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

meant by that. It was no wonder people felt like they were going insane if they stopped all at once. And no wonder that sometimes their minds truly did break under the strain. If he ever got through this, he'd never travel without his own supply again.

Maybe. Or maybe he'd never take it again.

He tried to keep his thoughts of staying off it from himself as much as everyone else. The fascination with starting to dream, visiting another world and life unknown to him, was hard to shake.

"Did you hear that?" Loretta said, her fork halfway to her mouth.

Karl tried not to laugh at the identical poses of the two women, brows drawn together, head slightly tilted. He probably looked the same.

"I thought I heard one of the horses," he said. "Want me to go check?"

Gemma was on her feet before Karl stopped speaking.

"No, that won't be necessary. That fence is active. I just need to get the door and we'll be perfectly safe and snug in here, too."

She pushed the same switch Loretta had checked that morning. The lights inside the house dimmed, and he was sure he heard a deep hum.

"What did you mean—"

The quiet was shredded by a scream, like a child in pain. All three were on their feet.

Karl's mind wanted to slide into panic, expecting the screaming ’ster George had told him about brought all the way up here to devour them. He didn't realize he was heading for the door until Loretta gripped his arm.

"Stay right here," she said. "No one's going to get inside unless we invite them."

"Who even knows we're up here?" he said.

Just as Karl's eyes met Loretta's, a second agonized scream rang out, this time from right outside the door.

The lights went even lower, fading to a brownish color. Karl heard an odd grinding sound, over and over again.

"That would be the alarm." Gemma was the calmest of all of them, nodding to herself before she turned back toward the door. "Karl, I hate to impose upon you after you worked so hard today, but would you be so kind as to step over here with me?"

"To step... What do you think I can do?"

He stood beside her, shaking almost as hard as that morning. No animal screamed like that. A man, very likely an angry one, was on the other side of that door.

Loretta handed the revolver and belt to him.

The revolver she hadn't yet taught him how to use.

"I doubt very much whoever that was will be awake," Gemma said, still the image of calm. "We just need to make sure no one else is out there and see if anyone's hurt."

Loretta stood on the other side of her grandmother with her own blaster drawn. Gemma motioned for both of them to step back.

"What if someone charges through the door?" Karl said.

Much to his surprise, the woman laughed.

"Charges. Oh dear, Loretta. You didn't tell me he was clever, too."

Gemma swung the door open, and Karl struggled to stay where he was. He couldn't imagine anywhere less safe in all of Alterra than right here.

A storm raged outside, one made no less terrifying by being confined between the door frames. Crackling blue light arced from one side to the other, starting at the bottom and rising to the top, then repeating. The grinding noise Karl had heard was loud enough to make his bones vibrate.

"Rullin." Loretta's voice was barely above a hiss, and Karl tore his gaze away from the light show. A man lay crumpled on the ground, his face turned toward them. Bill's brother. "Is he dead, Gemma?"

"No, not likely," she said. "Not unless he was before he encountered my door. Stay there for a second. I'll shut that down, and we'll investigate."

Before Karl could try to stop her, not that he would have understood how to do that, she adjusted the switch again. One final grinding arc twisted from bottom to top, and the light and noise stopped. Yet another odd smell hit him then, the singed burned hair smell that sometimes lingered in the experimental treatment rooms back at Joffrey Columns.

He didn't feel particularly brave about it, but he let Loretta and Gemma pass through the door first.

"I don't see anyone else out here," Loretta said. "I think he's still breathing. More's the pity."

Karl looked around the best he could in the fading light, then squatted beside the young man. Rullin was breathing, but he never stirred.

"What happened?" he said.

"I don't know what the first scream was," Gemma said. "The second was this young man trying to enter my house uninvited. He activated the alarm by touching it. If he stood on that grate, he took more than enough electricity to knock him out." Gemma nodded, not looking or sounding the least bit upset. "We need to see if anyone else is hurt. The barn has lights, but I so rarely get to use them."

She set out across the yard, with Karl and Loretta running to catch up. Gemma touched another switch set into a fence post, and light flooded the yard. Before Karl's eyes had quite adjusted, Loretta pointed to the base of the fence. A small form was crumpled on the grass.

"Is that still active, Gemma?" she said.

"Give me one quick moment, bobbin." The older woman crossed back over to the house and walked through the door, returning after only a few seconds. "It's safe now."

Loretta turned the body over.

"Oh, Imp burn you, Rullin," she said. "This is Morgan, the stable owner's son. Walton must be worried half to death. I don't think Morgan has more than ten years. He's still breathing, but he has burns on his arms. And bruises on his face."

"I'd imagine that brute back there threw him onto the fence," Gemma said. "Wasn't smart enough to think there might be electrified areas anywhere else. We'll bring the boy inside, and I suppose we should tie the other one up. Do either of you know how