She woke up, gasping. Connor woke up at the same time. His face was damp with sweat. The rain was much lighter now, and the car was far too hot.

“You,” was the first thing he said. Then: “What the hell? What the hell was that?”

She couldn’t speak. She knew if she tried to talk, she would start to cry. Her ankle and wrist still ached, a phantom pain carried over from the dream world. She wanted her mom. She wanted her mom to run her fingers through the wild tangle of her hair and tell her it would be okay.

“You were there.” His eyes were wild and wide, just like they had been in the dream. She was suddenly frightened of him. “I wasn’t just dreaming you. You were there.” He grabbed her arms, as he had done in his dream bedroom, before the blood started pooling, before the monsters came. Fear made her stomach feel loose; she had to get out of the car, away from Connor, away from what had happened.

“Let me go,” she whispered. Connor’s face was swallowed by shadows, and Dea half expected that at any second, his skin might collapse, falling away like the ground around a sinkhole.

“Not until you explain,” Connor said. His expression was guarded, now, tight with suspicion. “What . . . what are you?”

She didn’t answer. Her chest was so heavy with terror and grief, she couldn’t speak, could barely breathe. As soon as Connor released her, she shoved open the door and ran. She heard him call her name, but she didn’t stop. Miniature lakes had formed in the pitted surface of the parking lot, and her shoes and jeans got soaked. Each time she put weight on her left ankle, a shiver of pain went up her spine, as if the dream were reaching across dimensions, making sure she couldn’t escape.

Connor’s headlights came on behind her, throwing a thick slab of light onto the oily sheen of the lot, little eddies swirling with trash. She made it to the restaurant doors as he was pulling his car up to the curb.

“Get back in the car, Dea,” he called.

She pushed into the McDonald’s, pausing to see if Connor would come after her. Even through the glass, she could hear him calling to her. She kept going, her feet squeaking on the linoleum, the bright electric lights blinding after the darkness of the dream. The normalcy was destabilizing. It felt like she’d jumped scenes in a movie. A trucker with sweat stains on his back was filling up a large cup with soda; two teenagers, dressed in identical red polo shirts and visor caps, were parked behind the McDonald’s counter; a woman was wiping her toddler’s face with a damp napkin while the kid writhed. The air smelled like grease and cleaning solution and wet clothing.

She didn’t know whether Connor would come after her but she ducked into the women’s bathroom, just in case, and locked herself into a stall. She flipped down the toilet lid and sat, breathing deep, fighting the urge to cry or puke.

What are you? Connor had asked. She didn’t know. She’d never known.

She should never have gotten close to him; she wasn’t meant to have friends.

After a while, she ventured out of the bathroom. Connor’s car was gone. He’d left. She was half-relieved, half-upset. She was stranded, now, at some rest stop an hour from home. She fished out her cell phone and powered it on. Connor had texted her four times and left two voice mails, but she deleted all of his messages without opening them.

The only other number she had stored in her phone was Gollum’s. Gollum didn’t drive, and Dea didn’t feel like answering her questions, anyway. And calling her mom was out of the question, too.

She bought a soda, drank it slowly, and felt a little better. She learned from one of the kids behind the counter at McDonald’s that the number 37 bus stopped outside of Kirksville before heading northeast past Bloomington and toward Indianapolis. From Kirksville, she could walk home.

The bus smelled like old food and bubblegum. There were only a few other passengers, and the dim overhead lights cast their eyes in dark shadow. She kept her eyes down, not wanting to remember the men from Connor’s dream and the black pools of their faces.

It was after one a.m. by the time she got home, going the long way across Daniel Robbins’s fields instead of heading up Route 9, even though it was so dark she had to use her phone as a makeshift flashlight, and she could hear rats rustling in the corn. She didn’t want to have to pass Connor’s house. At least it had stopped raining, although the air still had a heavy, wet feel, like a damp palm pressing down on her from all sides. Every time she heard the whisper of movement behind her, she whipped around, swinging her phone, casting a jerky beam of light on the trampled-down corn and thick ruts of mud in the field, her throat seizing, thinking of the faceless men. But there was never anyone behind her, just the black, glittering eyes of animals that scampered away from the light.

Once she reached her porch, she realized she shouldn’t have worried about Connor. His house was totally dark. She felt a brief pull of resentment. He must be sleeping. Even though she’d run away from him, she was momentarily annoyed that he hadn’t tried to look for her. But he knew, now, what she was—and she couldn’t forget his look of horror. What are you?

Tomorrow, she would pack her suitcase and apologize to her mom, and they would load the car and head off. Just like they’d always done. She would miss Gollum. But Gollum would be okay. Gollum would get over it.

Connor would, too.

The door was locked, and all the lights were off. Her mom hadn’t waited up, which was unusual. Dea knew Miriam must have been worried. Maybe she was proving a point, after their fight this morning.

She moved carefully toward the stairs. Toby came trotting out from the kitchen and wound himself around her legs. Her shoes crunched and she realized he must have tracked some of the food she’d spilled out into the hallway. Weird that her mom hadn’t cleaned it up. But this, too, was probably a point. Dea would sweep it up tomorrow.

Upstairs, Dea snuck as quietly as she could past her mom’s bedroom; the door was open just a crack. A bit of moonlight was trying to wrestle its way out of the clouds and Dea’s bedroom was painted in broad, dark brushstrokes, like a careless illustration. She saw that her mom hadn’t cleaned up here, either. Dea knew she was in for a serious lecture when she woke up, but she didn’t care.

She wanted to get away from Fielding—away from Connor and his dreams.

She stripped off her wet clothes and got into bed naked, too tired to root around for her sleep pants. A moment later, Toby jumped up into bed beside her and got comfortable on her feet. She slowly began to feel warm. Then she was asleep, and feeling nothing.

ELEVEN

The first thing Dea noticed when she woke up was that it was raining again, a hard rain, the kind that washed away every color.

The second thing: something was wrong.

It was almost noon. Toby was gone from the bed. She’d slept through the clocks and their early morning chatter. Her mom hadn’t come upstairs to wake her. The house was silent. No squeaking footsteps, no water running, no quiet burble of the coffeepot downstairs.

She regretted, now, the mess she’d made yesterday. She tripped over a pair of jeans on her way to the door and nearly cracked her head on the wall. She steadied herself and moved into the hall. Empty houses always reminded Dea of holding shells to her ear, listening to the distant white roar of an ocean she would never see. She had that feeling now—of emptiness, of distance.

“Mom?” she called out. Her throat was tight. No answer. She fought down a wave of panic. Her mom could be out buying packing tape, or getting the oil changed, or loading up on beef jerky and Cheez-Its for the road. Anything.