“I will do nothing to you. Take him away.”
“No, no.” Tears rolled down my face. “Please, please. I can’t go on without them. Please take me. Please! Have mercy.”
“Mercy.” Claudette walked towards the man. She took his face in her hands. “I’m not known for mercy.”
“Please.” The man’s chest heaved. “Take me to them.”
“Claudette,” a very familiar voice called from behind. Claudette’s eyes focused on the person.
The bald man turned around past the dream me, and I finally saw his face with his bulbous nose and red cheeks.
Claudette smirked. “You’re about to get your wish from my dear cousin.”
The man turned. A dream-vision of myself walked into the room in a beautiful gown, my hair pinned perfectly back as if my stylists had made me over. The bald man ran over to the dream me and whispered something into my ear.
I stepped forward. I was angry then, angrier than I had ever looked, but not at the man. At Claudette.
I thought for the briefest seconds that in my dream I might kill Claudette, but then those hate-filled eyes turned from Claudette to the thick-armed man.
Heat hovered over my head, which was getting hotter by the moment. This struck me as odd. I had never felt anything in my dreams before. The heat increased, burning the top of my head.
My thoughts went to mush. The room dimmed, blocked by silver wisps, all mixing and swirling together. The ends of the silver blackened. Pained ripped through my body, excruciating and full, like I was being shredded in a million different pieces. I screamed.
~*~
“Waverly, wake up.” Greer shook me. “Wake up.”
It was so dark and I was so scared; I didn’t think. I flung my arms around Greer and clung to him in a terrified hug. The dream had been so real. A nightmare mixture of what I had experienced with Claudette and Bollard.
“You were screaming.” Disgusted, he wormed out of my hold. “If anyone is within three miles of here, they heard you. We’ve got to run.” He was wearing his black shirt and pants already, and I wondered if he’d worn them to bed. He backed out of the tent and called to me, “Hurry up!”
With lightning speed, I got dressed and out of the tent. Greer grabbed the tent’s zipper. With one flick of his wrist, the tent and the two blankets within folded down to the disk again. He threw it into his bag.
“Come on!” Greer had put his mask on again.
We dashed across the shallow river. “What were you thinking?”
“What do you mean?” My breathing hitched from our sudden sprint.
“The screaming.”
“I was asleep; I didn’t even know I was yelling.”
He knocked a branch out of our way. “Great. So I can expect this in the future. And what was so horrible you had to scream like someone had stabbed you?”
I ignored the question; I didn’t have a good answer because this dream was new and nothing like I had ever experienced before.
“Maybe no one heard me.”
“We aren’t chancing it.” He stopped running as the gently sloping ground became a dirt embankment. He threw his bag up a small rock ledge.
“Give me your foot.” I stepped into his hands, and he launched me. He jumped catching and pulling himself up.
We ran into the forest toward the hills. Light broke over the horizon as we climbed to the top. We viewed the small river valley where we’d camped.
No one was around, but it didn’t matter. We were on the move again and wouldn’t be stopping soon.
Chapter 25
Hey, Diddle Diddle
The rest of the night went by in a blur, and there was little to report. With only three hours of sleep, open cuts in my shoulder and stitches in my head, I was exhausted, but Greer kept us moving at a pace that made talking a chore. Even though there was no sign of the Libratiers, Greer wouldn’t chance us getting caught. We went up and down hills in figures that seemed nothing like normal directions to throw anyone following us off our track.
Greer’s attitude towards me was icy, but that was fine by me. The silence gave me time to think.
I had no explanation for the nightmare. I’d never dreamed I was trapped inside another person’s head, and not once in a dream had I ever felt pain. It had to mean something, and if Sasha or Mom were around, they would have helped me figure it out. But no. I was alone with Greer. There was no way I would trust him with the Merrics’ evils or my nightmare. The warm, calming feeling I had felt while looking at Greer had lessened. I didn’t know what to make of those feelings, so I chalked it up to some mixed-up emotion from him rescuing me.
That night passed without incident. No nightmares. Just a Cloverfield bar, a food I already disliked, and right to bed. We were up before dawn. Up and moving.
By midday, we were skirting an old and challenging deer trail up the side of a hill. As we came closer to the peak, the path narrowed. We clung to the hillside as not to plummet from the rocky side. Heights were never a “Waverly Issue”, but the idea that one misstep and I’d fall off a rocky ridge to my death kept my heart pounding in my ears.
By the time we got to the top of the mountain, we were both exhausted and tired and unwilling to go any further. The last few days of endless movement had caught up to Greer. Purple circles darkened his eyes, and he rubbed them often.
Greer set up the tent just off the trail in the center of a grove of thick brush. He checked out the newspaper on the cubox while we ate cherry protein bars. The reward for the person who
