Secrets in Phoenix

by Gabriella Lepore

  Ness looked drawn. “The Divellion’s venom,” she muttered grimly. “I’m afraid it may be too late.”

  “Too late for what?” Sam demanded.

  The elders swapped a helpless grimace.

  Mr. Garret cleared his throat. “Your brother was bitten by a Divellion. When a Divellion bites, a venom is excreted from the fangs. The venom acts as a sort of magnet, drawing the essence from the victim and pulling it into the attacker. In this instance,” he glanced at Todd’s motionless form, “the attack was interrupted, so only a minute amount of poison was leaked. Here at the Academy, we’ve never come across a case like this before, so we had no way of knowing what the consequences would be. We were hoping that Todd would be strong enough to repel the venom. However, it seems that the poison has worked its way into the bloodstream and the transition is beginning. Slowly.”

  “Transition?” I whispered.

  “The exchange,” Ness said quietly. “The Divellion will draw Todd’s essence. As Mr. Garret explained, usually the Divellion emits enough venom to make the transition immediate, but in Todd’s case, it will take time for him to fully—”

  “Stop!” Sam yelled. “How can you speak about him like that? Like he’s some sort of lab rat?”

  “What can we do?” I asked frantically. “We can still save him, right?”

  Both Mr. Garret and Ness looked to the floor.

  “Tell us what we have to do and we’ll do it,” Sam appealed.

  Mr. Garret cast his gaze at us. “There is only one way to stop the transition, and that is to vanquish the Divellion whose poison infects him.”

  Sam clapped his hands together. “So we’ll do that, then. Get your little army together and let’s go.”

  Ness and Mr. Garret shared another rueful look.

  “What?” I asked. “What are we waiting for? If all we need to do is vanquish the Divellion…”

  “I’m afraid it’s not that simple, dear,” Ness murmured.

  “Why?” I pressed. “Jaxon did it. I know it’s possible.” I shivered at the memory of Jaxon snapping the Divellion’s neck with his bare hands.

  Mr. Garret shook his head solemnly. “There is only a small window of time. We would have to vanquish it before the essence transfers. Besides, we’d have no way of knowing which Divellion is the—”

  “It had green markings around its eyes!” I exclaimed.

  Ness sighed. “It would be like searching for a needle in a haystack.”

  “So?” Sam spluttered. “People find needles in haystacks all the time.”

  Mr. Garret bowed his head. “I wish there was something we could do—”

  “There is something we can do!” Sam exclaimed. “You said it yourselves, vanquish the Divellion. Sophie saw it—it had a green marking around its eye. There’s your needle. What more do you want?”

  Dismally, Mr. Garret carried on, “Divellions inhabit the original town south of the holt. There are hundreds of them. Perhaps even thousands. The boys are able to take on two, maybe three at a time. But we are no match for the sheer numbers—”

  “Well, we’ll have to try,” Sam argued. “We don’t have to take on thousands. It’s only one Divellion. We find it, then we’re done.”

  Ness let out a broken breath. “I wish it could be so. Please believe me when I say that.”

  “It is so!” Sam protested.

  Mr. Garret took off his glasses and mopped his brow with the back of his hand. “No doubt the Divellion will be in hiding. There is even a chance that it’ll be guarded. To dare venture into their territory would cost us many lives. And the chances of finding the infector are slim—that is, if it’s possible at all.”

  “But this is my brother’s life you’re talking about,” Sam choked. “Isn’t Todd worth the risk?”

  The elders cast their eyes to the floor.

  “Look at me!” Sam shouted. “You can’t just leave him here to die!”

  “Please,” I stepped in, “we have to do something. I saw the Divellion,” I reminded them. “I’m sure I’d be able to recognise it.”

  “Absolutely not,” Ness said bluntly. “You two cannot go. It would be suicide. As for the phoenix soldiers…” She turned to Mr. Garret.

  He shook his head no.

  “Don’t do that!” Sam cried. “You can’t just say no like that—not when there’s still a chance!”

  Ness held up her hands. “Enough. It’s not doing any good getting worked up like this.”

  Sam shot me a cantankerous look.

  “We must confer with Mr. Hardy,” Ness decided. “We must settle unanimously upon the best course of action. I assure you, if it is within our capabilities to save Todd, then we will do so.”

  “It is within your capabilities,” Sam said darkly. “And we will do so.”

  #

  After the two elders had left, Sam and I sat alone at Todd’s bedside, watching him fade in and out of consciousness. Each time his eyelashes so much as fluttered, Sam would hastily apologise for all the things he’d said during their argument.

  “Do you think he heard?” Sam would ask me every time.

  “Yes,” I would always reply.

  The minutes ticked by with still no word from Ness. The wait was torture. Waiting to hear if there was any hope for our brother. There had to be hope.

  “Todd was right,” Sam muttered. “This is all my fault.”

  “Of course it’s not your fault,” I whispered, my voice choked.

