Dream Walker

Chapter 42 | Here With You

Callie felt herself tumbling through a familiar darkness. When she emerged, she was still straddling Arabella's supine form. It only took a quick glance around to confirm what she had dreaded: they were in the maze.

The brief distraction was enough for Arabella to buck up and push her off. Callie felt the prickle of grass as she fell onto her side. A sharp pain flared in her hip. She began to roll over, attempting to right herself, but a weight crashed down on her.

Arabella cursed in another language, grabbing Callie's hair to pull her head back. Callie screamed and reached her hands back to grab at anything she could reach.

Arabella batted away her flailing hands with ease, wrapping Callie's throat in the crook of her elbow. She leaned down to speak directly into her ear. "I thought you would be more difficult to take down. All that power and no follow-through, huh?"

Callie's scalp was burning, and her eyes watered. Her strength waned as the circulation to her brain was cut off. Arabella's biting words echoed around her head. She felt weak, useless, powerless.

But she wasn't powerless, was she?

If there was one thing Cyril taught her, it was mental attacks. She only had a brief period of time before she lost consciousness if Arabella's hold was effective, so she worked on strengthening her defense first. She widened the river of flowing energy guarding her mind, hoping it would be enough to stop any intrusions. Then, she grabbed the arm wrapped around her neck and searched for the concentration of Arabella's psyche. She sent the strongest pulse of energy her failing body could manage into it.

It was Arabella's turn to scream. The force of the attack threw her body backwards, wrenching Callie's neck until her arm loosened its grip. Callie gasped for air, chest expanding and contracting more than she thought possible to fill her lungs. She pushed up to her hands and knees.

Though circulation had resumed, she continued to see dark spots in her eyes and felt faint. She could hear Arabella groaning and hoped the blast of energy was enough to keep her down until Callie could recover fully.

She crawled away and collapsed into a seated position, turning to look at her attacker. Callie was shocked to see Arabella sitting up, seemingly unaffected. The scratch and bite marks on her leg were closing up, and her eyes were once again filled with that dark indigo color. As Callie gazed at the sky above her, she realized the colors almost matched.

Once her wounds healed, Arabella sprung up to her feet. Her unnaturally dark eyes stared at Callie, like a shark waiting for its prey to move. The tense staring contest was broken by Arabella's wink.

"Catch me if you can," she said, turning to run deeper into the maze.

What the—

Callie had no time to question Arabella's actions. She had already disappeared around a corner and was gaining ground with each step. Callie struggled to her feet, running unsteadily.

She had been unknowingly training for this sort of situation for years, but a side stitch was threatening to stop her pursuit of Arabella. If she had the energy to consider the irony of a habitual runner being taken out by such a common ailment, she would have been upset.

Her bare feet pushed off the coarse ground with increasing speed as energy began searing through her body again. She was able to see flashes of movement to guide her on some of the turns, but she trusted her intuition for the rest.

Strange sounds—screams, snarls, and footsteps—came from all around. She felt like she was back in one of her dreams, although chasing a crazy woman that may or may not have been possessed was new. Despite the noises, she had yet to see anyone or anything else around any corner.