticks tosses me a pair of sparring gloves.

I catch them and slide them on. They feel familiar over my knuckles, and good too. I always enjoyed my Saturday morning martial art classes with Mom. In fact, I don’t think I’ve realized until now how much I’ve missed them.

Sticks tosses me headgear.

“Isn’t this unnecessary?” I ask, strapping it onto my head. “If this isn’t my physical body, why do I need protection?”

“Why don’t you show her why she wants the helmet, Claire.”

Claire couldn’t be happier to oblige. She lets go of the punching bag and steps into the center of the room. I recognize her stance. We’re going to spar. Determination stretches through my limbs, into my fingers. Claire might be taller and stronger, but I’m quick and scrappy. Plus, she has no clue that I have training, which means I have the element of surprise on my side. I take my stance and we circle a couple times.

She throws a few punches.

I dodge them—quick, but not as quick as I know I can be. The knuckle of her glove grazes my chin. I stumble back, then shake my head in an attempt to refocus. Something’s not right. I’m more sluggish than I should be, which must mean the medicine hasn’t run its full course. Claire has an unfair advantage. As if sensing my weakness, she throws a quick one-two jab. I block them both.

“You know some self-defense,” Sticks says, making brief eye contact with me in the reflection of the mirror.

Claire throws a left hook.

I lean back, then do a roundhouse kick. My heel nicks her chin.

Her eyes go wide.

And in her momentary shock, I go on the offensive with a series of punches. The effort has my lungs pumping. “Why”—I throw a jab—“am I so winded?”

“It’s in your head.”

I block two of Claire’s attacks, then take a knee to the ribs.

It knocks the wind out of me. I double over, clutching the pain in my side.

“Link figured out a way to keep the part of our brain that feels pain fully functional,” Sticks says.

“Why would he do that?” I block a blow, but take a shot in the nose. There’s a crack of sharp pain, then warmth trickling over my lips. When I wipe at it, my forearm comes away with a smear of red.

Sticks strolls a circle around us. “Because there’s value in knowing your limits.”

Beyond him, Jose wails on the punching bag.

“The absence of pain can make a person do some pretty idiotic things. It’s important that we know our limits, even here.”

I go on the attack, my sloppy movements stirring up more frustration. I’m panting like a dog. Sweating worse than I did yesterday on the treadmill. I try another roundhouse kick, grunting with the motion, but Claire dodges my heel by doing a backward flip that defies all sense of gravity. I stare, grudgingly impressed. Her attention slides to Cap, as if making sure he’s paying attention. When it’s clear that he is, she lands a strong shot in my stomach and another on my ear that makes my entire head ring.

A mass of heat builds inside my chest. I may not believe that I’m strong enough to warrant a Keeper, but I know I’m stronger than this. I curl my arm back and swing with all my might—an uppercut to end all uppercuts.

Claire catches my fist. “Looks like Xena Warrior Princess forgot to eat her Wheaties.” Without warning, she sweeps my arm, flips me over her shoulder and slams me flat on my back—knocking the wind out of me for the second time. “No wonder Luka was so worried about you. You’re weak. You don’t stand a chance against the other side.” With a smirk, she turns her back to me and starts walking away.

I jump up to my feet and throw a kick.

She spins around and blocks it, but this time I’m the quicker one. I grab her wrist, twist her around, and pin her hand against the small of her back. “I’ve faced the other side before.”

“More than one at a time?” She spins out of my hold. “Because I don’t think you’ll ever be able to fight more than one at a time.”

I dodge one of her jabs. “Good thing I have Luka, then.”

“A lot of good he will do without Link there to bring him through the doorway.”

“I don’t need Link. I’ll take Luka through with me. I’ve done it before.”

Her eyes go wide.

“I can do it again.” I fake jab left, then throw a right hook. I anticipate the connection—my glove, her nose. But when I make the swipe, my fist hits nothing but empty air.

Claire is gone.

I spin around.

So is Sticks and Cap and Jose. All that’s left of him is the swinging punching bag. I’m standing alone in the center of the room and then suddenly, I’m not. My eyes are open on the dental chair. My ears no longer ring. My nose no longer throbs. I swipe at my upper lip, where the blood had pooled. There’s nothing but dry skin. I’m not even out of breath.

Everyone is staring at me as though I just did something incredibly odd. Or maybe amazing. I can’t tell.

“Why’d you all leave like that?” Link asks. “We were just getting started.”

Sticks cocks his head. “Did you say that you’ve taken him with you before?”

I look from him to Cap, confused. “Yes.”

“When?” Cap asks.

“When Luka and I were visiting in our dreams—”

Link’s eyes practically bug out of their sockets. “You and Luka visit in your dreams?”

It has me shrinking back a little. I look at Claire, who stares with her mouth ajar, and Jose, whose shock doesn’t manifest itself as overtly as the others, but whose quirked unibrow suggests at least a measure of disbelief. I return my attention to Link. “Is that a bad thing?”

“Explain what happens, when you visit each other.”

“I don’t know. It’s just something we do.” My cheeks burn. It’s a private matter, actually. I’d rather not go into details. “One of the times, when I felt that weird pulling sensation, I grabbed his hand and took him with me.”

The silence is deafening.

“Have you visited anybody else’s dreams?” Link asks.

Summer. Leela. I think that’s it. “A couple.”

“You’re a dream hopper.”

“A what?”

“You’re a Fighter,” Link says. “But you’re also a Linker. Like me.”

An Anomaly

C
ap whispers something to Sticks, then tells me and Link to follow him. He doesn’t say where we’re going or why the discovery of my linking abilities put an end to my very first training session. The severe set of his mouth—his lips a thin, diagonal slash across his face—has me thinking it’s nowhere and nothing good. Cap stops in front of the room I first mistook for the dream dojo. He rolls inside and returns a moment later with Luka in tow, who looks from Link to me with a face clouded in confusion.

I shrug.

Cap leads us down the adult corridor—where Anna and Fray, Sticks and Non, Cap, and I’m assuming Gabe, if ever he sleeps, have their rooms. At the end of the hallway we reach a door. Cap motions for us to step inside. The room is the size of a large supply closet, just big enough to fit a cheap-looking card table and several metal fold-up chairs. To my astonishment, Gabe sits in one of them, as expressionless as ever.