Read Online Dangerous Dreams (A Dreamrunners Society Novel) by Aileen Harkwood - Free Book Online

needed. Gavin was right. It was too soon after his previous run, hence the worthless non-body he’d found himself in while trying to prevent Lara from touching the door. It might seem like runners ignored the laws of physics to do what they did, but in reality all they knew were a few more of those laws than everyone else. Certain rules always applied. You had to have energy to spend it, and he’d spent most of his last night during the failed run to rescue Lara. If only he hadn’t tried again so soon. If he’d had use of his true body when she’d appeared minutes ago, he could have shown her the door wouldn’t open for her.
    Stupid. Stupid.
    I’ve failed her again .
    Had his idiocy just cost Lara a hand?
    He wanted to destroy something. He called Gavin instead.
    “I want you out of there now,” Gavin told him once he heard Jack’s story. “We’re abandoning your safe house. Sooner or later, they’ll guide her back there.”
    “Exactly why I should stay,” Jack said, pacing restlessly back and forth while talking to Gavin on the phone. “To intercept her when she returns, and then follow her back to where they’re holding her.”
    He should have pressed her for her last name. Then they might have had some decent information to go on in tracing her through traditional investigative channels. They may not know where she was now, but Jack believed it would help to know where she’d been, where she lived, who employed her, and most importantly, how she’d landed on the Greys’ radar. Was it someone she’d talked to at work? Or a friend in whom she’d confided? Runner abilities didn’t just spring into existence with full functionality. The knowledge of who you were and what you could do came on gradually in bits and pieces. There would have been signs, events in her life that probably frightened and distressed her.
    A therapist? Could the Greys have connections to psychiatric practices and hospitals, just as the Society did? Why not? It was only logical.
    He doubted Lara knew she was a dreamrunner. Incorrectly believing she was losing her mind as her ability manifested, she might have gone into therapy.
    “You don’t know anything about her.” As usual, Gavin spoke as if he could guess Jack’s thoughts.
    “I know enough.”
    “She might be working for them and faking the torture.”
    “You don’t fake the hopelessness I felt in her.”
    That caught his superior off-balance. “You experienced her emotions? Again?”
    “Yes.”
    Gavin was quiet. If Jack were to speculate, his boss wasn’t just weighing his options for closing down the safe house, but ordering Jack off the mission altogether. That a finder could share a Lost One’s pain was not good news. Hurt the Lost One and you might incapacitate the finder. A finder not in full control of his abilities was a danger to himself and the Society. If the Greys caught Jack, they’d have another high-value captive, in addition to the missing Taylor March, they might use to bring down The House.
    “She’s an innocent,” Jack said.
    “They’re using her,” Gavin said. “She may not be a willing participant, but she’s still a tool under their control.”
    Jack heard his superior’s fingers flying over a keyboard. Was he at The House or his office in D.C.? His boss rarely stayed put. Guessing his location was never easy.
    “Get out of there, now,” Gavin said. “As of a minute ago, the cabin is no longer among the Society’s holdings. It’s slated for demolition by the county. Today.”
    A runner couldn’t run to a place that no longer existed.
    Jack’s agitation grew. “Dammit, Gavin, what happens to her?”
    Lara wouldn’t injure herself by attempting to return to the cabin after it was demolished. She wouldn’t suddenly find herself buried in the ground beneath it. She wouldn’t be able to find the property at all. Small consolation. By erasing her path to the Society, they erased the only chance Jack had so far of finding