The Dream Thieves

Prokopenko chortled again. It was the sort of chortle that meant he would be vomiting soon. Gansey seemed to understand this, as he edged a foot back from him.

Ordinarily, Gansey would have done more than edge away. Having achieved all they’d needed to, he would have told Ronan it was time to go. He would have been frostily polite to Kavinsky. And then he would have been gone.

But this was not Gansey as usual.

This was Gansey with a lofty tilt to his chin, a condescending quirk to his mouth. A Gansey that was aware that no matter what went down here tonight, he would still go back to Monmouth Manufacturing and rule his particular corner of the world. This was a Gansey, Ronan realized, that Adam would hate.

Gansey said, “And what is it my dog needs?”

Ronan’s lips curled into a smile.

Fuck the past. This was the present.

Kavinsky said, “Pyrotechnics. Boom!” He pounded the roof of his crumpled car. Amiably, he told the girl in the passenger seat, “Get out, bitch. Unless you wanna die. It’s all the same to me.”

It dawned on Ronan that Kavinsky meant to blow up the Mitsubishi.

In the state of Virginia, fireworks that exploded or emitted flame higher than twelve feet were illegal, unless you had a special permit. It wasn’t a fact most residents of Henrietta had to remember, however, because it was impossible to find fireworks that did anything even slightly remarkable, much less illegal, within state borders. If you wanted something a bit more impressive for the holiday weekend, you headed for the city’s firework display. If you were like some of the rowdier Aglionby boys or better-off rednecks of Henrietta, you drove over the state line and filled your trunk with illegal Pennsylvanian fireworks. If you were Kavinsky, you built your own.

“That dent will come out,” Ronan said, equal parts exhilarated and horrified to think of the Mitsubishi perishing. So many times just the first glimpse of its taillights on the road ahead of him had been enough to pump an urgent spasm of adrenaline through him.

“I’ll always know it was there,” Kavinsky replied carelessly. “Cherry, popped. Prokopenko, make me a cocktail, man.”

Prokopenko was happy to oblige.

“Take the edge off,” Kavinsky said. He turned to Gansey, a bottle in hand. It sloshed with liquid; a T-shirt had been wound and stuffed through the mouth of it. It was on fire. It was, in fact, a Molotov cocktail.

To Ronan’s surprise and delight, Gansey accepted it.

He was a striking version of himself, a dangerous version of himself, standing there before Kavinsky’s despoiled Mitsubishi with a homemade bomb in hand. Ronan remembered the dream of Adam and the mask: the more toothful version of Adam.

Instead of throwing it at the Mitsubishi, however, Gansey sighted a line toward the distant Volvo. He hurled it, high and graceful and true. Heads curved up to watch its progress. A voice from the crowd shouted, “Woop Woop, Gansey Boy!” which meant that at least one member of the Aglionby crew team was present. A moment later, the bottle landed just short of the Volvo’s rear tires. The simultaneous breaking of the glass and explosion made it seem as if the Molotov cocktail had sunk into the ground. Gansey wiped his hand on his pants and turned away.

“Good throw,” Kavinsky said, “but wrong car. Proko!”

Prokopenko handed him another Molotov cocktail. This one Kavinsky pressed into Ronan’s hand. He leaned close — too close — and said, “It’s a bomb. Just like you.”

Something thrilled through Ronan. It was like a dream, the sharpness of all this. The weight of the bottle in his hand, the heat from the flaming wick, the smell of this polluted pleasure.

Kavinsky pointed at the Mitsubishi.

“Aim high,” he advised. His eyes glittered, black pits reflecting the small inferno in Ronan’s grip. “And do it fast, man, or you’ll blow your arm off. No one wants half a tattoo.”

A curious thing happened when the bottle left Ronan’s hand. As it arced through the air, trails of fire-orange in its wake, Ronan felt as if he had hurled his heart. There was a rip, just as he released it. And heat filling his body, pouring in through the hole he’d made. But now he could breathe, now that there was room in his suddenly light chest. The past was something that had happened to another version of himself, a version that could be lit and hurled away.

Then the bottle landed in the driver’s window of the Mitsubishi. It was as if there was no liquid, only fire. Flames poured across the headrest like a living thing. Cheers erupted across the fairground. Partygoers moved toward the car, moths to a new lamp.

Ronan heaved a breath.

Kavinsky, his laugh high and manic, dashed another bomb through the window. Prokopenko threw another. Now the interior was catching, and the smell was becoming toxic.

Part of Ronan couldn’t really believe the Mitsubishi was gone. But as the others began to add their cigarettes and drinks to the bonfire, the music abruptly vanished as the stereo melted. It seemed a vehicle was well and truly dead once the stereo had melted.

“Skov!” shouted Kavinsky. “Music!”

Another car’s stereo boomed to life, taking up where the Mitsubishi had left off.

Kavinsky turned to Ronan with a sly grin. “You coming to Fourth of July this year?”

Ronan exchanged a look with Gansey, but the other boy was looking out over the numerous silhouettes, his eyes narrowed. “Maybe,” he replied.

“It’s a lot like a substance party,” Kavinsky said. “You want to see something explode, bring something that explodes.”

