The Children of Hypnos

[Vol. 2] Chapter 23: Business Negotiations

~

Mr. Lowe tried to force them all to take showers—no sitting on the furniture or the carpet until they were clean, he said—but Trevor waved him off.

"Who cares if the furniture gets dirty?" Trevor said. "No one's ever here to use it."

Indeed the house appeared to be ready for a showing; every piece of decor was perfectly matched and set in place, every houseplant artfully arranged, not a sign of a stray shoe or a throw pillow out of place. The view of the house between the front door and Trevor's bedroom and balcony was stunning but didn't reveal the same level of pristine disuse as the other rooms.

Marcia insisted on tending to Ridley's wounds herself and did so behind the closed door of one of the house's three full bathrooms. At Trevor's kitchen table, Emery inspected and helped disinfect and bandage Wes's scratches, bruises, and cuts, and he did the same for her.

"This is not sanitary," Emery said for the second time, after Wes poured hydrogen peroxide on a cut just above her elbow. She glanced up at Trevor, who leaned against his island counter. "You're going to have to disinfect the entire room."

Trevor shrugged. "Mr. Lowe will disinfect the entire house the moment you're gone. I never eat here anyway."

He had sent Mr. Lowe out to fetch more first aid supplies. The trip would take at least half an hour with the traffic and street conditions.

"Plenty of time," Trevor had said the moment his housekeeper was gone, "for you to tell me what's going on."

He had said this out of earshot of Marcia, which, Emery thought, was probably the wisest choice.

"There's a gag order on sharing confidential information with non-dreamhunters," Emery said. "Pretty sure that applies here." She met Wes's eye. His face was unreadable, but his hands were not quite gentle on her arm.

"I'm all for everyone keeping their own secrets," Trevor said, "but is this something that's going to put me in danger? Shouldn't I be informed in that case?"

Emery glanced at Wes again. He looked at Trevor, then shook his head. "Whatever," he said under his breath. "Telling him can't make it any worse."

Emery sighed. "It's not going to make sense."

"It's a dream thing, right?" Trevor said. "I think I can handle it."

She looked him straight in the eye. "My doppelgänger, along with at least four others calling themselves horsemen of the apocalypse, has taken up residence in a gothic castle swarming with the nightmares of a volatile dreamhunter in the middle of my eleven-year-old brother's wild west coma dream."

"Excuse me?" Trevor said.

"You don't have to worry about it," Emery went on. "Morrigan and the others aren't going to leave the Dream while they have a setup like that. The problem is the Hypnos State. They'll probably try to charge you for aiding and abetting a criminal."

"You're a criminal now?"

Emery picked at the edge of the fresh bandage on her arm until Wes slapped her hand away. "They were going to sentence me to dream death. Morrigan—sorry, that's my doppelgänger—has become a bigger threat, so the easiest way to get rid of her is to kill me."

Trevor rubbed at his eyes. "God above. I knew dream death existed, but I didn't think they used it on anyone so young."

"Age doesn't really matter to the State," Emery said. "You make a weapon, you fight nightmares, you lose your mind, and maybe you survive it and maybe you don't. If you don't, they just make more of you."