East Six #2
Instant horror stabs me, prompting me to get on my feet, struggling to stay upright.
My concussion wins, forcing me to fall back down on top of my mother.
Shame as blistering as the heat closing in.
I’m so sorry, Mom. With one last glance at the woman who didn’t leave him in time, I kiss her forehead. I love you.
Attempting again to get to my feet, my lungs resist, but my heart insists. All the walls are burning, and the heat sizzles the sweat and hair from my skin, but I must find her.
Shaking with pure fear and adrenaline, I walk the only path not consumed by flames that promise death.
Breathing in the crook of my arm, I finally reach the kitchen.
The walls and cabinets are all catching on fire.
The table and chairs lie upside down as if they had been thrown.
My mind blinks on and off. It’s hard to understand seeing my stepdad, facing a corner, his arms moving—doing something I can’t see.
Rushing closer, hunched over and still choking, I first see a melting plastic gas can in front of his work boots. Above the flames are little bare feet, kicking, desperate to avoid the heat below.
My brain struggles to understand what my eyes are showing me as I scan up to see my little sister, hanging by her hair. Little arms extend out to me while she screams in pain.
Sadie! I reach into the fire—
I sit up in bed, sweating as if I had truly been in that fire.
Grabbing my chest, I did my best to convince my lungs they weren’t full of smoke.
Oh, Ethan. My poor friend. I’m so sorry.
The kitchen scene with Blue’s oven mitt on fire now made so much sense.
And Harmony’s written words: He had a sister. …
Unbelievably haunted by the god-awful memory that had been shared with me, I could feel Ethan’s sorrow and ultimate shame.
It was so raw, filled with such a deep loneliness.
As soon as I heard Saleeni calling out to me, I was out of bed and out the door.
Running across the yard, I leaped from the wall.
Not even surfacing in the water, warmth surrounded me.
She held me, kissed all over my face. Once I broke the surface, she wiped away tears I didn’t want to cry.
I didn’t want a reason to cry because it meant my friend had suffered, cruelly.
His scars on his neck. Must’ve been him trying to save his little Sadie, like we all had wished we could’ve saved Baby Blue.
“I’m okay,” I promised Saleeni. “Just sad.” Beautiful eyes stared at me. “He lost his family.” Those eyes now peered to the clubhouse behind me. I nodded. “Yes, like that.” Those eyes now shifted down the coastal line, toward the replacement bridge. I nodded again. “Yes, where I lost family, too—”
Immense pain shot through me. I even grunted at how sharp it felt.
Even though it wasn’t mine.
With Styx and I starting to believe Saleeni’s family was somehow gone, I opened myself up to explore her pain.
The loneliness I had felt in Ethan’s nightmare was eerily similar to Saleeni’s.
There was great loss in her heart. It was traumatic.
During whatever took place, a shift happened inside her, and she’d never been the same since.
My eyes slid shut of their own accord as I allowed the connection to her agony to deepen…
Now I felt smaller. The water around me was mystical and bigger than life.
I was swimming, exploring, when I was called by my mother.
She had been with my family, at a distance from me, inspecting pillars of a bridge the humans used.
When I turned to see her, she was racing to me, alarm owning her expression. Before I got to feel what was wrong, the bridge columns behind her—
I jolted from her memory. “Oh, my God.” Then I held her face, wanting to hold her heart. “I’m so sorry for your loss.” When tears fell from her luminous eyes, I wiped them, as she had mine. “You don’t want a reason to cry either, do you?”
It wasn’t a question. Maybe that’s why she didn’t answer—only rested her head on my shoulder.
After getting a few more hours of sleep, I found Styx working the river rock on the Lagoon walls. “Good morning, kid. How was the late-night swim?”
With his high-tech security, I’m pretty sure I did nothing he didn’t know about. “Had a nightmare.”
Spreading mortar on the wall with a trowel, he sighed. “A woman’s touch fixes much.”
Even though his back was to me, I smirked—smart old coot. I picked up the pickaxe by the dull blade. “The nightmare was more like a shared memory.” I walked down the Lagoon steps and into the waterless pool. More nightmare news may put him back in a shitty mood.
Styx stopped moving. “Uh, okay.”
Sensing his mood shift toward the Shitty Meter, I aimed for pity. “It was tough. From a Fellow Foster.”
Slowly, cautiously, Styx turned to face me, trowel hanging from his hand. “Okay.”
Fuck. I shrugged insecurely, then pointed to his middle finger. “A new gift?”
He held up a hand. “More gifts are just that, wonderful gifts, but only for you.”
Now I tilted my head. “Huh?”
