Down World by Rebecca Phelps (beach read TXT) 📗

CHAPTER 15

“It’s midnight,” Brady said, gently shaking me awake.

I shivered a bit as I came to, feeling a stiffness and a deep-seated cold work its way through my bones. The only part of me that was still warm was my head, where it had been lying on Brady’s arm. He must have heard it in my breath as I sat up, and he gently rubbed his hands up and down my arms to warm me.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” I responded. “Just waking up. Are you sure it’s time?”

“I saw that waitress walk by.”

We stood up and slowly walked down the alley and back towards the front of the diner, ever vigilant about being watched. But when we got there, we looked into the front window and saw the waitress and four other people standing in a circle waiting for us.

My first instinct was to hide, but it was clearly too late. They were all staring at the front door, as if knowing that at any moment we would be walking in.

“Do you think it’s safe?” I asked Brady.

He said nothing, but instead took my hand and guided me inside.

“You came,” said the waitress, clearly relieved.

“Of course,” Brady answered.

She fired off the names of the other people in the group, one other girl and two guys. Unfortunately, not one name stuck in my head, as I was still deciding privately whether to trust them. Everybody nodded and we stared at each other for a moment, not speaking. I could tell they were sizing us up, too, and I could only hope that we looked trustworthy, because I knew that these people were our only hope of escaping this little piece of hell.

Brady introduced himself. “And this is Marina.”

“Do you have your scars?” asked the other girl, and I thought for a moment that I must have heard her wrong.

“They just got here, I told you,” explained the waitress.

“They should get marked first,” the girl continued, touching her arm. And I remembered that the waitress had shown us that mark, the three scars on her forearm.

“How are they supposed to do that when they’re new?” asked the waitress. I again became aware of a throbbing in my arm where the injection had gone in earlier. Brady must have heard me groan in pain because he became very nervous.

“Marina?” he whispered to me.

“It’s okay,” I responded, but I knew it wasn’t. The pain was getting worse and I felt queasy again.

“What’s wrong with her?” asked the waitress, helping me to sit down at the nearest booth.

“Nothing,” said Brady, sounding defensive. “Her arm just hurts.”

“You didn’t get the shot, did you?” she spat back at him.

Brady stood and stared at her. “You’re the one who told us to go to the school all day!”

“So you would blend in. You were sticking out like sore thumbs walking around in the middle of the day. You weren’t supposed to get in any of the lines.”

“Well, you didn’t say that, did you?” Brady almost shouted back at her.

“She looks green,” said one of the boys. “Should we bring her downstairs?”

“No,” insisted the girl who had spoken before. “Not until she’s had her scars.”

“This is stupid,” said the waitress. “I told you, they’re from the other side.”

“We don’t even know if there is another side,” said the other girl, and I could tell this was not a new fight for them.

A wave of nausea came and went. I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt this terrible. “Brady,” I said, clutching his arm, “what do we do?”

He knelt down in front of me and started very tenderly rolling up my sleeve to see the injection point. “Can we get her some water, please?” he asked no one in particular. I could hear the waitress’s bare feet pattering their way behind the diner counter.

I tried to catch my breath. I was deeply embarrassed to be making such a scene in front of total strangers, especially when we were trying to impress them. But I was also very aware that something was wrong with me, and it was getting worse.

“What’s all the screaming about?” came a calm voice from behind the group, and we all looked up towards the back of the diner. As the crowd parted a bit, I could see a very familiar face approaching. It was Sage, and for the first time, she wasn’t wearing flowing white clothes and she didn’t have her usual air of absentminded fluttering energy. She seemed quite calm and collected, and devoid of any real style. She looked older here, and a little more worn-down. And despite how sick I was feeling, I couldn’t help but take a private moment to grieve that this place seemed to have gotten the best of her.

“They’re from the other side,” said the waitress, bringing us a glass of water, which I immediately gulped down only to feel it sitting poorly in my stomach.

“Mmm,” Sage responded. “Well, they need to prove it.”

“They already did,” the waitress insisted. “They thought Paris was the capital of France and they had one of those dollars.”

“Parlor tricks,” Sage continued. She squatted down by my side, all but pushing Brady out of the way. “What’s wrong with her?”

“She got some sort of shot,” Brady explained, and his voice couldn’t mask his concern any longer. Hearing that Brady sounded nervous completely destroyed any confidence I had left.

“Let me see,” Sage said, a certain gentleness working its way back into her tone.

Brady finished rolling up my sleeve, and I could hear an audible gasp come out of some of the people in the group upon seeing my arm. But Sage remained calm. I tried to look down and see what they were all reacting to, but the rolled-up sleeve was in the way and I lacked the energy to even pull it aside to see it myself.

“It’s infected,” Sage explained. “The ball will have to be removed, and you’ll need an antibiotic.”

“What ball?”