Dreamweaver, page 3
I swung my legs over the side of the bed, raising my chin as I nudged his shin with my foot. “So much for being a ‘relentless nuisance’ then, huh?”
“Ah, good,” came Aro’s voice as he poked his head in the room. “You’re finished.” He shouldered his way past the door, holding a tray heavy with food, mugs, and a giant thermos. The aroma of coffee and baked goods swirled ahead of him, and I inhaled appreciatively as he said, “I’m right on time, then.” He plopped the tray into his grandson’s unwitting arms, ignoring Dane’s scowl at being turned into a makeshift table while he poured from the thermos.
With rising guilt, I looked to Dayja as she accepted a serving from Aro, thinking about her shift ahead. “Can you take today off? Sleep some?”
She carefully dripped creamer into her mug, shaking her head. “No. I’ve got too many visiting my office today.” With that, she grimaced and began to gulp her coffee in earnest. She’d need all her fortitude to get through the hours of essence Harvesting that she gathered from her client’s tears. It was an emotionally taxing job, which I was sure only Dayja had the temperament to withstand day after day.
Dane promptly leaned forward and plucked the mug Aro gave me right out of my palm. “None for you, En. You need to sleep.” He hid his self-satisfied smile at my grumbling behind the very mug he stole as he claimed it for himself. While I considered lobbing my boots at his face with full force, Aro saved him by offering me a steaming hot cinnamon roll. Crises averted, Aro inspected me for a moment before nodding, causing the room to thud as he sat heavily into a chair by Dane’s desk.
“Great work as usual,” Aro said. Daneon choked on his coffee the next moment as Aro thumped his back once with a huge hand, proudly exclaiming, “No specialist in all of the country could do better. You should really take Dr. Minnow up on his offer to mentor you, boy. Your career would be more than enough to fund me comfortably in my old age. Poppy Muffin, too, is going to need more luxuries as she gets older.”
“She’s not technically alive,” Dane pointed out once he had gained back his breath.
Aro pressed his other hand to his chest, clenching his frilly apron. “You wound me! Don’t say such a thing!” He leaned down to brush the white fur on his robocat’s body as she wound herself with a mechanical trill around his ankles. “Don’t listen to him, Poppy. He doesn’t mean it.”
As Dane rolled his eyes, I finished licking my fingers like the grown woman I was and reached for another roll. “I didn’t know Dr. Minnow wanted to apprentice you.” The Spinner that headed the surgical unit of the biggest hospital in the country had taken an interest in Daneon for a while, but to offer to mentor him was new.
Aro’s eyes sparkled as Dane grimaced, slouching where he sat like butter melting down a hot pan. “More than that. Minnow wants to partner with him. Make him the youngest surgical specialist in Knox.”
“You don’t want to, though.” I didn’t need to phrase it as a question.
He met my gaze levelly. “No, I don’t.”
Aro laced his fingers together and placed them behind his head, leaning back as he closed his eyes. “I’ll support whatever you decide, boy, but be sure it’s a wise decision. Don’t run from an opportunity without a good cause.”
Dayja set her empty mug back onto the tray, hopping to her feet, limbs popping as she stretched. “I’ve got to head to work.” With a few taps on her solarband, she added, “Since your bike is toast, I guess I’ll use the steambus. I’ll come back here after my shift, En. Stay here and sleep like Dane said.”
Lifting my eyebrows at her, I intoned dully, “Yes, mother.” Then her words hit me, and I jumped to my feet too, scrambling for my boots. “My bike!”
“There’s no saving it,” she called out, hurrying after me, but I didn’t slow down. The front door banged against the side of the house as I shoved it open, sprinting out into the field. I could see the wreckage glittering beneath a sky that threatened srping rain; just a smattering of metal bits that spoke of a chaotic introduction to the ground. Coming to a halt, I crouched to lift a piece of a side mirror, finding a fraction of my reflection staring back. I couldn’t help the miserable groan that escaped my mouth, thinking of all the work I had done to afford the bike to begin with and the complete pain it had been to do my job without it.