Styx’s nostrils flared. “If you can see a Misfit’s past, can they see yours? Know your location?”
Oh shit! My stomach soured. “That would put them in danger.” Of torture.
After soaking the trowel in a bucket of water, he quickly retrieved his cell, hit some buttons, then spoke into it. “New development…”
While Styx explained what was going on, I stared at the cell, hoping to soon see who was on the other end. But then, suddenly, I remembered I had no choice but to really piss off Styx. “There’s more.”
“Stand by,” Styx said into the phone, then told me, “Let’s hear it.”
“Like the dream with Ethan, I did the same with Saleeni a little while ago.” Like a child, I sheepishly gestured through the wall where I met with Saleeni in the ocean.
Impatiently, Styx motioned for me to talk faster. “And what did you see?”
“Besides Saleeni?”
“Maddox!”
“Okaaaay.” Rushed, I replied, “The shared dream was the day of the accident with Dad. Saleeni was with her family. They were agitated, but she was too young to notice, so she didn’t stay close to them.” I swallowed. “It’s what saved her.”
His head drew back. “From what?”
I drew in air to speak of that horrid day. “From the bomb attached to a bridge’s pillar.”
Through the cell, now on speaker, I heard a sharp intake of breath.
My Life Date was so cursed, it even took poor Saleeni’s family. How could she ever forgive me?
Styx quickly stepped forward, putting us face to face. “Real important, so listen the fuck up.”
So intimidated by this reaction, I didn’t say a word.
He asked, “Were they following you up the bridge?”
My brows bunched as my face crinkled. “The sea-dudes and dudettes?”
He poked my forehead, then growled, “The men trying to kill Lennox.”
I didn’t want to relive the memory, but Styx, being somewhat frantic, told me I had no choice.
I thought back to the day… Sunshine… Bullets…
. I swallowed, begging my throat not to implode.
I had to be able to speak. “The last time I looked back, a bike was catching up and going to follow us right up the bridge.”
The voice over the phone groaned, “They didn’t know of the bomb—”
Styx was paler than I had ever seen him. “Because they didn’t plant it.” He stumbled back a few steps. “That bomb wasn’t for us.”
“Fuck. Me,” growled from over the cell. “I’m on it here.”
The line went dead, so I asked, “What is he on there? Styx, am I missing something?”
Appearing to be in shock, he stared up at all the monitors in the lagoon. “But I haven’t seen a soul.”
I glanced behind me at a few monitors. “What do you mean?”
Stressed, he jogged out of the pool to another set of monitors, hitting buttons and replaying past recordings. “This can’t be.”
Standing next to him, studying the screens yet not knowing what I was looking for, I asked, “Gramps, you losin’ it?”
“Maybe I mistook a raccoon or something.” He kept searching and searching. Finally, he said, “Nothing. No one.”
My heart was beginning to pound. This old dog was sniffing the air for something I couldn’t see coming. “Styx, please talk to me.”
Seeming mystified, he stepped back from the screens.
His mind was elsewhere as he spoke to himself aloud.
“Is that why I couldn’t get any answers?
They truly didn’t know?” Lost in thought, he walked away slowly.
“That means someone else is involved—” He spun to face me.
Pointing to my chest, he said, “And you’re safe for now. ”
“Wait, what?”
“Yes, maybe that was only a coincidence?” He faced the wall of my room as if seeing through it. “Maybe they don’t know she survived.”
My ears perked. “You talkin’ about Saleeni?”
“But who are they? How’d they know where they were?”
I was getting beyond frustrated. “River Styx, I demand you talk to me.”
As if he were in boot camp, Styx faced me. The only part of his posture that didn’t meet military stance was his lack of salute.
Oh shit. He’s going to hate that new gift. “At ease?”
His body became his again. “If you ever—”
“I know. I know. But please fill me in.”
“The club that chased you and Lennox down wasn’t who set the bomb.
Whoever set it was after Saleeni’s sea peeps…
Oh shit. You’re bleeding.” He pried the ax out of my hand as he led me to the kitchen sink.
Washing it, he said, “Last thing we need is something getting in the wound and causing an infect—”
We both froze.
The connection immediately made sense. How I was more gifted than my dad, who had a direct lineage. When I was a little boy, injured, sinking in the water that I thought was beautiful, it was actually full of Saleeni’s family’s blood.
Styx stared at my damaged finger. “The bomb. Their blood—” His eyes rose and were full of terror, “—mixed with yours.”
I wasn’t just part of River—her DNA—but a mixture of how many? Until Saleeni learned to speak clearly, I wouldn’t know. Either way, it appeared I was some sort of hybrid.