Dream Theory - Chapter 17 (Patreon)

As soon as Yang woke up, she knew something was wrong.

The room was dark, in large part due to the window tinting preventing the moon from shining inside.  The air was cold, but not too cold - the perfect temperature to sleep in.  The house was quiet, as everyone slept after a difficult, eventful day.  Yet still, she felt like something was wrong.

Rolling onto her side and pulling the covers closer, she suddenly sat straight up.

“Blake?” she asked while looking at the empty bed beside her.  Turning towards the bathroom, where she expected to see light peeking under the door, she instead found the door open and the light off.

“Blake?” she called out again, anxiously searching every corner of the room before pressing her hand to the sheets beside her, only to find them cold.  

Blake must have gotten up some time ago, but why?  If not to use the restroom, where did she go?  Why leave in the middle of the night?

An overwhelming feeling of foreboding rushed through Yang when she remembered the look in Blake’s eyes before they went to sleep - an expression filled with regret and repentance.  And now Blake was gone…

Throwing the covers aside, Yang was in the hall pounding on Ruby and Weiss’ door in no time.

“Ruby!  Weiss!  Wake up!”

Without waiting for a response, she hurried downstairs to see if Blake was still in the house.

“James, lights,” she called out while rushing through the hallway and quickly checking the rooms. 

The kitchen was empty.  The entryway was empty.  The living room was empty.  The entire downstairs was empty.

It was empty.  No one was here.

“What’s going on?” Ruby mumbled, covering a yawn while padding downstairs in her slippers.  Weiss was right behind her, looking tired and annoyed at having been woken in the middle of the night.

“Blake’s gone.”  Running her hand through her hair, Yang tried to quell the panic bubbling in her veins.  “I just woke up, and she’s gone.”

“What?  Why would she go anywhere?”

“I don’t know.  I don’t know.  I think…”  Trailing off, Yang shuddered when a clamp tightened around her heart, making it difficult to breathe.  “I think...she thinks we don’t want her here anymore.”

That was the furthest thing from the truth, and Yang could attest to that now.  No matter what Blake did or lied about, Yang still wanted her here.  Somewhere safe.  Somewhere they could take care of each other.  Not this.  Not again.  Blake couldn’t leave her again.

“Why would she think that?” Ruby asked while Yang paced back and forth in the foyer.

“I don’t know!”  Throwing her hands in the air, Yang tried to think of where Blake might’ve gone so they could find her and bring her back.  “I wasn’t exactly very nice last night, but...”

Tears stung her eyes when she realized that she was right back where she started - wishing for Blake to come back, wishing for the chance to work things out.  But she’d had that chance, and she wasted it being upset about Blake’s lies.  When Blake needed acceptance and forgiveness, Yang turned her back.  She said ‘maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, maybe never’ and figured Blake would accept that.

This was her fault - all her fault.

“We have to find her.”  Trying to swallow back her growing panic, she walked over and clutched Ruby’s arm.  “She can’t have gotten far.  You can find her, right?  Track her on cameras?”

“I can try.  If she left in a hurry, she probably didn’t mask well.”

“Then we have to do that,” Yang replied while pulling Ruby towards the computers just off of the kitchen.

“Maybe you should let her go.”

The suggestion sent a stab of pain through Yang’s chest, but Weiss didn’t back away from it.  Instead, she stood in front of them so they couldn’t complete their goal.

“Maybe it’s time you let her leave, if that’s what she wants.  This was never our fight anyway - maybe it’s better this way.  Let her fight her battles, and we’ll fight ours.”

For a long time, Yang stared at Weiss and had no idea how to respond.  As far as she was concerned, life without Blake didn’t exist.  She needed Blake, even if not romantically, in her life in some way.  After the bombing, when she’d been confronted by a reality without Blake all those months ago, she’d hardly survived.  

“Maybe Weiss is right…”

Ruby’s gentle agreement was enough to bring tears to her eyes.  Ruby was the one who got her through those dark times.  Ruby never wavered from her side.  Ruby was her rock.  But if Ruby felt the same...

“I can’t…” Yang whispered, willing Weiss and Ruby to understand her decision.  “I can’t just let her go.  Even if we’re not together anymore...I need to know she’s ok.  I...I love her too much to let go...” 

