12.
My head spun like the tires as we rolled on through the night. It was hard not to let my thoughts just roll and whirl and go on of their own accord as we passed through small towns in Alabama, one after another, a neverending parade of Americana under the moonlight.
I wondered if Jamie Barton was okay, whatever hospital she was in. I wanted to talk to her, to ask her about this flaming angry avenger guy, but Harry had convinced me not to try. I was still toxic in this country thanks to my being wanted. Or unwanted, depending on your perspective.
The car was quiet after the conversation ended. Harry seemed content to let me dwell in my own thoughts. Eilish went back to snoring gently a few minutes later, her part apparently done. Cassidy even gave up on finding more detail, I guess, because the next time I looked back she’d put away her laptop and gone to sleep, hair over her face and her cheek against the cold window.
That left me and Harry, and Harry stared at the road, giving me my privacy—or as close as I could get in a car with three other people. I looked at him out of the corner of my eye for a while, wondering what the hell was after him, or what problem he was dealing with that left him in need of my help.
My help …?
Once upon a time I’d been capable of giving quite a lot of help, if asked. I’d had superhuman powers of flight, of fire—hell, I could even turn into a dragon if need be, though I did it very seldom.
Now? I could punch faces pretty well, drain souls through physical touch, and reach out to people in their dreams—
“Oh,” I said, a little tingly.
“Night night,” Harry said knowingly, a little smile perched on his lips.
“You could have reminded me earlier,” I said, putting my head against the window and closing my eyes. “Ass.”
“Knew you’d get to it in your own time,” Harry said as I slipped into the darkness.
It took a few minutes for me go into shadow, into the darkness, but pretty soon I found myself in a quiet place where the world, and the sound of tires thrumming against pavement, had receded into silence. I looked around, and all was quiet, all was shadow.
I was dreamwalking.
“Where am I?” a voice called in the dark.
I turned, and there was Jamie Barton.
She was wearing a new iteration of her costume, stylish-bordering-on-dazzling, and looking around like she was hunting for something in the darkness. “Hey,” I called out to her, and her eyes alighted on me—
Holy hell. She looked …
Terrible.
“Jamie,” I said, whisper quiet.
“Oh, Sienna,” she said, shaking her head. Her hair was wet, her clothing was waterlogged. It was also cut and torn in places, and I wondered how that had happened. She squished when she walked. “It’s you.”
“It’s me,” I said, a little tightly. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m …” she hesitated. “I’m …” Her eyes went a little blank. “Did …?”
I just waited, my head cocked slightly. I didn’t want to interrupt her as she thought things through. Having been the tragic recipient of a few beatdowns-into-unconsciousness in my time, I wanted to give her the space to come back to it in her own time. If she was concussed—well, comatose, now—she’d probably remember the event in question soon, but maybe not. I definitely didn’t want to prod her too hard.
“Do you know what happened to me?” she asked, blinking her eyes at me, brow furrowed in concentration.
I nodded once, hesitant. “Yeah,” I said. “Ish.”
She stared into the darkness, into the distance. “Did … did I just …?” Her hands found her face, and she touched herself, as though trying to absently recall if she was still here.
“What do you remember?” I asked gently, easing a little closer to her.
“Oh my goodness,” she said, quiet in the dark. “He … really kicked my backside, didn’t he?”
Jamie Barton wasn’t much of a swearer, so this aversion to saying ass was probably a good sign. Maybe it meant she hadn’t totally lost herself in the incident. Memory loss? Not fun. I could sympathize.
“I didn’t see,” I said. “But it didn’t sound good.” I sidled closer to her as she stood there in the dark. “What do you remember?”
“I don’t know, little bits,” she said. “I was on my way home, and—” She stopped, blinking. “Wait. What are you doing here?”
“I’m dreamwalking,” I said. “Helping out, you know.”
She squinted at me in intense concentration. “I thought you were in hiding. The law is after you, Sienna.”
It was kind of touching that even after a severe ass-whipping, Jamie was worrying about me. “I’ll be safe, but …” I shrugged. “I dunno. I’m curious. Can you tell me about the villain?”
