Page 170 of The World Undone

Honestly, they were pretty evenly matched.

“They lash out at anyone who goes near your door.” I grinned. “You should’ve heard Izzy cuss them out though. Pretty sure she would’ve attacked them both, but Ro grabbed her and held her back in time. They eventually let her in to see you. Ralph too. The hellhound hasn’t left the floor next to your bed. Dec tried to coax him into a game of fetch a few days ago, but he wouldn’t even acknowledge that red ball of his that he’s always carrying around.”

We were getting kind of worried about him, truth be told. I had no idea what hellhounds required to survive, but he hadn’t been eating or drinking or showing much interest in anything.

“And Dec and Eli,” I sighed, “they haven’t left the cabin for more than a few minutes at a time either. We’ve just been taking turns, lying next to you. Darius and Rowan dragged in some extra mattresses so that none of us have to sleep anywhere else.

“We’re all here with you. I hope that you can feel us. That you don’t feel alone, wherever you are.” I closed my eyes, wanting so desperately to hold her, to see the familiar spark in her eyes when she looked at me. “Please, Max. Please wake up.”

Two Months After the Ritual

My head was on a familiar pillow. Max’s chest rose in slow breaths before descending again.

I pressed my hand against her skin, basking in the warmth.

Usually, in dream-walks, I pulled energy from Max. We always had a balanced relationship of give and take in these dreams, but now I fought desperately to drain my power, for her to pull as much as she needed.

Even if it killed me.

Sometimes, I swore I felt her draw from me, especially when I held her hand, her fingers curling around mine once or twice, but it was always too subtle for me to know whether it really happened or if I just wanted it so badly that I simply thought it did. While I woke up exhausted every day, I had no way of knowing if that had more to do with the fact that I hadn’t used my incubus powers to feed in months or if she really was pulling some of my energy.

The bed she was on now was large, comfortable; the room bright and warm, but small, a near copy of her bedroom from the cabin. I figured if she could choose any place in the world to sleep, it would be there. Bouquets of impossibly large flowers were arranged in every nook and corner, her favorite books in haphazard stacks, just like she preferred them, all of them just waiting to be read. The walls were covered with posters and messages the others had begged me to transcribe and surround her with.

I had no idea if she could sense the warmth and love encasing her while she slept, but it made them feel a little better at least when I described it each morning, took their input, and made the dreamscape better the next night. It gave them a sense of purpose, maybe, when they spent most of their days feeling useless.

To me, it mostly felt like I was visiting the inside of a shrine every time I went to sleep.

Despite trying almost every night, I couldn’t bring any of them with me in the dream-walk. All it did was drain me too much to reach her at all. Traveling with others was something that always worked best when I was with Max anyway, with her power, her strength amplifying my own.

Two weeks ago, I woke up next to her, no longer hovering above like an observer of the dream. I could shape the room into whatever I wanted, like I was usually able to do. And so I’d shaped it into this.

But she was still always asleep and, save for the few times when I could have sworn she’d sensed my presence, my voice, she remained largely unresponsive.

At first, I’d taken my new agency in the dream as a sign of improvement, that she was getting stronger, but as time went on, I worried it was more so a sign of my own strength returning than hers.

We’d moved out of The Lodge a month ago in an attempt to avoid the chaos and uncertainty around the grounds. Things had grown more dire, more unpredictable. What had once been a place of comfort was now drained of all the things that made it home.

Instead, we hoped that finding Max somewhere quiet and safe to rest would help speed along the process.

None of us would lend voice to the fear that we all felt.

That Max would be lost in her dream world forever.

That what she’d been through was too much to recover from, just as Lucifer thought it would be.

That we’d collectively lent her just enough power to keep her alive, but not enough to live.

That by interfering with the ritual, we’d unintentionally trapped her inside of herself, a fate worse, maybe, than even death.

Aside from me, no one else really slept much these days. The only reason I did was because I knew I could see her in my dreams, that each time I closed my eyes, there’d be a chance she’d be awake on the other side, waiting for me.

Exhaustion was destroying us though. Instead of sleeping, the team oscillated between finding random projects to keep them busy and bickering with each other, picking fights whenever one of us sank too far into grief or began to lose hope. Usually, it worked well enough to distract us back from that cliff, but not always.

Ro and Izzy helped when they could, neither interested in letting us leave their sights until Max was awake.

I’d merely suggested once that they go meet up with Arnell and the others, promising that we’d find them when she woke up.

They nearly took my head off before the suggestion fully left my lips.

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