Dream Killers - Complete Season 1 (The Dream Killers Book 3) Read online

My expression widened with dread.

  Dreams floated by on the face of the rolling ocean. I could hear voices over the roaring of the wind and the pounding of the waves against the ship.

  Jack! The man laughed. Not that way. You grip the ball like this. Place the tips of your fingers right there. Yes. Like that. Okay. I’m going out. Just see how far you can throw it.

  Oh my God! This was a woman. I couldn’t tell where her dream was, but her scream carried through the air like an arrow. Do you see this cake? Isn’t it the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?

  You look gorgeous, my dear. This woman’s voice was lower, more controlled. Do you have any idea how long I’ve waited for this moment? I’m so proud of you. Just so proud of you.

  Hundreds of voices, one on top of the other. So many visions riding the waves, overlapping each other as they passed by.

  The crew acted like they couldn’t see or hear a thing. How could they be blind and deaf to this?

  As we headed deeper into the storm, everyone worked with a lightened step. They laughed at one another, joked. They didn’t horse around, but their mood definitely brightened.

  I watched the rolling ocean. They might not be able to see or hear the dreams, but they could feel the hope resonating from them.

  The clouds opened. Rain poured down on us in angled sheets. The post I held onto grew slick so it was a battle to hold on. My booted feet slipped.

  The world still rocked when Bo gave the wheel back to the helmsman. He grabbed my arm and pulled me to the steps. “Come on, River. Follow me!”

  The rocky seas tossed me. I stumbled. His steps were firm and solid. How could he walk in this?

  “Release the net!”

  The command was repeated along the deck.

  A net about nine feet square was dragged out to hover over the sea. Ropes were tied to each of the four corners, and as the ocean waters touched it, it flared a bright blue.

  My stomach twisted and the muscles in my already tight shoulders contracted.

  Bo nodded and the net dropped.

  I ran to the railing, every instinct in me shouting that something about this was bad, that something was wrong.

  He stood next to me as the ship bucked. “They’re abandoned dreams, Riv. They’re fine. We’re doing the sea a favor, making room for more of them.”

  I stared up at him. The rain fell and the spray from the ocean beat at me. Everything was so loud. The water. The wind. The men. The dreams.

  Something hushed, as if I could sense one voice being silenced.

  How? How could I hear one voice in all of that being quieted? And why? Why would I hear that?

  Save them.

  Right. Which them? Bo or the dreams?

  What was Bo doing with them?

  The ropes on the net tightened, jerked and the entire ship heaved to the one side.

  “Bring her up!”

  The men at the ropes fought whatever was caught in the net. Eventually, it was reeled in, water cascading from it as it dangled high overhead.

  Tiny balls danced inside. I couldn’t hear anything from inside the net, couldn’t see anything more than bubbles of water.

  But the fear. The terror radiating from it froze me. Every muscle refused to move, like my body didn’t know what to do, where to go, how to react. My mind stopped working. My heart felt like a rock sitting in the lower regions of my stomach.

  “Bo?” I let out a breath and took a jerked step toward the net. “What are you doing?”

  He grinned. “Just wait and see, Riv. Just wait and see.”

  The net drooped at the center of the ship like a hanging man waiting to die.

  I stood under it, my ear tipped upward, listening. I closed my eyes to the raging storm.

  I can’t do this. I can’t be trapped. I need to get out. I need to get out!

  The man’s voice rose as his tirade continued. I didn’t know what it was he dreamt about. He repeated the same thing over and over.

  Somebody, please help me, a female voice said. Let me go. Let me have my dreams back.

  Dreams? As in plural? I stared up at the net, looking at the bubble, trying to penetrate it somehow, see through it.

  Bo shouted orders from the helm. The ship shook, groaned. Something splintered beside me.

  Then the storm was gone. Blue sky and bright light shot at us. I raised my hand to shield my eyes. Had Bo just teleported a ship using Place?

  He came walked down the steps, his eyes on the prize. “The dreams like you. I’ve never had such an easy time of it. They practically jumped into the net.”

