Alive Again: Awakening (Book 1)

193

I was under water. I knew that. I could feel a gentle current all around me, but somehow I was breathing normally. Was I dreaming?

Suddenly, the strange feeling cut off and I felt my body thrust upward. I went up a few feet and landed on my side. I was lying on uneven ground, and when the sound of running water left my ears, my senses catching up to speed, I still wasn't sure if I was awake or not.

Brandon was arguing profusely with a snake. The snake was wrapped around the leg of another boy, who looked my age. It took me a bit longer to register a little girl and boy sitting on a branch above the three arguing. They were watching with mild interest, their expressions tense.

"WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?" The snake extended its lavender body into Brandon's face.

To my surprise, Brandon didn't flinch. He roared back at it, just as angry. "Delilah, if I hadn't been there today she would have been killed! Or worse, captured!"

"That's beside the point! We're your team. No matter what, YOU DO NOT LIE TO US!" The snake seemed to coil tighter around the other boy's leg.

"I'm sorry, were you not in that room the other day when G was telling us about this mission?" He shot back. "She's been on Everest's hit list all her life! He'd been expecting the Suits to strike in the coming week and they did! If I had waited for G to make the decision, she wouldn't be here!"

"Brandon, this isn't about her! This is about you being team leader! We count on you to keep us together and make responsible choices. And since you obviously don't remember the definition of responsible, I'll remind you that it means you are supposed to INCLUDE US IN YOUR DECISIONS! What the hell were you thinking?"

"NONE OF YOU WERE ON MY SIDE!" Brandon exploded. "What was I supposed to do? We made a promise when our team was initiated that we wouldn't let another innocent life fall into Everest's hands. If I hadn't done this, we would have broken that promise! I don't break promises!"

"Brandon, you're not Superman!" The other boy yelled. "You're not invincible!"

Brandon didn't respond. He was fuming.

The other boy continued. "What would you have done if you'd gotten seriously hurt, Brandon? Delilah wouldn't have been there to help you, and we wouldn't have been there to save you! Then, both of you would have been killed or captured! And how would you have kept your dumb promise then?"

"DUMB?" Brandon fired. "Do you actually—"

He stopped himself. There was silence. The heat of the moment abated, and when Brandon did speak again it was in a civil tone. "Look, guys," he said, "The bottom line is I got her out of there safely, okay? I'm not hurt. Neither is she. Let's just focus and get her back to Headquarters."

Delilah uncoiled herself from the boy's leg and slithered away into the underbrush. The boy wasn't looking at Brandon, and the two children in the tree above looked much more worried than before.

I got to my feet slowly, my reality meter still having trouble.

"Talking...snake," I muttered. Animals didn't talk, let alone argue.

Everyone looked at me except Brandon. Despite the calm of the moment, he suddenly seemed angrier than before. He erupted in the direction the snake had gone. "Oh, sure! Great, Delilah. Really mature. You're quitting the mission just because you're mad at me? This is precisely what a good teammate would do!"

The sound of underbrush crunching beneath human feet sounded, as a girl emerged. I jumped when I saw her. Her skin was a ghostly off-white. It looked like soapy water, tinted with lavender in the light. Her skin was patterned with crosshatching, almost indistinctly. Her eyes were an iridescent silver-grey. She was blind, I realized as an after thought. Her hair almost blended in with her skin. It was a silver-grey too. She looked a lot like the snake that'd just slithered away, but...that was impossible.

Right?

The girl stalked toward Brandon, by the looks of it, ready to punch him in the face. Before she could, the other boy pulled her back and the little girl above squealed, "Stop it! No more fighting! The trees don't like it!"

"Maple's right," the boy intervening agreed. "We can fight about this later. Right now, we're on a mission, so let's finish this."

I staggered over to Brandon, my confusion piquing, and reached for his shoulder.

"Hey, fill me in—" Before I could finish my sentence, my hand connected with Brandon's shoulder. Simultaneously, every muscle in my body locked and I was thrown backward six feet in the air. I slammed, back first, into something hard. I was sliding downward when everything went black. Again.