[2020 Watty Award Winner!]
[BOOK 1 OF THE HAVOC SERIES]
❝you may be the best web-slinger
around, but you're terrible
at keeping secrets.❞
in which even though peter has a new,
high-tech suit, it doesn't stop a girl with
common sense from discove...
┌────── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──────┐ chapter ten IN THIS TOGETHER └────── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──────┘
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
LENA SPENDS THE REST of Sunday feeling like she's swimming through syrup. Her parents had immediately sat her on the sofa, wrapped her in a fluffy blanket, and made her hot cocoa. The television is playing some Filipino drama — Ang Probinsyano, from the looks of it.
She carefully sips the cocoa as to not burn her tongue. Her phone buzzes with a text that she has to dig from the blankets to read. Eventually, she locates the device, squinting at the messages from Graham.
GRAHAM CRACKER: i heard what happened on the news. my parents, owen, and max are freaking out and so am i !!!
GRAHAM CRACKER: none of my texts are delivering are you dead
GRAHAM CRACKER: i tried to send you a good luck text before the decathlon but it didn't go through. i even got up at seven and everything :/
Normally the messages would make her smile, but now they just twist her gut. She'd thought her odd feeling was because of the trauma she'd gone through. Now, though, it's apparent that it's actually the pain of not knowing. Her body is craving answers but also filled with dread upon awaiting the confirmation that her friends had been keeping things from her.
Lena waits until the cocoa is gone to get up and tell her parents she's going to bed. It takes several minutes for her to get to her room; her parents hug her and wish her goodnight for what seems like forever. But once she closes her door, she remembers that her wig and voice changer had fallen in the lake and bangs her head on it in frustration.
Time for a new plan.
She tugs a yellow hoodie over her head and replaces her leggings with a pair of sturdier jeans. After shoving the first pair of shoes she finds onto her feet (a pair of white sneakers), she quickly assembles a sleeping figure out of pillows under her covers just in case they decide to check on her.
After building a shape that roughly resembles herself, she pulls the hood over her head and opens her window. The autumnal night breeze greets her with a gentle caress on her face. It feels strange not using her powers without her costume, but she's careful to be as silent as possible as she makes her way down the fire escape and in the rough direction of Peter's house.
She knows that they have to settle things. If they don't, she won't be able to sleep with how many questions are bouncing through her mind. How could you keep this from me? Why did you keep this from me? Did you order Graham not to tell? Did he agree to leave me in the dark?
