Page 77 of Validus Vale Academy 1
A surge of strength floods through me, and I sit up, looking between Alexis and Cosmo. "I saw them, I felt them. They're alive…" My voice trails off.Werethey alive? Yes, I think so, but not completely.
"You think she was hallucinating?" Cosmo looks at Alexis, bypassing me.
“What do you think, pulu?” Alexis asks.
"No, I’m sure I wasn’t. It was like I glimpsed somewhere completely…”
“Completely what?” Alexis takes my hand and squeezes it tightly.
“I don’t know. An impossible place. Gods. I sound like a crazy person.”
“No, you don’t,” my professor reassures me. “We believe you. Is there anything else you can remember, anything at all that gives us a direction or clue to where this place is?”
The images are fading, and within seconds, I can’t see anything else in my memory except a golden glow. “There’s only the light left,” I sigh, feeling a loss I can’t quite understand. “Just the glow.”
Just the glow?
Oh shit. I sit up sharply. “It was like when I sank in the pool, there was the same kind of light.” I start struggling to stand up from the sofa.
"Slow down, pulu," Alexis says, keeping a hand on me. "One thing at a time. You just collapsed.”
“I'm fine,” I reply as Cosmo's phone starts ringing.
Sighing, he sends the call straight to voicemail, then looks at me. “Yeah, sit your ass down, dud.” Charming, but I do still feel wobbly, so I flop back onto the sofa.
“Can you explain what you mean about the pool, Theo?” Alexis asks, shooting Cosmo a dirty look.
The sensation of being sucked down, down, down into the cool water comes back to me. “The aura around the shoes. It’s the same glow as I saw at the bottom of the dive pool,” I explain quietly, knowing I sound perfectly bonkers.
Alexis hums. “I thought Max had stepped into the energy, that’s why it was on the soles.”
“No shit,” Cosmo sneers. “But he’s hardly likely to have gone swimming in those kicks.” He groans, rubbing a hand over his face as his phone pings with notifications.
Alexis turns his back on Cosmo. “We find the energy source, maybe we find our people.” He runs a hand over his bristly chin, his brow furrowed in frustration.
I think about what he just said. “Cosmo, did you see it too? In the pool?”
“No, nothing,” he says. “That’s all you.” Cosmo is about to say something else, but his phone rings, cutting him off. "Motherfucker," he groans, sending it to voicemail again.
"So I think…" Alexis begins, but his words are interrupted by the insistent ringtone. "Fuck, are we keeping you from something, Drakeward?"
"I wish you fucking were," he mutters under his breath. "I have to go. What are you going to do with her?”
"I'll take her back to the dorms," Alexis says. "She can rest, and I'll do more research."
"I'm right here, and I can make my own decisions," I tell them, shouldering my way between the two of them. "And actually, I feel fine now. More than fine, I feel good."
Cosmo's phone blares again, and he turns and storms out of the office.
Alexis pulls me to his side. "You may feel fine, but I'd be happier if you rested."
My stomach rumbles in argument. “I need food more than anything; nothing to worry about.”
"But I do worry."
I look up at Alexis, and my breath hitches as our eyes meet. I shouldn’t feel this connection—especially as he’s my teacher.
"You’re truly OK, pulu?" he asks, his brow furrowed as I stand frozen.
