16. DreamInterrupted
DreamInterrupted
Playlist: Dreams - David Guetta, MORTEN, Lanie Gardner
Lyra
By evening, my body is vibrating with exhaustion and unease. I curl up on my bed, clutching the DreamNet band in my hand. Its sleek surface feels heavier than it should, a weight pressing me toward the inevitable. Not tonight, Ash said.
In a few hours it will be TheKast, and the world as I know it could change. Tomorrow, Eli and I could possibly cease to exist, and in a sick, strange sort of way, that feels oddly comforting.
But tonight, tonight I just have to survive.
My DataLINK chimes, and a text comes across:
Unknown ID: Don’t go into DreamNet tonight, Lyra.
Unknown ID: You’ll light yourself up like a fucking beacon.
I blink, my pulse quickening. Ash? How the hell does he have my number?
I stare at the glowing text, trying to piece it together. My number isn’t just floating out there. I never gave it to him. I never give it to anyone.
Another ping.
Unknown ID: You light up when you’re in there.
Unknown ID: You don’t even see it, but everyone else does.
Unknown ID: Corp will smell you a mile away.
Unknown ID: Please...for me?
A shiver runs through me. I picture his devastating blue eyes, sharp as glass, watching me at the club.
He’s spot on. When I bleed power, it leaks into all tech, makes everything around me ooze emotion.
I quickly add him to my contacts, so he looks more like a friend than a stalker as my fingers move crazily through the letters on screen:
You watching me, stalker?
Ash: Always. That’s the problem.
How the hell did you even get my number?
Ash: Magic. Hackers don’t give up their secrets.
Creepy.
Ash: Sexy.
I roll my eyes, but the way he found me so easily gnaws at me. Corp could find me just as easily. Kael is notorious for hunting anomalies down.
I’ve always had a stubbornness to me, a rebellious side, if you will. No one controls me but me. This is why I sketch, why I draw worlds out of memories I’m not supposed to have and sell them to those who are left with nothingness.
Ink and charcoal lines that answer only to me. Because if I don’t create something personal, then I’m just another pixel in their system, another face swallowed by the grid. Perhaps I should have joined the rebellion when I had the chance. Maybe someday I will.
That’s what DreamNet is to me too. My living vision of my sketchbook, wide open into infinity.
A place where I can breathe color instead of rules.
I know Ash thinks he’s saving me with his warnings, but he doesn’t get it.
He’s never had to suffocate under the weight of a silence so loud it makes your bones ache. Or maybe he has?
I’d rather risk getting exposed in DreamNet than live one more night watching the walls close in on me. I want to be free to be me.
I bite my lip, hard enough to taste blood. Do I trust him? I barely know him. Musician. Hacker. U21 prophet. Dreamer. Something more. Ash always feels like he’s at the front of the line, ahead of everyone else. Especially me.
Ash: Just trust me this once, Lyra.
How the hell? It’s like my thoughts are being run in real time on a screen in front of him.
Trust him. Stay out. That’s what Ash does best though, sees shadows in every reflection, conspiracies in every flicker of feed. Surely the rebellion takes advantage of this.
But my fingers hover over my DreamNet band anyway. Because if I don’t escape tonight, if I don’t slip into something softer and brighter, something that feels like mine, then all that’s left is the noise of this city and the way it eats me alive daily.
“Sorry, Ash,” I whisper to myself and slide the band into place.
Any other time I would laugh it off, call him paranoid.
But now, alone in my room, drenched from the rain and humming with too much restless energy, I fear being found isn’t as bad as being trapped in this neon rot.
Something stirs inside me, a thrill tinges up my spine. His warning feels like a dare.
I stare at the sleek, silver DreamNet band on my wrist. I know this...I remind myself. My rituals. My anchors. If I don’t go under, if I don’t dream, then my magic will bleed into the waking world again. Into the screens. Into the streets. And they will notice. Either way, I’m doomed.
Better to hide in the illusion.
“LINK—set an alarm for one-thirty a.m.” That should allow sufficient time for me to get in and out of DreamNet before TheKast and be ready for whatever happens next. Ready to protect Eli, ready to run, if needed.
ALARM SET LLLLLLLYRAAAAA
LINK’S voice glitches, like a club song being remixed, not the sharp, clean voice I normally hear. Goosebumps. I shake it off. Just a glitch. TheKast makes everything struggle before it rolls out.
For a second, the alarm icon on my DataLINK pulses too slow, offbeat, like a drunken heartbeat. Then it corrects itself, steady, perfect, reassuring.
Weird.
