Alex sighed. "Why is it always so hard with you?" he mumbled. "Let me spell it out. I came because I wanted to see if you're okay. You went through something pretty traumatic. I thought you could use a friend."
Oh, great. Now he was going to be nice to her. She couldn't take it. She and Alex… they had something sort of nice starting up before… before Nikolas came to town. But Nikolas had totally blinded her to everyone else.
Isabel's eyes filled with tears. How was she going to survive without him? She didn't have one thing to remember him by. Not one picture. Not anything. She wished she could have that ring he always wore, the one with that strange stone. She could hold it in her hand and at least know that it was something Nikolas had touched. Something Nikolas had… had…
Isabel's throat began to burn. She felt a tear slide down her cheek. Nikolas… oh, God, Nikolas…
The smell of gunpowder flooded her nose. She scraped at her toenails, trying to block out the image of Nikolas dying. But the polish wasn't dry enough to chip. It smeared across her fingers, wet and red.
Isabel choked back a sob. What was she going to do? She'd go crazy if she couldn't make the screen go blank.
"I'm not leaving," Alex said, his voice quiet. "Yell at me. Give me your ice princess thing. Whatever. I'm not leaving. If you don't want to talk, fine. I'll talk. I'll tell you about my champion Little League season, for starters. One of the best times ever. I can still smell the grass in the outfield. And taste that flat purple taffy from the snack shack…"
Alex kept talking. And his voice, his voice made the screen go blank.
Isabel stood up and crept over to the door. She sat down and leaned her cheek against the door. Listening to Alex describe every moment of the very first game of the season.
He was so normal. A nice, normal guy.
She wished she could be normal like him. A nice, normal girl who couldn't see auras or dream walk or heal. A girl who didn't ever wake up screaming from dreams of Sheriff Valenti with the eyes and teeth of a wolf, a wolf intent on hunting her down.
I can be normal. I'll be just like Alex. I'll never use my powers again, she decided. Never.
Michael glanced at his alarm clock. Ten-thirteen. He'd only been in bed for thirteen minutes. It felt like thirteen days. He wasn't tired. At all. He only needed two hours of sleep a night-one of the cool things about not being human-and he wouldn't even be needing those two until later.
But ten o'clock was his bedtime. His bedtime. He could not believe he had a bedtime. Mr. and Mrs. Pascal thought that structure was the key to making children feel happy and secure. Or some stupid psychobabble like that.
His new foster parents had rules for everything. They had given him a typewritten list with a dorky little drawing on the top-a raccoon that had one of those cartoon balloons coming out of its mouth. The raccoon was saying, "Rules for Pascals' Rascals."
The rules were in the form of a poem. "Please lower the toilet seat. Wash your hands before you eat." That kind of thing. Alex had practically wet his pants laughing when Michael showed it to him.
But there was nothing funny about the rules when you had to follow them. And Michael did. At least for a while. His social worker, Mr. Cuddihy, would have a hissy fit if he got a complaint call during Michael's first week at a new place. So that meant no sneaking out of the house for a few weeks.
Which meant no late night visit to the Evans house. Michael wanted to check up on Isabel. He felt like shaking her for wasting one tear on Nikolas. But he also felt like holding her tight and letting her cry as much as she wanted. He'd do whatever it took to get his Isabel back-smart-mouthed, sassy, stuck-up Izzy, not that pale sad-eyed girl who'd been sitting next to him at Flying Pepperoni.
Tomorrow, he promised himself. I'll get there first thing in the morning, score some breakfast, and see if Isabel needs me.
He rolled over onto his side. The covers were tucked in too tight. He felt like a mummy. He gave them a yank, but it didn't help. The kid in the next bed-Dylan-gave a high, whistling, wheezing snore. Michael pulled his pillow over his head.
Down the hall he heard the baby begin to cry. A moment later he heard Mrs. Pascal's bunny slippers flapping down the hall.
I would kill, Michael thought, or at least maim, to get out of this house. I could just crawl out the window and go. I don't need to go to Isabel's. I could go somewhere else. I could go… to Maria's!
Yeah, that was perfect. Right now he just wanted to kick back-and Maria's girlie-girl room was the place to do it. He liked the way she had clothes and nail polish and all her little vials of perfume oils scattered everywhere. He even liked the weird way her room smelled-like roses and cough drops.
Even when Maria wasn't home, he liked to hang there. But it was better when she was there. Maria could always make him laugh. A lot of times she wasn't even trying to be funny, like when she was getting all earnest about her aromatherapy.
Mrs. Pascal started to sing to the baby. It cried louder. Michael didn't blame it. Mrs. Pascal's voice… well, she better keep her day job, that's all he had to say.
Michael stifled a groan. I can't take it, he thought. I'm not going to live until morning.
"Sleep, don't peep, don't creep, don't beep, don't seep," Mrs. Pascal crooned.
Seep?
"Just dream, dream, dream, dream, dream, dream, dream."
Dream walking, Michael thought suddenly. That's what he should be doing. Just because he couldn't fall asleep himself didn't mean he couldn't go into someone else's dreams.
Michael closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. Mrs. Pascal's singing grew fainter, and so did Dylan's snoring. He took one more breath, and the dream orbs became visible. The glistening, soapbubble-iridescent orbs swirled around him. Each gave off one pure note of music. Big improvement.
Michael didn't dream walk nearly as much as Isabel did. But he'd still spent enough nights channel surfing through the dream orbs to know which orbs belonged to which people at school.
Doug Highsinger's orb spun past. Doug was usually having some kind of sex dream. But watching a football star get off wasn't Michael's idea of fun. Pass.
Arlene Bluth's orb whacked him on the back of the head. He definitely didn't want to go exploring in her dreams. She only dreamed about school. Right now she was probably having a nightmare about taking a test with a number three pencil. Pass.
Tim Watanabe's orb was a pass, too. Big pass. For some reason Tim Watanabe kept dreaming about a big clown with a green tongue named Bobo. It was none of Michael's business, but he didn't think a little therapy would hurt that boy.
Michael caught the sound of a high, sweet note of music. Maria's orb. He grinned. He couldn't go hang out in Maria's room. But he could visit one of her dreams.
Except it was kind of weird going into a friend's dream, like barging in on them in the bathroom or something. Sure, he'd gone into Maria's dreams a few times. But that was before he really knew her. It felt different now.
I'll just tell her I'm there, he decided. Then it won't be like I'm spying on her.
He began to whistle, drawing her dream orb to him. It whirled into his hands, soft and cool under his fingers. Michael drew his hands apart, and Maria's dream orb expanded. When it was big enough, he stepped inside.
Maria lay in a field of wildflowers. Doing some major making out with a dark-haired guy.
Whoa. Not what he expected. Michael backed out of her dream-fast. He'd thought Maria would be dreaming she was a bird or a mermaid or something. Those were the kinds of dreams he remembered her having.
Those were the kinds of dreams she should be having. Maria dreaming about boarding the love train with some guy-that just didn't feel right. And who was that guy, anyway? Michael had only gotten a glimpse of him, but he didn't look familiar. Was he someone from school? Did Maria have some kind of major crush going?