The Dream Thief by Kari Kilgore (books for 10th graders txt) 📕

him tonight, though. His mind had been relentless, churning and twisting and rearranging the things he knew so far. He had a dull headache and a grumpier than usual mood to go along with his worries about keeping everything secret.

Deep down inside, though, a part of Karl that had been dulled and bored to tears was wide awake. That part could not possibly have been happier with the way things were going.

"Behind you!" someone said right beside his ear.

Karl jerked back upright nearly fast enough to dump himself onto the floor. George wasn't quite smiling, but he looked less gloomy and exhausted than the day before.

"That was hardly necessary," Karl said, rubbing his face and wishing it weren't way too late for cafei.

"Not my fault. You were sleeping too hard to resist. Want to do this another night?"

Karl shook his head and looked around. No one else was in the room or in any of the other rooms he could see and hear through the arched doorways. They might have to wait a while to get this chance again.

"Now is good," he said. "I couldn't sleep last night wondering about all of this. Someone else to listen and tell me if I'm crazy or not might help."

"I might not be the best judge of that lately." George sat on the low brown sofa next to Karl with a loud sigh. "But I'll do my best. Anything strange happen today?"

"Not today, no stranger than usual," Karl said. "Patients on my rounds seem to be a lot calmer. Staff, too. Yours?"

"Sure, they always settle down pretty fast after this happens," George said. "Patients and ’sters both."

"Wait, how often does this happen, George? I probably just never got out and about at the right time before, but I'm sure I would have heard about something like a ’ster going crazy before now."

George shook his head slowly. "Not necessarily, buddy. Unless it happened in your building or on your shift, I doubt it. You work the day shift, and the bad shit always seems to happen at night. That's one of the many things the Directors work very hard to keep from getting out. How well would you sleep if you knew something like that could break down your door in the night?"

"My door? There aren't any ’sters in my building, at least I don't think so. How do you know about all of this, George?"

George glanced at Karl, one thick eyebrow raised. Instead of answering right away, he got up and walked over to the fireplace. He took an unreasonably long time stirring and adjusting the coals. After a dramatic inspection of the waist-high pile of logs, he finally tossed two of them onto the fire. He spoke without turning.

"That's one thing about all us buzzards in maintenance and supply, one of the few good things. We don't get paid much, and the benefits ain't great. But we probably know more about what goes on around this place than all the Directors put together." He sat beside Karl again. "And I don't think there are any ’sters over here, no. Most of them are kept separate from patients, out in the older Columns."

Karl knew he was as out of line as Andy asking him about new admissions, probably even more. He asked anyway.

"If you know so much," he said, "tell me how often that happens? One of them losing it, I mean?"

George shrugged, shaking his head.

"I wouldn't say I know every time, but pretty close," he said. "Word does get around. They get restless every month or so, sometimes more often, sometimes less. But I only hear about one of them losing it about once a year. To tell you the truth, it had been a while since the last time, though. Probably a couple of years."

"One of those damned things gets out once a year? How the hell do they keep that much a secret?"

"I'd guess that's one reason we're encouraged to keep to our own buildings," George said. "And why most of us don't transfer. Once we're here, we're here. Not that much different than the patients or the ’sters, really. Now, to prove I'm crazier than anyone we have locked up out here, tell me what you found out the other day."

"No crazier than I am, Georgie," Karl said. "Remember that big bunch of new admissions a few weeks ago? When we had to hire new people to deal with it all? I used your fancy master key and took a look around in the records room when everyone was in such an uproar and not paying attention. Turns out a whole bunch of them are from our old neighborhood. More than half."

George scowled. "Well, I'm glad to hear that key works for someone besides me, but why would you even do that? If you get caught in there, you're out on your ass in a heartbeat."

He didn't say it, but Karl knew what he was thinking. And if they asked you hard enough, you'd eventually tell them I gave you the key in the first place.

"I'm not gonna rat anyone out," Karl said. "Don't worry. It was my... A friend of mine from home." Karl was a little shocked at how close he'd come to being the rat himself, and with his own brother. "He noticed how many locals were coming down with depth syndrome all at once, asked me to look into it. He was right."

"How many?"

"More than half of that twenty," Karl said. "That can't be any kind of accident. And it's way too close to home for both of us."

"You have a point there," George said. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. "I might not plan to ever spend a second longer there than I have to, but I want them to be safe. Most of them, anyway. What else did you see?"

"I haven't seen anything else yet, but I know I'm missing something. You say the ’sters getting