But I couldn’t stop now. The floodgates had been opened, and emotion was rushing through me hard and fast. “Do you know what it’s been like for me?” I demanded. “I’ve been going crazy. Waking up from nightmares in a cold sweat. Having visions of Atreus everywhere I go. And all this time, I thought you were fine. That you had moved on, no big deal. And I was the only one suffering. Do you know how that feels?”
“I’m sorry!” Lilli cried. “I’m so sorry. It’s just… I’m your big sister; I didn’t want you to know what a mess I was inside. I thought it would make it worse for you. But trust me—I have nightmares all the time. Maybe I don’t see Atreus like you do, but I still think about him. The way he blasted you with his fire. That moment I thought you were dead.” She cringed. “I still wake up in a cold sweat and run to your room to make sure you’re okay in real life.”
“You do?” I asked, incredulous. I closed my eyes, trying to picture Lilli waking up as scared as I was. “I had no idea.” All this time, I thought I’d been suffering alone. But she’d been suffering, too. Silently, like me. Both of us afraid to tell the other what we were feeling.
“I didn’t want you to know. I knew you were having a hard time, and I was trying to be strong for you. For both of us, I guess. The last thing I wanted was for you to think you were in this alone. ’Cause you’re not, Ian. You are definitely not.”
Relief washed over me like a tidal wave. Not that I wanted Lilli to be hurting like I’d been. But to know that we were going through this together, that I wasn’t crazy. It was something. In fact, it was a lot.
“Look,” Lilli added. “I was wrong not to talk to you about it. We’re a team. We’re in this together. And I’m here for you. Anytime you want to talk, I’ll listen.”
“I’ll listen to you, too,” I replied, smiling through my tears. We reached out and hugged each other tightly. Maybe the first real hug we’d shared since we’d left Dragon Ops. And it felt good.
“Aw, so sweet,” Yano’s voice broke in, his three heads leaning into our two. “Siblings reunited at long last. Now, if you don’t mind fast-forwarding over the rest of the mushy stuff, we still have a quest to finish, in case you forgot.
We parted from the hug, a little sheepish. Then Lilli grinned. “Ready to get this show on the road, Lord Wildhammer?” she asked.
“Anytime, Mage Adorah,” I replied, rising to my feet. “All right, Yano, let’s—”
But I never got a chance to finish. Because at that moment everything went black.
I blinked, confused. Um, who turned out the lights? “Lilli?” I called out. “Starr? Yano? Anyone there?”
But no one answered. And all I saw was darkness.
Suddenly, there was a voice. “Ian! Wake up!”
I felt someone grab the back of my head. A moment later my VR helmet was ripped away. I squinted my eyes, realizing we were back. Back in the real world—with Lilli standing over me, an anxious look on her face.
“Wh-what…?” I stammered, trying to remember. My brain felt fuzzy. My body weak. Had we just been in Dragon Ops? No. Dragon World. With Atreus. Maybe Atreus…?
Ugh. It was all too much.
Lilli reached out for my hand. “Come on,” she whispered. “Maddy hit the breaker. It bounced us from the game. Which means the Mech Ops guys are here. We need to get out—quick!” She started grabbing pieces of her rig and stuffing them in the backpack.
Fear rose inside me as I remembered Maddy’s warning. She would only be able to hold them off for so long. Guess our time was up.
I scrambled to gather up all the equipment as quickly as possible, then the two of us stole over to the window with the fire escape. As we yanked it open, we could hear voices drift up from below.
“Where are they? We know they’re here,” insisted a gruff male voice.
“Who? There’s no one here. I’m closed,” Maddy protested. “It’s just me and my cat. You want to see Sir Leo, my cat?”
But the man wouldn’t back down. “We just want to talk to them, okay? We’re not here to hurt anyone.”
“Yeah, right. Then why are you packing heat?”
My gaze shot to my sister. Guns. They had guns? This was serious. What if they hurt Maddy while she was trying to protect us?
“Come on!” Lilli begged, grabbing my arm. “Maddy’s a grown-up. She can take care of herself.”
I wasn’t so sure about that, but what else could we do? I followed Lilli out to the fire escape and climbed down, trying to reassure myself that Maddy was smart. She could handle some stupid goons from a game company.
We dropped down to the street below, our gazes darting from left to right. The coast seemed clear, thankfully.
“Let’s go!” Lilli cried, running down the street. I could see the scrap of paper Maddy had given her in her hand—directions to our next safe house. I felt a little like I was in some kind of spy action movie as we darted through the streets, taking lefts, then rights. A few passersby gave us suspicious looks but didn’t try to stop us. Probably thought we were just dumb kids playing a game.
Which, we were, in a sense. Though this game had real-life stakes.
It was then that I remembered Dad. What had he thought when he figured out we’d taken off? I realized we’d left in too much of a hurry to grab our phones. Which meant we couldn’t call and reassure him we were okay. If, in fact, we were okay, which I still wasn’t 100 percent about. Would he call Mom? Would she have left work in a panic? Were they even now combing the streets, looking