  “If I hadn’t picked on him so much, then maybe the Divellions wouldn’t have seen him as weak...”

  “It’s not your fault,” I repeated.

  “If I hadn’t insisted we go back to the cottage…”

  “It’s no one’s fault.”

  “I should have let him hit me,” Sam decided. He lifted Todd’s limp hand and let it slip back down again. “I should have let him win a few times. But Sophie, the thing is, I really don’t like losing, you know?”

  I nodded my head, compassionately.

  “I should have let him hit me, though,” Sam said again. “That would have been alright.”

  “I’ll hit you if you want,” I offered.

  “No,” he sighed. “It wouldn’t be the same.”

  I patted him on the shoulder. “It’ll be okay. Don’t we always get through tough times? We always find a way.”

  Sam groaned in frustration. “You know, none of this would have happened if… I’m just so angry at him,” he said, dropping his head into his hands. “I hate him for doing this to us.”

  “Who? The Divellion?”

  “No. Him.”

  “Todd?”

  “No,” Sam griped, irritated that I hadn’t figured it out yet. “Wilber.”

  I’d come to notice that Sam rarely spoke about Wilber, and when he did there was an edge to his voice. It was as though he carried a deep resentment for our grandfather. I’d presumed it was because they’d clashed so much in life, and now those things could quite simply never be resolved.

  “Stop it,” I beseeched him. “Wilber loved us. You have to stop blaming him for everything that goes wrong in your life.”

  “Exactly!” Sam exclaimed. “He loved me. Even after all the stupid things I did.” He buried his face in his hands. “He kept giving me chances, and all I ever did was mess up.”

  “That’s not true,” I comforted him. It was totally true.

  “How could he do this to me?” Sam murmured.

  I frowned. “Do what, Sam?”

  “Leave me.”

  I blinked at him. “Sam, he died,” I said softly.

  “How could he do that to us? How could he do that to me?” Sam vigorously rubbed at his eyes, turning away from me in the hope that I wouldn’t see his tears.

  My own eyes began to sting. This wasn’t a side of Sam I was used to. Nor was it one I knew how to respond to.

  Sam exhaled heavily before he spoke again. “A few months before he died, Wilber called me out of school and took me to
the Port Dalton Stadium—”

  “I don’t remember that,” I gasped. For one thing, it certainly wasn’t the norm for Sam and Wilber to arrange outings together. Usually they couldn’t be in the same room for more than ten minutes before the arguments started—not to mention the unlikelihood of Wilber scheduling a day out during school hours. “Did Todd go, too?” I asked.

  “No. Just me. It wasn’t planned or anything. It was just a run of the mill, boring Tuesday, and then I got a message from the secretary saying that my grandfather was waiting for me in the school office. Naturally I was thinking, Oh man, I’m in for it. What’s he found out about now?”

  I giggled.

  Sam smiled. “I saw him sitting in the office with old Mrs. Timmons. He signed me out of school and told Timmons that I had a doctor’s appointment. Seriously, Sophie, by then I was shaking, thinking, What the hell did I do? I figured it must have been bad, ’cause he didn’t look at me once. Not once until we were outside by the car.”

  “Then what happened?” I asked, wide eyed.

  “He told me to get in the driver’s seat and head for the football stadium.”

  “Wilber let you drive?” I spluttered in disbelief.

  “Yep. And he didn’t say a thing when I hit the lamppost. Or when I rammed into the back of that Volvo.”

  “Did you drive all the way to the stadium?” The Port Dalton Stadium was the most noteworthy thing our city had to offer. Unfortunately, it was at least a half hour’s drive from our modest little borough.

  “Yeah. The whole way,” Sam replied. “When we got there it was completely deserted. Huge as well, with the pitch below and a ring of empty bleachers. Wilber bought us chips from a vendor and we ate them up in the stands.” Sam gazed wistfully into the distance. “I would probably say that it was one of the best days of my life. For the first time in years, I spoke to Wilber and he actually listened.”

  I placed my hand on his shoulder.

  “And then, later,” Sam carried on, “he told me that if anything ever happened to him, I was to look after you and Todd.”

  I smiled gently at him. “What did you say?”

  “I told him he didn’t need to ask,” Sam said and laughed. “I’ll always look after you and Todd. You’re the only people in the whole world who I love more than I love myself,” he grinned sheepishly. “But that doesn’t necessarily make me the right person for the job. How could he trust me with something so important? He knew what a screw-up I was. And now look—I’ve failed him again.”

  I’d never heard Sam speak this way before. I’d become used to the volatile relationship he’d shared with Wilber. It was a relationship that was, on the surface, constantly in conflict. Sam had fought Wilber at every corner and blamed him for every dip in the road. But what I had overlooked was something they shared beneath the surface: profound moments and trust beyond compare.

  Like always, just when I thought I knew everything there was to know about my brother Sam, he found a way to surprise me.