Weiss shared a look with Ruby and sighed, but neither of them attempted to persuade Yang further.  Which was good, because she wouldn’t be persuaded to let this go - she wouldn’t let this go.  Even if they thought she was crazy, or thought she was making the wrong decision, she had to see this through to the end.

“Then let’s start looking,” Weiss said, prompting Ruby into motion with those simple words.

“Right!  I just need a computer and -”

They froze when a chime sounded throughout the front entryway, its gentle tune welcoming and unnerving at the same time.  In near unison, the three of them turned towards the front door, but no one moved towards it.

“Who’s here in the middle of the night?” Weiss asked while Yang’s heart sped up with hope.

“Maybe it’s Blake.”  The response hardly made it through her lips before she hurried towards the door.  “Maybe she came back; she just can’t get back in.”

“Wait - Yang.” 

Ruby tried to grab her arm, but Yang pulled away and continued towards the door.

Maybe Blake changed her mind.  Maybe she decided that she couldn’t leave again.  Maybe she came back.  Maybe this time she would stay.

After grabbing the handle and pulling the door open, Yang felt her heart slam into her chest when reality proved her wrong.

It wasn’t Blake standing on Weiss’ front step.  It was Ellie Sawyer.

“Mrs. Sawyer?”  Poking her head further out the door, Yang looked in either direction as if Blake might be hiding somewhere behind the woman.  But there was nothing except dark streets and dark trees and -  

“How did you -?” she began to ask, but the woman cut her off by holding up the cardboard box in her hands.

“I brought you something important.  I think it will help find the people who hurt my son.”

When the woman extended the box, Yang inched forward to look at it.

“What is it?” 

“I was hoping you’d know.”

Yang took a step closer, her heart racing and her mind screaming at her not to look.  But she had to know what it was - if it had anything to do with Blake leaving, she had to know.

Giving the woman one last glance, she carefully pushed the flap of the box out of the way and looked inside -

And then her heart stopped beating.

“That’s a bomb,” she whispered, taking no more than a cursory glance before turning on her heel and sprinting towards Ruby and Weiss.  “Run - now!”

Neither of them hesitated - they turned and ran.  The back door wasn’t far.  If they had time - 

A blast of hot air suddenly ripped through the house, tossing Yang like a ragdoll while tearing through brick and wood like tissue paper.  She slammed into something hard - something immovable - before something equally hard tore her mechanical arm free.  Chaos erupted as chunks of concrete crashed from the ceiling - the house folding in on itself in a cloud of dirt and debris.

Once the world stopped spinning, she found herself staring through a new hole in Weiss’ ceiling, where the moon now shone through unfiltered.  The house was still settling, made evident by nearby crashes of further destruction, but her section of the house was already fully destroyed.

Her mechanical arm was gone - that she already knew - but it wasn’t until she lifted her head and brushed several pieces of wood and plaster off of her that she saw the blood.  So much blood, spreading around the broken metal pipe sticking through her chest.

Crying out in pain, she searched for a way to free herself, or move at all, but a heavy section of wall lay across her legs.  No way could she move it with her human arm, even if she could bend down to reach it.

With one shaking hand, she reached up and nearly touched the pipe before losing the resolve.

“Ruby!” she yelled, cringing in pain before listening for the sound of her sister.  “Weiss!”

When she didn’t hear a response, she looked down and summoned the courage to gently touch the pipe protruding through her.  The slight touch was enough to send a wave a searing pain through her, convincing her not to attempt any sort of removal.  

She couldn’t move with it in her, but she didn’t have the strength or the fearlessness to pull it out.  Even if she somehow removed it, she would almost immediately die of blood loss with a gaping hole in her chest.

Groaning in agony, she touched the blood soaking through her shirt and brought her shaking fingers away red.  Just looking at it made her light-headed and panicked, but there was nothing she could do to stop it.  If no one found her soon, she’d die of blood loss anyway.  And, even if someone found her soon, the pipe might be the only thing keeping her alive.  Maybe she was already marked for death, but granted a few more minutes to survive with a metal pole pinning her in place.

Feeling another wave of heat and hearing loud crackles, she craned her neck - pain tearing through her from the effort - and found a fire raging where the kitchen once was.  Another wall crumbled and fell on top of the fire, only adding fuel to help it grow.

“Ruby!” she tried one more time, hearing fear and desperation in her voice.  When she heard nothing but the fire in response, she laid her head back on the ground and grimaced.  

