Chapter Forty-nine

THERE IS A FIRST time for everything, and reading Dean’s mind was definitely full of firsts.

Upon arriving, I was overcome by the total destruction of Dean’s room. Not only were areas of it on fire, but it was literally falling apart. It looked like a charcoal cave.

Heat from some flames close by singed the hairs on my arms as I tried to move around the room. Not only that, but the ceiling crumbled down, smashing to pieces all over the floor. It looked as though I was in his bedroom or something. Although, it wasn’t Dean’s, and a lot of stuff looked like it had been either burned or blackened. It was too hard to tell.

Then I saw him sitting on the end of a burned-out bed. It was Dean.

“Dean!” I called out to him. But it wasn’t Dean at all. When he stood tall, I recognized those golden eyes set in my brother’s pale face.

It spoke, revealing sharp, jagged teeth under his lips. “Is this what you wanted?”

I cursed softly. What was I thinking? Like it said, I had opened the door to allow it inside. I’d figured that entering Dean’s mind would even the playing field with the collective, somehow give me a chance at defeating it, but now I didn’t have a chance at all. Dean walked toward me. I panicked and threw a punch, missing by miles. Thrusting out his arm, Dean tossed me across the room like a ragdoll. He didn’t even lay a finger on me. He must have been using his mind.

“Now we have but another mind to gird ourselves with,” it said.

A sting coursed inside me. Something sharp pricked my side. Looking down, I found I had landed on a piece of wood that now stabbed into my ribs.

The pain was intense and white hot, blood oozing from the wound. I pulled it free and gritted my teeth together, holding my hand on the spot. It wasn’t deep but still hurt like hell.

I rose back to my feet, the pain shocking in spasms. Then I saw Dean tossing fire from his fingertips. I didn’t believe my eyes; was this even real? I’d never encountered anything like it before. What if I died in here? The thought dropped as a fireball came roaring at me, and I jumped out of the way.

If he could do this, so could I, right? But I didn’t have the first clue how to throw fire. A T-shirt next to me burned bright and I reached over to grab it. The heat just about melted my hand. I yelled in pain.

“It’s mind over matter, Nolan,” Dean said. His eyes were as intense as the flames that had just burned me.

“We’ve been dormant this entire time, waiting to regain our strength inside your father’s mind, inside this new world.”

This thing had been directing everything from the start, but the final blame rested on me. I had allowed them to access others’ minds and feed, ultimately destroying my classmates. How many minds had I read? One of these things in each mind, devouring, breaking them down to feed back to this source, growing more powerful every time I did so.

Kate flashed in my head. One of these things was in her head too. The thought made me sick.

Winding up for another pitch, Dean leaned back and tossed a second fireball at me. I froze and instinctually stuck out my arm to cover my face. A thin layer of see-through dark water curved up from the floor and acted like a shield as the fireball struck it and fizzled out.

Dean didn’t look happy. I had no idea what I had done. The shield melted away and I was on my feet again.

“If you will not accept us, we will destroy you.”

Dean came running at me. I put up a thick black wall, just I’d done before inside Dad’s mind, but this time the collective didn’t break through. The wall held strong.

I had to focus to keep the layer up, and it wasn’t for long because the pain in my side raged with agony, making me drop the defense.

Dean was waiting, pointed teeth together, breathing heavily.

“We are done with this bargaining. This being and all the beings we possess will perish, and we will feed on their deaths.”

I prepared myself for more fireballs or whatever else this thing was going to throw at me, but they never came. Instead, Dean lurched forward and dropped to one knee.

“Nooo!” it howled.

I watched his eyes blur from stark gold to steely blue.

“Nolan!” It was Dean’s true voice.

“Dean!” I rushed over to him and helped him on to the bed.

“It won’t stop, Nolan. You have to destroy it.”

Dean cried out in pain, almost going into convulsions.

“Trap it, Nolan. It’s the only way.”

I didn’t understand what he was saying.

“In here. Trap it in here.”

Dean wanted me to imprison the collective inside his head.

“Dean, I have no idea what will happen. I don’t even know if I can do that.”

I thought about it further and said, “I won’t.” I could feel tears soaking my eyes.

“No,” he shot back at me. “I deserve it.”

His body tightened.

“What are you talking about?”

His hands took me by the collar of my shirt and pulled me close. His blue eyes glowed, spellbound with sincerity. “It was me. I did it. I burned down our house. I was the one who had been smoking the cigarette. Trent was trying to stop me!”

Squeezing his eyes as pain coursed through his body, he began to whimper. Was Dean telling me the truth, or was he lying to protect me?

“Do it!” he yelled, but then the blue faded as black oil totally engulfed his pupils.

The collective had returned, and with a gesture of its head, it flung me across the room a second time.

“He won’t bother us again,” it said.

I barely made out the words, my ears ringing, and a new pain throbbed in the back of my skull.

Again, Dean—the dimensional being having taken total control—grabbed my body from afar with its mental willpower. It felt like someone had reached in my chest and grabbed my heart. Blood spilled from my nose and out of my mouth.

I yelled in pain as my insides burned.

“Soon it will be over.”

My entire body shook and I started to seize uncontrollably in midair. My body wouldn’t respond to anything, and I felt the last bit of my strength sucked from my very being.

From above, pieces of ceiling fell around me like snow as my body dragged along the floor toward where Dean stood. Was I even still alive?

I arrived at the feet of the collective helpless, broken. Using Dean’s face, it smiled down at me, but I didn’t see the evil. I chose to see the good, to remember Dean how I had known him.

I whispered a final goodbye to my brother.

Forming a thick, dark stake in my hand, I drove it upward, deep into Dean’s chest. The look of shock washed over his face, erasing the sharp-toothed smile.

I righted myself, and holding my left arm to my broken ribs for support, I reached out with my right hand and created a clear, walled box around Dean, imprisoning him.

The wordless chatter ceased.

Keeping hard focus, I watched as Dean began to pound against the walls. He screamed at the top of his lungs, black oil pumping from his chest wound. All I could hear was the crackle and pop of the fire inside the room around me, which had also begun to die out to a low burn.

Slowly—oh, so very slowly—I started to close my fingers together as if wadding up an invisible piece of paper in my hand.

Tears dropped freely from my eyes. I had no idea what would happen, but I knew this was the way Dean had decided it. Caving in on him now, the walls had forced him to a sitting position, further still into a fetal position. He fought wildly, but I held firm.

I knew it was humanly impossible to be in the position Dean was in now and not have your bones rubbing against one another and snapping. I didn’t want Dean’s face of detailed terror to be the last thing I remembered him by, so instead I watched my hands as they closed together into a tight, powerful fist.

The fires around me sizzled out and cast everything into cold darkness. I exited Dean’s mind and returned to my own.

It was over.