Stolen Hearts: Book 1 (Grim's Labyrinth Series) (4 page)

“Yeah, but she adopted me, so that made it legal. I get to be stuck with her. Besides, I never knew my mom, and my dad didn’t talk about anybody else.”

“Wow, they should totally make an animated movie out of your life! A real fairy tale princess kind of thing, you know? Except instead of the handsome prince coming to save you on horseback, you get me. And my old car.”

“Well, this is a Mustang,” she pointed out with the barest hint of a smile. “That counts, I think.”

Conlan returned her grin, conceding to the valiant efforts of his two-door steed. “So other than a post-haircut Rapunzel act, tell me exactly why you ended up diving headfirst out your window.”

“I guess it’s my turn to feel stupid,” Jessica admitted, “but I got in a big nasty fight with Faydra tonight, and then when I overheard her having a really strange conversation with somebody on the phone, I just felt like I should get out of there.”

“And jumping out of a second-floor window was the only thing you could come up with?”

“It was a really scary conversation. She said something about… never mind.”

“No way! You can’t throw that out there then reel it back in! What did she say?” Conlan demanded. Jessica told him about the conversation, watching his face carefully to see if he was processing it the same way she did. The problem was saying it out loud made it sound stupid. She ended with a warning not to make a joke about it.

“I’m not laughing, Jessica. This is some serious stuff. What do you think’s happening? To both of us, I mean?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“You’ve got to have some idea. Think about it. Something has to be happening that we’re just not paying attention to.”

Jessica wanted to tell him about her dream, but was afraid it would sound too unbelievable. The last thing she needed was to freak Conlan out badly enough that he left her on the side of the road, the tires actually squealing this time as he peeled out.

Oh well, nothing else has made sense. And nothing else has made him run away, she thought before telling him about the dream.

Instead of acting like Jessica was crazy, Conlan froze, his eyes watching the road in front of him without really seeing it. His hands gripped the steering wheel so hard that she wondered if it was possible for a human teenager to break it. When he finally turned to speak to her, his face had become a pale, smooth mask of uncertainty, moving only slightly when he whispered.

“You had that dream, too?”

Chapter 5

“What happened in your dream?” Jessica asked fearfully, her mouth suddenly becoming dry. Conlan reached behind her seat automatically and pulled a warm bottle of soda out of a paper bag to hand it to her. He looked at it first, holding it for a long time, almost as though he’d never seen it before. When he held it out to her, Jessica hesitated before taking it, relieved to hear the telltale fizz of a never before opened soda bottle.

“Well, you were there. And we were in a big room, and there was some lady laying on a table. Oh, it was your stepmom…”

“How did you know it was her? You only saw her tonight from the porch, and even that was from pretty far away,” she said, closing her eyes and waiting for the answer.

“I don’t know, I just know it was her. And there were other people there, too. They were pretty ugly-looking.”

“You saw them? I can never see them!” she exclaimed, turning and looking at him. She waited for him to continue, eager to hear about the people she’d never seen in her own dream. “Who are they?”

“I don’t know, I just had the dream a couple of nights ago.”

“So that was the first time you had it? And you’re sure you saw people? Huh.”

“Why is that strange?”

“Because I’ve had that same dream at least once a week for as long as I can remember. Maybe even more often. And I’ve never seen the other people. I could hear voices, but there were never faces.”

“Okay. So now we’ve established I’m special,” he teased, smiling a crooked grin at her that showed perfect but somewhat uneven teeth. Normal teeth. A normal smile, Jessica thought, unlike the constantly corrected and perfected faces that she went to school with.

“Oh yeah, you’re special all right. I have to put up with waking up screaming most of my life and still not having any answers, but you get to have the dream one time and you can see everybody? I want to know who they are!” She threw herself back against her seat and fumed, angry more with herself for her inability to see them than at Conlan for not knowing who they were. If she really wanted to admit it, she was simply jealous; why did he get to see all these people on his very first try?

“Take it up with the dream police, honey, I’m not in charge of these things,” he replied callously. “Where are we going, anyway?”