There was nothing for her to do but wait.  Wait for her heart to slow while her blood steadily left her.  Wait for her mind to grow calm and foggy as her brain shut down.  Wait...and accept either of the two ends approaching her.

She wasn’t an idiot.  She’d been to enough crime scenes and seen enough victims - she knew which ones made it and which ones didn’t.  She knew which wounds were fatal and which ones left a fighting chance.

It didn’t matter as long as Ruby and Weiss made it out okay.  They were closer to the back of the house, so hopefully...hopefully, they were far enough away that they hadn’t gotten trapped.  She knew they’d get help, but...help might be too far away.  Even if a rescue drone made it here in time, how long would it take to find and reach her?  And what type of rescue was possible for someone with a pipe sticking through their chest?

She was still afraid.  Even though she’d faced death so many times at work, it never caught her until now.  She didn’t feel ready to face the unknown - not alone.  She didn’t want to go into this alone, without even the chance to say goodbye.

Hopefully, Ruby and Weiss were ok.  And thankfully, Blake had already left…

Feeling another wave of pain, she closed her eyes and felt the first tears fall.  This wasn’t how their story was supposed to end.  They were supposed to have time to work it out, to find their happily-ever-after…or at least, figure out how to stay in each other’s lives...

“Blake…” she whispered, closing her eyes as more hot tears fell.  She heard the fire creeping closer while her adrenaline wore off, allowing her to fully feel the pain shutting down her body.

At least it wouldn’t be long...

“Yang!”

Her eyes flew open at her name, and the world suddenly shattered into a million pieces.  Weiss’ house, the wood and concrete and fire - everything splintered apart and fell to the ground like broken panes of glass.

“Yang!” Blake called out again, appearing out of nowhere and kneeling by Yang’s side.  Her eyes were wild - scared - as she reached out for Yang’s hand only to pass right through it.  “Yang, you’re in a nightmare - you’re dreaming.  You’re only dreaming.”

“What -?”

Disoriented by the abrupt change of events, Yang looked down and found that the wall no longer trapped her legs, and there was no longer a pipe bursting through her chest.  All of it had disappeared just like the fire and remnants of Weiss’ house.

She wasn’t dying - she was fine.

“It only hurts because you think it does,” Blake reminded her while she pushed herself to her feet and delicately pressed her hand to her chest.  

There was no hole, there was no blood.  It was like it never happened.

“Remember your arm.”

As soon as Blake made the comment, Yang looked down at her hands and found her mechanical arm back in place.  Whether she or Blake put it there, she didn’t know.

“What’s going on?” she asked.  Blake opened her mouth to answer but looked up as the sky above them split in half.  The next second, the ground lifted up and shoved Yang to the side an instant before a lightning bolt struck where she’d just stood.  She hardly regained her balance when a fierce wind swept her off her feet, and she hit her chin on the pavement with a painful crack before being dragged away.

She didn’t make it very far before the wind abruptly disappeared.  

“Blake!” she called out while scrambling to her feet.  Her eyes immediately caught a flash of movement to her right, but she hardly turned towards the threat when everything froze.  The sky, the wolf lunging towards her arm - everything around her caught in time.

Blake reappeared in front of her then, looking sad and tired at the same time.  But Yang couldn’t even begin to put in words how relieved she was to see her.

“You didn’t leave.”  

It was the first thing Yang could think to say, and Blake shook her head.

“Of course I didn’t.”  Stepping closer, Blake met Yang’s eyes with an expression of pain and sorrow.  “But we don’t have much time.”

What felt like an earthquake shook the environment, rumbling under Yang’s feet while Blake closed her eyes and clenched her fists in concentration.  Once the feeling passed, she met Yang’s gaze and didn’t look away.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice heavy with emotion.  “I’m sorry that I tried to hide this from you, that I didn’t come to you right away, that it ever even happened.  You deserve better.  Everyone deserves better.”

“Blake...” 

Blake shook her head to cut off Yang’s response.

“I’m going to fix it, ok?  I’m going to make sure she doesn’t hurt anyone else, but...but that means I have to go now.”

“You don’t -”

“I do.  I’m sorry, but this is what I should’ve done a long time ago.”  Smiling sadly, Blake lifted one hand as if to touch Yang’s face.  Instead, she pulled her hand away and presented Yang with a ring - the same ring made of galaxies that she created all that time ago.  “Please don’t be sad, and remember that I love you.  You’re my everything.”

