Dreamland (Riley Bloom 3)

I coiled back in fear. Then seeing the way that murky, dark haze began to expand and flare as a result, I grabbed ahold of myself. My fear was exactly what drove him. And if I wanted to get through this, I’d have to refuse to react to whatever came next—just like I’d done with the last several nightmares I’d been cast in.

I clutched my hands on my hips, looked at him, and said, “So, Satchel, what’s your deal? What’s with all the nightmares? This how you get your kicks—scaring the beejeemums out of innocent, sleeping kids?”

He glared at me, blue eyes raging. “You think you know everything!” he shouted. “You think you’re sooo smart, don’t you?”

I started to respond, started to deny it was true, but the fact is, it wasn’t the first time I’d been accused of that. Bodhi had said pretty much the exact same thing—on more than one occasion. So I just stood silently before him, deciding to let Satchel finish his rant with no interruption from me.

“You don’t get it. You don’t get it at all! Nobody does. But that’s neither my problem nor my fault.” He dug his hands deep into his pockets, pacing in circles until he stopped and faced me again. “I was doing good work. I was really changing lives. Making a huge difference in the way people handled themselves, and the decisions they made. But then …” He paused, grimaced, rubbed a palm over his spit-shined hair. “But then the … the powers that be, the Council”—he pronounced the word with a disrespectful sneer—“they didn’t like it. They didn’t approve. And the next thing you know, dreamweaving is frowned upon and dream jumping is in.” He scoffed, shook his head, made a face like he was about to hock a big ol’ loogie, but in the end, settled for just looking at me instead. “But they can’t stop me. Nobody can. They can impose closing hours, make this place as dark and uninviting as they want, but they can’t stop me from doing what I do best. You do realize that no one will come for you, right, Riley? You do realize there is no white knight ready to rescue you from big bad me. Nothing is forbidden Here. No. Thing. We progress—if that’s what you want to call it,” he rolled his eyes, “at our own pace. And some of us choose not to progress at all. They can’t force you to do anything Here. Free will is king, and I’m exercising mine.”

Other than a nervous blink, I didn’t allow myself to react. What he’d said was all true. Or at least the part about nobody forcing anyone to do anything—I knew that from Soul Catching. I wasn’t allowed to evict a ghost from the place they chose to haunt, nor was I allowed to physically push them across the bridge so I could cross them off my list (though there were definitely times I was tempted). All I could ever do was get to know them, build some kind of trust with them, then find a way to coax and convince them to move on to the place where they truly belonged.

And that’s exactly what I had to do with Satchel.

I had to treat him like the lost soul that he was. Maybe he’d found his way across the bridge, but from the looks of things, it was hardly enough. From what he’d said, he’d been doing this for far too long, and it was up to me to stop him.

The thought spun in my head.

It was up to me to stop him!

Surely Satchel was on the Council’s to-do list, and if I could just find a way to get him to quit terrorizing people—if I could just find a way to get him to find a better, more productive way to exist, well, then surely that would earn me some major kudos and congrats, if not more …

What better way to get what I wanted?

What better way to get my glow to glow even brighter?

I’d reduce, if not stop, the nightmares that found their way out into the world, which, in turn, would cause me to leap a heckuva lot closer to my one and only goal.

Being thirteen was finally in reach.

All I had to do was get inside his head. Figure out the reason why he did what he did.

Everyone is driven by something. No one does stuff just for the heck of it. There’s always a reason, some kind of motivation. Peer pressure, revenge, the pursuit of world domination or fame, whatever—the motivation’s the fuel that sparks the flame—the driving force behind just about everything. All I had to do was learn Satchel’s, then quickly dismantle it, show him all the reasons why it just didn’t work.

“So, tell me, how exactly are you changing lives by scaring people?” I asked, hoping to get a glimpse inside his sick and twisted head.

Satchel looked at me, his expression open, simple, though if you looked close enough, you could see his blue eyes were simmering just underneath.

“People don’t fear enough,” he said.

I squinted, thinking of all the things I was afraid of: clowns, spiders, quicksand, accidentally going to school naked—he’d pretty much nailed them all. The only thing he’d left out was dentists and, oh yeah, snakes, though I wasn’t about to share that with him.

“People act with abandon. They take unnecessary risks. They think they’ll live forever and so they take their lives for granted. They ignore just how extremely dangerous the world really is.”

Although he tried to appear outwardly calm, it was clear he was growing agitated. I could tell by the way his fingers twitched and fiddled with the tip of his belt, as his mouth pulled and jumped at the sides.

So I kept my voice steady, low, reluctant to add to his distress, when I said, “Really?” I scratched at my chin as though I was truly considering his words. “Because I’m just not sure I see it that way.”

His face went stony, his voice grew snotty, and he said, “Oh really? Then let me ask you this—how did you die? How’d you end up Here?” He arched his brow in challenge.

I shrugged, refused to get riled up. “Car accident,” I said. “They’re pretty common, you know.”

He shook his head, shot me a look like I was too dumb to be believed. “Just because they’re common doesn’t mean they have to be.” He shuffled his feet, rocked back and forth before me. “People don’t pay attention. They allow themselves to get distracted by the stupidest things! They mess with the radio, look for stuff they dropped under the seat. Women put on their makeup, and men shave. And now, ever since they invented cell phones,” he rolled his eyes and sighed, “people actually send e-mails and text! They do all of these things when they should have their eyes on the road and only the road. You should never, ever take your eyes from the road! No matter what!”

His voice grew louder, firmer, as he reached the end of his rant. Sounding almost as though those last words didn’t actually belong to him—as though he was borrowing from some other source.

A source that just might hold the key, but before I could get to that, he asked, “So tell

me, who was driving the day you died?”