Dreamfever Read Online Free Page B

silly idea. “Amnesia?”
    â€œYes. Yes, I think I do.”
    Josh looked at Will, and that was all she needed to say, Do you believe this?!
    Will held a hand up for her to be patient. Not that he believed the redhead—her downcast eyes and the speed with which she’d spoken had broadcast her lie. He was just hoping to figure out why she had lied.
    â€œDoes your head hurt?” he asked.
    The redhead looked at him beneath eyelids that kept threatening to close. “Yes,” she said. “It hurts. I need to sleep.”
    â€œTake off your windbreaker,” Josh said, “so I can check you for injuries.”
    She fumbled with the zipper on her jacket and finally tugged it open.
    â€œDamn,” Will said when he saw her.
    Bruises, cuts, scrapes, a serious bite, puncture wounds, and even what appeared to be burns covered her skin.
    Josh’s animosity vanished. “What hurts?” she asked briskly.
    The redhead gave a long list of pains, and Will believed her about every one. Joints were swollen, scrapes ran in every direction, bruises spread far and wide. She had a three-inch gash on her back that was clearly infected and another bite on her leg beneath the tear in her pants.
    While Josh inspected the visible injuries, Will did a quick and dirty evaluation of her mental state. She knew who was president, how many continents were on the Earth, and that Schwarzenegger had played the Terminator, but she was two days off the date and claimed not to remember anything about herself except the name Nan.
    â€œIs that your name?” Will asked.
    â€œI don’t know.”
    When they were finished, Josh and Will conferred on the other side of the room.
    â€œShe needs stitches, antibiotics, and probably a rabies shot,” Josh whispered. “Obviously she’s been in the Dream. How else did she get burned and bitten by an animal and hit in the head and shot with an arrow? But the weird thing is some of those bruises are fresh, but some of them are a few days old.”
    â€œWhat does that mean?”
    â€œMaybe she’s just been dream walking nonstop for the last week—and doing a terrible job—or maybe she’s been lost in the Dream for days .”
    If she had been in the Dream for days, fighting off monsters and running from disasters and enduring the fear of so many dreamers, that would explain why she was so exhausted and possibly even her bizarre lie. People could easily become delirious after several days without sleep.
    â€œThere’s no way to be sure without a CT, but I don’t think she has a concussion,” he told Josh. “Or at least, if she did have one, she’s recovered enough that she’s able to go to sleep without falling into a coma. The best treatment might be to just let her sleep, at least until Saidy’s off work.”
    Saidy was Whim and Winsor’s mother, and she lived on the second floor. She was also a paramedic, and over the years she had cleaned a lot of wounds, stitched a lot of cuts, and driven a lot of people to the ER.
    Josh nodded. “She can take Grandma Dustine’s old room. She probably needs food, too. Let’s get her upstairs.”
    Watching Josh gather the redhead’s discarded jacket, Will felt the muscles around his rib cage contract and press painfully on his lungs. It’s so easy for you to feel responsible for people, he thought. If they’re in the Dream and in danger, their well-being is instantly more important than yours.
    She’d told Will once that she felt ashamed of the fact that she sometimes had difficulty caring about other people’s problems, that she worried she wasn’t as compassionate as she should be. But Will thought that this sense of absolute responsibility was its own kind of compassion and astonishing in its own right.
    He just hoped it didn’t get her killed someday.
    Josh explained about Saidy and that they’d get the girl medical