There was a dare there. It was a dare that could be satisfied, maybe, by a drive over the border, or by the clever concoction of an explosive from plans found on the Internet.

But, Ronan thought, with the same thrill he’d felt before, it was also one that he could attack with a dream.

He was good at dangerous things, both in his sleep and while awake.

“Maybe,” he replied. Gansey was moving toward the BMW. “I’ll light a candle for your car.”

“You aren’t leaving? Harsh.”

If Gansey was going, Ronan was going. He paused long enough to flick another fake ID at Kavinsky’s bare chest. “Stay out of our place.”

Kavinsky’s smile was wide and crooked. “I only come where they invite me, man.”

“Lynch,” Gansey said. “We’re gone.”

“That’s right,” Kavinsky called after Ronan. “Call your dog!”

He said it like either Ronan or Gansey should be offended by it.

But Ronan felt nothing but that fiery, empty cavern in his chest. He slid himself into the driver’s seat as Gansey shut the passenger door.

Ronan’s phone buzzed in the door pocket. He looked at it — a message from Kavinsky.

see you on the streets Dropping the phone back into the door, Ronan let the engine rev up high. He backed out with a dramatic spin in the dirt. Gansey made an approving cluck.

“Kavinsky,” Gansey said, with a little laugh in his voice, still dismissive. “He thinks he owns this place. He thinks life is a music video.”

He gripped the door as Ronan let the BMW have its head. The car galloped joyfully and recklessly toward home for a few miles, the speedometer setting the pace of their pulses.

Ronan said, “You don’t see the appeal?”

Closing his eyes, Gansey leaned his head back on his seat, chin tilted up, throat green in the dash lights. There was still an unsafe sort of smile about his mouth — what a torment the possibility in that smile was — and he said, “There was never a time when that could’ve been you and me. You know the difference between us and Kavinsky? We matter.”

Just then, in that moment, the thought of Gansey leaving for D.C. without him was unbearable. They had been a two-headed creature for so long, Ronan-and-Gansey. He couldn’t say it, though. There were a thousand reasons why he couldn’t say it.

“While I’m gone,” Gansey said, pausing, “dream me the world. Something new for every night.”

28

Good evening, king of swords.”

“And good evening, noble blade. Did you do a read ing before I came? To tell you how it all worked out?” the Gray Man asked as he walked with Maura down toward the Champagne Mutiny. He had showered before he came, though he had not shaved his trademark grizzle from his jaw, and he looked nice, although Maura didn’t point this out.

“Did you kill someone before you left to pick me up?” Maura had traded her tattered blue jeans for a slightly less tattered pair of blue jeans and an off-the-shoulder cotton shirt that showed how well her collarbone and neck got along. She looked nice, although the Gray Man didn’t point it out.

But they were both aware that the other had noticed. “Of course not. I don’t think I kill nearly as many people as you think I do,” he said, opening the passenger door for her. “Do you know, this is the first time I’ve seen you wearing shoes. Oh, so — what’s going on there?”

Maura glanced over her shoulder to where he pointed. A small, weary Ford had just pulled up behind the Gray Man’s rental car. “Oh, that’s Calla. She’s following us to the restaurant to make sure you’re really taking me there and not burying me in the woods.”

The Gray Man said, “How ridiculous. I never bury anybody.” Calla gave a mean-spirited wave in his general direction. Her fingers were claws on the steering wheel.

“She likes you,” Maura said. “You should be glad. She’s a good friend to have.”

The tired Ford followed them to the restaurant and waited on the curb until the Gray Man and Maura were seated at a table beneath a honeysuckle and Christmas-light-covered trellis. Fans fixed in the corners kept the humid night at bay.

Maura said, “I’m going to order for you.”

She waited to see if he would challenge her, but he just said, “I’m allergic to strawberries.”

“Six percent of the population is,” she noted.

He said, “I see where your daughter came from.” She beamed at him. She had one of those lovely, open, perfect smiles, genuinely happy and very beautiful. The Gray Man thought, This is the worst decision I’ve ever made.

She ordered for them. Neither drank any wine. The appetizers were delicious, not because of the kitchen, but because all food eaten in anticipation of a kiss is delicious.

The Gray Man asked, “What is it like, being a seer?” “That’s a funny way to put it.”

“I only mean, how much do you see, and how clearly? Did you know I would ask that question? Do you know what I’m thinking?”

Maura’s smile curled cleverly. “It’s like a dream or a memory, but forward. Most of it is fuzzy, but sometimes we’ll see one particular element very sharply. And it’s not always the future.

Oftentimes, when people come for a reading, we’re really telling them things they already know. So no, I didn’t know you would ask that question. And yes, I know what you’re thinking, but that’s because I’m a good guesser, not a good psychic.” It was funny, the Gray Man thought, how humorous she always appeared, how that smile was always just a moment away from her lips. You really didn’t see the sadness or the longing unless you already knew it was there. But that was the trick, wasn’t it? Everyone had their disappointment and their baggage; only, some people carried it in their inside pockets and not on their backs. And here was the other trick: Maura was not faking her happiness. She was both very happy and very sad. Later, their entrees arrived. Maura had ordered the salmon for the Gray Man.