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

than a gun. If he ran at her from the right angle, he could knock her to the ground away from the tripod and whatever was on top of it. Safer for both of them that way. Karl got himself into position a few feet away, still hidden by the shadow of the house.

Before he'd taken three steps, he knew this wasn't going to go well.

The woman wasn't focused on whatever she was doing, and she wasn't frozen in fear either. She was turning toward him, and she held one of the weighted sticks some of the guards out at the Columns were too fond of using.

Karl turned his body, launching himself in the air before he'd planed to. The agonizing blow landed on the meaty part of his thigh rather than his kneecap, and he landed on top of the woman.

"What are you doing out here?" he whispered, struggling to pin her arms before she could knock a hole in his skull with that thing. "Who are you?"

She continued to twist underneath him, and Karl twisted along with her. Trying to subdue someone who wasn't screaming into his face was oddly disorienting. He managed to wrap both legs around hers, but her leather-clad arms slipped away from his hands.

"You can't get away," he said. "Stop fighting me!"

"You call this a fight?"

She managed to swing the club around and hit Karl in the middle of his back, forcing his breath out in a hoarse cough. She dropped the club and reached for her side. Whatever she was trying to get could only make things worse.

Karl grabbed the club and rapped the back of her hand, hard enough to make it go numb but not break it. She swung at his face anyway, barely missing his eye.

"That's enough, settle down!" Karl pushed the club against her throat, leaning his weight against her chest at the same time. "I'm not going to hurt you, but I'm not going to let you hurt me either. Now stop!"

When she continued to struggle, he moved the club up to her jawbone. She resisted for a few more seconds before she finally relaxed.

"What are you going to do to me?" she said.

"I don't want to do a damned thing to you," he said. "I just want to know what you're doing out here. I am going to get whatever you were after out of your pocket."

Karl moved the hand not holding the club down along her side until he felt the loose flap of leather. Inside he touched loops of metal, cool glass underneath. He drew out a small hypodermic.

"Going to drug me, were you?"

"Just let me go," she said. "I won't come back this way, I swear it."

"Can't do that," Karl said. "Sorry. I know why I'm out here. Now you need to tell me why you are."

"Get off of me first, you great oaf. You're crushing me to death."

Chapter 14

Loretta forced her arms and legs to be still, letting her racing mind take up all the excess motion. This giant seemed to come out of nowhere, just a few feet away under a tree when she finally noticed him. No one else had ever caught her on her nighttime visits, not in a decade. She reminded herself to be grateful this man hadn't waited until she was in her own version of a Builder's trance.

"If I let you go, what are you going to pull out next?" he said. "Another revolver? A knife? You're not exactly defenseless."

"You have my only club," she said. "I'll show you where my knives are. I can't breathe!"

He only watched her, and Loretta was sure he would stay where he was until she blacked out from lack of oxygen. He was quite purposely crushing his barrel chest against hers and choking her with her own damned club.

He nodded and moved slowly away. When he sat back on his haunches, he held up the club and the syringe, as if she needed reminding.

"I'm going to sit up," she said. "I'll keep my hands flat on the ground."

He nodded, and he didn't move when she did. Loretta finally caught a deep breath, and the pounding need for oxygen started to let up. No one besides Rhysto had ever managed to control her like that. And he hadn't attacked her at all; that was the frustrating part. He gave her nothing to counter.

"I have two knives," she said. "I'm going to get them now."

"Put them on the ground." He pointed to the space between them with her club. "I don't want to use this or whatever you have in the hypo, but I will."

Loretta pulled a knife out of each of her thigh pouches and dropped them on the damp grass. She could get to them before he did, but he'd outreach her with that club. She had no intention of revealing her small revolver or garrote, or the knife hidden in her tripod. Those might still come in handy later.

"Great," he said. "Now what are you doing out here?"

Loretta shook her head. "We can't sit in this yard and make small talk. I have a couple of things I want to ask. You've had some kind of training. You didn't accidentally manage to pin me down like that."

He sighed. "You're not exactly my first. I live a long way away from here. No way to get there until morning."

Rhysto walking out of her closet flashed into Loretta's mind. This man looked to be several inches taller than the shaw pilot and probably at least thirty pounds heavier. Not an ounce of wasted flesh from what she'd been able to feel, either.

With whatever training he had, he could be exactly what she needed to make those particular worries a thing of the past.

"Keep the club and hypodermic," she said. "Take one of the knives if you want, but I'm keeping the other. We can talk at my house. We might have a lot to offer each other."

He smiled and shook