Yang woke up with a gasp.

“Oh jesus, finally!”  As Yang sat up in bed, Weiss grabbed her shoulder to steady her.  “What the hell is going on?”

“Wake her up!”  Rolling to her side, Yang found Blake still sleeping beside her.  There was no Dreamscape, no Dream Disk, but when she shook Blake’s shoulder, nothing happened.

“Wake up, dammit,” she muttered before giving up and turning towards Weiss and Ruby, both of whom looked shocked and confused by what was happening.  “There has to be a way to force her awake.”

“Yang, you know how dangerous that is -”

“We can’t just leave her in there!”  Jumping out of bed, Yang searched for anything that looked remotely like a Daydreamer.  If she’d been pulled into a dream somehow, there had to be something nearby - but where?  

“How do we wake her up?” she asked no one in particular while panic raced through her veins.  Something about that dream wasn’t right - something about what Blake said wasn’t right.  Whatever she planned to do, it sounded like she wouldn’t come back from it, which meant Yang needed to wake her up now.

“We need to figure out how to wake her up.”  Yang hurried towards the hall to keep searching, but her knee buckled halfway there, causing her to stagger while trying to keep her balance.

“Are you ok?” Ruby asked, moving closer when Yang swayed.  Blinking as exhaustion suddenly grabbed ahold of her, she shook her head in an attempt to clear the cobwebs.

“I’m just...really groggy...”

“Yang!”

Her legs gave out, and suddenly she was falling.  The ground rushed up to meet her - thousands of feet away but growing closer by the second.

“Welcome back,” a voice called out to her, coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

“Leave her out of this, Lyla!”

A net appeared and caught her before lowering her to a platform in the midst of a dark, cavernous space.  It was so dark, she couldn’t see anything.  Not Blake, not Lyla, not even the platform under her feet.

“Blake!”

As soon as she shouted Blake’s name, bright lights blinded her.  She raised her arms to shield her eyes and barely caught a glimpse of something flying at her out of the darkness.  In that single moment of vulnerability, she was unable to defend herself - and she gasped when something sharp plunged into her side.

With her eyes still struggling to adjust to the light, she looked down and found a sword impaled through her abdomen.  The accompanying pain caused her to stagger and drop to one knee to keep herself upright.  Blood quickly soaked through her shirt, forming a dark circle that grew by the second. 

Her hands shook like mad when she reached to grab the hilt.  She intended to pull it out but, while she did that, she noticed more motion - and glints of silver as thousands of swords flew towards her.  She raised her hands - as if that would somehow protect her - only to be showered in silver confetti as they disintegrated before reaching her.  The next second, Blake appeared on the platform beside her.

“She’s bringing you back somehow,” Blake said, the urgency in her voice doing nothing to calm Yang’s panic.  “You need to find it.”

Gasping for breath, Yang opened her eyes and saw the ceiling - the ceiling in Weiss’ house. 

“Yang!” 

Ruby and Weiss were on either side of her, and the two of them together dragged her back to her feet.

“What’s happening??” Weiss asked, wrapping an arm around Yang’s waist to keep her steady.

“Lyla,” she said while staggering towards the door.  “She’s pulling me into the dream -”

An invisible force grabbed at her consciousness then, dragging her towards sleep while she struggled to get downstairs.  They needed to search the house, which meant Ruby needed to get to her computers.  She could work with James and find the intruder - hopefully...  

Yang’s heart jumped into her throat when her foot slipped down several steps.  She might’ve fallen the entire flight if Weiss hadn't been holding on to her waist.

“Careful,” Weiss urged her, but she kept moving as fast as possible.

“Need to wake her up…”  

They finally made it downstairs, but Yang was still fighting against the feeling of impending sleep.  Fighting only made it stronger...impossible to resist - 

“Sit -” 

Ruby shoved a chair underneath her right when her legs collapsed.  She struggled to stay awake, but her eyes started to close, and her head felt like it weighed about a thousand pounds.

“Ruby, work with James,” Weiss’ voice said from somewhere - somewhere that sounded further and further away.

“On it, but what about her?”

“I’ll watch her.”

While the two of them spoke around her, Yang raised her hand to hold up her head.  Then she caught sight of the cuts on her arm and froze.  The longer she stared at them, the more they looked like incisions rather than scrapes...

“The cuts -” she said, her voice slurring from the effort of staying awake.  “Dream Disk...” 