Dayja came to a standstill by me, breathing out misty gusts in the cold air. “I’m sorry, I really am.”
“Don’t be.” I straightened back up and chucked the broken mirror. Daneon drew nearer, having followed us at a calmer pace, surveying the mess with a placid expression. “The nightmare had it pretty crumpled before you managed to pummel it to death.”
Daneon’s head whipped in my direction. “Nightmare? What nightmare?”
Uh oh. Me and my stupid mouth.
Pressing my lips into a thin line, I looked away from him, meandering to the side, like if I ignored him, he’d drop the subject of my humiliating experience. He didn’t, though. Instead, he looked to Dayja and demanded, “What nightmare?”
Scratching the back of her neck, Dayja said, “Well, all I heard was En pinging for help because a rogue nightmare was—”
He whirled to me, pinning me in place with his furious glare. “Why didn’t you use your gun?”
Still acting like my mouth was glued shut, I barely moved my lips as I said grudgingly, “Because it... died on me…”
He blinked at that, his head tilting to the side, bewildered. “It died?”
Dayja stepped forward, an arm raised to offer him a consoling hug. “It’s all fine now. You healed the damage, and Cay was there to stop—”
Dayja may as well have slapped him as soon as spoke those words. “Molt?!” Dane swept a finger to me and then to the distant horizon, like he could summon Cay from midair so he could strangle him. “Molt was there?!”
I’d never admit to them that I was sulking, but I definitely was. Having to concede that Cay saved me was beyond degrading. “I do work with him. Sort of.”
Dane took a step back, his boot crunching over a piece of glass, drawing in a breath that shook. His voice was low as he said, “He’s nearly killed you before. How do I know he didn’t set last night’s nightmare rogue purposefully?”
I stared at him for a moment, puzzled. Gathering myself, I cleared my throat, hugging my arms to myself tightly. “I’m not forgetting what the jerk has done previously. But I don’t really have any evidence that it was his fault the nightmare targeted me last night—”
Dane snorted. We both knew that Cay was more than capable of such a thing.
“—regardless, I’ll just have to take my solargun to get repaired, see why it’s not holding its charge like it should be.” Glancing towards my feet at the pieces of my vaporbike, I added, “And I’ll have to go get a new bike.” I probably turned green at the thought, wondering how I was going to afford to repair my gun, let alone buy a new vehicle.
Dane set his hands to either side of his head, closing his eyes as he rubbed small circles. “You’re ridiculous.”
Bristling, I challenged, “Me? How am I ridiculous?”
He muttered to himself, his fingers were swiping at his solarband, drawing forward a screen that he tapped on swiftly. Then, addressing me, he said,. “Given the recent number of times of late that I’ve had to heal you, it’s obvious that someone is targeting you. You need to take more precautions.” Pinching the screen, he held his hand forward, drawing the screen ahead of him as he stalked my way. Before I could stumble back further than a couple steps, he took hold of my hand, pulling my solarband up, and dropped the screen over it. “You need to report him.”
The payment receipt for a new model vaporbike hovered above my solarband and I gaped like a moron. “What is—you can’t—Dayja, tell him he can’t—”
“I agree with him,” the traitor said, chewing on her thumbnail. “It’s way past time that you reported him and Anessa. They think they can get away with trying to hurt you because you refuse to say anything about it. It’s not a matter of looking weak anymore, this is your life they’re threatening.”
I stabbed a finger at the receipt, waving it in front of her face. “Tell him he can’t—”
Dane took hold of my forearm, fingers warm even through my sweater, and I stilled. “The polite thing to do is say ‘thank you’. And yes, I can do whatever I want with my own money.”
Dayja seemed to notice what I was showing her for the first time, and she inhaled sharply. “Wow. Dane, that’s very generous.” The smile she gave him practically shined. “Thank you.”
I grunted when she elbowed me sharply, then deadpanned like a petulant child, “Yes. Thank you.”
