The Thought Pushers (Mind Dimensions #2)(71)

Chapter 28


Something smacks me in the face. The pain is a welcome surprise. That I can feel anything at all fills me with a sense of wonder.

I was never a believer in the afterlife, but I was apparently wrong. Something exists after death, or so it seems.

I open my eyes to even more confusion.

Why would there be an airbag in my face in the afterlife?

I’m suddenly fully alert.

Somehow, I’m back in Thomas’s car. Next to me, I see Thomas himself. He’s behind the wheel. He also has an airbag in his face, but he’s moving.

He’s alive.

“Ouch,” I hear a high-pitched voice from the back.

Hillary’s voice.

“You should’ve f*cking let me drive.” It’s Mira’s voice now. Sharp and annoyed, but unmistakably alive. The joy and relief that fills me is indescribable.

“Mira,” I almost yell. “You’re alive!”

“Why wouldn’t she be?” Eugene’s voice says from the back. “What the f*ck happened after I was shot in the Mind Dimension?”

“Yeah, what happened?” Thomas echoes.

“You’re alive too, Eugene! You’re all alive. I can’t believe it!” I’m hoping this isn’t some hallucination or a trick of my dying brain. “I saw all three of you die. I died.”

“Just the three of us?” Thomas asks. “So, Hillary, you didn’t?”

“No,” she says. “I was injured and bleeding, but when that monster killed Darren, I was still alive.”

“Then we still stand a chance,” Thomas says.

“Yes. In fact, the plan is almost unchanged,” Hillary says. “Who were those men?”

“A leader of the Readers and his guard,” I answer on autopilot as I try to process the fact that somehow we are all alive.

“What? How did one of us end up being one of them?” Hillary sounds almost as confused as I feel. “You know what, there’s no time for that. I saw the mobsters with the marks Darren left on their heads. I can take control of them and then evacuate the rest of the people.”

I manage to push away the airbag and look behind me.

Hillary has a look of concentration on her face.

“Okay, I just tried to take care of it,” she says, her features returning to normal after a moment. “I hope it goes smoothly.”

“What do you mean?” Mira and I say in unison.

“And how are we even alive?” I add, barely able to contain the turbulent mixture of emotions swirling inside me. “I thought we died—”

“Darren, when you get killed in the Mind Dimension, you don’t die in the real world,” Hillary says, looking at me. “We all feel like something bad is going to happen if we die in there, and it does—but it’s not death. It’s more of a major inconvenience.”

“What? No, wait,” I say, confused. “Yes, you do. You die, I’m sure of it. I—”

“No, you don’t, as we obviously didn’t,” Mira says. “But we did lose something.”

“Try to Split, Darren,” Eugene says, looking at me. “Then you’ll understand.”

I do as he says. Phasing into the Quiet right now should be the easiest thing in the world. I’ve got all this residual fear and adrenaline stored up.

Only it doesn’t happen. The frustrated feeling is familiar. It’s exactly how I felt in those scary moments in the Quiet. It’s like trying to phase and hitting a mental brick wall.

“The three of us are Inert now,” Thomas explains as he gets his airbag situation under control. “We can’t Split into the Mind Dimension.”

It must be the overflow of emotion because the sense of loss I feel is intense. “We lost our powers?” I say in disbelief.

“Yes. For a while,” Thomas says. “Not forever.”

“So it’s not permanent?” The wave of relief is nearly as powerful as my sense of loss a second ago.

“No, it’s not. When you die in the Mind Dimension, it’s a lot like using up your time, only the Inertness lasts much longer,” Eugene explains.

“I’ve never run out of time in the Quiet before,” I say, and I hear the note of unease in my voice. Logically, I know that temporarily losing my powers is in no way comparable to dying, but it still feels frightening. The Quiet has been my security blanket, a safety net I’ve used since childhood, and I feel its loss keenly.

“I understand, Darren.” Hillary gives me a sympathetic look. “Like you, I’ve never run out of time, so I can’t even imagine what that would be like. I’m so sorry it happened to you.”

“He’ll be fine. It’ll come back,” Thomas says. He doesn’t seem overly concerned about his own loss of powers, but then again, his are more limited than mine or Hillary’s.

As he speaks, something occurs to me. “So is this why you were so cavalier when you pointed that gun at me yesterday?” I ask, staring at Mira. That never made sense to me. Not after I saved her life the day before. “You weren’t threatening to kill me. You were threatening to strip me of my power?”

“Right,” she says. “Honestly, I was just bluffing. I wasn’t really going to make you Inert. Not given what I knew about your insane Depth. I’m sorry about that whole incident. I wouldn’t have done it if I’d known you were actually scared for your life.” She pauses, then adds, “Most likely.”