She folded her arms in front of her, and water dripped from her sleeves, which had small tears in them. No blood seeped out from beneath, and I was left to wonder if this was her vision of herself after getting smacked around, or if her costume had genuinely had been torn. “He was hovering by the Statue of Liberty as I was heading back to Staten Island. He was all aglow with fire—I couldn’t see him very well. He just sort of … loomed there. Reminded me of you—you know,” and she got subdued, looking at her feet, “before.”
Recalling for myself the trauma of getting your ass handed to you unexpectedly, I knew the best thing I could do right now was shut my mouth and just listen, ignoring her conversational misstep. She didn’t need me interrupting in order to work her way through the … incident.
“He said something …” She shook her head. “Something about …?” She concentrated, like she was trying to remember. “I don’t know. About having to fight? It’s all a blur.”
“It’s okay,” I said.
“It’s not okay,” Jamie said, looking up at me. “I know what you’re thinking—you’re going after this guy, aren’t you?”
I took a breath. “Wouldn’t be my first choice, Jamie. Honestly …”
“You’re depowered, Sienna,” she said. “This man—he’s too much for you. He has fire powers, he used wind and water attacks—”
“Wait, wait—what?” I perked up at that.
“He did,” she said. “His hands were burning as he hovered there, he shot at me with powerful water, nearly drowned me, and he used wind to bat me around—”
“Those powers don’t—” I stopped myself from talking, my head was spinning so fast. “He had to have an accomplice.”
“Maybe,” Jamie said after a moment. “It was dark. Maybe I didn’t see them.”
That stuck in my head. What if this guy did use all those powers? Flight, fire, wind, water—
No. I didn’t want to let things get too wild in my head. Occam’s Razor. The simplest solution was the best, and like she said, it was dark. He probably just had an accomplice.
He definitely wasn’t an incubus stocking powers to use against others.
I shook my head. “Is there anything else you remember?”
Jamie just stared at the ground. “Is … is Kyra all right?” She looked up at me. “Do—do you know if—”
“I’m sure she’s fine,” I said.
“You don’t know that, though, do you?” Jamie’s eyes went wild, looking around. “You have to let me out of here. I have to wake up and—”
“Jamie,” I said softly. “Even if I break the dreamwalk, it’s possible you won’t wake up now. Your body—you took a beating. You need time to heal.”
“Sienna,” she said, stepping toward me, “my daughter. What about my daughter?”
“I’m sure she’s fine,” I said. “This guy, whoever he is—he’s the one who took down the bridge in Virginia earlier. He’s … targeting metas, I guess.” That sent a little shiver down my back.
“But how do you know she’s fine?” Jamie asked, just blinking and looking around. She was starting to get agitated, and I knew my exit cue had arrived. “Maybe he was after her and—and afterward he came for me—or tried me at home first—”
“It’s all going to be okay,” I said, “try to rest. Heal. And when you wake up, Kyra will be by your bedside, as worried about you as you are about her right now.”
She locked on my eyes. “But how do you kn—”
I broke the dreamwalk and sat up in the car, staring into the darkness ahead of the windshield wildly, like Jamie Barton’s accusing face was going to leap out at me, poke a finger into my eye, and ask me again, “How do you know that she’s okay?”
Because, of course, I didn’t.
And worse, I thought, looking around the car and finding Cassidy and Eilish still sleeping, and Harry glancing back at me, coolly, probably totally aware of what I might say …
Worse … even if Jamie’s daughter had been kidnapped, been taking by this super powerful meta in New York City …
I was in Alabama, at least a day’s drive away.
There wasn’t a damned thing I could do about it right now.
“She’s fine, by the way,” Harry said, and when I looked over at him. “The daughter. She’s fine. She gets mentioned in a news article tomorrow, by her mother’s bedside waiting for her to recover.”
“Good,” I said, but it sounded hollow, because … it was. A hollow feeling, empty thoughts. Kyra was safe; that was good, but … if she hadn’t been …
The old Sienna Nealon would have been there in hours, with either the FBI or her own agency to help spearhead a rescue attempt if needed.
Now?
Now all I could do was sit back, uneasily, in my seat as Harry Graves drove me on through the night, the thought of my near-powerlessness almost overwhelming me as I tried to quell the fear that rose inside me like the darkness outside.