away, and Laura looked sadly out the window. She wasn’t sure if she was ever going to be back.
When Logan said he was going to tell her everything, he meant it. Laura still wasn’t sure how to take what she had just learned.
“Where do you want me to start?” he asked her.
“Start with who you are,” she replied. “Tell me who you are. I barely know a thing about you.”
He sighed, and looked forward at the road. When he spoke, he didn’t look at her once. “I’m not like you, Laura,” he began. “Not entirely. I’m not… human.”
“What?” she exclaimed. “What do you mean?”
“I’m something else,” he said sadly.
“Are there others like you?”
“Yes, there are.”
“Those men chasing us… are they like you?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me.”
He sighed again. “If I do, you’ll want to run from me. You’ll want to run and hide forever. But you can’t, now. I wish I could let you go, Laura. I wish I let you go before. But if you go now, they’ll find you. No matter who you’re with, no matter where you go, they will find you. And I can’t let them do that.”
“Logan.” She reached over to take his hand in hers. She held it tight. “You can tell me.”
He paused for a long moment, and took a deep breath. “There’s folklore about me. About… things like me. Legends and stories that are told to scare children into behaving. Tales about things that go bump in the night.”
“Would I know them?”
“I’m sure you would.” He tried to pull his hand away, but she wouldn’t let him. His skin was ice cold silk.
“Tell me. I’m not afraid.”
She felt afraid, now. She was afraid she would never see her family again. Afraid she would never come home again. Afraid of what her parents might think when they found out she ran away.
“The dream world I showed you,” he said, “is restricted to those of my kind. We’re the only ones who have direct access to it, who can go there at will. Humans… they can only drift in and out without realizing it.
“But I discovered that I had the ability to draw humans in. To explore their dreams, together with them. Like I did with you.
“When I learned I could do it, I thought I was unique. I thought I was one of a kind. But it turned out that every one of my kind could do it. Everyone could draw humans in like that. Except… it’s prohibited. By ancient creed, we’re forbidden from doing that.”
“When I brought you in, I thought we were safe. I haven’t had contact with any of… my elders… for a very long time. I had hoped most had thought me dead, or dying. Or had long forgotten about me. I still don’t know how we drew their attention.
“It shouldn’t have even worked that way. We entered your dream. They couldn’t have been watching. They know the rules, too. They abide by them better than I do. For them, the creed stands above all else. Above their own lives. They weren’t allowed to be there, either. But they were – or at least, one of them was – and they saw us.
“And for that, I’m sorry, Laura. I’m sorry for dragging you into all this. I’m sorry for my carelessness. I know I should have never done it, should never have shown you what I did. Believe me, I fought the urge as much as I could.
“But there was something about you… something that tugged at me and begged me to show you. Maybe I was imagining things. Maybe I wanted to believe that you needed to see that world. Maybe I needed to believe it. But it was my own shortcoming, my deficiency that put us in this situation. And for that, I’m truly sorry.”
She looked over at him. She pulled her hand away when he told her the truth, and hadn’t moved it back since. He looked hurt when she did that. But he drove on, looking straight ahead.
“And what is ‘your kind,’ exactly, Logan?” she asked.
“My kind.” He laughed softly. “Those who are like me, of course. Those who the stories are written about, and legends are twisted from. We are a separate race, Laura, removed from humanity long ago. Each of us is given… abilities… that transcend that what a regular human can do. But it goes both ways. We have weaknesses unique to us. Some of them, I’m sure, you can even laugh at.”
“I won’t laugh,”