Sleep No More

THIRTY-ONE

My arm hesitates and it’s the moment I need to grab a tiny sliver of control. I can’t release Linden; I can’t even move the knife from where it rests against his throat, but I can hold it still, though every muscle in my body is screaming in protest.

“Charlotte, you don’t have to do this.”

I almost lose my grip on that control when I see Sierra moving quickly toward me. She stops when she sees the knife against Linden’s throat. I want to speak, but it’s like trying to force your voice to work after having the wind knocked out of you. When the sound finally escapes, it’s at a scream, “Sierra, help me!”

“Charlotte, listen. I know you think he’s stronger than you, but it’s a lie. It’s his best lie. He’s the parasite—he’s feeding off of you. He’ll never be as strong as you are. You have to cut him off and you have the power to do that.”

“I can’t,” I say in that same yelling voice that seems to be the only tone I can speak in right now. “Look what he’s made me do already.”

Sierra’s eyes dart to Linden. To his bloody shirt. “I suggest you don’t move,” she tells him. “This will be over soon.”

Over soon. Over for him or for me? Or both?

My fingers press on the knife and I can’t fight it as my arm starts to draw it across Linden’s throat again. I hear him gasp—in fear or pain, I’m not sure—but it’s a distant awareness.

Then I hear the click.

“I will kill her. You do this and I will kill her before I let you use her!”

I look up at my aunt and am terrified to see a gun pointed at my head. “Sierra?”

“I know you can hear me, Jason. You cannot win. Not today.”

Jason. His real name. Not a lie. For some reason that allows the tiniest sparkle of confidence inside of me to begin to shine.

Sierra takes another step forward and peers into my eyes. “Look at my face. Don’t think for a second that I won’t do it. If Linden dies, she dies. And if she dies?” Then she chuckles; a dark sound so reminiscent of Smith that I shiver. “I was too strong for you, and so is she. There is no revenge here for you today.” Sierra takes one more step forward. “If you try anything, I will sacrifice her to stop you.”

“Charlotte,” she says, softly now, “I understand this is hard, but you’ve got to jump onto your supernatural plane. He can’t fight you on two fronts and he won’t kill Linden as long as I have this gun on you.”

I don’t have the necklace. I’m not even sure how I jumped last night. “Can’t. Fight. Knife,” I barely manage to get out.

“Linden,” Sierra says, turning her attention to him now, “When I tell you, push Charlotte’s hand away with all your strength. Charlotte, get ready to jump.”

I grit my teeth and nod, trying to gather focus. What if I fail? Will Sierra kill me to save Linden?

I hope so. I don’t want to live if my life is going to be the hell I saw in Smith’s world last night.

“Charlotte, when you get there, you have to find his world,” Sierra says, pulling me back to her. “It’ll be in there somewhere.”

“I’ve been in his world,” I choke out between clenched teeth.

I see a flash of fear in her eyes and I can tell that wasn’t what she wanted to hear. But she recovers quickly. “Go to his world and destroy it. Smash it. Whatever you have to do. No matter how he tries to stop you. You have to destroy everything. Especially him. You have to banish him.”

She looks at Linden. “Are you ready?” I notice she doesn’t ask me. Because I’ll never be ready for this.

I feel Linden nod very slightly against my arm.

Sierra says, “Now!” and Linden’s large, strong hands wrap around my arm, still holding the knife to his throat. He pushes back an inch. Two inches. That’s as far as he can force my arm away, but it’s enough.

“Jump, Charlotte!” Sierra orders. “And hurry. He needs a doctor.”

To save Linden, I think and hold on to the image of his face as I let my whole body relax and I reach for my supernatural plane—wanting it, willing it more than anything I’ve ever needed in my entire life.

It takes so much will and effort to make the leap that I stumble before I even reach it and a second later, I’m sprawled on the reflective floor. But my legs are hanging off an edge.

An edge that wasn’t there before.

I glance back into an abyss of the same kind of black nothingness Smith threw me into last night and I scramble for a handhold on the sleek, slippery floor. I manage to hook a leg up over the edge and pull myself onto the mirrored floor that used to disorient me so badly.