I twist the band releasing its warm glow against my wrist. I lay back and whisper into the quiet room: “Don’t let them find us...
please”. I have no idea who I’m saying this to: God, gods, Fate?
The world unravels, the ringing of worry is swallowed by the soft hum of dreams. Straight in. No lobby tonight.
My beach is bathed in a warm golden glow; I immediately feel it blush over my face. The sky glows the soft amber of a world that’s never known ruin. My sanctuary.
I take a deep breath and try to unclench my fists. Here, there are no boots on rain slick streets, no corporate scanners, no fear. No reason to run.
“Running from me when you should be running to me.” The voice is deep, smooth, threaded with shadows. It slides over my skin like silk. Fear and intrigue battle instantly inside me. I turn. Sure enough, he’s there. The hunter has found the hunted.
Kael’s suit jacket is dark as coal, he’s shirtless underneath, pants rolled, bare feet caked with sand. His tousled hair shadows his dark eyes, making them gleam like melted gold in half-light. He shouldn’t be here, can’t be here, yet he is, and every nerve in my body responds.
“You.” My voice waivers with nervousness.
“Me.” His gaze locks onto mine. He steps closer, each movement slow, and deliberate, almost predatory. “I built this, Lyra. I can find you anywhere you go inside my code. Plus, you invited me, remember?”
Shit, he’s right. He’s hacking into my dreams, and for some strange reason I’m allowing it. No, I want it.
I swallow, heat crawling up my throat. “How are you really here in DreamNet with me? Or is this just my imagination? What do you want?” I study his beautiful, harsh face, trying to coax the truth out of him, to see if he knows what I am.
His lips curve, dangerously. “You. I’m in every night, looking for you...tonight I just got lucky.
What is it with these men and stalking? And why is there wetness pooling between my legs because of it?
The air between us tightens, charged. I want to turn away, but I don’t.
Instead, my breath hitches as he sits beside me on the beach blanket, our shoulders touching.
His scent is intoxicating, clean, like the ocean air mixed with something spicy: dark vanilla and cinnamon. It makes me dizzy with desire.
“What do you want?” I whisper.
His hand lifts, fingers caressing my cheek, barely touching. “What do you want?”
“You...I think?” Stars, he sucks the air out of my words. “I have no idea why, but I feel like I’m being tethered to you, pulled in by you. It’s like...” I try to finish my sentence when his lips crash into mine.
His tongue explores me deeply, like he can feel my soul through his kiss. He even tastes like cinnamon and spice and everything that calls me back to a time where life was cozy, comfortable, and so, so safe.
I want to trust him, but I can’t. He may be trying to trap me. I need to break away. I barely know this man, but every perfect line of him feels like it’s written for me, like my pulse is answering his. His eyes hold me captive, daring me to create distance.
“We shouldn’t.” My voice is a hush I don’t even recognize. Inside, I think we should. I’m so aroused by his lips on mine, but I can’t reveal what I am if he doesn’t already know.
He tilts his head, that infuriating, smug smirk tugging at his lips. “Little Taiyō...you already have.” He continues his kisses in a trail down my neck. He grips my hair and gently tugs, opening my neck further so he can bury himself in me.
I breathe him in. That nickname cuts through me, fierce and tender, but dangerous. I hate that I like it. I hate that I want him. “Little Taiyō?” I ask in between restless breaths. Please don’t let him stop. “Why do you and Ash call me that?”
His mouth moves back to my lips, barely touching them.
Our eyes lock, and I feel his warm breath.
“Japanese...Little Sun...you burn bright for me, Lyra.” He sucks in my bottom lip gently, wetness from his tongue spreading over my mouth.
“From the moment I saw you in that club, I knew you were a spark, no, a flame I’d chase forever.
” He pulls me onto his lap, legs straddled, so close I can feel the heat rising from him.
His cock is rock hard and pressing into my core.
“My darkness wants to consume your light.”
Fuck. I don’t care if he knows. I’m undone. This man has ruined me, to the point where I don’t even care if he’s here to capture me. At least I can die happy.
I’m so desperate for affection, so wanting of his touch, that I surrender to him, grinding against him, his hardness straining against his pants. Lips parting, tongues seeking, I give into him, and I have no explanation for it.
Before I can rethink this, before I can breathe, his hands slide to each side of my face. The celestial tattoos running down his fingers are visible from the corner of my sight, coaxing my face upward. He breathes with heightened arousal. ”Lyra, I want...”
Static stings my ears, loud and sudden. The world around us glitches, the dream fracturing, ocean waves turning to shards of ice white stone.