The Nightmare (The Mist #2) - Regine Abel Page 0,91
five hours and twenty-six minutes. We had passed that mark a little over ten minutes ago with these two. Nevertheless, Merax and Letho were definitely ahead of the curve according to the average total birth time of ten to twelve hours that Thomson had reported for Transients born in the wild. By my estimate, they should awaken in the next hour, tops two. A part of me wondered if being in a completely safe environment drove them to expend more energy to form faster. Normal Transients might have gambled with taking a longer time to save as much energy as possible to sustain them while looking for their creator.
Although sleeping quarters had been prepared for both Riley and Julia, the silly man had begged and pleaded to have a camp bed brought into the room so that he could sleep next to Merax’s cell. Riley was determined to be right there when his Nightmare first woke up. To my dismay, Agent Peters had managed to get two beds in here, one for each of my companions.
But where Riley awaited the birth of Merax with the eagerness of a lover impatient to be reunited with his partner after a long separation, Julia waited with the gentle patience of the devoted mother of a child with special needs. I had never even imagined the possibility of such a scenario. It was my hope that with time, a genuine affection would develop between them instead of this relationship based on guilt, duty, and dependence.
After Zain had left us to go back to assessing the candidates’ Walkers, I’d spent the first hour or so catching my companions up on what had happened during my first month here. In between anecdotes, I’d walked them through the training program they would have to follow with their respective Mistwalker. In retrospect, it blew my mind to realize what a long way Zain had come since that first night he’d been hellbent on terrifying me.
While I didn’t go into too many intimate details about my relationship with Zain, I gave them some insights about defining the terms of our interactions, my hard and soft limits, and making him understand that the confused child that had spawned him had evolved into a woman with different needs.
“All right, you two,” I said, fighting back a yawn. “This chick needs to get her butt to bed. You should do the same as well. Tomorrow will be a busy day.”
“You just want Mr. Gorgeous and Grumpy to yank you into dreamland to play naughty,” Riley said teasingly.
“Mr. Sexy As Fuck is busy hunting in the Mist,” I retorted, despite the heat creeping on my cheeks. “I’m going to pass out in bed and dream of rainbows and unicorns.”
“And he’ll ditch all of those Beasts to chase your fluffy tail the minute he feels you falling asleep,” Julia said in the same mocking tone.
I chuckled and shook my head. “You’re both perverts,” I said with a false air of despair. “Now, you two get some Zs. Otherwise, you’ll regret it in the morning. It’s already midnight!”
“Yes, Mother,” Riley said with a long-suffering sigh.
I barely resisted the urge to ruffle his hair. Getting up, I cast one last look at the two Nightmares in the final stages of their human birth then left the room. I had just started walking down the long hallway when a shrill, but muffled cry of a Beast nearly made me jump out of my skin. Startled, I turned around to look at the opposite side of the hallway from whence it had emanated. Granted, the cells were located at the end of the L-shaped corridor, but the holding area was perfectly soundproof, even when their outer, reinforced doors were opened.
This time, a vicious roar resonated from the same area, but much louder.
The door to the Nightmare’s birth cell jerked open, startling me again. A very worried Riley poked his head into the corridor. He cast an inquisitive look towards me. I shook my head to indicate I didn’t know what was going on. Raising one finger to tell him to hang on, I ran down to the end of the hallway towards the secured area. At the L-shaped intersection, I glanced at the large, reinforced doors with the ‘restricted access’ label on them. My blood ran cold at finding the doors ajar, and at the sight of red lights blinking all around the frame.
Just as I was going to turn around and hightail it, the doors fully opened