24. The Dreamer-Before you dream, you must sleep

"Well?" Michael pressed.  He slowed down and other cars blasted by with their horns.

"Speed up," she groaned and covered her ears.  The horn blares were hammers beating inside her skull.  Their speed increased.  Cars stopped passing them and the drivers stopped slamming the middle of the steering wheel.

"If there was nothing to it all before, I know there is now," he told her after her hands had left her ears.  Red, green, yellow lights melded into one stream.  Something wet splashed on her arm. Then on her hands.  She sniffed.

"We're almost back to your place.  I'll find your medicine and you can lay down, all right?" his left arm stayed on the wheel.  His right arm fumbled around the glove compartment. There, buried under stacks of insurance cards (none of them were current), was a travel package of tissues.

"But..." the tissues were outstretched.  Blue light from a restaurant caused a halo to appear around his head.  She took the tissues.

"It's...I'm not crazy.  You know I'm not.  I started having these dreams..." and she told him the story.  Of seeing his conversation with Julie.  His throat tightened at Anna's knowing that particular memory.  Then again when she was attacked.  The Scythe Girl.  Her father.  The Club.  And now Nick.  When she stopped talking, he pulled up to her apartment.

They sat.  There were many ideas and thoughts running through his head.  It was cool she had that ability.  But something out there wanted to kill her because of it.  Which was bad.

"Huh," he finally said and unbuckled.

"That's it?" she asked.  He shrugged and shut the car door.

"For now.  You need some sleep," and he helped her inside.  The stove hissed with scrambled eggs which she ate before taking her medication.  The James Bond theme song, barely coming from her television, serenaded her to sleep.