Chapter 5: Unbreakable Bond

“I see in my dreams how easy it is to confuse an outcome from a dream and I have to wonder whether my dreams make things worse, or better.”

Excerpt from the diary of Panpar

Tommy and Whitney were home long before their parents. Tommy called Blake and Carol Anne the very second they walked into the house. “We’re fine,” Tommy informed a frenzied Carol Anne. “Yes, mom. We’re both fine. She’s here with me! Yes,” he said answering her interrogation.

“We’re already home and we’ll still be home when you get here. I promise. Tell dad to drive the speed limit. Everything’s okay.”

Tommy hung up the phone, but Whitney could only think one thing.

This is all my fault.

“Will you stop with that, Whitney? How in the world could this be all your fault?”

“Because, Tommy. Kat and Kam were there! I don’t think that was a coincidence.”

“So what? Do you actually think there is an international plot to kill our friends now?”

“Not international, Tommy, inter-dimensional ... Maybe. I don’t know, but doesn’t it seem a little too convenient the attack happened at just that moment? And that Kat and Kam just happened to be there?”

“What, you think it was Treff?” he asked her. “You said they have him, right? He’s gone ... right?”

Treff’s words stuck in her mind. “YOU were born on the same side IT was, and YOU were one of the Prim that kept IT chained up! YOU were one of the Prim in charge!” Isolem Treff was furious, screaming his accusation of YOU, fists clenched, eyes shaking with hate, and his hate directed at her. If anyone had motive to take something from her and from Tommy it was him. Kat and Kam being there could be coincidence, two people at the wrong place at the wrong time, but somehow coincidence didn’t feel right.

“They have him, Tommy, but I don’t think they have him like they think they have him.”

“Well, for their sake I hope you’re wrong. They’ll figure it out I’m sure,” he said and even though Whitney’s eyes were blind, not seeing anything in front of her, it didn’t mean her eyes didn’t betray her innermost thoughts. He could read them if he really wanted to, she was with him and her thoughts could be his, but he didn’t have to because it was written on her face. She was thinking about helping them.

“You’re being ridiculous, Whitney! They are over there and we are over here, remember!” he said. “Stop making this about you, and start seeing it for what it is. We did a good thing today. Leave it at that.”

She did remember, and her thoughts and memories were his as well. She shared all of her memories with him. Everything in Nethermore was as much a part of his memories as they were hers. So he knew as much as she did. He hadn’t shared his dreams with her, telling her he would, but holding some of them back and doing it because he realized it was Jo-Vanna who Treff ends up killing and not Whitney. If Jo-Vanna, an experienced and trained warrior, fearless and vicious, couldn’t beat Isolem Treff, how was Whitney supposed to? He didn’t have an answer, but keeping her from going over there might just be the solution.