“How should I know? You’re the one driving! And apparently seeing people…”

“Don’t be snarky, it’s not pretty. And I’m pretty sure it causes global warming. I meant, I know where I’m supposed to take you, but I don’t know where that is. Does that make sense?” he asked, cringing at the idiocy of his own question.

“I don’t know,” she answered, letting her head fall back against the seat again. “Nothing makes sense anymore. But nothing’s impossible anymore, either.”

“Yeah,” Conlan agreed quietly. “I know.”

Somehow, Jessica managed to fall asleep, even though she had no intention of letting her guard down around a guy she’d just met. She must have been more tired than she knew, because before too long she found herself moving down the dark highway while having the dream again.

This time, she walked the same long, wet stone hallway, but Conlan was with her. She immediately looked down to make sure she had on more than just the usual thin nightshirt she remembered wearing each time, and was relieved to see that she still had on her jeans and her favorite T-shirt. She was still barefoot, though, just like all the other times, and was annoyed to discover that her shoes hadn’t come with her outfit even though the rest of her wardrobe did.

The voices were still there, but they were definitely pissed. These weren’t the confusing headless murmurs of her past dreams, but the ranting chants of an angry mob. The only thing that was different was Conlan’s presence. Surely that wasn’t the problem. After all, they’d invited him into the dream, it was not like she was the one who decided to drag him into it. Maybe it was her clothes? Were they that in love with the linen nightgown look?

As they walked towards the small light at the end of the hallway, Conlan grabbed Jessica’s hand. She looked at him wondering what had brought this on, but was confused when she realized she couldn’t see his face either. She just intuitively knew it was him, without seeing. She began to run with him, letting his hand pull her forward, but she realized he wasn’t going towards the light. He was pulling her away.

“No, we have to go this way,” her dream voice urged him. “They want us to go this way!”

He still pulled her, the voices growing in volume and intensity around them. She stopped for a second to listen, and slowly felt the crawling sensation on her skin of awareness: these weren’t her voices. They weren’t the hushed but urgent chorus of her other dreams. These were different, foreign somehow.

She took a tentative step in Conlan’s direction, looking back over her shoulder at the light before turning her back on it completely. She took a second step, and the light began to glow red. One more step, and the door at the end of the hallway opened.

Jessica screamed when a twisted, disgusting face propelled itself from the room at the end of the hall, coming to a halt only inches from her own face. Its serene death mask split open from the force of its raging, inhuman screech, tiny slits ripping across its high forehead and wide cheeks, letting rivulets of black ooze run out. It screamed at Jessica again as she took an instinctive step backwards, the black ooze flinging out of its wounds and splattering her shirt.

Conlan put both arms around her, reaching from behind her and encasing her in his arms before pulling her off her feet and into his chest. Instead of running away, his rescue launched both of them backwards into the blackness.

Jessica screamed and sat upright, the road still coming towards them under the wheels of Conlan’s car. She gasped for breath as she looked around, slowly coming to her senses.

The dream again, only it wasn’t. It was changing. It was out of control. And it had to be Conlan’s fault.

She looked at Conlan in the driver’s seat and screamed again. Instead of apologizing for falling asleep and startling him with her shriek when she woke, she saw that he was fast asleep, his head rolled towards his right side.

“Conlan! Wake up!” she yelled, shaking him violently and fighting the urge to grab the steering wheel. Somehow they’d managed to stay on the road, no thanks to the supposed driver, and she knew that turning the wheel could make them spin out of control.

He began to stir. Conlan looked around and blinked his eyes at Jessica, startled by the look of terror on her face. He sat up straight and turned to face her, still not touching the wheel.

I’m still dreaming, she told herself. I’m sure of it. This is so weird, but it’s got to be a dream.

“Conlan, what are you doing? Put your hands on the wheel before you kill us!” she begged, turning her body to press herself flat against the very center of her seat, bracing herself for the impact that surely was coming any second.

