Marked (19 page)

I
was shaking as I tried to pull my sword out of the creature's head,
but I wasn't sure if that was because of the blood loss or if it was
just the result of coming down from all of the adrenaline. Either
way, I'd already lost too much blood.

Somewhere
along the way I'd ripped holes in the bottom of my tank top. Based on
the scratches on my stomach and back, I must have rubbed up against
some of the nearby thorns during the fighting. In a way it was a good
thing. The damage to my clothing was the only reason that I was able
to rip a section of material off of the bottom of my tank top so that
I could tie something around the gashes in my left arm. I never could
have done it using only one hand otherwise—the material was
just too strong.

The
whole process took less than two minutes, but I could hear other
things moving around in the jungle the entire time and my nerves were
stretched to the breaking point by the time I finally finished up and
pulled myself to my feet.

I
worked my sword loose of the creature's corpse and was debating what
to do next when a massive monster came crashing through the jungle. I
reflexively raised my sword before I realized that this monster was
glowing in much the same way that I was, and he was a spitting image
for Alec's hybrid form.

"Alec,
is that you?"

I
started to drop the point of my sword, but was forced to dodge to one
side as the hybrid before me took a swipe at my head. In its own way
that was as jarring as anything else I'd seen so far in this place.
Even in a dream it shouldn't have been possible for me to dodge a
hybrid's attack.

"You
won't be able to trick me that easily, Dream Stealer."

It
was Alec's voice. It was rusty-sounding as though he hadn't used it
in a dreadfully long time—or maybe as though he'd spent dozens
of hours screaming—but it was definitely Alec's voice.

He
slashed at me again with his claws and I was forced to turn them
aside with the flat of my blade, but once again he was too slow. The
real Alec, if he really believed I was his enemy, would have killed
me with the first exchange.

As
he started to circle me I realized that while he was glowing with the
light I'd come to expect from all living things, he wasn't glowing
like me. His glow was dimmer except for two brightly-glowing
spots—one in his chest and one on his shoulder. He looked like
a guttering candle, like he was just one stray whisper of breeze from
being extinguished forever.

It
was his voice that decided me. Either he was the real Alec and he
suspected I actually
wasn't
one of Dream Stealer's twisted constructs, or he was the real Alec
and he was truly that close to the end of his reserves. Either way I
wasn't going to fight him.

I
dropped my sword and watched as he stopped in mid attack.

"Is
that really you, Adri?"

"Yes.
I guess my ability must have kicked in again. You have no idea how
good it is to see you."

He'd
shifted back to human form and wrapped his arms around me before I'd
even gotten two words out, but as I finished he went tense.

"You
can't be here, it's not safe. Dream Stealer will be back soon."

I
tried to prolong our embrace, but he gently tore himself free of me
and picked up my sword.

"This
way. We need to hide you. I know a place. I used it once before. I've
been saving it for a later time, for a time when I couldn't take any
more of this, but it's more important that you be safe. He can't have
you, I won't let him."

"Alec,
you're not making sense. Isn't Dream Stealer here now? Doesn't he
have to be here in order to trap you like this? Hasn't he been here
the whole time?"

Alec
grabbed my uninjured arm and began pulling me deeper into the jungle.
"I'll try to explain, but we have to move. If we stay motionless
for too long the shadows will attack."

We
crashed through the underbrush as though Alec was completely
unconcerned about leaving a trail or attracting the attention of
whatever I could hear moving around still just out of sight.

"I
initially thought the same as you. I thought that Dream Stealer had
to be here in order to keep me locked inside of the dream. He'd been
torturing me for days even before I got shot, but I could never
remember it when I woke up. Something changed though when I was
injured. Before then I could usually control my surroundings at least
to a limited extent."

Alec
turned back to make sure I wasn't having any problems keeping up with
him and I wanted to cry over the mess the leaves and thorns were
making of his poor body. His shoulders, stomach and chest were all
deeply lacerated, but he hardly seemed to notice.

"After
I was shot, he pulled me into this place. It's different. I can't
control any of it, and the shadows—the creatures like the one
you just killed—are always here, even when he's gone. He leaves
them to make sure that I don't get any rest here, that I'm always
worn down when he arrives."

I
pulled on Alec's arm, trying to force him to stop and talk to me. "I
don't understand, Alec. How is any of this possible? How can you hide
from Dream Stealer?"

He
stopped for just a second, and the look on his face was the scariest
thing I'd ever seen. He was starting to wonder if he'd been wrong, if
I actually wasn't me, if I was just another of Dream Stealer's
tricks. Even worse, I could see a touch of madness skittering around
in the backs of his eyes.

I
held up my free hand beseechingly. "I'm sorry, Alec. I don't
mean to ask anything that would make you doubt me, but maybe there's
something that you're missing, something I'll notice that we can use
to get you out of here."

"Everything
has rules, Adri. Sometimes the rules seem inconsistent, but they are
always there. This place isn't any different. It's been hard to learn
them though because they are built on a combination of things from my
mind and some things from Dream Stealer's mind."

"So
once you understand the rules then you can use them to your
advantage…"

"Yes,
exactly. My hiding place only works because I understand at least
part of how his mind works. It's…"

I
stopped him with a shake of my head. "Don't say it out loud. I
don't want to know where it is—it's not worth the risk that he'll
somehow find out about it. Instead tell me about these rules. How do
you know when Dream Stealer has returned?"

"Everything
around me changes subtly. It's hard to explain, but when he's gone
this world feels like something I could have almost imagined on my
own if I'd accessed the deepest part of my subconscious. When he
comes back it's different. It's crueler somehow and it feels more
alien because it molds itself more to his will than mine.

