Steven Harper - Nightmare

Dorna gestured once more, then vanished from the window just as Kendi wandered by. Ben grabbed him.

"We need to go outside," he said.

"What? Why?"

"Dorna." And Ben explained.

Without a word, Kendi grabbed Ben’s hand and hauled him outdoors. The night was a bit chilly. A dinosaur called from the forest below, a high, honking sound, and a slight breeze made the leaves rustle as if they were whispering. Music continued to boom inside the house. Kendi took Ben around toward the back of the house, and Ben let him lead. He was nervous, but a small part of him liked the fact that Kendi was holding his hand. Behind the house, the wraparound balcony was more narrow, barely wide enough for two people to walk side-by-side.

"Where is she?" Kendi murmured. He dropped Ben’s hand.

Ben said, "I’m not sure."

"Over here." A hooded shadow edged around the corner. "I’m here."

"Dorna?" Kendi asked. "Where have you-?"

"My name isn’t Dorna," the figure said in a voice so quiet Ben had to strain to hear it. "It’s Violet."

"Violet," Kendi repeated. He drifted a little closer. "All right. Look, half the planet is searching for you. Where have you been hiding?"

"The forest," Dorna/Violet whispered. She sounded scared. "Buck knows things. He’s built a shelter for us and he finds food. But I don’t like it. The dinosaurs are scary."

"They think you’ve been killing people," Kendi said. "In the Dream. Is that true?"

Violet’s eyes went wide and she shook her head. The hood rustled against her hair. "No. Not me. And not Dorna, either. Cole is the killer, don’t you see? He needs to be stopped."

Gooseflesh rose cold on Ben’s arms and back. The woman was completely insane. How many people lived inside her head? Animal instinct told Ben to bolt, put as much distance between this strange creature and himself as possible.

"That’s why I came," she continued. "So that you would know what’s going on. I wanted you to know that Dorna hasn’t killed anyone. Not once."

"Then why did you run away?" Kendi leaned casually against the balcony rail, as if he talked to total lunatics every day. Ben couldn’t help but admire his calm. What if she lunged for him, tried to shove him over the edge? "If you-Dorna, I mean-never killed anyone, there’s nothing to worry about, right?"

"People wouldn’t understand," Violet whispered. "The Guardians would cage us up, beat us. They scare me."

"Were all those people in the Dream your …friends?" Kendi asked. He edged closer again, and Ben wanted to warn him not to. "Buck and Zelda?"

"Zelda’s mean," Violet said. "Sometimes she helps Cole. So does Rudy. He’s the one who hit Ben. Dorna’s talked about you to all of us. She wanted us to meet you in the Dream because she likes you. But Rudy isn’t Silent, so he couldn’t come into the Dream. When everyone else was there, he took control and ran away. He says he never gets enough body time, so he took it when we weren’t looking."

Ben’s skin was crawling now and it was all he could do to keep from running for help. He didn’t dare leave Kendi alone, though. He tensed, ready to attack if she made any strange moves.

"What about you?" Kendi said. "I didn’t see you in the Dream."

"I was there," Violet whispered. "You just didn’t see me. I’m good at hiding. Listen, you have to make sure Cole gets caught. Dorna didn’t kill anyone. It’s all Cole."

Kendi lunged. The move caught both Ben and Violet off-guard. Kendi grabbed her arm and tried to twist her around in front of him. But Violet recovered with surprising speed. In a pair of lightning moves, she smashed her foot down on his instep and rammed her elbow into his solar plexus. The air burst audibly from Kendi’s lungs. Violet whirled and slammed her shoulder into him. Kendi tumbled over the balcony rail.

"Kendi!" Ben shouted. He bolted toward the rail. Kendi hung by one hand, gasping in pain and fear.

"Bastard!" Violet spat. "Fucking son of a bitch!" She punched a window and glass shattered. Screams erupted from inside the house. The music played.

Ben grabbed Kendi’s wrist. His back prickled and he felt vulnerable. Violet was only a few steps away, but he couldn’t spare her any of his attention.

"Give me your other hand, Kendi," he said. "Hurry!"

A cold hand grabbed the back of Ben’s neck and another hand put a firm grip on his groin. Ben froze but didn’t let go of Kendi’s wrist. Kendi swung heavily, trying to get his other arm up. Ben’s hands started to sweat.

"You stupid asshole," Violet (Dorna? Rudy?) growled. "Next time I see you, you just remember that all I did was this."

She squeezed hard. Pain knotted Ben’s stomach and a choking sound escaped his throat but he kept a death-grip on Kendi.

"One shove and I could have killed you, asshole," she hissed in his ear. "Remember that."

And then she was gone. The hard sound of shoes on wood faded into the night. Pain curled like a snake in Ben’s lower abdomen but he forced himself to ignore it. Kendi managed to get his other arm up and grab the balcony rail. Ben helped haul him over the edge, then both of them collapsed to the planks. Ben could do nothing but sit. He felt hot tears trickling down his face, but he didn’t care.

"All life," Kendi said. "All life, she almost killed me."

"She almost killed both of us," Ben said. "We need to get help, but god-I don’t know if I can stand up."

They sat there a moment until half a dozen sets of footsteps rounded the corner. Ben looked up. A group of the party-goers had come outside.

"We heard the window break," one of them said. "Are you guys okay?"

"Help me up," Ben said. "We have to call the Guardians."

Inspector Linus Gray was making Ben and Kendi repeat their story for the third time when Sil and Hazid arrived. Two Guardian officers had checked the house and a dozen others combed the walkways around and the ground beneath the Rymar house, but they found no trace of Dorna Saline. The partiers had long since left, and the house was still a mess.

Kendi watched Ben’s aunt and uncle come in. Kendi’s hand, the one that had hung onto the balcony rail, was scratched and bloody, though he hadn’t noticed until a few moments ago. His shoulder hurt. So did his stomach and his foot where Dorna/Violet had hit him. Or had one of her other personalities done the attacking? That seemed more likely. Violet had seemed afraid of her own shadow.

"What happened here?" Hazid demanded as he strode into the living room. Sil’s gaze swept the messy room, her eyes glittering with righteous disapproval.

"Are you the owner of this house, Brother?" asked Gray, noticing Hazid’s medallion and amber ring.

"I’m the owner’s brother-in-law," he said. "This is my wife, Sister Sil. We keep an eye on the place when Ara goes away. Now what the hell is going on?"

Kendi bristled at the man’s tone. He and Ben had almost died, and this guy sailed in here out of nowhere to yell at them?

"It’s okay, Uncle Hazid," Ben said quietly. "We’re-"

"You were having a party, weren’t you?" Sil accused. "And the neighbors called to complain. Ben, that’s just like you, to ignore what your family-"

"The party was mine," Kendi interrupted. "Who the hell do you think are you, anyway?"

Sil’s mouth fell open and Hazid drew himself up to his full height, topping Kendi by a good ten centimeters. "I am Brother Hazid Lemish and this is Sister Sil Lemish. You will show proper respect, student."

The words just fell from Kendi’s mouth, as if his brain had set itself in neutral. "So Mother Ara outranks you both. Must make it hard at family gatherings."

"Listen, you-"

"I need to finish talking to these boys," Inspector Gray interrupted firmly. "You can get the full story from them in a minute."