Her arm fell to her side as her eyes closed.  

She immediately ducked when a full-speed train roared above her, nearly taking her head off.  

“Yang.”

She spun around and froze when she saw Blake standing in front of her.  But something about this version of Blake made her pause - made her wary.

“Did you miss me?”

Before she could respond, something powerful clamped onto her arm, making her cry out in pain before she was pulled right off her feet.  There was a splash before water surrounded her, preventing her from breathing while a great weight dragged her towards the depths.  

Her first instinct was to pull her arm free, but that did nothing.  Whatever held her was strong and immovable.

Her lungs started to burn, and her desperation grew in tandem.

“It’s all in your mind,” Blake whispered from somewhere.

The pressure disappeared from around her arm, and Yang kicked towards the surface while her lungs screamed at lack of oxygen.  But no matter how hard she swam, she never grew closer - the shimmering reflection of the sun above her stayed the same distance away.  There were disturbances all around her - ripples and currents that rattled the environment - but the surface, and freedom, always remained too far away.

“Yang, please…”

She was reaching the end of her struggle - the end of her oxygen supply.  Her mind slowed as it was deprived of oxygen, but she heard Blake’s voice.  Heard the pleading.

This was a dream.  Even though she felt the water, felt it lifting her with its ebbs and flows.  Even though she felt it stinging her eyes, and felt the burning in her lungs, and felt the fading at the edge of her mind, this was a dream.  And what did she have to lose?

Stilling her limbs and calming her mind, she accepted that she could breathe underwater.  She could breathe underwater.  She could.

And then she did.

A deep, wonderful gasp of air filled her lungs.

Snapping her head forward, she nearly knocked into Weiss.

“I think found it,” Weiss said, ignoring Yang while holding onto her arm.  

“Are you sure?” 

“As sure as I can be without an x-ray.  Get me a knife and tweezers.”

Weiss had one hand wrapped around Yang’s arm, her thumb pressed to one of the cuts that had itched like mad over the last few days.

“I’m going to remove it,” Weiss explained while they waited for Ruby to rush back with the requested supplies.  “You need to sit still.”

“Remove it?”  Shaking off the force trying to drag her back to sleep, Yang met Weiss’ eyes and blinked.  “You’re going to cut my arm open?”

“Technically, I’m only severing the seal.  It’s unlikely your skin has healed yet.”

The invisible force wrapped itself around Yang’s conscious yet again, beckoning her to sleep while she did her best to fight it.

“Awesome…” she said, and forced her eyes open when she realized they were closing.  Ruby rushed back into the room, and Yang barely glimpsed the blade in her hands before her head tilted forward.

“Hey.  You need to stay awake -” 

She dropped into darkness, then gasped awake and wiped her nose.  The No-Dose stung like hell, but she was awake, for now.  

“Hold still,” Weiss ordered while holding Yang’s arm flat on the kitchen table and grabbing the knife Ruby brought over.

“Think I’m gonna be sick...” Ruby muttered, and Yang’s adrenaline fired full steam when Weiss bent her head closer to the clear, slightly-glistening medic seal holding the cut closed.  And when she raised the knife in her hand, every instinct told Yang to pull away.

She couldn’t even think of a joke to lighten the mood.  Instead, she watched in a combination of horror and fascination while Weiss calmly pressed the tip of the knife to her arm and drew the blade across the seal.  A thicker, darker red line appeared in its wake, revealing the initial cut that was just starting to heal.

Putting her fingers on both sides of the wound, Weiss pushed in opposing directions to open it and look further inside.  And there - hidden inside the flesh of Yang’s arm - was a flash of silver that must be the Dream Disk.

“Wow,” Weiss muttered while Yang stared at the intruder in her body.  A piece of metal buried in her arm - a piece of metal her body was trying to make part of itself in order to heal.

When Weiss picked up the tweezers and lowered them into the wound, Yang turned away and took a deep breath, trying not to imagine what was about to happen.  She winced when a sharp twinge of pain shot through her arm, then exhaled in relief.

“Got it,” Weiss announced, dropping the tweezers and Dream Disk onto the table and quickly pressing together the cut on Yang’s arm.  Holding the cut with one hand, she grabbed a container of med-seal with her other and carefully sealed the wound back together.