"The
shadows, the creatures you fought, they are faster and stronger than
anything that size should be, but their compound eyes struggle when
it comes to seeing detail. They can see us because we are so bright,
so there isn't any way to hide from them, and they are great with
registering movement, but I've killed several of them with improvised
spears and if an attack starts out with my hands close to my body
they lose track of my hand until it's too late for them to dodge it."

I
shook my head in astonishment. "I did something similar with my
sword. I didn't know the reason why, but it seemed to have more
difficulty with straight thrusts, so I used that."

Alec
nodded. "I don't even remember where I heard that bit of trivia
about compound eyes, but it's been the only thing that has allowed me
to make it this long. I've been hunting them each time Dream Stealer
leaves and dispatching them as quickly as possible. New shadows don't
arrive until Dream Stealer returns and creates them again, so I've
been getting more of a break than he realizes."

"Aren't
you worried he'll figure out what you're doing?"

"Yes.
I'm certain he would if he returned to find a host of dead, cold
shadow corpses, but I don't kill them immediately. I cripple them,
wound them and then leave them there to die over the next few hours.
I figure that will throw him off as to what's going on."

It
was all I could do not to pull away from Alec's hand. I told myself
that the shadows weren't real, that Alec was merely doing what he
needed to do in order to survive, but it was still surprisingly hard
to push the image of him maiming something that
felt
alive and then leaving it to suffer.

"What
else can you tell me about this place, Alec? How far does it stretch?
Is it all just jungle? Is it ever day?"

"It's
always dark, there's a stone pyramid in the center of the jungle
where Dream Stealer takes me once he's defeated me each night. He
straps me down to a stone table and…"

Alec
swayed a little on his feet and closed his eyes. "Sorry, you
don't need to know the details there and it's better if I don't think
about those times."

I
wrapped my arms around Alec, hugging him from the side. It wasn't
much in the face of everything he'd gone through, but it was all that
I could offer him in that moment.

"I'm
sorry to keep asking, Alec, but what else can you tell me? We have to
get you out of here and so far nobody knows how to find Dream Stealer
in the real world."

"What
about Jaclyn? Has she found the Ghost Pack yet?"

"I…well,
the truth is that I don't know. That's partially because our
communications equipment was damaged at the same time that you were
shot, but mostly it's because I've been spectacularly useless since
Dominic tried to heal you and nearly killed herself in the process."

That
got Alec's attention. "When did that happen and what do you mean
she almost killed herself?"

"I'm
not sure. I've lost track of time since then. Maybe three or four
days ago she tried to heal you. She sat there for a long time and
then I felt this sense of pressure and heard a hum in the air right
before she stopped breathing and collapsed."

"It
shouldn't be possible, but it's too much to think it's just a
coincidence…"

He
was staring off into space and mumbling to himself in a very un-Alec
manner. I shook him, trying to get him to snap out of it.

"What
shouldn't be possible?"

"Time
is hard to track here too, but about the same time you're talking
about I felt this place change. It was the oddest thing. I felt
stronger, like maybe there was still a chance for me to outlast Dream
Stealer, but at the same time the jungle moved closer to Dream
Stealer's vision of it than my version. The next time I went to the
edge of the cage the bars were thicker. I think that might have been
because of Dom."

"What
bars?"

"You're
sure that you don't want me to hide you?"

"Is
there room for both of us? Will we be able to talk so you can tell me
more about what's going on?"

Alec
paused for a second and then shook his head. "No. It would just
be you there and you'd have to be completely still or he would hear
you."

"Then
show me these bars. I'm not going to hide away here while you
suffer."

"Okay,
step back—we don't have time to walk there. I'll shift and then
carry you."

I
stepped back and watched Alec shift into the same tired, battered
hybrid that I'd almost not recognized from before, and then l climbed
up and put one arm around his neck. He cradled me with his left arm
while carrying my sword in his right hand.

He
set out in a course nearly one hundred and eighty degrees opposite
from the direction we'd been traveling in before then. We made good
time. In fact, Alec pushed so hard that he couldn't carry on a
conversation and still maintain the punishing pace he seemed to feel
was merited.

I
wanted to beg him to slow down so that we could talk. There were
things that I still needed to know about this place, but that wasn't
the only reason. I wanted to talk to him just because talking to Alec
was helping to re-center me. I could now see just how stupid I'd
been. I'd spent the last few days pretending that I was getting by,
that I was doing what had to be done to keep the wheels from falling
off, but the truth was that I'd completely lost sight of the larger
picture.

Survival
wasn't enough, not if I wanted to save Alec. I had to do more than
just keep the rebellion from falling apart. I needed to kill Dream
Stealer, which meant that I needed Jaclyn Annikov to find the Ghost
Pack. Failing that I needed some other plan. I needed a double agent
inside of the Coun'hij or some hacker to find a way to track the
Coun'hij down. It was all stuff that I'd known before, but I'd let
grief over what had almost happened to Dom blind me to what
had
to be done.

As
much as I needed to talk to Alec and tell him about the rest of my
mistakes, I wasn't going to question his judgment about the speed
required to get us to the 'bars' before Dream Stealer returned. He
might be starting to come apart around the edges, but he was still
Alec and I would continue to trust him until I had positive proof
that he couldn't be trusted anymore.

It
felt like we ran forever. Alec went beyond anything I thought even a
shape shifter was capable of. By the time we finally came to a
faltering, stumbling stop, he was gasping and his fur was soaked in
sweat. He set me down on the ground and then collapsed into a panting
heap, but when I made as if to stay by his side he waved me forward.

I
almost refused, but after a couple of seconds I picked up my sword
and walked towards the rock face he'd pointed to. After so long being
surrounded by the brutal thorns and cutting leaves of the jungle, it
felt odd to leave all of the black vegetation behind me, but the
plants all melted away as I got closer and closer to the cliff that
had originally been all but hidden in the darkness.