They’d also blown up our mine and publicly taken credit for making the plasma cuffs. I trusted the government about as much as I trusted Ronnie’s cat.
“But I want to be with you…” His fingers trailed along my neck and I stepped closer to him.
“I just don’t have anyone else with the skills for this, Damien. You’ve run a billion-dollar business, you’ve negotiated contracts… it has to be you.”
He stood straighter, smoothing his shirt.
“I’ll get it done, but you get back to me in one piece.”
Leaning forward, I brushed my lips across his mouth. “Promise,” I whispered.
When I pulled back, I inquired about Josephine and Mr. Han.
Damien shook his head. “They’re fine, they’re off in town trying to find Jeremy mac and cheese and hot chocolate.”
“It is dinner time,” I said.
That caused Damien to smile. “Sometimes I think the universe sent me my brother so I wouldn’t take life so seriously.”
He was right. We were in the middle of a very intense situation and Jeremy needed his mac and cheese and hot chocolate. It was comical. And speak of the devil himself, Jeremy popped out of a nearby tent and looked around until his eyes landed on me.
He was holding a phone and beelined it right for me, bypassing all greetings. “So I found the lizard I want,” he declared, and my stomach dropped.
That fucking lizard promise! I’d forgotten all about it.
“Oh?” I asked, as Damien winced. He’d forgotten too.
“It’s a desert spiny lizard. They are usually in Arizona. So you can go there to get me one.” He shoved the phone in my face and I looked at the picture of a brownish lizard with teal and red under its neck.
“Alright, buddy, you got it. Just as soon as I save the world first,” I joked. I knew the joke would be lost on him, but he nodded as if he understood.
“Obviously, I don’t expect you to get it until you collapse the Dream War.”
Damien and I stilled at the same time. We’d both picked up on his wording.
“Collapse?”
He nodded looking at my forehead. “When they came here, the breeders… opened the Dream War and laid it over our own. When they leave, they collapse it and take it to another place. You are like the breeders. Your brain is like theirs. You can collapse it.”
Adrenaline shot through my body. “They collapse it? Are you sure? How do you know?”
It sounded like it made sense. It matched up with what the Galadrias described as well.
“I just know,” Jeremy said. “I’ve run the numbers. I’ve pored over your brain scans. I know.”
“But there are hundreds, maybe thousands of breeders that work together to do it. How can I do it alone?” I wondered aloud.
Jeremy looked at my shoes, his voice becoming very small. “You could do it, but I didn’t say you would survive.”
Fuck. The brutal honesty he laid out stung.
“Okay, bud, let’s get back into the tent.” Damien grabbed his brother’s arm and marched him off. I could tell he was angry for what Jeremy had said, but I was actually grateful. Jeremy was right. I quite possibly could do what the breeders did and collapse their world, but at what cost? It wasn’t something I wanted to dwell on right now, but it was food for thought.
Peering at the base of a tree, I smiled when I saw Master Aki meditating with his eyes closed. Padding softly so as not to make a sound, I tried to sneak up on him like I would when I was a teenager. When I got within ten feet, his eyes sprang open.
“Nice try, you clumsy elephant.”
I burst out laughing. He’d said the same thing to me all those years ago. “No one can get the drop on you.” I sat before him, knee to knee.
“That’s because you walk with your feet, not your mind.”
Another laugh. “You speak in riddles, old man.”
This time he cracked a smile. “Age is a privilege denied to many. I am proud to be old.”
I sighed. “I feel older than I look.”
He gave me a conspiratorial nod. “As do I.”
We sat there for a long few moments just breathing, looking around at the tall trees, no words needed. Master Aki was like a father to me; being in his presence was so comforting, we never needed to speak much.
“The boy is right. What he said about collapsing their world. You can do it.” Chills broke out on my arms. He must have overheard us talking.
But at what cost? I wanted to say, but kept that to myself.
“How?”
Master Aki saw things, like the future or whatever. He hadn’t fully explained how, but I trusted him.
“Right now there are too many breeders to go against you. You need to cull them down before you go for it.”
Cull the powerful breeders who’d just dropped acid rain on us? Easier said than done. But it made total sense. The fewer of them there were, the less power they would have. Hadn’t Jeremy said the same thing on Skyhome? I simply nodded.
“And, Kit…?”
I flicked my gaze up to meet his and saw unshed emotion swimming in his eyes. “Ending the Dream Wars will come at a great cost. But it will be worth it.”
What. The. Fuck?
Seven
After Master Aki dropped the bomb on me, Mrs. Tight Bun showed up. “My team is ready, and the president wants to speak with you.”
The president was here already? I hadn’t even seen anyone fly in.
Standing, I straightened my shirt and followed her to a large tent. I’d been on the president’s inner team, her own personal Dream War protection detail. She’d trusted me with her life once, and I hoped I could trust her now.
When I stepped into the tent, I recognized right away that Kevin was here, my old friend who was a makeout buddy but we’d never really took it to relationship level. He’d saved our ass by tipping us off to when the government was after us. When I met his
