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

Even the lawn in this section was far more pleasant than the plain grass around his apartment, with the sun catching bits of glass in concrete sculptures and lacy spiderwebs between the tree branches and flowers.

While they searched, he finally managed to drag his mind away from the sounds Loretta made while she was Building. And the look on her face.

He flipped through the mental list of patients he kept long after they were out of his care. Even if they never found what the Builds created, he was more certain than ever that the Dragon or even someday the Blunderbuss itself could be a means of treating former Builders.

He doubted any of them would ever be able to leave the Columns and lead normal lives again, but less sedation and restraints would be an obvious improvement. He couldn't imagine anything he or Loretta could do that would be worse than what he'd heard of in the experimental wing. Not unless she did have something to do with that burning baby ’ster.

"This is where it was pointing," Karl said after twenty minutes. "Any other ideas where it could have gone?"

'No," Loretta said. "I never found my first Builds, when I was learning how everything worked. Without any way to direct it, I have no way to know."

"Strange things make the rounds in this place faster than you'd believe," he said. "If someone finds it, I'll hear about it. Want to try again?"

Loretta turned to face him, hands on her hips. Even in the drab, shapeless uniform, she was lovely in the sunlight.

"Are you going to sedate this one?"

"Not if I don't have to," he said. He started walking to avoid her gaze. "She already sleeps too much. She might not be nearly so pleasant as Mr. Otis, but I don't think she's dangerous. New arrival. Not violent, except for grabbing my arm, but she's unsettled. Just keep your distance and let me talk to her."

They went back inside and down two flights of stairs, one wood and the lower one dark brick and stone, to the tunnels. The underground corridors were lined with the same dingy red brick and dimly lit, with the flames in the few lamps turned down low.

"Do you keep The Imp out here too?" Loretta said, wrinkling her nose.

Footing was treacherous with the floor damp and puddled in spots, and even Karl had to admit the smell was not pleasant. Pushing a screaming man or woman over the jagged bricks was far beyond unpleasant.

"Not that I know of," Karl said. "He'd feel right at home, though. No doctor or hardly anyone else is going to use these tunnels. They'll keep us a lot safer."

"Why are they still lit?"

Karl pushed a fallen brick out of the way with his foot.

"When I was a green orderly, I expected to be dragging gurneys and restraining patients for the rest of my life. Part of the training for hired muscle was moving the worst ones under here without upsetting everyone else. The loud ones. I doubt anyone else who has a choice ever comes down here."

"Why do you?" she said. "When you're not sneaking fugitives around."

"It's quiet down here." Karl smiled at her, hoping his words didn't sound as strange to her ears as they did to his. "Hanging out with the dripping water and rats is better than the alternative some days. Faster to get around than up top sometimes, too."

Karl wondered if similar tunnels ran below the older parts of the Columns, with horrifying ’sters the secret cargo. Maybe after they were birthed at the Ministry. He decided to ask George, if things ever settled down.

"We're going to where new patients are kept," he said as they walked up another set of brick stairs. "So we'll have to be a lot more careful. People come in over the weekend all the time, just not as many. They try to do most admissions during the week when more staff is here. If anyone does come in now, they're too far gone to wait one more day on the outside. If that happens, we'll have to call this off."

Karl stopped at the door to the ground floor, listening. He held his hand up and stepped out. He couldn't see anyone in the brightly lit hall, and the voices he heard were quiet.

He motioned Loretta forward and turned left, toward where Mrs. Labine had startled him so badly just a few days before. As he expected, they passed several people. None of them really focused on the two of them, either nodding or not even looking up from their charts.

"Hang on for a second," he said. "I need to see how she is. Just stand out here and look bored."

The nearly empty room was dim, with curtains pulled over the window and the lamp turned low. Karl pushed the curtains back enough to see the same woman fast asleep, though she looked like she'd aged twenty years. Her face was sunken and gray, and she was still restrained.

"Mrs. Labine?" he said. She didn't respond.

Her lunch sat ignored on a cart close beside the bed. At least no one would be interrupting them to bring it. Karl turned the chart with the bold warning about not giving her Crumble against the wall, then opened the door and turned the lamp up.

"I've seen her before," Loretta whispered. "What happened?"

"Odds are this is a result of you and that Dragon," he said. "She lived in one of the houses you visited not long ago."

Loretta didn't seem sad or remorseful, only angry.

"Then why did you bring me here?"

"If you truly want me to help keep this from happening," he said, "I have to understand what happens in the first place. We know you can Build with her. I'm not going to let you burn up perfectly healthy Builders so I can watch how their minds break. So here we are."

Loretta shook her head and looked away, her mouth compressed. Karl opened