Melaton snorted. “They’re disjointed and messy and usually nonsensical. Lots of skipping around locations, and time isn’t always linear. Normal dreams can loop the same thing over and over again, or be weird metaphorical nightmare-scapes. But I can push and nudge them, and sometimes see what’s what.”

“That’s what you did in there?” Teddy asked. “That guy was snoring lots in no time.”

“Yeah, pretty much. Which now means that I kinda know where he meets with Homie on a regular basis.”

“That’s . . . good?”

Melaton nodded. “He dreamed of picking up a load of cash, so I think that’s where he gets the money that he then pays to his company for stuff before paying it back to Homie—probably all nice and legally on the return.”

“And now we’re going to . . . that place?”

“Yup. Hope you like pizza,” Melaton said.

“Uh. I do,” Emily said.

“Never had any,” Teddy said.

The Hero stared at Teddy. “Huh. Well, all right. It’s across town, though.”

“How are we going to get there?” Emily asked.

“I’ll call a taxi.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Just Along for the Ride

Teddy didn’t know what was up with the sleepy lady getting them all to cram into some taxi, but the Boss didn’t comment on it, so Teddy went along for the ride.

Her job wasn’t to ask questions and stuff like that, it was to keep the Boss safe.

Going around all over with the Boss and the Melanie lady who was actually a Hero and who was also able to make people sleep was just part of that. She kind of wished that the Boss could have found someone who wasn’t a Hero to pair up with, but that was okay. Less okay was the amount of walking they’d done. Teddy’s legs were kind of short and stubby.

They were perfectly good legs, made that way so that her center of balance could stay low. But that meant that for every step the Boss took, Teddy had to take two. It was real tiring.

She relaxed into the taxi’s seat. She got to sit in the middle seat, so if she perked up a bit, she could see the road out ahead over the mileage meter thing. The driver was being real careful, probably because she was clearly wearing a bear mask that put the fear of bears in him.

The ride was pretty quiet. The Boss didn’t talk much at the best of times, and Melanie, who was also Melaton, was pecking away at her phone, clearly one of the sheep that had fallen for the capitalist cellphone trap.

The silence was all right. It was also boring. “So where’re we going?” Teddy asked. She’d heard something about pizza? She’d never had any of that, but she thought it was something she’d like to eat.