While Weiss did that, Yang picked up the Dream Disk with her other hand and crushed it in her palm.  As soon as she did that, she felt infinitely better, like she’d regained control of her mind.  The pressing exhaustion disappeared - so did the shadows grabbing at her conscious.

Now they needed to get Blake out of that nightmare.

“All good,” Weiss whispered, patting the top of Yang’s arm before moving away.  Yang immediately stood up and found Ruby.

“We need to find Lyla.”  

The words hardly left Yang’s mouth before Ruby raced into the computer room, grabbed her tech-glove, and pulled up several search screens.

“It might take a while,” Ruby said while flying through search functions and video feeds.  “She’s probably not at home.”

“The lab?” Weiss suggested.

“Maybe, but that seems too easy.  Also, she has to know anyone would check there first.”

While Ruby worked, Yang held up her arm and looked at the newly-resealed cut running across it.  They put a Disk in her, which meant they had access to her whenever she was near a Dreamscape, right?  They could see her dreams?

They could see what she and Blake did in Taven’s Dreamscape?

“Ruby -” Yang said when her impatience doubled.  Everything they’d done was compromised, and Blake needed to know.  She needed to know that their enemies might have more information than expected.

“What are you even going to do?” Weiss cut in.  

“What do you think I’m going to do?  I’m going to break down her door and wake her up!  I just need to know where she is -”

“I’m trying!” Ruby answered without looking away from the screen.  “She goes a lot of places, and she’s masking every damn one of them!  I just need time to narrow it down -”

“We don’t have time, Ruby - we need to find her now.” 

“Ok, ok, then you start looking.”  Grabbing several addresses off the screen, Ruby pushed them onto the memory drive in Yang’s arm.  “I’ll send updates, but start there.”

“Take my car,” Weiss said, but grabbed Yang by the arm before she ran off.  “Please don’t do anything stupid.”

After the two of them shared a look, Yang nodded and raced towards the garage.  She hardly made it to the kitchen door, however, when she hesitated and looked upstairs.

“I’ll stay with her,” Weiss offered, leaving Ruby’s side and heading towards the staircase.  “I’ll let you know if something changes.”

Relieved that Blake wouldn’t be alone, Yang nodded to Weiss before flying into the garage.  She didn’t have the technical know-how that Ruby did, but she didn’t need it.  Through her police training, she was one of the relative few who still knew how to manually operate a car.

Jumping into the front seat and flipping it around to face the windshield, she switched the computer from automatic to manual mode.  Once the pedals, steering wheel, and mirrors locked into place, she revved the engine and waited for the garage door to open.  As soon as the path was clear, she floored it down the drive and spun onto the street.

“Navigate to first address,” she spoke towards the computer while swiping her palm across the memory reader.  Once the heads-up display turned on, it outlined the path towards her first destination, highlighting the street in front of her before turning right at the next corner.

Blowing through a traffic light, she slammed on the brakes and spun the wheel while tearing around the corner.  As soon as she cleared the bend, she stomped on the accelerator - the sudden speed pushing her back in the seat.

Blake made it sound like she wouldn’t come back, and Yang couldn’t let that happen.  She couldn’t let Blake sacrifice herself on some misguided thought that it would make everything ok.

“Found three more,” Ruby spoke through the car’s microphone before three additional addresses popped onto the screen.  “Sorry - I’m trying to narrow them down, but it’ll take time.”

“Goddammit.  Weiss?  Any changes?”

“Nothing.  Still sleeping.”

Flying around a slow-moving delivery truck before swerving back into her lane, Yang swore under her breath.  She needed ten of herself to check all these addresses.  Otherwise, it would take an entire day just to make it to all of them, not including the time it would take to find a way in and conduct a thorough search.

She couldn’t do this alone.

“I’m calling in backup,” she said as soon as the thought popped into her head.

“But we don’t know who might be helping Dreamscape!” Ruby protested.

“I know.  But we have to take a leap of faith.”

People always told her she trusted too much, or too fast, but she didn’t see another way.  If they didn’t trust each other, then...what?  They all looked out for themselves and no one else?  They all helped themselves and no one else?

That’s not what she believed in, and that’s not how she would live.

“Call Casey,” she told the computer while pushing the vehicle even faster, gripping the steering wheel tighter while adrenaline charged through her.

“Hello?” 

“Casey, it’s Yang.” 

“Yang?  Holy hell - we’ve been looking all over for you!  Where are you?  Are you ok?”

“I’m fine.  But I need your help.”