  I couldn’t believe I was a part of this. He couldn’t either, could he?

  “They’re discarded dreams, Riv. They’ve been abandoned. Like us.”

  Something was wrong.

  “I’m doing nothing more than taking trash and re-using it.”

  Energy shot down my arm and I clenched my hand. “Those dreams out there don’t feel forgotten.”

  He let out a sigh. “Come on. I’ll show you. We’re helping the forgotten people, Riv.” He looked up and shouted, “Do you see them yet, Mr. Levee?”

  “Aye, Cap’n! Portside. Just like you said she’d be.”

  Bo wrapped an arm around my shoulders, giving them a shake as we walked. “Come along, my young apprentice. We have people to save.”

  “Save?”

  Bo gestured to the net with this other hand. He released me and continued to the other rail.

  I followed, dodging the crew as they scrambled to trim the sail, folding them into place along the trestles.

  “Weigh anchor, Mr. Levee.”

  A plume of white smoke rose in the air. A river boat sat at the mouth of a wide river, steam billowing from its wide, red chimney. The large, white wheel at the back was still.

  “What ho, Captain Bo,” a man shouted from the dead boat.

  Bo waved. “I received your distress signal, Cable. Didn’t I just save you not too long ago?”

  The two boats settled close to one another, the river boat much lower and dwarfed. A man in a black suit stood on the red, flat roof gripping the lapels of his jacket. A black Stetson rode his head, creating a shadow on his face. “Over a year ago, Bo. I’m not wasting power.”

  A boat was lowered by ropes near us.

  Mr. Levee waited beside it, the net in his arms. He handed it to the captain like it was any other day.

  Don’t let them kill me! the male dreamer screamed.

  I jerked, every hair on the back of my arms raised. Hadn’t anyone else heard that?

  By their carefree smiles, the obvious answer was no.

  Bo leapt into the boat with a small crew and tucked the net under the floorboards beside him. “Are you coming, Riv?”

  Bile laced the back of my throat. I clambered onto the rail and launched myself at the boat. My right foot caught the edge of a bench seat, sending me to the bottom. My left foot landed on someone else’s foot as the boat swayed on the ropes. I fell forward, one hand catching the edge of the dinghy while the other landed on air. My cheekbone connected with hard wood.

  The sailors laughed.

  Bo shook his head, the corner of his lips raising. “You’ll get your sea legs yet.”

  I pushed myself into a seated position, my face flaming with embarrassment.

  We were lowered into the water and the men rowed us toward the riverboat.

  The same man that had been on the roof moments before was at the landing area at the front. He offered the captain a hand. “You know where the engine is.”

  “As long as it hasn’t moved.” Bo turned and took the net from one of the men in the boat. “Are you coming, Riv?” He headed below decks.

  This ship was made of metal. It smelled and sounded different.

  “Bo, what are we doing here?”

  He ignored my question and stepped into a room filled with equipment whose names came to me sluggishly. Engine. Compressor. Boiler.

  Bo took the net to the engine and
untied the knot. With one hand on the silent motor, he reached into the net. “I’ve never had a haul like this before, Riv. Look at all of them. We could eat for a year from this haul.”

  Ghost hands reached up, clawing their way out of the net.

  Bo grasped one of them and pulled.

  It screamed.

  My throat closed, my shoulders tensed. The bottom of my stomach fell. I ran toward the net.

  Bo touched the dream to the motor.

  Light exploded around me, shattering my reality.

  A man walked through a broken neighborhood. A boy bounced a basketball. A car rumbled by. A dance studio. The man danced, pouring his heart into his body as he moved to the music in a way I never knew was possible.

  Everything shifted. Something became lost. He danced, leapt and pounded backwards. The car rumbled in reverse. The basketball jumped to the boy’s hand. The man retracted his steps.

  Fast forward.

  The man sat at a computer, took notes, and punched numbers on a calculator. Paper piled around him like trash. Numbers, dollar signs, and decimal points littered the air like the bars of a cage.

