I felt like I was an ant under a magnifying glass.

My eyes caught the Catcher's intense ones.

And the magnifying glass was under the sun.

They all glared at me like they were expecting me to pull out a machine gun at any moment and start shooting.

"Well?" The woman with the pixie cut demanded. "Are you going to tell us how you do it?"

I gave her a skeptical look. "Do what?" I asked trying to sound intimidating but my voice came out croaky.

"How can you dream share?" The guy with the wire-rimmed glasses cut in. "And how do you know how to enter the hive mind?"

I could feel my eyebrows rise in confusion. "I don't understand a word coming out of your mouth right now," I said monotonously.

"Stop wasting our time and start giving us answers." It was the Catcher's deep voice that spoke up this time.

A crazed laugh escaped my lips. This entire situation was so bizarre it was almost comical.

"You know, I would have believed I was still dreaming if my head didn't hurt like a bitch right now."

I looked at the raven-haired stranger from my dreams and shook my head, "You're supposed to be a figment of my imagination. How are you real?" I whispered. I paused and looked around, "How is any of this real?"

I paused. My heart suddenly dropped. "Wait, am I back in a coma? Am I hallucinating all of this?"

"You're not in a coma." The Catcher said flatly, his expression growing bored.

"Wait, wait wait." The brown-haired guy suddenly cut in. His accusatory glare turned to the Catcher. "This woman, whoever she is." He waved his hand in my direction frantically. "She can access the hive mind and you thought it was a wise decision to bring her to our hiding spot and show her our faces?"

He started pacing, "What the fuck! She could be one of them and now she knows where we are and what we look like! She could be talking to them right now and conveying all this information!"

The Catcher shook his head, "I checked, she doesn't have the mark. Besides, they wouldn't be trying to abduct her and kill her if she was one of them."

The man scoffed. "You know that not having the mark isn't a guarantee. Did it ever occur to you that it might have been a setup you moron? You meeting her in your dream state! Her making you believe that you needed to go rescue her? And now you've fucking brought her here!"

For the first time, the Catcher looked taken aback. His head snapped in my direction, his eyes accusatory. He took slow threatening steps in my direction till he was right in front of me, his intense eyes boring into mine.

I held up my hands in surrender as I took a step back cautiously. "I don't even know what you people are talking about. Just let me go and I swear I will pretend like all of this never happened."

"I'm a fool why didn't I think of that." The Catcher's gray eyes roved over my face. "How could I have been so stupid? It's just that something about her. . ." He suddenly seemed to catch himself and shook his head. "What do we do now? Do we kill her?"

I gasped in horror but none of them even flinched at the suggestion.

"We could use her as bait?" The pixie-haired girl quipped.

What the fuck?

The brown-haired guy shook his head thoughtfully his eyes assessing me. "I think it's better if we just lock her up in the cell for a week and see if she makes it. It will tell us for sure if she's one of them or not."

"You are correct. Do you think having her awake and aware of her surroundings is a risk? Do we need to sedate her?"

My hands curled into fists in fury. "Excuse-"I started to say but the brown-haired guy cut me off.

"There's no point. She was unconscious when you brought her here so she doesn't know our location and she's already seen our faces so there's nothing we can do about that now."

The Catcher nodded. "Then it's decided. I'll take her to the cell and lock her in."

He started to reach for me.

I could feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins. My heart was ready to burst out of my chest.

Just as his hand was about to curl around my bicep, with a sudden, fluid movement I sidestepped. The Catcher staggered forward clearly taken off guard. Using his momentum against him, I gripped his arm and twisted my body as I leveraged my center of gravity to flip him over my shoulder.

I felt the impact when his body thudded against the cement floor. I looked down at him from above.

Our eyes locked again but this time his expression was that of surprise.

"Stop talking over me like I'm not here." I crossed my arms over my chest. "And I'm not going anywhere with you." I snapped.

There was a beat of silence.

Then suddenly pixie-haired woman's voice broke in,

"Ooh, can we keep her?"