Copper Beach

23

Grady Hastings was enveloped in dream fog. He reached out to her. “Help me. You’re the only one who can save me.”

“Please, you must tell me what you want,” she said.

“Help me.”

She tried to grasp his hand, but she could not get close enough. She tried to walk toward him through the swirling fog of energy, but some unseen force stopped her.…

“ABBY, WAKE UP,” SAM SAID. HIS VOICE WAS QUIET BUT freighted with the weight of a command. “Can you hear me? You’re dreaming.”

Somewhere, a dog whined anxiously.

She came awake on the usual rush of energy, dismayed to find herself on her feet, almost halfway to the door. Sam was standing directly in front of her. He had both hands clamped around her shoulders. Newton pressed against her leg.

“Crap,” she said. “I did it again. My own fault this time. I forgot to set my alarm.”

“What alarm?”

“Gwen said I should set a psychic alarm so that I would go into the lucid dream state if I had the Grady Hastings dream again. She said that strong talents are especially good at manipulating lucid dreams, they just have to focus. She told me that if I took control of the dream I might be able to find out what my intuition is trying to tell me.”

“So much for my theory that sex before sleep would ensure that you didn’t dream,” Sam said.

“Guess it’s back to the drawing board.”

“Let’s not be too hasty here. We don’t want to abandon the experiment just because we had one failure.”

She looked at him. “I thought that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome was the definition of insanity.”

“Ah, but sex is never exactly the same.” He pulled her into his arms. “Each time is different. I suggest that we keep rerunning the experiment until we get the right results.”

She leaned into him. “The dream was stronger tonight, Sam.”

He held her close against him. “Was there anything different about it?”

“No. But I have come to a conclusion.”

“What?”

“I don’t think there’s any deep, hidden meaning in my dream. I think the message my intuition is trying to send me is very simple and straightforward.”

“What is it?”

“We need to talk to Grady Hastings.”