  My chest tightened. I couldn’t breathe. I had to get out. Get out.

  And do what? Accounting was the only thing I was good at. No wife to call my own. No kids. Not even a cat. I belonged to no one. I was a nothing. I existed for numbers.

  These damn numbers. These damn dollar signs. These damn decimal points. On and on. Never meaning anything. Where was the heart? Where was the purpose? Where had hope gone? Where had life disappeared to?

  Paper scattered. The dollar signs and decimal points floated from the air, falling to the floor with dull thuds.

  The man hung from a rope, his chair kicked out, his neck bent at an odd angle. He gasped for breath, but his fingers remained listless at his side.

  My life became a jail. I would rather die than live it.

  The motor roared to life, filling the room with overwhelming noise, breaking me from the dream.

  The dreams weren’t dead. None of them were. They were alive.

  Bo reached into the net again. This dream glowed brighter than the other had, was bigger, stronger.

  Help me, a female voice cried out. I can’t fight him without this.

  With it came the faces of two little girls, one dark-haired, the other blonde, their eyes big. Save us, Riv. Don’t let him take us away from her.

  I frowned and for one moment the world seemed to stand still.

  She won’t survive losing us again, Riv. Don’t let our mom die twice.

  I breathed, the emotions overwhelming me.

  We’re alive, River. We’re alive. She didn’t abandon us. Don’t let her go. Not like this.

  I stared at Bo stuck in the motion of applying the female’s dream to the motor. What was I supposed to do? My mind scrambled.

  Save them.

  I grabbed the dream, and pulled, tugging at the net with my other hand. The dream latched onto me. Desperation saturated my muscles. We broke free. I called on Place and teleported to the top of the stairs.

  Bo stood and frowned at me in disbelief.

  Behind him, the motor stopped.

  The man whose dream Bo had fed to the motor was dead.

  I knew what I had to do.

  I had to protect the net.

  I RAN.

  The boat was small, though, so I had nowhere to run to. I stood on the lower deck, searching for a place to go, to hide.

  Men and women in fancy outfits reminiscent of The Gambler mingled on the deck above me. A few of them looked down, but no one said anything.

  Mr. Levee frowned at me. “Oy! Boy! Why’s the motor off with you holding the net?”

  My heart raced. Where was I going? What was I thinking? I had to protect the net and the dreams trapped inside. Did I have a dream thumping clue what that meant?

  No.

  With a shore so close, I could escape to the land. It was too far away travel by Place, but I could use the boat to get me closer. I could hide the net there. That was something. Right?

  I rushed the sailors in the dinghy.

  Two of the sailors fell into the water, flailing and sputtering.

  I pulled out my knife, my feet fumbling in the rocking boat. I couldn’t find my footing with the boat moving and my feet tangling with the planks.

  “Riv,” Captain Bo roared behind me.

  Mr. Levee stared at me, his hands low. “Boy, just hand over the net.”

  My vision softened. I wiped my eyes with the back of the hand holding the knife.

  “Riv.” Booted footsteps thudded across the metal deck.

  I licked my lips, my fingers flexing around the net.

  My name is Bess. Don’t let me die. Don’t let my dreams die.

  Bile rose in the back of my mouth. I blinked, my muscles tight. This wasn’t working. They were all much better on the boats than I was. I needed another way out. Now.

  The footsteps stopped.

  Mr. Levee looked behind me and nodded, diving into the sea.

  The boat steadied.

  “Riv, let’s talk about this.” Bo stood right behind me.

  I took a step to see him better, but the boat rocked dangerously.

  “What are you thinking? What are you doing?”

  I couldn’t stand there with my back to him. I had to face him. My knees bent, I turned, my arms out to keep me balanced.

  He narrowed his eyes, one hand out. “What’s going on here? What’s going through your mind?”

  “They’re not abandoned, Bo.” Maybe if I could just get him to understand. “He died. That dreamer died and you killed him.”

  He smiled and bowed his head, his face disappearing underneath his brim. “No. That’s not what happened. Your imagination is running away with you.”

