Down World by Rebecca Phelps (beach read TXT) 📗

of how very alone we are in the universe. In that darkness, I was suspended, as if floating in space. I held my breath and listened to the absence of sound, aching to run and yet unable to move.

And then I felt my brother’s hand. Robbie had been sent back by my father to find me. They must not have been far, just around the next bend, but in the absorbency of the walls, all sound had been wiped out. And yet Robbie had found me, and he led me back.

Robbie always found me. Even in my dreams. Even after he died.

I had been alone in a cave for four years. And now Robbie had come back to me. Any thoughts I had that someday I would come into DW and find him, take him, save him, they vanished now that we were actually together. Because as always, it was the other way around. I was the one who felt saved.

I would not push my brother back through the portal. I would not lose him again. We would find another way, or we would stay here forever. That was the deal.

Piper McMahon was not much of a cook. Her great addition to the ramen Robbie had prepared was to add a handful of raw walnuts to it.

“Now it has protein,” she said.

Robbie smiled, and I could see that he was in love with her. I wondered if he would have loved her in the real world, or if his great affection was more a result of the years he had spent on this train alone before she showed up. But when I saw her laugh, her perfect teeth almost reflexively biting her lower lip, I knew that girls like Piper would always have men falling in love with them, no matter where they were.

“I’m a little confused, Piper,” I had to say. “How did you get here? What happened?”

“Oh, it’s a crazy story,” she began, stirring her ramen. She turned to Robbie. “Isn’t it crazy, baby?”

“Mm-hmm.”

The “baby” stuff was starting to get under my skin, and I felt like I had to say something. I couldn’t stop thinking of everything Brady had done to find her, how heartbroken he was about her disappearing. Had she been here on this train calling my brother “baby” the whole time?

“Because Brady and I went to find you, you know,” I said.

Piper put her fork down, and I saw her flinch. “You know Brady?” she asked quietly.

“He’s . . . ,” I began, hesitating for a moment over the word. “He’s my friend.” I glanced at Robbie, who didn’t seem fazed by the mention of anyone named Brady, and I couldn’t help but add, “He really loves you.”

She nodded. “How is he?” she asked, sincerely concerned.

“He’s worried about you. We went to see the Mystics, Piper. And we went into the portal under the lake.”

“Oh God,” she said. “I was afraid he might do something like that. Didn’t I say he might do that, Robbie?”

“You did,” he agreed, biting into an apple. I got the feeling he had heard this story before and wasn’t really interested in it.

“Is he back home now?”

“No, Piper,” I said, trying to be gentle since she at least seemed to be genuinely worried about him. “He stayed down in the world under the lake. He took the train home from there to find you. Since that’s what we heard you had done.”

“He’s still down there?” she asked, a film of horror covering her face. “Oh God, of course. You have to believe me, I really was going to stay in that dimension. I was going home.”

“I believe you.”

“I had no idea I’d end up . . . wherever we are. On this train. Not really anywhere, I guess.” A new thought jostled her almost out of her seat. “Was Brady okay when you saw him?”

“He’s fine. He promised he wouldn’t stay more than a couple of days. I’m sure when he didn’t find you, he came straight home. He’s probably back by now.”

“But did he have his shot?”

“We both . . . ,” I began, remembering that our vaccine pellets had been removed. “We both got the shot, but then I had a bad reaction to it. So Sage took them out.”

Piper sighed, slumping down on the bed. “What if he gets the disease now?”

Robbie, seeing that Piper was upset, finally seemed stirred by this conversation and went to sit next to her on the bed. “He’ll be fine,” he whispered to her.

“Piper?” I said, growing annoyed with my brother’s affection for this girl and his complete ignoring of me. “Can you tell me what happened, please?”

“Well, I guess I need to start from the beginning, huh?” she asked. “Yeah, that’s the only way the story makes any sense.”

I nodded.

“I hadn’t really thought it out, you know. I’m sure Brady told you what I did—that I took my parents out of DW and brought them into our world. I snuck them out in the middle of the night, I couldn’t explain to them why. That on another plane they had been in an accident, a horrible accident.”

“Were you there when it happened?” I asked.

She nodded. “My dad had taken us camping. One more time before summer’s over, he had said. He liked to surprise us with things like that. We were driving late at night, way up in the mountains. It was dark and . . .”

Robbie scooched even closer to her, so their thighs were touching. She reached down, almost instinctively, and put her hand on his leg as though it was her own.

“The car came out of nowhere. He crossed over the dividing line, into our lane. I don’t know, maybe he was drunk or something. Next thing I knew, our car was flipping over and over. Again and again.”

A single tear fell down her cheek. Robbie looked away, like it was too much for him to hear the pain in her voice.

“When it stopped, we