“Relax, princess, we’re not gonna die. See?” He held his hands up so she could see then started waving them in a poor imitation of jazz hands. “I’m not driving the car. Whoever is in charge of all this now is driving, and they’re determined to get us there pretty fast.”

“What are you talking about?” she demanded, still watching the road in front of them but trying to sneak glances at Conlan’s expression out of the corner of her eye.

“Yeah, sometime right after you dozed off, the car started driving itself. I stayed awake—freaking out, I feel compelled to add—and watched the whole thing. The speed, the steering, everything… I’m not doing it. The car is. So after about thirty minutes of watching my car do its thing, trying the whole time not to wet my pants, I finally fell asleep.”

“How could you fall asleep? This is insane! It’s just not possible!”

“Well, believe it. Because here it is.” Conlan looked out his window for a minute. “Has it occurred to you that there are no other cars on this highway? Come to think of it, there aren’t any road signs either.”

Jessica bristled, knowing all too well that this wasn’t some stupid trick that Conlan was pulling. She wanted to tell herself that, to make herself believe that all of her problems started the moment he showed up outside her window, but that simply wasn’t true. That wouldn’t explain Faydra’s conversation…

“Wait a second, you said you fell asleep?” she asked, brightening suddenly as she turned to face him. He nodded. “Did you have that dream again?”

“No, I was dreaming about my first dog. We were walking along the beach, playing some fetch, having a good conversation about what really happened to him. I knew he never actually ran away, despite what somebody told me,” he joked. He stopped when he saw the look of impatient irritation on Jessica’s face. Conlan let out a deep breath. “Yes, I was having the dream. You know, ‘the’ dream.”

“Yes, I know what ‘the’ dream means,” Jessica replied sarcastically, mimicking Conlan’s air quotes with her hands. “Tell me about yours.”

Conlan slowly revealed almost the same dream she’d had, adding a few details she hadn’t noticed. His dream hadn’t involved a giant floating head screaming at anyone though, which she questioned.

“So no scary face in the hallway? Nobody screaming so loud that some strange blood flew everywhere?” she asked, her eyebrows creasing in concern. When Conlan looked confused, she gestured towards her shirt, stopping when his eyes grew wide. He pointed to her chest, a look of horror on his face.

“What’s that crap all over your shirt?” he asked, pointing to the stains that spread across her T-shirt. Several of the stains had eaten through the thin fabric, and in two of those spots the skin underneath peeled like a bad sunburn.

Jessica couldn’t speak. She watched Conlan’s face intently, using the sight of him to block out all other thoughts to avoid having a complete meltdown in front of him. She focused all of her consciousness on just processing the expression of fear he wore.

Chapter 6

Two hours later, they still sat in the car, somewhat more subdued, more accepting. It was unnerving not knowing where they were or where they were headed, but they felt resigned to the fact that they were no longer in control.

“Okay, answer me this,” Jessica began. “How come you didn’t wake up like I did when we fell? What about all that ‘if you hit the ground in your dream, you’ll die in real life’ stuff?”

“You do know that’s a complete and total myth.”

“No, it’s not!” she argued, smiling a little.

“Yes, it is. First of all, if some guy had a dream he was falling and he hit the ground, and then he actually died, how would anyone know what he’d been dreaming about before he bit it? Logic, my dear.” Conlan smirked at the defensive look on Jessica’s face, knowing he’d won. “Besides, falling doesn’t bother me. I’m on the diving team.”

“We have a diving team?” she asked, sheepish at the thought that their school had activities that she didn’t bother to know about.

“No, it’s a citywide team. There’s a swim team and a diving team at the municipal pool. I do the ten-meter platform, the whole bit. It used to make me want to throw up just looking down from there, but now I’m used to it. And then I also work as an instructor at one of those zip lining parks in the summer, at this place upstate. They have rappelling and stuff like that, so falling from a great height just doesn’t get to me like it does to other people, I guess.”

They talked about idle information for a while longer, then Jessica’s growling stomach interrupted them. She pressed her hand to her midsection and smiled. “Sorry, I accidentally skipped dinner.”