I let myself look behind me for one instant. The blackness is deeper than my dome is tall and I can imagine it swallowing my entire supernatural plane.

I feel a tingle near my feet and then my toes are hanging over the edge again. I gasp and scramble to a safer spot and stare at the edge of my reflective floor. It’s slowly, very slowly, disintegrating. Falling into the blackness. The pit is literally eating my world. This is what Smith has done to me.

White-hot anger spreads through me. Now I realize how much of me exists in this world—how much this world is me—and the empty shell I’ll be if Smith steals it. I get to my feet and stride forward, looking for the door.

It’s more than a door now; it’s a wide, massive gate that stands open, sucking my dome into it. And then the horrifying truth crashes over me—the gaping hole behind me isn’t eating my dome; it’s the void left from my world being sucked through the door into Smith’s world. And the destruction seems to be gaining speed.

I look at the gate, and then at the darkness behind me and I realize where this is leading. Smith’s world will be the endless, powerful one; mine will be small and dark, and surrounded by the eternal void. A tiny prison in my mind that will hold me captive as surely as steel bars.

But Sierra was right; for the moment, I’m stronger. My world is bigger, and I still maintain my Oracle powers. I can beat him. I just have to figure out how.

I start walking to the gate and though it tries to retreat, it doesn’t have as much room as before, because my world has shrunk so much. I pause for a few moments, then, remembering that I can affect reality here, I look up at a scene above my head. I stare at it so hard my eyes start to ache as I picture a future where I’m fighting Smith—fighting and winning.

Destroy it, Sierra said. The scene rolls down and I see myself wielding a huge hammer, high over my head.

That, I think with a grim spark of humor. I step into the scene and walk over to myself. I take a deep breath and then step into my own shoes and wrap my hands around the enormous sledgehammer.

I lift it with an unnatural ease. I turn and look back out at my rapidly shrinking dome. “My world, my rules,” I say before tightening my grip on the hammer and stepping out of the scene.

For three weeks, Smith has been trying to convince me of the powers I didn’t have—lying to me about my potential, and underreporting his own. But as I step away from the scene, the hammer still clenched in my hand, I’m on fire with the one secret he desperately wanted to keep from me; I am truly the master of my world. Here—especially in my awakened state—I can do anything.

I begin walking toward the gate. But I don’t just walk; I glare at it and pin it into place. It’s not easy, but the gate stays where it is, allowing me to approach.

I walk up to the curled steel and raise my hammer. But before I can strike, a niggling doubt enters my mind. The door has been getting bigger ever since that first time I saw it. And my world has been shrinking ever more rapidly.

Especially since I broke the glass yesterday.

I lower the hammer. If I smash the gate, it’ll allow Smith to drain my world even faster. I have to go in and destroy his world first.

A deep grumbling inside Smith’s world tells me I’m right as I walk through the gate and, for good measure, close it behind me. Now I’m trapped in here until one of us wins.

His world is so much bigger than when I was here last, a mere twelve hours ago, and I’m immediately disheartened at the work before me. But it’s not only Linden’s life I’m fighting for—it’s my own, and through me, millions of people whose futures Smith would be more than happy to change. To destroy.

I heft my hammer over my shoulder and swing it at the nearest scene and the surface cracks like a television screen. The image inside distorts, then blackens, and I move onto the next, and the next.

At one frame I raise my hammer, but I see my mother, walking down our hallway. I hesitate and Smith’s voice is suddenly all around me. “It’s not like when you were here last, Charlotte. These aren’t simply my dreams and memories anymore. I have enough of your world, enough of your power, that these are all possible futures. Will you destroy this possibility for your mother? Remember, you’re awake, and everything you do in this world today will actually affect the future.”

I pause, staring at the sight of my mother walking and my hands tremble.

“I could help it happen,” Smith’s voice says. “Fund that kind of research with the fortune we’re going to make. There’s no need for us not to have a symbiotic relationship. I’m happy to compromise and negotiate.”

