Kay Hooper - Blood Dreams

"I gather that wasn't the non sequitur it sounded like?" Dani said.

Hollis was looking at Dani. Or, rather, her gaze seemed to be probing the space about a foot out from Dani's body.

"No. It wasn't a non sequitur. It was… completely on topic."

"Which topic?" Marc demanded. "On the topic of monsters." Dani forced a laugh. "Who, me?"

"No." Hollis met Dani's eyes finally, her own holding a weirdly flat shine. "Dani, can you shield?"

"A little. Not much, but-"

"Do it. Now. Concentrate."

Dani obeyed without hesitation, closing her eyes and doing her best one more time to remember how she'd been taught to wrap herself in a protective blanket of her own energy. It didn't seem to be getting any easier.

Through gritted teeth, Marc said to Hollis, "What the hell do you see?"

"Something I've never seen before." Hollis's voice was low, tense. "But I believe… it's not a normal aura. It's an attack of some kind. Someone or something is trying to get at Dani. Marc-"

He didn't wait for whatever Hollis had been about to say but instantly reached over with one hand and covered both of Dani's cold and tightly clenched ones, holding on even when he felt a jolt, even when she cried out in such pain that it broke something inside him.

Without another sound, Dani went limp.

Dani looked around, puzzled for a moment because there was nothing but darkness as far as she could see, and silence, and she had the feeling she was alone here. Perhaps it should have frightened her, but oddly it did not.

She couldn't feel a floor or ground beneath her feet. She couldn't, actually, feel her feet, and when she looked down she couldn't see them, because her body just sort of dissolved into darkness.

That probably should have scared her too.

It probably should have scared her a lot.

"No, you were always more comfortable with this sort of thing than I was," Paris said as she mostly emerged out of the darkness in front of Dani.

"I'm the one who tried to run away from it," Dani pointed out, not as distracted as she should have been by the fact that Paris seemed to have a body only from the navel up.

"It was the stuff out there you were running away from, the stuff you couldn't control. People, relationships. Emotional stuff. The psychic stuff was always easier for you."

"I can't control this."

"Oh, of course you can. You always could."

"Bullshit."

"To paraphrase what you said to Marc, that'll fix things-a good, resounding bullshit ."

"I didn't tell you what I said to Marc."

"Mmm. Never mind that now. Just remind yourself that you really can control this. Later, when you think about it, when it matters. Don't forget."

"What's happening later?"

"You'll need to know stuff."

"Paris-"

"It's all right, Dani. Some things are meant to happen just the way they happen. We both knew this was one of them, right? We both know that's why you really came home."

For the first time, uneasiness stirred in Dani, cold and deep. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Of course you do."

"No. I don't."

"I wasn't in your vision dream. Right from the beginning. Before you told anybody. Before you came here. Before you did anything at all to affect what you had seen. I should have been there with you, and I wasn't."

"So? It's one of the things I knew would change."

"No, Dani. It's one of the things you knew wouldn't change. That's why you've been so shut inside yourself. Why you've kept Marc from getting close the way he wants to, and why you even shut me out."

"I never-"

"Dani. The only time you let me in was during the dream walk. Not before then. Not since. Because you were afraid. Because you thought there'd be a moment, somewhere along the way, when you could change things. This one particular thing. If you were strong enough. Quick enough. If you tried hard enough. But that's not the way it works, you know."

"Paris-"

"Miranda said it. No matter what we see or what we dream, the universe has a plan. All this was part of the plan."

"I won't accept that," Dani whispered.

"Afraid you don't really have a choice, sis. Besides, you've already accepted it. We both have. That's why we didn't need to talk about it all these weeks while you were letting me cry on your shoulder, and cried yourself, about the end of my marriage. We both knew that wasn't the only ending we were grieving."

"Paris-"

"I'm glad you came back here after the divorce. Have I told you that? How much it meant to me that you came?"

"You didn't have to say anything. I knew."

"We always do, don't we? The best part about being a twin. All the things we don't have to say."

"There are things we do. Paris-"

"Listen, what Shirley Arledge told Hollis is right: He's tricking you. Look past the trick, Dani. You know the truth, it's there in your vision dream. Just think it through."

"I can't do this by myself."

"You won't be by yourself. A twin is never alone, no matter what." Paris was already drifting back into the darkness. "And you can do what you have to, Dani. When the time comes. You'll know. You'll make the right choice."

"Paris, come back!"

"It's okay." Her voice was faint and fading. "I've got something for you, something you can use. I think it was always supposed to be yours anyway. Come see me before you leave, okay?"

Dani listened as hard as she could, but she couldn't hear her sister anymore.

And the darkness closed in.

Sunday, October 12

Dani resisted opening her eyes for a long time even after she knew she was awake and aware. A part of her wanted to hide, to dive back down into the darkness and search for Paris.

But a stronger part of her knew there was only one way back into that darkness, and willing herself there wasn't it.

She opened her eyes. A hospital room, she thought. Dim and hushed, with machines beeping quietly nearby. There was never a sense of time in a hospital room, Dani had found; there was routine and order, but the nights and the days looked very much alike. Her own internal clock told her hours had passed, that it was probably at least late Sunday morning.

Which meant she'd been out a long time. She wondered with faint amusement what the doctors had made of her.

Somewhere in the building, a medical paper was probably being drafted.

She was distracted from that thought by the realization that there was a shadowy figure in the far corner of the room, but it was the closer presence she was far, far more aware of.

"Dani…"

She turned her head to see Marc beside her hospital bed, holding her hand. He looked incredibly relieved and incredibly weary, older than he had looked yesterday.

We pay such a price .

"How do you feel?" he asked.

Dani considered, then nodded. "Good. I feel good." More than that, really. She felt strong. Stronger than she'd ever felt before, and in a way that was completely unfamiliar to her. It wasn't muscles, it was…

Power.

"Dani… something's happened."

She nodded again. "I know. Paris."

He didn't seem surprised by her knowledge but offered details. "She isn't dead. At least-The doctors say it's a coma. They can't explain it. But they couldn't explain you either." He shook his head. "They're saying she's showing some brain activity, and as long as that continues, there's hope."

Dani knew. She heard the clock in her head ticking off the remaining days-or hours, or maybe just minutes-of Paris's hope. There was so little time left.

Bishop came out of the shadows to stand at the foot of her bed. "I'm sorry, Dani."

She looked at him. "I never thought we'd meet with those words, even though I dreamed them. Sort of. But I get it. You knew he'd come after one of us."