Rolling his eyes skyward for a moment, like he was praying to every deity he knew for patience, Dane decided to be an adult and let my immaturity go without a remark. “I can give you a lift to work,” he said to my sister. “I agreed to help with some surgical cases today.” We all knew that her essence Harvesting sessions were held in the offices that were mere blocks from the hospital center. When she nodded in grateful acceptance, he threw me a narrow-eyed look that was likely to warn me to behave and go sleep like I was supposed to. Then his long strides took him towards his garage that housed his own vaporbike.
I stuck my tongue at his back, hating that I felt like a scolded toddler. “He’s such a self-righteous, holier-than-thou, pious—”
“Those are all essentially the same thing,” Dayja told me evenly, waggling her fingers in the air as she drifted after him.
I spun on her heatedly, stamping a foot into the mud with a squelch and a metallic crunch as my boot landed on the remnants of my bike’s metal framing. “Would you stop interrupting my ranting?” Whatever she said to me in response was lost as a melodic pinging brought my attention to my solarband, alerting me to a delivered recorded message. Tapping its surface, I brought the screen up and watched as a grim-faced office secretary came into view, though I didn’t take her glaring personally; every office secretary that worked at the capital seemed to have resting-bitch-face as a job requirement.
“Enea Pell, Harvester Dreamweaver,” her flat voice said, “your presence is required at the command center at fourteen hundred sharp today. Report directly to Commander M. J. Flow’s office. Respond with ‘accept’ to notify your receival of this message.”
I groaned in dismay, dragging a hand down my face, feeling ten years older in an instant. Commander Flow was the last person I wanted to talk to. Ever. She had the special talent of making every single one of the members of the Division of Harvesting feel like diseased-riddled insects that had dared to bring our pitiful efforts before her, like sacrificial lambs at her altar. I still had nightmares about my training days with her, which Cay never spared to make fun of me for. “Accept,” I droned out.
As the screen powered down, a sudden thought hit me, and I froze mid-stride. Did she somehow know about my illegal essence-gathering? How could she possibly know about Dane’s healing me? But then, being a Commander, she would have resources at her disposal, wouldn’t she? Spies? I gave a suspicious look towards the hover traffic I could see in the skyline towards the heart of the city, like if I squinted hard enough the answer would pop out at me. Then with a snort I tried to shake it off and continued walking. I was being paranoid. Hopefully.
Still, as I neared Dane as he wheeled out his vaporbike, and Dayja, who was laughing as she spoke with him, I resolved not to tell either of them about the message. I folded my arms tightly to myself as I watched my friend take his seat, gripping the bike’s handlebars with the assurance of habit, and my sister climbed up behind him, wrapping her arms around his torso, fingers gripping his riding jacket. My beautiful sister. My tall, gentle-natured, sweet-as-honey sister. The vaporbike purred to life as Dane set a fingertip to the scanner and voice activated the engine to start and soon mist began to pool around his feet, drifting lazily in the overcast morning.
“You’ll go get some sleep, right En?” Dayja asked me, brow furrowed with concern, and I let out my breath, trying to force the knot that had formed inside my gut to loosen its grip.
“Don’t worry about me.” It didn’t count as lying if I didn’t exactly answer her, right?
Dane gave me a probing look that was concealed the next moment as his lighthelmet blazed into place, solidifying into a black visor. My sister’s helmet glowed a cheerful yellow behind him. His grip on the handlebars tightened as the engine thrummed.
I gave him the sunniest smile I could summon, laced with a deviousness I knew he knew me well enough to see it. “Bye! I’ll be sure to rearrange your room for you! It’s what nuisances do!”
He repeated the rude gesture from the night before, then kicked his vaporbike into gear with his heel and tore away in a cloud of mist, causing my sister to yelp and grab onto him tighter. She always had been a nervous wreck on vaporbikes and I was certain last night’s events hadn’t helped that in the slightest.
I forced myself to turn towards the porch before I could watch them merge onto the airway with the rest of the morning traffic.
I had a uniform to go wash and Aro to beg to mend it as best he could.
Chapter Three
In my defense, I did get an all-too-short nap before reporting to command. I stood staring up at the monolithic, gray-marble building, scowling at the chimera statue that snarled before the gigantic brass doors as I nervously tugged uselessly on the hastily repaired rips in my uniform that Aro had tried his best to fix, but even his talent couldn’t entirely undo the damage from the nightmare’s attack. Standing with my scuffed boots, watching others move past me, I knew I looked shabby, exhausted, and cranky in comparison.