“I begged you not to make me hurt Linden,” I yell. “You call that compromise?” And with a chunk of my heart breaking to pieces, I swing my sledgehammer, the head plunging right through my mother’s face. Every breath is painful as the image fades from sight.

“It’s a shame,” Smith’s voice said. “In ten years that surgery might have been available.”

I say nothing. Lies, I remind myself. He’s never told me anything but lies.

The next screen features a figure in white, standing next to a tall man who can only be Linden. I hardly recognize myself in the woman beside him. His love has made me more beautiful than I ever thought I could be. Happier. Complete. I have to close my eyes as I bring the hammer down on this one.

Sierra smiling and happy. My mother and a new husband. Me at my favorite college. Scene after scene I smash until my face is so wet with tears I feel them sliding down my neck.

But it’s not enough. I look up at Smith’s dark dome. I’m stopping the flow of my world into his, but it would take me years to go through every scene he could concoct in here. This is nothing but damage control—I have to find Smith. I have to destroy him.

I remember the last time I was here. It may be his world, but just like he has limited control over mine, I have some control over his. Until one of us takes over, we both share my powers. I look up at the ceiling and focus on a new scene. A scene of Smith sitting in his prison cell. Only seconds in the future. The scene draws near and I raise my hammer again, but instead of smashing the scene, I step into it.

Smith sits with his head leaning against the cell wall and watches me approach with emotionless eyes. I know he’s here on the supernatural plane, which means that his physical body in the jail cell is helpless. Can I affect his physical self from here?

If I can make him regain consciousness in his cell, his projected self will have to leave my second sight. My hammer is still poised above my head and, reminding myself that I am nothing more than a compulsion in the mortal world, I bring the hammer down, aiming for his skull.

A hand reaches out from behind me to push the hammer off course, and I feel a jolt of success as I turn and see his retreating form. Not his physical self—the one here in the supernatural plane. The part of him that jumped here. When I threatened his physical self, I pulled him out of hiding and he’s here in this scenario with me, somewhere. He can’t leave unless he can get out of this scene.

And there’s only one exit.

The background changes and I whirl around, trying to look in all directions at once. His jail cell is gone—and the image of his physical self with it. Now it’s a decrepit old manor house with dozens of shadowy enclaves to hide in. Dusty mirrors to bounce light from and throw me off. There’s even a light wind to keep the ragged bits of curtains blowing—hiding any movement from Smith. It’s a perfect place for hide-and-seek.

He wants me to look for him.

So that must be the wrong answer.

I peer behind me—the exit isn’t small exactly, but it’s guardable. Like a little kid stalking the base in tag, I pace back and forth, my hammer upraised. “I know you’re here!” I shout. “Why are you doing this?” I ask, hoping that I’ll be able to home in on his location.

A laugh from my right, a window shattering on my left. “To break you. And you’re so close,” he adds with triumph in his voice. “Why do you think all the victims have been your friends? Not friends even—potential friends in your otherwise lonely, pathetic existence.”

I refuse to let his words make me sad. I won’t. I have to find him.

“Why end with the boy you’ve been in love with since you were in grade school? To break your mind and your resistance until you’re nothing more than my puppet. Once you let me into your head, I combed your past—found people you cared for, even if you didn’t really know it. This is all about you, Charlotte. All of them died because of you.”

It’s a lie, it’s a lie. Smith killed them. It’s not my fault. “Then why start with Bethany?” I ask, and I’m pretty sure that, despite the echo, his voice is originating from over to my right.

“To get her out of Linden’s way. Did you think he really liked you, Charlotte? Did you believe?”

My heart cracks in two and my arms feel weak, trembling against the weight of the huge sledgehammer. I can’t . . . I can’t . . .

“So stupid. Stupid little girl.”

His words make something flare inside me. He’s made a mistake. Now I’m angry.

“I saw you,” I shout. “The night that Clara was attacked. I saw you in your dumb coat running toward us. How could there be two of you?”

“It wasn’t the physical me,” Smith says, and now I swear it’s coming from the left. I turn subtly in that direction. “I was in your second sight. I snuck in your head and you didn’t even know it. I watched you change the vision. But, I admit, you did better than I expected, so once you started to lose consciousness, I hurried in to warn myself to leave.”

