“A code name? Whose corny idea was a code name?”
“Yours.” Adeline’s hand struck the table, silencing Kane and the tables nearby. “Your idea. You. Our leader.”
Kane went red-hot, his hairline prickling and his clothes itching on his back.
Leader?
“Same with the term Reverie. And Hero. You said it’s hard to handle a problem if you don’t know how to talk about it, so you made up terms.”
White heat burst at the edges of Kane’s vision. Sweat dotted his lower back. How could they not feel the heat?
“You were the first to explore the reveries. The first to get powers,” Elliot said. “You, then Urs. Eventually Adeline and I got dragged into a few reveries, by accident, and when our powers developed it seemed like a natural thing to form a team. So we became the Others. We’re the only ones who stay lucid, and if we don’t unravel them properly, they leave damage behind. People get hurt. We learned that the hard way.”
It was a subtle movement, but Adeline’s eyes closed a fraction longer than a blink.
Elliot continued. “And recently, the reveries have been getting worse. More…elaborate. Like whole entire worlds instead of just one story. And then around two months ago, we thought—” He swallowed. “You began talking about the energy of reveries. The stuff that creates them. You said there was a source of power that the heroes were tapping into, somehow, and if you could find it you could control it, too.”
Adeline picked up. “We told you not to.”
“Not to what?”
No one answered.
“Not to what?”
Adeline lowered her voice to a menacing whisper. “You went nuts, Kane.” Elliot and Ursula flinched. “What? It’s true. You became obsessed with finding the source of the reveries, the source of our power. You were convinced it was a weapon that you had to have, or else it was going to be used against you. It’s all you talked about for weeks, and then, in the middle of a reverie, you… I don’t know. Lost it? Like actually, truly lost your grip on reality? You basically tore the whole thing apart in this psychedelic explosion, and we thought you died. Like died died.”
“What about the car crash?”
Adeline picked at the crusts on her plate. “The police saw the explosion and showed up. We needed something quick, so Ursula threw your car into the mill and Elliot created a bunch of fake evidence to make it look like a fire. I filled in the rest with some fake memories while we made sure you got to a hospital. Not our best work, but we needed to use you as a diversion.”
“You threw my dad’s car?”
Ursula had never looked more ashamed, not even when Adeline talked about her mermaid shell bra. “Underhand,” she squeaked.
“And this was a diversion? From what?”
The chill in the booth was back, and now it wouldn’t thaw. It settled resolutely onto Kane’s skin, a frosted lather. He squared his shoulders toward Adeline, who was the most forthcoming, but it was Elliot who spoke up.
“The hero of that night’s reverie was an old painter, and her reverie was a watercolor reimagining of East Amity. It developed as she was setting up to paint the mill, we think. It was huge and intricate, but we never got to its resolution. When you tore the reverie apart, the hero vanished. We don’t know what happened to her. Her name was—”
“Maxine Osman,” Kane said. He didn’t see their reaction. The diner’s fluorescent lights buzzed in the silence. Neither time nor feeling could reach him as the sense of betrayal he’d felt about his past earlier that day returned, filling him to the brim with a pulsing, dark truth. You are a killer, you are a killer, it said. He shoved it down. Kane barely knew these people, and he definitely did not trust them. What if they were creating this story, just like they’d created the crash? Just like they’d created everything else?
“How do I know you’re not lying? How come I don’t remember?”
No one would look at Kane. Adeline seemed miles away when she finally spoke.
“After you unraveled Maxine’s reverie, we found you with this thing on your head. An artifact that was definitely not from the reverie. We think it’s what set off your powers, but we don’t know. It sort of looked like a crown, but it was burning you.” She gestured to the burns etched in Kane’s scalp.
Dread squirmed in his chest.
“I tried to remove it, but touching it did something to my powers, too. I couldn’t control them. It was like my powers turned inside out or something, and the whole mill decayed. So did your car. Elliot and Ursula would have died if it wasn’t for Ursula’s shield. But I held on, and it worked. I got it off and it threw it away, and when we looked for it later it was gone. Vanished.” She said this with the weight of a verdict. “You survived, but whatever I did destroyed some of your memories. When I checked in the hospital, everything from the summer was gone, and everything about us and the reveries with it.”
The booth was as still as a graveyard. Kane waited to see how he’d react. He waited for the dread to break apart and for an emotion to crawl out. He thought it might be betrayal again. Or doubt. Instead, what hatched within Kane was none of these things. It was fear, but he was smart enough not to show it. Outrage was a handy cover, and it flowed as quick as hot oil.
“You erased my memory?”
Adeline thrust out her chin. “Kane, I didn’t have a choice.”
Kane pushed from the booth.
“You put me into a coma? You crashed my dad’s car? You turned my family and the police against me?”
The clatter in the diner stopped, everyone focused on the boy shouting.
“She saved you, Kane,” said Elliot. “She’s been saving all of us ever since. Just after you went under, your family opened a police report to look into foul play, but Adeline got to them in time and made it so that they didn’t remember who we were, either. She’s the only one keeping us a secret.”
Kane backed away, horrified. “You erased my family’s memory?”
Adeline crossed her arms and glared at the dark windows. Kane’s stomach turned. Elliot followed Kane as he backed away. The eyes of everyone in the diner followed them, too.
“Kane, listen to me. It’s not perfect. None of it’s perfect. But you’re here now. You found your way back. And we need to work as a team now more than ever. You need to prove you can control your powers, or else—”
Kane lunged into a punch, catching Elliot in the cheek. His head snapped sideways and he fell, sweeping a stack of dirtied plates to the floor in a jagged crash.
In the gasp that followed, Kane addressed the other patrons.