Down World by Rebecca Phelps (beach read TXT) 📗

“Watch it,” said Milo, his forceful tone making me momentarily afraid that he might tackle Brady. And even though Brady was pretty tough, one look at Milo told me he could pummel just about anybody in his path. “You’re no better than us.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” said Brady, trying to defuse the bomb he had lit.

“Let me rest,” said Sage. “Everybody be quiet. Give me a few minutes of peace.”

“Excuse me,” Brady said, bolting out of the room and up the stairs.

I stood, finding my footing once again and feeling stronger already. But inside, I was falling apart, realizing how desperate this situation was becoming. Piper was slipping farther and farther away from Brady. I couldn’t wait to get out of here, and away from these people.

“Sorry,” I said to Milo, who didn’t seem to care in the least what I thought. I followed Brady up the stairs.

Searching the diner, I finally found him sitting alone in the last booth. His head was buried in his arms and I realized that he was crying. My first instinct was to leave him alone, give him some privacy. But he was my friend, and I didn’t want him to think that nobody cared what he was going through.

I sat down next to him and put my hand on his back. “It’s okay,” was all I could think of to say.

“I’m never going to see her again,” he said, his voice muffled by his sleeve.

“Of course you are,” I told him, wanting desperately to hug him. “You know where she is. She took the train back home. She just took it from here is all.”

“We have to go back to the lake in a few minutes,” Brady reminded me, looking up. “It’s too late.”

I nodded, trying to think of what choices we still had.

“Besides,” Brady continued, “if she wanted to be with me, she wouldn’t have left. It’s like you said earlier, isn’t it? If she loved me, she would have stayed.”

“That’s not necessarily true,” I said, thinking of my mother’s words. You are my warrior. My mother had stayed with me as long as she could before going in search of Robbie. It felt like an abandonment at first, but that’s because I didn’t know. Sometimes people do things for all sorts of hidden reasons.

“She probably really did think she’d be right back,” I said. “And she knew you were strong enough to be on your own until then.”

“But I’m not strong,” Brady said. “And I’m so sick of having to act like I am all the time. This isn’t fair. I should get to keep one thing.” He started crying again, and I took his hand.

“Brady,” I whispered, trying to calm him, although he was already collecting himself. “Look at me.”

He turned his head. I took in his devastated eyes, realizing that if he listened to what I was about to say, I might never see them again.

“Piper needs you right now, do you hear me?”

He calmed himself and nodded, seeming to throw the emotion away from his face. I could hear him clear his throat as embarrassment crept in.

“You still love her?”

He stared at me for a moment, as if surprised by the question. His hand was still holding mine, and for a moment I wasn’t sure if he was trying to decide the answer, or if he was thinking about me.

But then he pulled away from me. “Yes,” he admitted. “I do.”

“Go get her, then. Go to the train, go to our town, and find her. When you have her, you can both come back here together and come through the lake portal.”

Brady exhaled slowly, thinking about what I was telling him. “It’s too dangerous, Marina. We’ve already been down a day.”

“You heard what George said. You can stay up to a week. It’ll take you one day to get there and find her, and another to get back.”

He nodded, seeming to visualize the journey.

“Just promise me—if you can’t find her right away . . .”

“I’ll come back.” He smiled. “I promise. I won’t stay too long.”

I sighed, relieved to hear the confidence back in his voice.

“What about you?”

“I’ll be fine. Sage and Caryn will take me back, and my father is waiting for me.”

“No, I’ll take you back to the lake first.”

“Brady,” I said, stopping him. “You and I both know that if you make it all the way to the lake, you’re not going to get back out again.”

Brady got up and started walking very slowly away from me, pacing to let his energy come back to him. “I don’t have any money to buy a ticket.”

“Wait,” I said, checking the stairwell to make sure no one was listening. I went over to the cash register and started pressing buttons until the drawer opened. But when it did, the drawer was empty. I was about to close it again when I picked up the cash tray to be sure. And that’s when I found a hundred-dollar bill hiding under some papers.

“We can’t take that, Marina. She probably needs it.”

“We’ll pay her back,” I said, knowing it was probably a lie. “I promise.”

I handed the bill to Brady, whose hand lingered on mine for a moment.

“Are you sure you’ll be okay?”

“I’m a big girl,” I told him, knowing the confidence I was feigning was probably not convincing anyone. But at the same time, I knew I was doing the right thing. If Brady stayed with me, he would always wonder about Piper. Wonder if he could have done more to find her. He would resent me in the end.

“I feel like I’m never going to see you again,” Brady told me then, not moving towards the door yet.

“I will see you,” I declared, the words filling my heart as they escaped my lips, “when you and Piper come home.”

Brady nodded, and there was nothing more to say. He leaned over and kissed my cheek, and I closed my eyes to feel the warmth of