"I know what you're thinking and she'll be livid if we do it," he said.
That caught me off guard. "If we get wiped out, she can still stand a chance against him. Maybe he doesn't know she's here until that last, wonderful moment. Then she jumps in and saves everything, fast as she can. She could even save us if it came down to it."
"It won't come down to it like that, Nishelle. And if it does, it's only because we've already failed. Cassie isn't going to sit quietly by while the rest of us move out to go fight the guy that helped raise most of us."
"No, I didn't say that," I said, readjusting the strap on my bag. "I'm sure James or Edwin know how to make chloroform."
"You want to drug her?"
I rolled my eyes. "Like you've never knocked someone out for ethical purposes. Yes, I want to chloroform her. And I want to do it because, like you said, she'll never agree to anything else otherwise. She wants to be in the middle of the fight trying to protect all of us. That's well and good. It doesn't work like that."
"A Blitzer has the best chance in-"
Glaring, I interrupted him. "In what? A fight against a Psychic and whatever Scribe is? I mean, he's the only guy we know of that's ever had those powers before. Who knows what he's really capable of?"
"I don't like it."
"Well, neither do I. But I think it's best that we get a move on. Think about it and tell me if you want to do it. If you do, I'll speak to Edwin and James, see if they can figure out how we can-"
My voice faded away as the world shuddered around us. Blackness engulfed us for a brief second, then dragged us back into the real world. I immediately pinched myself and flinched. Okay. Not the Dream. But maybe some sort of search wave based on it?
Cassie and Adam cried out up ahead of us. I took off at a flat run, trying to draw a breath as I hurried to catch up to them. Bodies fell and I was certain it had to be her, tortured and trapped in the Dream in that horrible moment.
She stood with her back against a wall, her head tipped up as she scrunched her eyes closed. I went to grab her, but Nate stopped me. "Would you look at what she's doing before you just snatch her?"
An aura of pale purple-ness floated around her, Adam, and several of the others. Their eyes were closed, their faces grim, but all of them still seemed to be inside their bodies. That was more than I could say for most people who experienced the Dream. Sure, your body existed but your mind left it.
Yet even as I watched, it just looked like whatever Cassie was doing wasn't strong enough. I didn't have any way to help her, but I wanted to. I looked back at Nate, who pulled me close to him and turned my head away from my girlfriend struggling to protect herself and those who were being dragged kicking and screaming, bit by bit, into the Dream.
Pain worked to pull yourself out, but it seemed to need to be self-inflicted. I wasn't certain enough to go trying to punch her or lighting her hair on fire.
But we were in Yarborough, the city of opportunity. The place where, when you thought there was no hope left, a superhero turned up and fixed your day for you.
A car trundled down the road toward us, not quite laying rubber on the pavement when it slid to a stop. Out popped the two people that I hadn't expected. Either Cassie's parents were more capable of survival than I'd thought, or they were here to wreck us. I walked forward, pulling away from Nate, but he grabbed me again and held on to me.
"If they're here to kill us, I want to go out fighting!" I snarled.
He shook his head. "If they were here to kill us, they wouldn't approach so quickly. People with nefarious intent don't do that."
"Fucking nefarious. You medical assholes can't talk normal, I swear-"
"Fine, if they were here to be motherfuckers they wouldn't run up on us so fast," Nate said, flatly.
I scowled back at him. "I didn't say I didn't know what nefarious meant, you prick."
"I know."
"Fuck you."
"Maybe later," Nate shrugged. "More worried about what they're up to right now. You ready to not scorch them into the dirt?"
Without another word, I yanked away from him again, and started off toward the Clarks. Cassie's mom wrapped her arms around my girlfriend and drew her away from the wall, whispering in her ear. I threw a sparkle of flame at them, letting it crash on the wall beside her. The embers skittered across the ground.
"How did you know where we were and what are you doing?" I snapped. Most would have said I was on edge but I was so far beyond that. Everything was a clusterfuck and, while I'd been trained to deal with situations like that, I was getting pretty sick of all of it.
"We're helping," her father said, offering his hand out to me. "Come here. I'll explain. I don't think you'll understand it all, but I'll try."
I eyed him for a moment before I came to crouch beside him. He cast some sort of weird indigo aura over Cassie's purplish one and spoke as he worked. "Allison's trying to drag them into the Dream with her. Cassie's fighting her off, barely. We're helping her keep things separated until we can do something a bit more direct. If we strike back at Allison, she'll know we're off on our own. She'll hunt all of us down like animals at
