Shift

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

"If I go back into it, am I gonna die in real life? I mean, what are we talking about here? Is this Inception or Dreamscape."

"Dreamscape," Alex answered. It was easy to tell that he was nervous about using the machine - whether it was because she was the one who made it or just in general. She guessed that it was a mix of both. "If it makes you feel better, this is probably a lot safer for you than what you did to me."

"You know, that really doesn't make me feel better. Like, at all," Cisco muttered. Alex explained to him once again how everything was going to work, which still didn't calm his nerves. Joe handed him a glass of milk to soothe him to sleep, but Cisco denied saying no matter what it would take him a while to fall asleep. He ended up falling asleep rather quickly anyways.

"Alright, this is going to work best if only one of us talks," Alex announces. Barry gestured for her to take the lead. It was her idea and her design. They still didn't talk about what they learned, and Alex wanted to keep it that way. She didn't know what to say to him. "Cisco. Can you hear me? You're dreaming, bud."

"Whoa, guys this is mad freaky," Cisco's voice was slow and sluggish, but they could clearly understand him. The team waited for another response from him. "I'm in the cortex. I mean, I know I'm just dreaming that in in the cortex but it feels so real."

"What is dream you doing?"

"Caitlin just left. I asked her to take Wells to Jitters. I wanted him out of the lab to see if he tampered with my work. I need to go check," Cisco said. Caitlin continued to watch his vitals while the other two men in the room stood back and watched. "Okay, I'm walking to the bunker. Oh, man, I love this shirt. I though the dryer ate it."

"Cisco," Alex clipped.

"Sorry. All right. Now I'm running tests on the containment system. This data, it doesn't make any sense. All the supercapacitors... they were fully charged. There's absolutely no reason that the man in yellow should have escaped. Oh my god, it was just a hologram. He tricked us," Alex looked back at Barry. This was confirming everything that they already knew. "Oh god, Wells is here."

"Cisco, listen to me," Alex started. She gently placed her hand on his arm in hopes to calm him. If he got hurt in the dream, he would still be fine in real life but an elevated heart rate like that was never good. "This is just a dream. He can't hurt you, nothing can hurt you in your dream. We're here to keep you safe."

"You better be right about that," he scoffed. "Eobard Thawne. You killed Nora Allen. Veronica? Alex's mother? What does she have to do with this?"

"My mom?" Alex breathed out. Her face turned stern and everything that was going on was suddenly blocked out. She stumbled back a few steps as Caitlin was rushing to get Cisco out of dreamland before any damage was done. Joe helped her sit down in the office chair next to them.

Her face was slack with shock from the sudden news. What did her mother have anything to do with what was going on? And what did Wells, or Eobard Thawne, do to her? Her mother was a quiet and polite woman. As far as Alex knew, she had never done anything to upset anyone else. Especially this speedster.

Her mother leaving was the beginning of a row of dominoes. Alex had started drifting away from her family and because of that she didn't know about her father's sickness until it was too late. Her brother hated her for leaving him to deal with everything on his own, and she was never able to make her father proud like she intended.

Veronica was always the villain of her story, but maybe she was always just the victim.

Barry knelt down in front of Alex. Much like her, he had a grim look on his face. She let out a shaky breath, still not meeting his eyes. "He did something to my mom..."