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Dolphin's
rooms didn't come cheap. And there was no way I was going to let
someone foot a bill that size. Especially when I didn't really want
to be alone anyway.
    "Only girl or not, I'm not sleeping in the
middle," I told him. "I get claustrophobic."
    "Duly noted," London said, standing up.
    I turned back toward my computer, not because
I wanted to look at it but because I didn't want to look at London.
Or, well, because I wanted to not want to look at London. I managed
to ignore him as he moved around the room, doing who knows what.
When I heard the shower running, I knew it was safe to look up. I
shut down the computer and crawled into bed. Sleep probably
wouldn't come any time soon, but maybe I could pretend well enough
to avoid any more weirdness.
    I'm something of an insomniac at the best of
times, but it had been a long day. Worry and travel both take a lot
out of a person. I faded into sleep before I could finish my
bedtime prayers, and even though voices and other sounds dragged me
near the surface a time or two, hours passed before I woke.
    I might have slept the night through if
someone hadn't stolen the duvet, but the room was colder than a
walk-in cooler and I woke shivering. The soft glow of a laptop
showed me London sitting at the desk. That left Brian as the
blanket thief. Sure enough, there he was, wrapped up like a human
burrito. Dylan had the same annoying habit. The bedcover tug-of-war
between those two would be epic.
    Shivering, I climbed out of bed, hoping there
might be a spare blanket stashed in the closet or the dresser. I
lucked out, finding one on the closet shelf. London barely spared
me a glance as I twirled the blanket around me like a cloak and
headed back toward the bed. I stopped behind him, curious what had
him up on his computer at this ungodly hour of day. The bluish
light lit his face in an otherworldly glow.
    Otherworldly.
    Is that what London's powers were? Or were
they just another talent, like drawing or doing math in your head?
I shook off the question and sat down on the end of the bed.
    “Can’t sleep?” I asked.
    “Haven’t tried. I wanted to try to figure out
our next step.”
    “Wouldn’t our next step be filing that
missing persons report tomorrow?”
    London pushed back from the desk a little and
turned the chair to face me. “About that. Turns out that the whole
twenty-four hour waiting period thing is a myth. That’s the good
news. The bad news is, we can’t file a missing persons report.”
    “Why the hell not?”
    “Since Dylan lives in Dallas, the report
would have to be filed there. In person.”
    “Well, damn,” I said.
    “Yeah,” London agreed turning back to the
computer.
    “So now what?” I asked, looking over his
shoulder.
    "I tracked down my old mentor," he said,
gesturing at a chat window with the mouse pointer. "Turns out
insomnia is pretty common for us freaks."
    "You say 'freak' like it's a bad thing.
Can...." I looked a little closer. "Can Shelley help us find
Dylan?"
    "Not directly," he said, logging out and
shutting down the browser. "But she knows a lot of...practitioners,
is the word she uses. She's gonna make some calls in the morning
and get back to us."
    Patience is not my strong suit, but I knew
that calling people in the dead of night wasn't a good way to get
them on your side. So we'd wait.
    London swiveled the desk chair away from the
desk, rubbing the back of his neck. "You've gotta be shitting me,"
he said, his eyes on the Brian-burrito.
    "Why do you think I'm awake at four in the
morning?"
    He just shook his head.
    Twenty minutes later, he'd managed to get
Brian awake enough to unass the duvet and we were all snuggled
under its downy goodness, close but not touching. I turned my back
to the boys and tried to sleep, but I just couldn't shut down my
brain. The first thin, grey light of dawn peeked in around the
curtains before my jumbled thoughts gave way to even more jumbled
dreams.

Chapter Four
    At first, I wasn't sure whether I