Read Online Paranoia (The Night Walkers) by J. R. Johansson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: J. R. Johansson
Tags: Fiction, YA), Young Adult Fiction, Young Adult, stalker, crush, sleep, dream, night walker, night walkers, night walker series
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happen.”
I’m not sure when my thumb stopped moving over the ball, but my body was completely still. When I’d attacked Dr. Freeburg in his dream, I’d felt no hesitation, no resistance. It could have been the one time Darkness and I acted together.
“Finally, you realize—” Darkness appeared right in front of me and I took a faltering step backward. With his back to the light, his face was hidden in shadow. The only thing I could see clearly was his cold smile. “You should be afraid of what I can do.”
My hands were shaking, so I tried to dribble the ball, but all sensation in my fingers seemed to have been cut off. After one bounce the ball hit my foot and flew over on to the grass. “I see.”
I looked down and felt Jack’s stare piercing through the side of my head. But when he finally spoke again all he said was, “Next question?”
Picking up the ball, I squeezed it between my fingers, grasping onto the first question that came to mind. “When you say a Builder can make you stronger, what do you mean?”
When he responded, his voice sounded like he was in a trance, like his mind was visiting some pleasant memory far away from the here and now. “They can craft a dream unlike anything you’ve ever experienced. Absolute peace. Everything else disappears. They can reconnect the breaks in your brain, repair the damage that all the missing sleep has done. Even build new connections where you had none before. Depending on what they focus on, they can improve your memory function, your coordination, your ability to think on your feet and brainstorm. Everything you can imagine and more. They make you whole again. Like I said, they can’t fix a Divide like yours, but everything else is better—new and improved.”
I sat down on the opposite side of the bench, working hard to ignore Darkness and everything wrong with me that he represented, and tried to picture what a dream with a Builder would be like. Truly turning my curse into something that could help me, something useful. It was hard to imagine. “I see the appeal.”
Jack laughed. “Yeah.”
“How do you find a Builder?”
Jack bent forward, resting his elbows on his knees and studying the cracks in the pavement below his feet. The sky was long past sunset now and I couldn’t make out anything but his ears. His face was in shadow and his voice changed to match. “It’s extremely hard. There are as many Builders as Watchers, but since their ability doesn’t harm them in any way, most don’t know about it. Night Walker traits run in families, so we try to find and watch the bloodlines, but it isn’t easy or reliable. And even if you find a Builder, they’re always in danger. Many Takers target suspected Builders as well as Watchers. They capture them—or kill them. They consider themselves superior and the rest of us defective. Why should other Night Walkers live normal lives when they can’t? And if they wipe out the Builders … ”
“The Watchers die with them.” I watched Jack’s shoulders as he drew in a shaky breath. “But still, why?”
I didn’t know what else to say. This was a fight Jack had lived with for years and I’d just found out about today.
Jack rubbed his knuckles across the stubble on his chin. “As they go farther and farther down their sleep-deprived roads, Takers become less in touch with reality. Combining delusions and hallucinations with already sociopathic tendencies is not good. They can take over a Dreamer and kill their enemies without any trace of evidence leading back to them. They can walk into a police station, lie down on the benches in the waiting room, and kill someone while living inside the Dreamer’s body. They are capable of iron-clad alibis and can get away with whatever they want. Even worse,” he continued, “since Takers can’t easily identify a Builder by their dreams the way a Watcher can, they just target anyone who known Watchers get close to.”
I growled under my breath
I’m not sure when my thumb stopped moving over the ball, but my body was completely still. When I’d attacked Dr. Freeburg in his dream, I’d felt no hesitation, no resistance. It could have been the one time Darkness and I acted together.
“Finally, you realize—” Darkness appeared right in front of me and I took a faltering step backward. With his back to the light, his face was hidden in shadow. The only thing I could see clearly was his cold smile. “You should be afraid of what I can do.”
My hands were shaking, so I tried to dribble the ball, but all sensation in my fingers seemed to have been cut off. After one bounce the ball hit my foot and flew over on to the grass. “I see.”
I looked down and felt Jack’s stare piercing through the side of my head. But when he finally spoke again all he said was, “Next question?”
Picking up the ball, I squeezed it between my fingers, grasping onto the first question that came to mind. “When you say a Builder can make you stronger, what do you mean?”
When he responded, his voice sounded like he was in a trance, like his mind was visiting some pleasant memory far away from the here and now. “They can craft a dream unlike anything you’ve ever experienced. Absolute peace. Everything else disappears. They can reconnect the breaks in your brain, repair the damage that all the missing sleep has done. Even build new connections where you had none before. Depending on what they focus on, they can improve your memory function, your coordination, your ability to think on your feet and brainstorm. Everything you can imagine and more. They make you whole again. Like I said, they can’t fix a Divide like yours, but everything else is better—new and improved.”
I sat down on the opposite side of the bench, working hard to ignore Darkness and everything wrong with me that he represented, and tried to picture what a dream with a Builder would be like. Truly turning my curse into something that could help me, something useful. It was hard to imagine. “I see the appeal.”
Jack laughed. “Yeah.”
“How do you find a Builder?”
Jack bent forward, resting his elbows on his knees and studying the cracks in the pavement below his feet. The sky was long past sunset now and I couldn’t make out anything but his ears. His face was in shadow and his voice changed to match. “It’s extremely hard. There are as many Builders as Watchers, but since their ability doesn’t harm them in any way, most don’t know about it. Night Walker traits run in families, so we try to find and watch the bloodlines, but it isn’t easy or reliable. And even if you find a Builder, they’re always in danger. Many Takers target suspected Builders as well as Watchers. They capture them—or kill them. They consider themselves superior and the rest of us defective. Why should other Night Walkers live normal lives when they can’t? And if they wipe out the Builders … ”
“The Watchers die with them.” I watched Jack’s shoulders as he drew in a shaky breath. “But still, why?”
I didn’t know what else to say. This was a fight Jack had lived with for years and I’d just found out about today.
Jack rubbed his knuckles across the stubble on his chin. “As they go farther and farther down their sleep-deprived roads, Takers become less in touch with reality. Combining delusions and hallucinations with already sociopathic tendencies is not good. They can take over a Dreamer and kill their enemies without any trace of evidence leading back to them. They can walk into a police station, lie down on the benches in the waiting room, and kill someone while living inside the Dreamer’s body. They are capable of iron-clad alibis and can get away with whatever they want. Even worse,” he continued, “since Takers can’t easily identify a Builder by their dreams the way a Watcher can, they just target anyone who known Watchers get close to.”
I growled under my breath
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