  “You’re killing them, Bo! Killing the dreamers that dream them. And for what? A motor?”

  “What nonsense is this boy prattling on about?” Cable demanded, coming up behind the captain.

  Bo waved him off. “Would you rather leave these people stranded? Do you have any idea what that means? What you’re condemning them to?”

  “You said yourself that if they’re sailing the sea, they came from it.” Who did I want to protect more? A dreamer I’d never met or people standing right in front of me?

  That question wasn’t even worth asking.

  “To be a nightmare off-cast.” Bo raised his chin, watching me out of the corner of his eye. “Would you keep them to the shore? And how would they survive?”

  “Not by killing dreams. They can find another way. You can find another way.”

  His lips flattened along his teeth as he exhaled a long breath, his hands flexing. “We’re trapped here, Riv. We’ve no place else to go. There is no Hell, no Heaven, not for us. We just have this.”

  “Then find a way to live without destroying the thing that makes this universe what it is.”

  A woman on the deck above barked with laughter. “Universe. What a deranged, little boy.”

  I raised my head to see her better, my right ear ringing. “Dreamland’s much bigger than just one land, one sea.” I shifted my attention back to the captain. “Please stop this.”

  The muscles in his neck strained. “I protect the people Dreamland forgot!”

  I jerked back from the force of his rage. The hand holding the knife shook. What was I doing?

  “Boy, give me back the net. It does not belong to you.”

  Energy surged from the net in growing lines of light, crawling up my arm, over my shoulder and then down, seeping into my chest. My muscles spasmed and then relaxed. My heart rate slowed. I’d been awakened from the Sea of Dreams for this. And I knew what I had to do.

  Bo’s eyes widened as he reached forward, taking a running leap at me.

  I smiled, filled with the light of the dreams I’d been born from. I opened my arms and fell backward.

  Back into the sea. The water swirled around me. Whispers rea
ched my ears, dreams of hope.

  A swirl of bubbles dove into the water beside me. Bo pulled himself through them, his expression firm and intent. He sliced through the water with well-practiced ease.

  I, on the other hand, had no idea how to swim. My senses returned to me in an instant. Panic pounded at me. I dropped my knife, clawing for the surface, for air to breathe. The hand holding the net let go.

  A ghost hand latched onto me. The dreamer’s entire sense of being—her Who—swept through me, moments flashing before my eyes.

  A baby in my arms, my heart so full of love and warmth and terror.

  A hand at my throat, the cold refrigerator at my back. A woman’s face filling my line of vision, her round features twisted with a snarl.

  Pain lancing my arm, elbow and shoulder.

  Fatigue. Endless fatigue. Driving. A repeated mantra, Just one more week, and then I’m bringing my baby home to me.

  Overwhelming failure.

  A man’s arms holding me close, telling me that he’d take care of me and my daughter.

  Sharp teeth sinking into my neck.

  A baby’s feet digging into my diaphragm.

  My body wracked with sobs as I held my second baby girl, knowing I would fail her as I’d failed before, knowing we were trapped.

  Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. Fear. Fear. Fear.

  The eyes of two little girls as they looked at me and told me they wished I’d simply disappear, that they never loved me, hated everything there was about me.

  This way, Bess’ voice said, dragging me back into the moment. We’ll be safe this way.

  The net pulled me deeper into the darkness of the water. My skull filled with pressure. My lungs were about to burst. I needed air.

  Something slithered out of the black depths of the ocean. Long tentacles pushed with amazing speed, almost like a bullet. It stopped in front of me. Fluorescent pink hair billowed around a human female torso. She turned, her hair streaming behind her, and hit Bo in the chest with a clawed hand.

  She twisted back to me. A shard of light caught her eyes. Blue with specs of glittering brown. Ruby scales lined her cheekbones and the gills along her cheeks and neck. She tipped her head, her squid-body twisting behind her. Her eyes dropped to the net and then shot back up at me.

  My lungs ceased to burn. The pressure. My body relaxed, my mouth falling open. I took in a deep breath, my eyes closing.