Read Lay Me Down for Free Online Page B

Didn’t matter that the grains of sand cut as they scraped across her skin.
    The Agora’s perimeter was easy to spot, a shimmery gold oasis that could keep just about everyone out. She’d been in there a couple of times before, the dream police in hot pursuit.
    Her own legs were about to give out by the time they reached it.
    They forced the old man out of the wind, through the boundary, and into a sudden vacuum of silence. When a Rêve wasn’t active, the Agora was a dark, boundless space punctuated by extremely tall Corinthian columns, which floated in the air, but seemed anchored as well. Agora was the Greek word for meeting place . It was here that people could safely share dreams in contained Rêves.
    “Help!” Steve shouted into the darkness. To the man, he said, “You’re safe. You’re safe now.”
    Instantly, another Chimera materialized, a woman in a blue uniform jumpsuit, who approached, motion-stretched color streaking behind her as she became part of their dream.
    Maisie stepped back out of the way to let the new Chimera attend the old man.
    A plan was forming in Maisie’s mind. It was made of anger, and so it was sharp-edged, like a knife. She couldn’t kill Graeme because then she wouldn’t know how many people she might have transported and what had happened to them.
    The first thing to do was convince Graeme to take her back. If Steve’s crazy statistics were right about the rarity of her talent, Graeme would at least hear her out. And then she had only to get him Darkside, where she was dominant, and shake the answers out of him.
    What was a human being doing in that package? Had there been others?
    Wait. Something was off with her plan. Shaking Graeme wasn’t enough. She remembered Steve’s insistence that Graeme himself was nothing. Steve wanted the person behind Graeme, and Maisie knew that if she wanted to learn everything she’d been a party to, she’d have to do the same. Which meant she’d have to go back to the evil dream and discover its true nature.
    The thought made her go icy with fear.
    “Mr. Blackman?” Steve asked the old man. “Are you Raymond Blackman?”
    The old man was openly crying now. “Will carry…”
    “What’s your name?” Steve asked again.
    “William Kerry,” the old man said.
    Steve straightened, his gaze trained on her. “You said the place where the package was supposed to be delivered was bad.”
    She nodded, but had to add, “I didn’t know the package contained a person. I didn’t know a person could be…” Squashed down like that.
    “You have to take me there,” Steve said. “We have to know what they’re doing.”
    She shook her head.
    “You will ,” he commanded her.
    The other Chimera lady sneaked a scathing glance at her, saying in one twitch of her eyes that Maisie was a spineless fuckup.
    Part of that was true, or had been once. Maisie thought she’d changed, but she was really just the same messed-up problem kid who’d lost her mom. But she wasn’t refusing Steve because she was scared, though she was actually ready to piss herself at the moment.
    Yeah, she’d go back to the evil dream. She had to.
    Steve gestured to the old guy. “He’s weak. He’s innocent. You will tell me who’s behind this.”
    Innocent. While she’d been stupid and selfish. Opportunistic.
    “I won’t do it,” she said.
    “Why?” Steve demanded, not so cool and collected now. “Look at him!”
    She didn’t need to. The sight of the old man was forever burned into her brain. It was the way Steve was looking at her that seared now.
    Maisie mashed her lips together to keep from answering. But the answer was there, ready on her tongue. ’Cause then it’ll eat you instead.
     
    ***
     
    The howling wind of the Scrape wore at Vince Blackman where he was crouched, huddling against both the storm and discovery. He’d lost his sight to the stinging, cutting shards of sand, and now he covered what was left of his eyes with an arm across his face.