Call Down the Hawk (Dreamer, #1)(71)

Then Jordan saw what was pulling her: another girl with her face, dressed as they all were when they were new: white T-shirt, nice jeans, flowers on the ass pockets.

Another copy.

She had been born into this hell and her first conscious act was doing exactly what Jordan was doing: saving Hennessy.

Together they hauled Hennessy to the door—the bathroom seemed enormous.

The door wouldn’t give way.

Was it locked? Was that why this wouldn’t work? No, think, Jordan, she told herself. It was because the door opened in, and the weight of thousands of pounds of water was keeping it shut.

It seemed impossible that the room was still full of water; it had to be escaping under the door and through the air-conditioning vents and down the drains.

But not fast enough.

Jordan had no more ideas.

Her lungs were a thrashing animal. A dying animal.

Jordan had only one thought: No one knew I existed. Her entire life had been spent as Jordan Hennessy, an existence shared with between six and ten other entities at any given time. Same face, same smile, same driver’s ID, same career, same boyfriends, same girlfriends. A flowchart where the only choices available were the ones she could crowd-source to the other girls. Why do you only paint what other people have already painted? Declan Lynch had asked. Because her brush had already come pre-loaded with someone else’s palette.

She’d painted hundreds of paintings with astonishing skill and no one would know she ever existed.

She’d only ever lived someone else’s life.

No one knew I existed.

The new copy had released Hennessy and floated off a little bit away. Her eyes were looking at nothing.

Slam.

Slam.

Was it sound or movement? It felt like the water was shaking, or Jordan was shuddering.

She’d spent all this time thinking the end would come with eternal sleep. She hadn’t thought she might simply die.

Slam.

Then suddenly the water was draining, feeling as it did like Jordan’s skin was peeling from her scalp down.

Jordan sucked in a lungful of air, and then another, and then another. She’d never have enough air again. Beside her, Hennessy was coughing and burbling but making no other movement; Jordan dragged her still-limp body up until she was no longer bubbling. They both were sitting in a few inches of water, but it didn’t matter because there was air, air, air.

Oh, the copy, the copy—Jordan splashed through the water to the new girl. She was dead. Jordan tried to revive her, but she stayed dead. She’d only ever lived in a nightmare.

“Crumbs,” Jordan said.

The door swung in. It was split unevenly down the middle, splinters jutting inward.

A young man stood in the threshold, lit by weak early morning light. In his hand was the tire iron he’d used to split the door. He had pale skin, a shaved head, sharp eyebrows, sharp mouth, sharp expression. His face was unfamiliar but his eyes were a very, very familiar blue.

Jordan demanded, “Who are you, fuck-arse?”

“I know you’re a dreamer,” he said.

All the air she thought she’d gotten into her lungs felt like it had vanished.

He paused. His lips were parted to say something else, but he didn’t. The words were right there, queued up, but he didn’t let them free.

Finally, he said, “And I am, too.”





45

Jordan had always known there had to be other dreamers out there. J. H. Hennessy had been a dreamer like her daughter, after all, and like they said about mice, where there was one there was four. There had to be other dreamers out there. Maybe lots of other dreamers. Well, probably not lots. The world would look different, she thought, if there were a lot of other people who could manifest their imagination, even if they were all stifled in ways similar to Hennessy.

She didn’t think she’d ever meet another one.

That seemed for the best, really. She figured dreamers were probably like forgers. People forged art for all kinds of reasons. They forged for the money, they forged for the challenge of it, they forged for the lulz. They forged paintings and textiles, drawings and sculpture. What tickled one forger’s fancy might leave another entirely cold. It didn’t seem like they’d have any more in common with each other than with anyone else. They were also a pretty dysfunctional bunch. Forgers lived at the fringes of the art world, if not society in general. Either situation or personality kept them from swimming along with everyone else. They were neither artist nor criminal.

Jordan didn’t see why dreamers should be any different, except with even higher stakes. Might another dreamer have insight into fixing Hennessy? Maybe. Might another dreamer get them all killed? Equally likely.

“Why are you here?” Jordan asked Ronan Lynch. She was sitting, leaned against the wall of the hallway, drenched, dream-logged. Her leggings felt clammy and unpleasant next to her chilly skin. Her brain was drenched, too—she was just as deep into one of her dreamy episodes as antediluvian Jordan had been, struggling to piece together reality from the foggy images of water and talons and fire. The other girls were all frozen in various artful positions in the hall, having arrived just a few seconds after Ronan had busted the door down. They’d been drawn by the sound of the door’s destruction, rather than any knowledge of Hennessy’s imminent death. If he hadn’t arrived, the other girls would’ve gone to eternal sleep elsewhere in the mansion, never knowing their dreamer had drowned meters away.