I squeezed my eyes closed, knowing the worst had happened.The thump, it matched the pounding of my heart. Like someone was knocking, delivering me a message. But I pushed it away, living in an alternate universe where Gramps was the strongest person I knew.
He could get through anything, and my head shook as tears pushed out with a painful force, my entire being bleeding.Be okay,you asshole. Get up for me, and be okay! Because I jumped off the cliff, and I was supposed to have luck, and he was supposed to be okay.
BE OKAY, my soul screamed, and it ripped through me as his stubborn face flashed in my mind.
Then the car rolled to a silent stop.
1:06 a.m.
When the trunk door opened, the night called. I tried to cough out the burn that settled in my throat behind the gag in my mouth. My gaze tried to pierce through the cloth over my eyes, and the air around me smelled of death holding its breath. Trees rustled, and a ravencawed!in the distance when I was picked up and carried. They tossed me onto the earth. I shuffled backward until I slammed into something hard.
When they tore off the sack from over my head, it wasn’t what I’d expected to see.
Monday was wearing the black track-suit, a shovel in her hand. Half her body was inside a hole, her red hair tossed and forehead sweaty. Khaki pants walked past my line of vision when they squatted before me. Kane’s pained expression stared back at me, his somber eyes as hurt as mine.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen like that,” he said to me in a low whisper. “Why couldn’t you just roll with it? Why did you make it so difficult?”
My eyes pinched closed, and I shook my head, my cries muffled through the gag.
“Fucking cat got me good,” Maverick hissed, sucking blood off his forearm.
Kane cocked his head behind him. “Stop being an infant. Get the coffins ready.” He turned back to face me, plucked the strands of hair sticking to my cheek and forehead. “This is the start of your initiation, Fallon. I gave you the same option as Monday, and you never showed. I don’t have a choice. This is the way it has to be. You’ll have five hours underground in that coffin. There are three ways this could go,” Kane propped his elbow on his bent knee, raising a finger, counting out my options. “Slow down your heart rate and spare your oxygen to survive the full five hours, use your magic to save you, or die. It’s your choice.”
I darted back and forth, to the coffins, to Monday, to the graves, to Kane. I couldn’t do it. Icouldn’t.
I shook my head, scurrying away from him and wanting to become one with the tombstone behind me. I couldn’t go back to the trapped place—the place where I was surrounded and suffocated and not free. Icouldn’t.
The panic stirring in my bloodstream rose to unbearable levels, and I threw myself to my right, desperate to flee from them. The side of my face met the ground, and dirt clouded into my eyes, seeped into my mouth. An animal-like sound pushed up my throat.
Kane groaned and stood. Leisurely, he walked behind me, hooked his hands under my armpits, and pulled me into a standing position. My body was tired of fighting, my muscles were tired. Energy had drained from my bound feet as he supported my weight.
“Your father did it,” he cooed in my ear, pulling my hair off my shoulder. “You’re a Morgan. Sacred Sea has always been a part of the plan. I know you’re scared, but if you don’t calm down, your magic is the only thing that can save you.”
“I’ll be in the ground right next to you,” Monday said, looking up at me from the hole with an apologetic look in her eyes. “Look on the bright side, Fallon. We’ll be sisters.” She shrugged as if it were no big deal. As if Gramps wasn’t lying at the bottom of the steps, helpless.
Kane hooked his finger in my gag, yanked it down before he grabbed my jaw and twisted my neck to the side. “Stay alive.”
My eyes widened, and I bucked my hips back and lurched forward, spitting dirt and tears from my mouth.
“Please, Kane,” I cried, bent over. “Check on Benny,please. I beg you. He could be hurt! He could be …” I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t! “Please!”Kane threw his hand against my mouth, crossed his arm over my chest, and held me to him.
“What happened?” Monday asked, looking confused. Maverick’s eyes snapped to Kane behind me. “Did something happen?”
“He’s fine,” Kane stated. “Open the coffin.” Kane leaned to the side and scooped up my legs, cradling me in his arms as he walked toward the coffin.
“Please, check on Benny,” I begged again, yet Kane ignored me, his expression sober and unreachable.
He pulled me into the hole, laid me in the coffin, and the two stood over me as I heard Monday climb willingly into hers when a thought occurred to me.
“Guess Eleanor was right, Monday. You dug your own grave,” I called out. Oxygen blew from my nose, and a wave of anger raged inside me. “You know what that means, Kane? You’ll lose all your power one day from the fall of a roamer. Just like she said you would! And, hey, maybeI’mthe roamer, but you have the choice right here and now to do the right thing. To change your future around. Help my Gramps, Kane. Don’t let him suffer there alone, please!”
Kane stood with one hand on the coffin’s lid, his face blank with the moon behind him. For a moment, I thought he’d changed his mind, but then he said, “I’ll see you in five hours.”
The coffin door closed, and darkness consumed me.
Julian
4:36 a.m.
