The pump of adrenaline and the rush that was dulling the pain served to put me straight into cape-thinking mode. There was a logic or a rhythm to how it went on the offense. We just hadn’t figured it out. There was a good chance we wouldn’t, still.

But we could try.

“Hey!” I bellowed. I banged my hand against metal shelves. “Here!”

It loomed over me, hands plunging down to support its weight.

The dust of its attacks swept over us, obscuring every last thing, bringing a rain of glass fragments that pattered off of the metal shelves, fallen and otherwise. A sweeping limb dashed it just as fast, turned the precipitating shards into a barrage.

It had stopped its attack again.

As the scene cleared, I could see why. Tattletale stood there, kids behind her, Colt beside her, gun raised, pointing.

Cradle stood in the way. He looked so young, and he stood there with glasses scratched up to the point they looked unusable, wearing bloodstained clothes.

It had stopped attacking because any attack against Tattletale risked hurting Cradle.

“I heard you earlier. No bullets,” Cradle said.

“Did you also hear us say that your shard-buddy can probably hear everything in this room? Gotta keep some tricks up our sleeves, and I gotta tell you, it’s really satisfying to successfully bluff an extradimensional monster like this.”

Cradle moved his arm, and it was apparent he carried a large combat knife. He’d perhaps brought it into the dream the same way Tattletale had brought her gun.

They stood a mere ten feet apart. Tattletale in the area with the shelves. Cradle in the area with the concrete slabs.

“You brought a knife to a gunfight?” Tattletale asked.

“I don’t think you have much fight in you,” Cradle said. “I dare you to pull the trigger.”

“Cradle. Ryan,” Colt said. “Hey. Things were going so well. The dreams were getting better, I could at least control them on my nights, and give tips to the others to make them less bad. We weren’t all screaming at each other or getting mad.”

“And then you pull this,” Cradle said. “It wasn’t ‘better’ for me. Not really.”

“Wasn’t it? You can’t have enjoyed that?”

“I’m supposed to enjoy being stuck? Being trapped in the wilderness, only two people to keep me company? No way to get home, no way to tinker, my agent slowly pressing in on me, demanding I build when I can’t?”

“I’m talking about the dreams. You and me, we’re in prison because we hurt a lot of people. Some of these people. But we can at least keep the dreams peaceful.”