Nothing too out of the ordinary, then.
The beads in my hair were warm against my back, thrumming with essence, and I detoured on my way to Commander Flow’s office to deposit the dream essence I had gathered on last night’s shift in the essence bank on the second floor. The chamber echoed with voices and footsteps, just as boring and dull gray as the rest of the government building, as I approached a vault scanner, setting my hand to the interface surface and opening my eyes wide to the iris readers that flashed a brief green light at me.
“Welcome, Harvester Dreamweaver,” said a smooth, automated male voice from the vault. A probe extended from the slick surface of the interface. “Please deposit your Harvest.”
With a sigh, I reluctantly set a fingertip to the probe, feeling the zap of it connecting to my bioenergy, and my arm’s vascular network glowed to life with my orange light as the essence stored in my hair beads was drawn into the probe, making me grit my teeth as usual in response to the unnatural sensation. I hated this. It never got easier.
“The government thanks you for your contribution. Your Harvest has been recorded. Your payment has been deposited into your account.”
The moment the probe withdrew, I let out a shaky breath, wiggling my body like a dog shaking off water, deftly ignoring the looks I got from the bank tellers lining the far wall. So what if I hated depositing essence? How could anyone stand the intrusion of it, anyway? Dayja had agreed with me when I mentioned the unpleasantness of visiting the vaults, but I had yet to see her lose her composure—or any other harvester, for that matter—over it. Suck it up. Let’s go. Running my hands across the empty beads at my wrist, I resolved to fill them again on my next shift and strode purposefully for the elevator. I was not going to let myself be late to my meeting with Commander Flow, or she’d be wearing my skin as a macabre new scarf as a warning to everyone else in existence.
“Oh, no. What the hell are you doing here?”
Anessa Molt, Cay’s younger sister, slowly lifted her head in response to my question echoing off the walls of the antechamber in front of Commander Flow’s office, looking picturesque as she sat in one of the high-backed velvet chairs, one leg lazily slung over the other in effortless poise. The stupid brat. My hands twitched to draw the dagger from my boot and hack at her deep purple hair tied into a sleek ponytail as she gave me a glance-over with her light golden-brown eyes and she wrinkled her perk nose.
“Believe me, it’s not my choice,” she drawled, turning away to look back out the windows that curved along the far side of the waiting room. With the capital spread out before us in the afternoon sunlight spilling across her dark skin, she looked far too like a queen surveying her kingdom to my liking.
“Then…” I halted in place, blinking at her. The only reason she’d be here is if the Commander of her Division—the Division of Spinners—had requested it. Specifically.
“Don’t look too upset at seeing us, or I’ll get my feelings hurt.” Cay’s voice made me hunch my shoulders and reluctantly look towards where he sprawled on his back on an elegant chaise lounge, his head resting on his left arm. The smile he gave me was saccharine.
“You asshole!” I exploded at him as realization came slamming down. I guessed now why I was called here—why we all were here. I prowled forward with all the intent to punch him into oblivion. “What have you done? You didn’t need to report me to—”
He sat up fluidly, tilting his head to the side, the amused smirk still on his face. That’d be the first thing to go when I hit him. “Slow down, sparky, I didn’t do anything.”
“Touch him,” Anessa said without turning my way, sliding a thumb casually over her sharp painted-purple fingernails, “and I’ll throw you out these windows.”
“What did you report about last night?” I demanded, jutting a finger at him, before levelling it towards his sister in turn. “And like you’d make the effort to break a sweat, you lazy silicone-faced—”
“Shut up, dimple butt!” she hissed at me, snapping her furious gaze my way.
“Make me, ugly!” I retorted like the mature individual I am.
Cay swept his hands through the air, placing them behind his head as he leaned back once more. “Believe me or not, I didn’t report anything. Whatever we’re here for, it’s not because of your incompetence in handling that nightmare last night.”
