October 14, 2005, 10:05 a.m.

“Good luck,” he says, his voice harsh. Cabel Strumheller shoves his way past classmates and off the bus, and enters the hotel in Stratford, Canada. Fuming. Still shaking a little. Eyes to the ground, not wanting to accidentally look at her, see if she’s coming.

He goes straight to his room and flops on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Three other guys let themselves in. They rummage around the room for a few minutes, but Cabe barely looks at them, barely acknowledges their presence. They don’t talk to him, either. What else is new?

Once his weekend roommates are gone, off to see the first play, Cabel rolls over on the hotel bed to think about things.

About Janie Hannagan, and what exactly happened on the bus for the past four hours.

About what the hell is wrong with her, and how she managed to get inside his dream.

He slams his fist in the pillow. Can’t get the nightmare to stop.

Cabel stands on the steps at the back door of his house, hand on the knob of the open door, looking in. Then he slams it shut and marches through the dry, yellow grass.

His dad bursts out the door after him, yelling, standing on the step, carrying a beer and a cigarette in one hand, a can of lighter fluid in the other. His dad screams at him, and Cabel turns, frightened of the towering man. He freezes as his father approaches. The man sprays Cabe’s clothes with the lighter fluid.

Sets Cabe on fire.

Cabel flops around on the ground in flames, screaming, pain searing through him, the fire blistering his skin. And then, with a furious roar, he transforms into an enormous monster with knives for fingers and he lunges for his father with only one goal in mind.

Killing him.

That’s how it starts—the nightmare Cabe has had for years. That, or some form of it. It changes a bit each time. Cabel can’t imagine a worse nightmare.

But that’s not even the part that’s bothering him. Not now. He’s packed away all those emotions, thank you very much. That nightmare he can handle.

But what happened on the bus? That was just crazy. Because this time, asleep sitting next to Janie, he actually watched himself have the nightmare. As if he were an onlooker to someone else’s dream.

And Janie was there, too, behind the shed in the backyard with Cabel.

Watching.

Watching Cabel’s dream play out as if they were right there, in it.

And then afterward, when he woke up, seeing the shock in her face too—it was like a confession, and she didn’t try to deny it.

He knows her. Knows where she lives. Casually, not weird like a stalker or anything. They’d ridden the bus together since middle school, back when Cabe was a grade ahead of her. Back before his dad messed up Cabe’s life.

But Cabe doesn’t want to think about that now. Doesn’t want to think about his dad ever again. He’s done with that. Done with him.

Still, the nightmare he had on the bus is fresh. He didn’t think he was still having that one. But now he knows he has been.

And he’s not the only one who knows that.

The monster man roars and runs away from the house, back toward the shed.

There’s a girl back there. Janie. The girl he always dreams about.

The monster man growls. He sees her.

She squeaks and closes her eyes, her back pressed up against the shed, as if she’s trying to melt into the siding.

And then the monster transforms, back into Cabel. He looks at the girl, so sorry, so very sorry for scaring her. Wanting her to see him like nobody else ever does. The guy that nobody really knows. When she opens her eyes and sees him, she steps toward him.

He touches her face.

Leans in.

Kisses her.

She kisses him back.

“Ugh,” he says, remembering how the nightmare ends. Squeezes his eyes shut, trying to figure it out. Trying to understand how Janie Hannagan managed to see all of that.

“She’s a freak,” he says slowly. “Psychotic. What if she’s an alien?” Cabe shakes his head. He’s seen enough weird stuff to know that weird stuff really happens. Not much surprises him anymore. And after what just happened, thinking Janie might be an alien or at the very least, psychic, isn’t much of a stretch. Is she dangerous, though? He thinks she might be.

He feels the paranoia coming, lets it wash over him. Was she spying on him?

How long has she known that he dreams about such awful things? And that he dreams about her? It’s embarrassing. And now, quite possibly, after four hours riding together in the freaking middle of the night, she knows the dreams and nightmares of half the people on that bus.

But why are they oblivious when he’s not? Why aren’t they confronting her?

Is he just imagining this?

He can’t figure it out.

He saw her on that bus. For hours, on and off, she shook. Out of control, like a multitude of seizures. She’d begged him to keep quiet about it after the first episode, made him promise her he wouldn’t get help, wouldn’t tell a soul, no matter how many more times it happened. He saw how she was too weak to get food when they stopped at McDonald’s. Watched her helplessly. She looked terrible. Would anybody subject herself to that on purpose?

But she got inside his psyche, where nobody else could ever go. Where he doesn’t want anybody to go. And it’s scary. What is she?

He hasn’t felt this vulnerable in a long time.

Cabel shakes his head.

He thinks about the first time she noticed him at the neighborhood bus stop on the first day of junior year. It was funny then—they’d ridden the same bus for a few years, but he’d never seen her even glance his way.