He slumped down in a chair, his head in his hands. He might be able to control their abilities, but it wouldn’t help them escape. There was no way for him to attempt to contact anyone—not Blue, not Quincy. Aunt Kate certainly wouldn’t tell his parents or brothers where he was.

There was no way out. And everyone he loved would die because he couldn’t stop what was coming.

And what would happen when it did? Would the dream just suddenly seize him, connecting him to all the abducted all over the world, triggering them all at once?

If there was something in him that he could rip out, he would do it, even if he had to claw through his own skin.…

William stared straight ahead. For several moments, he held his breath.

Then he closed his eyes.

The darkness was vast, so different than when he was trying to get to Jane across the angry gulf. This time, there was only black. He knew instinctively that what he was attempting wasn’t allowed.

He wasn’t supposed to enter the dark voluntarily.

When he took that first step, he felt it immediately: the anger looming in the distance, coming to pull him towards the disasters. He wanted to cower; its coming fury like a wave of heat.

The dreams were how they designed it to happen. He was theirs, their vehicle, their way to get to the others to connect. Establish a web, unite them all.

He was never to be in control, to navigate the way to the others on his own.

He turned from it and plunged into the dark.

How much time passed, he didn’t know. It felt like hours, but it could have been just moments; pushing through blackness as thick as tar. But at last, he found her.

She looked tired. He hated to wake her if she were sleeping.

As he reached her, Nanna opened her eyes.

“How many cups is that?”

Roxy scowled, raising her right eyebrow at Stella. “Don’t judge, young lady. It’s been a hell of a couple days. More excitement than I’ve had since, well, you know, the damn aliens.”

She expected a sigh or some retort from Lynn, but she’d just spaced out, sitting in the chair in the hotel room and staring out the window. Roxy had hoped she’d finally fallen asleep when her eyes had closed, given that Lynn had barely slept in the government safe house. But it appeared now she was just in a deep state of zoning out.

“No judging here. You’ve just mentioned, more than once, the coffee isn’t that good,” Stella said from where she sat across the room from her mother.

“Oh, it tastes like the Mississippi River, all right. But at least it has caffeine. Still no sign of discovery?”