Page 2 of The World Undone

Yes, that name was ridiculous and ominous as fuck—they clearly needed someone better on the marketing team. There was a reason everyone just called it ‘The Lodge’.

I supposed it benefited us now though—kept the tourists away.

Well, the bad marketing and the protective magic surrounding the place helped keep the tourists away. Not that anyone was particularly forthcoming about how the latter worked. Charlie and her community enjoyed their secrets and privacy as much as we did.

Izzy’d finally been given clearance and permission to visit the medical building housed here.

Though, to be honest, medical building was a little generous. It was mostly a repurposed house with outdated supplies and not enough beds to corral all the new patients.

Bishop was a bit of a stickler for the rules. In that, when we flipped everything upside down, he took it upon himself to make a bunch of new ones.

Considering Izzy and I had doubled the number of occupants on this land, I couldn’t exactly fault him for trying to maintain some semblance of control and organization, no matter how futile and frivolous it seemed to us at this point.

She bumped her shoulder with mine, reminding me I hadn’t responded yet.

Right. How was I?

How the fuck was I supposed to know the answer to that question?

“I’ve been sleeping,” I said, considering how much I wanted to share. But the hesitation dripped away as instantly as it had come. This was Izzy. She’d put herself on the line countless times for me—and she’d implicitly trusted me when I reached out to her the night we ambushed The Guild.

She was the real reason we were able to save so many of the demons locked deep in the labs. I may have burned it to the ground, but she was the one who’d done all of the heavy lifting before that. The moment after she’d woken up from our dream, she initiated things there instantly, corralling the protectors she trusted and manipulating those she didn’t away from the grounds.

The girl deserved the truth—always. As long as I was able to give it to her, anyway.

“But most of my dreams end up as these horrible, almost tangible nightmares—not like with the dream walks, different somehow—and when I wake up, I’m at the lake. More exhausted than when I went to sleep in the first place.”

Sometimes I even woke up with what must have been deep scratches and gouges in my arms and legs—the cuts from my nails long healed, leaving only crusted blood as evidence of the injuries.

“Like,” she stopped walking, “literally at the lake?” She pointed her thumb over her shoulder, back the way we’d come. The air was filled with the soothing brine of it. “The giant one over there?”

I nodded.

Most nights, I was lucky and just woke up on the rocky beach, gasping for breath. But occasionally I’d come to, doused fully under water, with a rush that made it feel like I was only a few seconds away from drowning. “The guys and Dec started locking my door, but we learned pretty quickly that strategy doesn’t work.”

Neither did literally handcuffing my arm to one of them throughout the night—which they’d also tried. Twice.

Izzy tilted her head, gray eyes locking onto mine. “I suppose that teleporting makes most methods of jail or observation useless, huh? Sort of throws the typical rules of sleepwalking out the window.”

I snorted. She’d figured out that flaw in our plan considerably faster than the rest of us had. We went through the entire experiment before reality smashed it to smithereens in our faces. “Was worth a try.”

“I mean, I suppose it’s better than waking up in the middle of a volcano pit—or in the clutches of The Guild Council, but still, it’s weird. And weird these days always seems to mean something, doesn’t it?” She read the confusion on my face and snorted. “Oh please. There are no coincidences where you’re concerned. Everything is…something. So why now? Why the lake?”

I shrugged, remembering the first time it had happened.

I’d dream-walked to Lucifer.

A cold shiver ran down my spine at the memory of it.

Lucifer’s ritual to save the world would most likely save the world. In theory, anyway, but it would also end in my death.

I still hadn’t found a way to tell the others about that particular puzzle piece. Partially because I already knew I’d go through with it anyway, regardless of what they had to say.

What was the point in living, if the entire world collapsed as a result? If it risked every person I cared about?

At least I could go out saving as many people as possible—giving everyone I loved a chance to live their remaining days out in a peaceful, stable world. When I really thought about it, there was no better way to die.

It was how Cyrus had spent his last breaths, even if I wished down to my marrow that he hadn’t.

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