Dangerous Dreams (A Dreamrunners Society Novel)

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Book: Read Dangerous Dreams (A Dreamrunners Society Novel) for Free Online
Authors: Aileen Harkwood
current task, doing everything he could to find his Lost One.
    On one hand, it made him uncomfortable discussing society business in such a public place. On the other, the 1920s house turned restaurant overlooking the bay was a noisy tourist trap. People at one table couldn’t possibly hear what those at neighboring tables said. Zeke had also managed to score a booth tucked into an alcove, where they’d have a visual on anyone coming toward them with at least five seconds warning.
    “Okay,” Zeke said, and swiped a finger across his tablet’s screen in Jack’s direction. The image on Zeke’s screen appeared on Jack’s laptop a moment later. “How’s she look now?”
    Jack had worked with Zeke several times before. In his early thirties, the former Detroit PD police sketch artist was the only one the Society had in its membership. A dreamrunner whose sole run had resulted in him losing his left leg below the knee, Zeke had benched himself for good. However, he’d once told Jack he’d probably off himself from boredom if he wasn’t in the thick of things. Due to the unique way finders worked to locate Lost Ones, often a sketch, created in collaboration with Zeke, was the only clue they had to identify a new, previously unknown runner. Zeke was almost preternaturally skilled at what he did and Jack valued his abilities highly.
    While he never twinned himself after that first ill-fated attempt, Zeke enjoyed traveling the fields on occasion, where he claimed it was easier to uncover information people tried to hide from one another. Jack never thought of that in-between world, with its landscape of golden, deceptively tranquil plains and convoluted mazes, as anything other than a perilous version of Grand Central Station. In order to run from Point A to Point B all runners had to connect through the fields. Setting foot in and never coming out again was the sobering prospect of every run. The idea that someone would willingly spend time in there, poking around in the psychic pollution given off by the billions of people on the planet as they slept, was not something Jack considered fun. People dreamed ugly. They dreamed of worlds where the rules of physics did not apply. The darkest twists and turns of their minds were let out to play in the fields. Jack preferred to spend as little time as he could contemplating his fellow humans’ inner realities.
    Zeke, though, was about the closest the Society had to a psychic nerd. If he wanted to go tromping around in that golden hellhole, more power to him.
    “Better,” Jack said, studying the computerized sketch on his laptop. “But her eyes are a little larger, or else her face is thinner and that makes them look larger. Her lips are more beautiful than this, and more forlorn.”
    “Forlorn?” Zeke asked, suddenly more interested than he had been seconds ago. “Beautiful?”
    Jack growled a warning. “That’s what I said.”
    “Okay.” Zeke’s dark eyes examined him, curiosity evident. “Okay. Forlorn. Forlorn, how? The program has a limited number of descriptors I can plug in which translate to changes in features, threatening, angry, cold, etcetera, but nothing even close to–”
    “I don’t care,” Jack said. “You’re the artistic genius. Use your talent and interpret what I tell you.”
    Zeke swept a hand over his shaved black head, the gesture indicating frustration and a hint of nervousness. The shaved head was a new thing. Jack had his suspicions Zeke did it attempting a Ving Rhames or Bruce Willis action star look, but he wasn’t built for action. He was built like an artist. The most shaving did for him was make him look…bald.
    The hell if Jack would say anything, though, and hurt a friend’s feelings.
    “All right,” Zeke said and went back to work on his tablet. “Give me a couple minutes. Let me see what I can do.”
    Jack finished his food, wishing they could hurry up this meeting. He wanted to get back to the cabin. He knew what Gavin

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