Rolling my eyes, I went through behind her, shutting the door once we were on the other side. One checkpoint down, one to go.
We’re coming, Six.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“They have gained entry,” Azlu said.
My heart gave a series of hard thuds that left me feeling a little light-headed. “That was quick,” I said.
“I don’t think it will take them long to reach D-Block.”
“Which means we don’t have long, either. Are you both ready?”
Azlu dropped from the ceiling, twisting her body and landing perfectly on her feet. She nodded. “I am ready.”
Alexa came up beside her and nodded. “I’m ready, too,” she said, “Is your boy gonna be ready, though?”
“My boy?”
She cocked an eyebrow. “Horseman?”
“He’s not my boy.”
“Your man, then. Whatever. Is he going to let us into his brain?”
“I don’t think he has much of a choice. You can initiate the link, right Azlu?”
“Mother will guide us to the edge of the beast’s senses once we are asleep,” she said, “But beyond that, we make no guarantees.”
I nodded. “We should do it quickly, then,” I said, “Once Seline is discovered, the Warden will want the Horseman’s help in repelling them. If the Horseman is unconscious, he won’t be able to help.”
Alexa walked over to me and watched me closely. “I just need to be sure.”
“Sure of what?”
“Sure that when the moment comes, you’ll do what you have to do.”
I angled my head to the side. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”
“The Horseman. The devil. They’re the same thing. If we kill it, we might kill him… I need to know you’ll be able to do that when the time comes.”
“We’re going to try to capture it first… that was the plan.”
“Yeah, and then what? We’ve been over the plan twice, and you still haven’t exactly laid out what happens once we trap it.”
“We trap it. That’s it.”
“Trap it where?”
“With magic… right? You said you could bind it.”
“I can. I think I can, anyway. But the moment we wake up, the dream ends, and it goes back to wherever it lives—unless we take it with us, or kill it. I would rather kill it.”
“You know we can’t do that. The damage I did to the monster, I did to him too, so killing it could kill him.”
“And you have a problem with that?”
“You’re talking about killing the horseman. We’re trying to save him.”
“No, we’re trying to save everyone he might kill in the future before we get rescued and we miss our chance at doing this. If we get to save him, too, then that’s a bonus, but I don’t see how he survives through this, and you need to accept that.”
I stared at her, glared at her. “You’re asking me to give up on him before we’ve even attempted to help.”
She shook her head. “I’m trying to remind you that the life you had before you came to this place literally just broke the door down to get you back. I know you and the Horseman have some kind of connection, or at least you think you do, but the last thing I want is you losing your nerve at crunch time, and then something fucked up happens that affects everyone, not just you. My brother is in here… the stakes are higher than ever, Six.”
My hackles rose for a moment, then they slowly dropped as I understood what she meant. “I’m not going to let my actions hurt you, your brother, or anyone else who’s come in here to get us out. I promise.”
Alexa nodded. “Alright,” she looked at Azlu. “Then, I think we’re ready.”
Azlu lightly bowed her head. “In that case, you may wish to sit down before we begin. The process of putting us all to sleep will be quick, sharp… and a little painful.”
“Painful?” I asked, siting on the concrete floor. “You mean this won’t be like the meditation we did the other day?”
“We don’t have time for meditation today,” she said, settling on the ground in front of us. She stretched her hands out, one for each of us.
I took one hand, Alexa took the other, and we watched as the little spiderling shut her eyes and let her head start swaying from left to right. She was communicating with mother, with that great, Godlike spider entity I had almost seen.
I couldn’t imagine what it was like to have a direct line to your God. To be able to reach out to it, and to know that it could reach out to you at any moment for advice, or help. How was it even possible? And how powerful was mother that she could reach Azlu from across the barrier between dimensions?
I glanced at Alexa again and reached for her with my other hand. She took it and squeezed. “I wasn’t trying to be a bitch,” she said.
“I know,” I said. “I’ve got you. We’re gonna get through this.”
“I hope so, because—” Alexa suddenly grimaced, and at the same time I felt like I’d just been stabbed in the head with a needle made of ice.
I shut my eyes hard. I couldn’t keep them open in the face of such acute pain. But the moment passed like a breath, the pain lifted, and when I opened my eyes again, I found myself in that same, dark place I had been what felt like weeks ago. I knew I was holding Alexa’s hand, but I couldn’t be sure until I squeezed it and felt a return squeeze that it was still there.
“Holy shit,” Alexa said, “That was wild.”
“Yeah, the transition gets you,” I said.
“It’s dark in here.”
“I know.” I paused. “Azlu? Can you hear us?”
“I am here,” she said.
Her voice sounded like it was coming from directly ahead of us, and from all around us. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, the long, thick strand of spider silk that stretched into forever reappeared in front of me. I reached for it with my other hand and touched it. Alexa did the same, but only hesitantly.
“Wow…” she said, her voice echoing. “This feels super weird.”
“Follow the thread,” Azlu said, “We will take you to him.”
“I really don’t like the sound of that. Is it too late to go back?”
“You really want to go back?” I asked.
A pause. “No. But that just sounded ominous as all hell.”
“Just stick with me, okay? We’ll be fine.”
With Alexa by my side, I followed the long thread of spider silk into the dark, only the deeper I moved into this strange space, the more the features of the world around me started coming out. Soft, blue lights were beginning to bloom into existence, highlighting the openings to various little tunnels inset into the cavernous wall around us. Spiderwebs stretched overhead, running through the entire place like a network of veins, and some of them were moving, vibrating.
I remembered this place, almost.
The details of the last dream I’d had were all but gone, but now that I was here, some of it was starting to come back. The devil chasing me through the corridors; the sound of crunching bones and the wet thud of flesh hitting the floor; mother’s terrifying silhouette. It was all enough to make my heart already kick into a higher gear.