Read The Wild One for Free Online

safe—humans never knew about it. Even Max, Mr. Responsibility, dream walked once in a while.
    Isabel wondered if there would ever be a time when she could stop being careful. If there would ever be a time when she could use the other kinds of power. She missed it. It felt like part of her had been injected with novocaine and was totally numb. Almost dead.
    Maybe Max and Michael didn’t care about losing that part of themselves. But Isabel did. Living without using her power was like having a big, beautiful, brightly colored pair of wings—but never being able to fly.
    There’s no point in thinking about it, she told herself. You use your power to do anything but dream walk, and you could end up dead. Period.
    Isabel adjusted her pillow under her head. She focused on taking deep, even breaths, preparing to dream walk. In moments she slipped into the state between sleep and wakefulness, and the dream orbs became visible.
    She sat up and let her eyes wander over the glistening orbs spinning around her. They always reminded her of giant soap bubbles, filled with iridescent colors.
    Each orb belonged to someone who was asleep and dreaming. Over the years Isabel had managed to match up most of the people she knew with their dream orbs. She identified them partly by colors but mainly by sound. Each orb gave off one pure note of music, and none of these notes were exactly alike.
    Isabel closed her eyes to focus her attention on the sounds of the orbs without being distracted by their shimmering beauty. Yes, there was a new sound. So low and deep, it was almost inaudible.
    She began to hum, calling the dream orb to her. The sound grew closer. Isabel opened her eyes and stretched out her arms. She hummed louder, coaxing the orb closer. She smiled as it spun into her hands.
    It will probably be some middle-aged guy who just moved to town, Isabel thought. He’ll be having some gross dream about him and a supermodel. Sometimes when you peeked into people’s dreams, you saw some really icky stuff. Stuff that made you want to run into the bathroom and wash your hands.
    Isabel took a deep breath and peered into the orb. All she could see was her own face reflected back at her. Weird. The surface of the other orbs was translucent, making it easy to see the dream inside. But the surface of this new orb looked like metal, like bronze, but thinner than a sheet of paper and soft.
    It definitely wasn’t enough to keep Isabel out. She drew her hands apart, humming low in her throat. The dream orb expanded until it was too large to hold in her arms. She released it and it continued togrow. When it was large enough, Isabel stepped inside. The orb re-formed behind her.
    Whoa. This was much better than some sweaty guy’s dream. This was awesome. Truly.
    Isabel stood on a deserted beach. The sun had almost set, and the darkening sky was splashed with deep reds and oranges. The air smelled ozone charged, the way it usually did after a storm. But it didn’t look as if it had rained recently.
    This is someone’s dream, Isabel reminded herself. Don’t look for logic.
    It didn’t feel like a dream, though. For one thing, it was way too static. There were a few tiny birds chasing the waves when they went out and running away from them when they came back in, but that was it. If this was a regular dream, something would be
happening
.
    And where was the dreamer? Okay, in some dreams the dreamer didn’t quite look like himself, but whoever was having this dream should be here in
some
form. Could the dreamer be dreaming he was one of those little birds? That would be sort of a nice dream.
    Isabel decided as long as she was going to be hanging out here, she might as well enjoy herself. And she wasn’t really dressed for the beach. An instant later Isabel had on a bright orange bikini with a gauzy wraparound skirt. Her feet were bare, and she had a big tropical fruit drink in one hand. She decided to give