Page 39 of A Sea of Secrets
The warm sun shone down on us, a bright light in the vibrant blue sky.
“Let go,” Fallon said, echoing my brother’s words from before. “It’s okay. We’ve got you.”
Starfish was right. I didn’t need him.
All these years I’d had my siblings by my side. They had always been there for me. And now I had Starfish and my pod, too.
They thought I was enough and liked me just the way I was.
As I glanced down at the memorial to my mum, the murky water cleared, the rock pool sparkling in the sunlight and illuminating the colourful creatures that lived within.
I liked me just the way I was. And that was all that mattered.
“Fallon.Fallon.FALLON!”
I startled awake to find three faces peering down at me, then decided I wasn’t quite ready to face reality yet. Especially as it immediately felt like someone was bashing drums in my skull.
“Five more minutes,” I said through a yawn.
A few sighs of relief followed.
Lou giggled. “Yeah, I think she’s back to her usual self.”
Someone punched me in the arm, and I snapped my eyes open, finding Kendra looking down at me with worry across her face. “Don’t fucking do that again!” she said, her eyes watering.
“Aw, you do care,” I said sweetly. My friend was having none of it, though. She bombarded me with a hug. I touched my head as a sudden pain pierced my skull and felt a bump on my forehead. “Hey,” I said gently. “I’m okay. You’re okay.”
“Thank fuck,” she muttered in my ear. “We all thought you’d turned into a zombie there. Dick had to knock you out.”
“You’re the one responsible for the egg on my head and the heavy metal band thrashing in my skull?” I asked him as I rubbed the particularly tender spot on my cranium. Then I grinned. “Kudos, man. I always knew you had it in you.”
He smiled sheepishly, but his amusement quickly faded. “We thought you were a goner, Fallon. Do you remember anything?”
I frowned. “Flashes, mostly. I remember not feeling entirely in control like I was one bottle deep into a long night of drinking.” A few images popped into my head, of leering faces and bloodied bodies. I shivered. “It’s starting to come back to me.”
“We think they dispersed some kind of drug through the vents. Who knows what kind of long-term damage it does to your brain? Whatever it does, a whole lot of Potentials didn’t come out.”
“I think…” Dick eyed the door behind us warily. “I think we were the last ones to come out. Unless there was another exit. Wouldn’t surprise me if there was to be honest.”
Silence fell over our little group, and the space suddenly felt too bright—too empty. “Where are we anyway?” I looked down a long hallway, confused and wary of the many doors I saw lining it. I could see names etched into golden plaques on each door and I cocked my head in question at the others.
Lou answered first. “We’ve looked down the whole hallway. The only doors unlocked are the ones with our names on them. I guess they have individual quests for the final part of the trial.”
My heart beat a little faster at the thought of separating again. As it was, I was only alive—or sane—because of the people in this room with me. “Typical Master tactics. Herd us together like sheep, then wait long enough that we start to rely on eachother, only to isolate and corner us before ripping us to shreds.” I attempted to rise, almost slamming to the floor once more as my knees buckled.
Dick helped me up, lending a gentlemanly arm. “Fallon, you can barely move. Maybe you should rest a little longer?”
I shook my head. “If we’re going to do this, we do it together. I don’t want to wait here alone while the rest of you continue. I’d go out of my mind worrying anyway.”
“Mother hen,” Kendra said, rolling her eyes.
To that, I stuck my middle finger up and poked out my tongue. “You love me.”
“Yeah, bitch, I really frigging do, so try not to get yourself killed while I’m not around, ‘kay?”
I smiled. “I love it when you’re bossy. It’s hot.”
Dick sighed. “You two are so weird.”
