Dreamwalkers: The Awakening

CHAPTER 3

When my alarm rings the next morning, I have to fight against every fiber of my being to get out of bed. I drag myself into the bathroom to tackle the feat of making myself look pulled together for school and end up spending too long in the shower, a fact I'm made painfully aware of when my mom bangs on the bathroom door. "You have to be out the door in twenty minutes, Emma!"

"Coming," I grumble, forcing myself to turn off the water. I dry off and give my hair a rub down with a towel before heading back into my bedroom in search of something to wear. I throw on my favorite, well-worn pair of jeans and a lightweight sweater before lacing up a pair of sneakers and twisting my still-wet hair into a messy bun.

When I finally make it downstairs, I find Jonah parked at the kitchen island shoving toaster waffles in his mouth. My sisterly duties include annoying him as much as possible, and I don't waste an opportunity. A quick rub on the head does the job, messing up his perfect little brown spikes, earning me a punch in the hip.

"Do you have to start already? It's not even eight," my mom grumbles as she drops a granola bar into each of the three lunch bags in front of her. Ignoring her weary protest, I grab my jacket from the mudroom while she stuffs my lunch into my book bag. "I have a few client meetings today so I'll be unavailable until after school. Nobody need me for anything, got it?" The stack of interior design books piled on the table already told me she'd be busy with work today.

"Got it," Jonah answers, reaching for his glass of milk.

I try to sneak out while she's distracted with filling her travel coffee mug, but it doesn't work. "Emma, breakfast!" she yells to me as I'm halfway to the door. With a huff, I return to the kitchen and grab an apple from the bowl on the counter and a protein shake from the fridge. "Don't forget you have an appointment with Dr. Hoque after school today," she yells as I unlock the deadbolt.

"What? I just went yesterday."

"He's out of town for a conference on Friday so he moved you up."

"Oh. Right. I forgot."

"I'll pick you up at his office at 4:30." I reply with a nod and head out the front door.

As I step off the porch to walk next door to Zoë's, I pull out my phone and send my dad a quick text. Need to talk to you about something strange that's been happening. Tonight.

Fighting off shivers and willing Zoë to come outside, I hide from the wind behind her Jeep Wrangler. Today would have been a great day to dry my hair. A few seconds later, she answers my prayers, stepping out of her house after kissing her mom goodbye.

I barely give the heat a minute to get warm before I crank it. "Please tell me you've talked to your dad about the bag," Zoë worries.

"I will tonight. Promise."

"Emma! Seriously? He doesn't know?"

"I already texted him about it."

"I don't feel like you have a solid grasp on what this could mean. Somebody put that bag there. For you to find."

"I know." I say, even though I never really thought of it like that. Why didn't I? It should've been the first thing that came to mind when I saw something I didn't create in my dreamwalk. Instead of being hopeful that the bag somehow came from a friendly source—a source that somehow also managed to make me inexplicably attracted to the bag—suspicion and doubt should've been at the forefront. I left us vulnerable, exposed, and unprotected with a wide-open door for a dark walker to step through.

Dark walkers are the unseen evil force in the dreamwalking world that haunts you, waiting for that critical moment of weakness to pull you under. They're the ones who take you from happily dreamwalking to endlessly adrift in a nightmare with no escape. When things get uncontrollable, you know one is near. With nothing out of the ordinary aside from the presence of the mysterious book, I never gave much weight to the thought that its appearance could be the work of a dark walker. Now that Zoë's brought it up, I can't think of much else. "There's nothing I can do until I talk to him after work."