The walk home is much faster. Addie’s parents are in the kitchen when we return. They make us some snacks, then head out for the night. A short time later, Addie and I go to bed. I change in the bathroom, brush my teeth, and Addie is sound asleep when I enter. I drop my dirty clothes onto my bag and hesitate crawling under the covers with her. Just as I had suspected, a pair of green beams exit from the dragon statues and penetrate her temples. Her relaxed body goes rigid and I can tell she’s in the midst of a nightmare. I back out of the room and go towards the room Frey is in. When I open the door, Frey is snoring slightly. I close the door and cross the threshold, but stop when I see the dragon statues on the end tables. Their green beams emerging, striking Frey in the temples. He tries to fight them, but eventually succumbs.
What’s the purpose of these? Is this a way for the Patrician to control their citizens? But wait, the nightmare they gave me was against Leader Fallon, so is it Dracken-related? That can’t be right. Frey has their dragon symbol, but I don’t remember seeing these statues in his room.
He twitches every couple of minutes, his face grimacing at whatever images are being projected into his mind. I search the room trying to look for something that I can use to stop the beams. I locate two handheld mirrors in one of the dresser drawers, but I need something to secure them into place. I remove the bands from my hair and stretch them around the statues and the mirrors. When I have the first one secured, Frey’s body starts to relax a little. As soon as I place the other one, Frey’s eyes flash open. Sweat is pouring from his face and arms. He looks at me, frightened at first, but then smiles.
“What happened?” he asks, rubbing his temples.
I show him the statues. He leans on his elbows, examining the dragons. His hand then automatically goes to the tattoo on the back of his right shoulder. He seems puzzled and a little frightened.
“Where’s Addie?” he asks.
“She’s sleeping, but –”
“She’s like I was, isn’t she?”
I nod.
He throws off the covers and runs out of the room with me following close behind. We look through her drawers and closet, trying to find something to block the beams, but we come up empty. Frey grabs her legs and starts to pull her away. She screams, possibly from pain, but we don’t know for sure. She kicks at him, flaying her body around. He lets go and she slides back onto her pillows. Her eyes never open. I sit next to her on the bed and try waking her. I shake her gently, then a little rougher, but she won’t wake up. Addie is back in the midst of a nightmare. She starts to cry and no matter what we do, she won’t stop.
“Let’s leave her,” Frey says.
We go back to the spare room, take the pillows and blankets off the bed, and lie down on the floor. Frey pulls me in tight against him, kisses my forehead, and falls asleep. All I do is stare at the closed door of the room and wonder what the hell is going on.
Thirteen
Neither one of us says anything to Addie about the beams. Before she wakes up, Frey removes the mirrors and gives the bands back to me. I slip into Addie’s room and pretend I just got up from her bed as she awakes. She appears groggy, but otherwise fine. A storm moved in overnight, so we’re stuck in the house for our last day. None of us are in the mood to watch anything on the monitor, so we just basically sit around doing nothing. The silence is killing me, so I decide to ask a question that’s been bugging me for a while.
“How do you time loop?” I ask them.
“Rem didn’t tell you?” Frey asks.
“Nope. She wants Max to figure it out on her own,” Addie responds.
“She only told me to think of a point in time I want to be, but that really doesn’t help,” I add.
“You kind of have to predict what your opponent is going to do next, then either project yourself into that spot or away from it. If you guess correctly, you’ll have no issues and will be ahead. If you guess wrong, anything can happen,” Frey says.
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“Think of it this way,” he says. “Say you’re up against a Nius. They love to hide their explosives everywhere, so if you can predict where that person is going to place them throughout the battle, you can lay a trap for them. You can wait in one of the locations and let time catch up. The Nius won’t know you’re there until it’s too late.”
“I think I get it,” I say. “Is it possible to go back in time?”
“You asked me that before,” he says.
“What do you mean?” Addie asks.
“Well, if you loop forward and set a trap, can you loop back to your original point in time? So your opponent hasn’t realized you’ve looped, I mean.”
Addie and Frey look at each other, puzzled.
“You’d have to be precise in your looping back,” Addie says. “Otherwise who knows what could happen. I wouldn’t recommend it.”
We spend the next couple of hours talking about The Litarian Battles and who we think will make it to the event. I don’t
