The Devil's Dream: Waking Up Read Online Free Page A

rocks crunching together under his feet. The body felt heavy even though the woman weighed little over a hundred pounds. Were Jake and Art working right now? Were they trying to catch him with the same intensity that he worked with? Would they have been carrying a body on their shoulders if their own frame was starting to give out?
    No. No way. They did what they did out of duty. Duty could come and go, depending on who paid the checks. Matthew worked out of love. Matthew carried this body for his son, for Rally. There wasn’t any way they could match that intensity.

    * * *
    H enry lay on the bed for a few hours after hanging up with Greg. He turned on the television and a rerun of Will and Grace played a laugh track into the room. Henry wasn't watching it, he was busy thinking about the phone call he needed to make but didn't want to. Greg had been bad enough, but his mother would be worse. Greg believed Henry shouldn't take the job because Greg understood he couldn't be Henry. Greg couldn't be the linchpin of the family. He wasn’t going to call their mother daily. He wasn’t going to make sure everyone showed up at the same place on Christmas and Thanksgiving. He wasn’t going to go to their mother’s and make sure her refrigerator was stocked. Greg loved their mother as much as Henry, but those things would fall by the wayside and they both knew it.
    That was the truth even if Henry wouldn't say it aloud; he hated how it sounded, because of the light it cast Greg in, a light he didn't feel was warranted. His brother was himself and Henry was Henry. They had always been different and Henry had never wanted to turn Greg into another version of himself. Greg did well in school and Henry felt as long as that was happening, he would take care of everything else. And he had. Until now.
    His mother wouldn’t see things like that at all though. Anything that created danger for Henry’s life was unacceptable in itself—lunacy, even. She wouldn't say she needed him, or that she relied on him, or that he held the family together. She was going to tell him she loved him, and he was her first born, and that he wasn't going to go get himself killed regardless of what new crazy person was running around. His mother wouldn't like this because she loved him, plain and simple.
    It was six in the evening in California, and he knew he needed to call his mother now if he was going to call her tonight. She’d fall asleep soon and she deserved to have her say before he went in tomorrow morning and gave Brayden his answer.
    He found her number and muted the television.
    "Hey, honey," she said, answering the phone. She had adapted well to the technology Steve Jobs brought the world, understanding caller ID and how to use these new phones with an ease Henry thought he would envy when he reached her age.
    "Hey, mom. What are you doing?"
    "Just cleaning up after dinner. What about you?"
    "I'm, uhh, I'm in Washington DC." He didn't know how to move this conversation forward, didn't know how to say what he needed to say because he couldn’t plan for this. He thought he would always be there for his mother, until she left this world—but he called to tell her he couldn’t be there, at least not for a little while, and a risk existed that he would never be there for her again.
    "What are you doing way out there? When did you go? You didn't call me?"
    "Calm down, mom. They brought me out here last night; it was kind of a rush job. They got me a private plane and everything and flew me out here," Henry said.
    "Why?"
    He sighed. "You're not going to like the reason."
    "Well, I don't like what you just told me, so you might as well get it over with."
    Henry pulled himself up in the bed so that his back rested against the headboard. "You've heard of Matthew Brand, right?"
    "That's all they play on the news anymore. Matthew Brand twenty-four hours a day, non-stop. Tell me you're not getting involved with that."
    "You want me to lie to you?" Henry