Sleep No More
Page 35

According to this, to get to the supernatural plane you “jump” into the alternate dimension with your projected physical self. Whatever the hell that means.
It’s hard to get much more decent information out of the text. Maybe because I haven’t been there. Haven’t seen it. Yet.
That night when I go to bed, I lock my bedroom door. It’s becoming a habit and not one that I like. But my life is full of secrets now. Well, it was always full of secrets, but now I’m even keeping them from Sierra.
I lie in bed with my fingers clasped over the necklace, waiting for sleep to take me.
And waiting.
And waiting.
Sleep never comes easy when you really want it to. But somewhere in the midst of my tossing and turning, the blankets begin to envelop me in a distinctly nonrealistic way. I’m not completely conscious—more the sensation of being in a dream that you somehow suspect is, in fact, a dream.
I’m floating, no, more like swimming through thick water. And I’m reaching, reaching for something I can’t see. I want to get there so badly. I’m almost there and then . . .
Sunlight pierces through my eyelids.
I wake up feeling like I didn’t actually sleep. Rest, I guess. And there’s a sense of disappointment that almost overwhelms me. I’m not sure why. I didn’t get to the supernatural plane . . . at least I don’t think I did. But maybe I was heading there?
I’m pulling a shirt over my head when my mom calls my name excitedly. Which makes me nervous. I hate that this is my life now.
It’s Nicole. She’s all over the news.
But it’s because she’s alive.
“I just had this feeling,” Nicole repeats again and again to every reporter who asks. “My parents had just left and I had this feeling I should go to my friend Sara’s house. I knew I had to leave,” she says very seriously as her hands reach up to grasp her cross necklace. The implication is lost on no one. Her bright blue eyes are wide in both the horror of what might have happened and the excitement of her fifteen minutes of fame.
There would be no excitement if she actually knew what was supposed to happen. The mental picture still chases my appetite away.
The cameras continually go back to the machete, still stuck in the shed wall as police circle it and take photo after photo. The tracks where the killer rolled over the snowdrift are also taped off, though the police have said that they don’t expect to be able to retrieve any useful evidence from them.
My mom is so excited that someone evaded the killer, but I feel like there’s a countdown clicking in my head. Despite the fact that we headed this one off, Smith is right; we’ve got to do more. There was less than twelve hours between me having the vision and the actual event taking place. The few visions I’ve had and been able to track in my life were always days early at the very least. I remember when I was six, waiting almost two weeks for all of the signs to happen that I saw in the vision of Sierra dying.
I’d never had a vision come to pass in less than a day before this guy started murdering kids. He’s so angry. I shiver. I’ve got to get better at this changing-the-future thing. I have to stop him.
Back in my room, I pick up my phone to start studying the Oracle text again when it starts vibrating in my hand and I freak out and drop it on the floor.
Perhaps my reflexes are not quite catlike.
Linden’s name flashes on the screen, and my heartbeat jumps right back up to racing—albeit for a completely different reason this time.
I’m bored. What are you doing today?
I groan and flop back on my bed. For six years, I’ve wished that Linden would show some kind of interest in me. Why does all of this other crap have to be going on at the same time? I stare at the phone screen for a long time trying to decide the likelihood that my mom will let me out of the house at all today.
Not sure my mom will let me do anything.
*My* mom still has her security guy.;)
I raise an eyebrow and text back:
Can’t hurt my case.
Want to go snowmobiling?
It sounds like heaven. But seriously? I push the button to call Linden so we can actually talk in full sentences. “Good morning,” I say when he answers, and it feels somehow intimate to greet him like that while I’m lying in bed.
“So what do you think?” he asks. “My new machine is dying for a test run.”
“Is that safe?” I ask in half a whisper, just in case my mom is within hearing distance. I shouldn’t have to worry. I should get a vision before the killer strikes again. But I don’t know that for sure. Still, I would know if my own death were coming, right? It’s what I’ve been depending on these last few weeks.
“Do you doubt my abilities as a driver?”
“That’s not what I mean,” I say. “Should we be out alone with the . . . the murderer still out there? I mean, after the thing with Nicole?”
Linden is silent for several long seconds and I feel guilty. I know he likes that I help him forget about the killings, even if only temporarily. But we have to be reasonable. “I think my rig is fast enough that I could get away from anyone who might approach us. And I’ll keep us out in the open. Would that make you feel better?” I expect him to sound annoyed, but he doesn’t. He sounds like he really wants me to feel okay.
I chuckle dryly. If only. “It’s not me you have to convince; it’s my mom.” I stand and poke my head out of my door and look both ways down the halls before asking quietly, “What if I told her I was just going to your house?”