Page 41 of Anchored to the Storm

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?”