Of course he wasn’t saving Clara—he was saving himself.

“Why now?”

He doesn’t answer right away. The scene wavers and I realize I’ve found a weakness. I remember him saying that he fed off the energy from the visions I couldn’t fight. “I was getting too good, wasn’t I? It was longer and longer stretches between visions. You were getting weak.” And the logic crashes over me like an ocean wave. “So you had to do something big enough that I wouldn’t be able to fight the vision. It was the only way you could survive.”

“I do what I have to, Charlotte. You weren’t ready when I found you. You were too young. That’s the mistake I made with Shelby. With Sierra.”

“So you started killing people to feed yourself,” I say caustically.

His sigh is almost strangled. “I tried other things, but Sierra was a good instructor. I almost missed my perfect window. Old enough to have truly come into your abilities, but not yet sworn to the Sisters who might have warned you about me. About people like me.”

“You need me. You’ve always needed me,” I whisper.

He’s silent again and I know I’m right. He’s nothing without me.

But I have to get him talking again.

“Weren’t you worried I’d have a vision about you? Figure out who you were?”

“Worried? You have no idea how difficult it was,” he snaps, and his voice is less echoing now. He’s losing the energy and concentration to pull his little parlor tricks. He’s angry that he can’t get out. And angry that, at least for the moment, I’m winning. “I wore that mask day and night for weeks! I couldn’t even risk thinking about my killings without the godforsaken mask on. The only times I didn’t wear it were when I was with you. Then, if you had a vision about me, you would just see us working together.”

I step to my right again when I hear something topple over and break.

“I am never going to pretend again,” he shouts. “I will never hide, or run, or starve. Not because of her and not because of you!”

Then, from the opposite side, he’s sprinting toward the edge of the frame. I visualize the hammer in my hand morphing into a long hook. I nab his feet and he sprawls onto the floor. I jump on him in an instant.

His elbow smashes into my nose and pain explodes on my face. This isn’t my physical body, I remind myself, remembering the paralyzing pain of Smith’s blows the night I saved Clara. I can take it. I am stronger than he ever let me believe, I tell myself, trying not to surrender to the excruciating pain.

I tighten my arms around Smith’s neck as his fingernails rake at my skin. He flings his head back, our skulls connecting and, for a second, I see stars and loosen my grip. He darts away, gasping for breath and when he turns there’s a gun in his hand and he fires.

Heat blossoms through my shoulder and I look down to see blood. My sight swims but the sound of a second shot jolts me into action. I roll and he misses through some feat of sheer luck. I charge into him, throwing my noninjured shoulder into his belly and he brings the butt of the gun down on my back with a crack.

Once, twice, three times and I feel blood trickling from where my skin breaks under his pummeling. Every part of me hurts but when I hear the gun click and realize Smith is going to shoot again, I know I can’t simply avoid his blows. He’s going to kill me on this supernatural plane.

And the only way to save myself is to kill him first.

As soon as that conclusion gels in my head, I feel the long stick that’s somehow still clenched in my fist turn into a knife.

A very familiar knife.

Without hesitating, I swing the blade at him, hacking at anything I can find. I’m waiting—bracing myself—for another bullet, but my knife connects with something harder than skin, and Smith lets out a gasp of pain. The clatter of the heavy gun on the floor is the sweetest sound I’ve heard all day.

I don’t know how soon Smith can make another weapon. So I keep jabbing blindly at him, accidentally stabbing the knife into my own thigh at one point and forcing myself to ignore the sizzling pain.

At last, I tear myself free. Almost blinded by agony and anger, I jump on top of Smith as he stumbles and I grip the slick, bloody knife in both hands and bring it down to his chest where it sinks to the hilt. Yank it out, trying to block out the bone-chilling, sucking sound it makes. Plunge again. Yank, plunge, yank, plunge, ignore the tears falling like rain as my innocence is truly stripped away, and Smith slowly stops writhing, then stills beneath me.