  “You haven’t failed anyone, Sam.” I sighed. “I don’t know, maybe it’s us who didn’t appreciate you enough. I know you tried to keep it from me, but I saw how hard you fought to keep us together after Wilber…” I trailed off. “And you did it, just like you promised you would. You kept us together. We got through that, and we’ll get through this.”

  “But look,” he wailed as he gestured to Todd. “Look what I did to my brother.”

  “You didn’t do anything,” I argued. “This isn’t your fault. There was nothing you could have done.”

  Sam rubbed at his jaw. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “There was nothing I could have done.”

  “That’s right.”

  Sam looked down at Todd for a while, then shook out his stiff arms. “I’m going to get some coffee. You want?”

  “Sure,” I nodded.

  He rose to his feet and lumbered out of the room.

  A few seconds later the door creaked open again and Sam returned.

  “Actually, Sophie,” he said, “do you mind making the coffee? I think I should stay with Todd.”

  I frowned. “Okay,” I said slowly.

  That was odd.

  I wandered out of the room, leaving Sam alone with Todd. Perhaps that was what Sam needed right now. Besides, I was glad to have something to do—even if it was only coffee duty.

  I stepped into the dark corridor, my shoes clicking against the wood-planked floor.

  I’d scarcely walked a few steps before someone grabbed me from behind.

  My heart leapt into my throat.

  “Don’t be scared. It’s me,” a voice whispered into my ear.

  For a brief moment in time, all my fear and anxiety melted away and was replaced by unparalleled joy.

  “Jaxon,” I whispered. I spun on my heel and threw my arms around his neck. So that explained why Sam had sent me on the coffee run.

  Jaxon returned the embrace, then swiftly steered me into a nearby room.

  Out of sight, he closed the door behind us and switched on a lamp. A weak orange glow lit a circle in the mahogany room. The ceiling disappeared into the shadows, and the few items of furniture did little to fill the barren space.

  “Where were you?” I managed, finding his hands in the darkness.

  “There’s a room downstairs,” he explained. “They reserve it for instances when we get out of control. It’s solitary confinement.”

  “They locked you away?” I asked incredulously.

  “I had to see you,” he said, skirting over my question.

  “I had to see you, too,” I murmured. “I was so worried. I tried to stop them, and then nobody would tell me where you were…”

  “I’m okay,” he assured me, winding his finger through mine.

  “How did you get out?”

  Jaxon smiled strangely. “Reuben, of all people. He snuck me out.”

  “Reuben!” I exclaimed. He was the last person I’d expected to help Jaxon.

  “Probably an agenda in there somewhere,” Jaxon added. “But right now, I don’t care. I had to get to you. I had to make sure you were alright. I had to make sure you knew that I wouldn’t have hurt you.”

  “I know that,” I told him. “And I’m fine. But Todd’s been bitten.”

  “I know. I heard them talking.”

  “Ness and Mr. Garret? What did they say? Are they going to help him?”

  Jaxon fell silent.

  “They’re not,” I guessed, grimly.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “They were discussing it. Hardy’s not sure. The old town, the south side… it’s swarming with Divellions.”

  I was met with a hazy memory of the town I’d seen in my dreams. “Bakeries and cobbled streets,” I said to myself.

  Jaxon laughed softly. “Yeah, in my day it was like that,” he agreed. “At least, that’s how I remembered it. When they brought me back two years ago, Hardy took me to the outskirts, just to get a glimpse of what it had become. It was bedlam. The Divellions had turned it into a wasteland teeming with their kind. Hundreds upon hundreds of them, living in squalor, feeding off each other.” He winced. “It was my home. My mother used to take me fishing in a lake that is now filled with rotting carcasses.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  “I want to save your brother,” Jaxon stated. “But we need a strategy. Not to mention that, if none of us makes it back alive, then the Academy will be unprotected. You will be unprotected.”

  The colour drained from my face.

  He squeezed my hand. “Don’t worry. We’ll come up with a plan.”

  “What will the elders do when they realise you escaped?”

  “Well, hopefully it won’t come to that. I’ll return to the confinement room,” he told me. “I’ll wait to be formally released.”

  My heart sank. “But you didn’t do anything.”

  “I could have,” he said, apparently more tolerant with rules than I was. “They’re taking precautions, and ri
ghtly so.”

  I sighed quietly.

  “It won’t be much longer. If they decide to attack the south side, then they’ll have to release me. They’ll need me.”

  I need you, I felt like screaming. “Is there no way you could stay at the Academy while the others go?”

  Jaxon laughed as though I’d made a joke.

  And then he caught me by surprise, drawing me closer to him until I was against his beating heart.

  There in the darkness of the chamber, I tilted my face to his and kissed him. The second our lips touched, a surge of electricity shot through me like I’d been struck by lightning. From that moment on, I changed. I became a part of him, and he of me. And it was sealed with a kiss.

  “I have to go,” Jaxon murmured at last.

  I swallowed a lump in my throat. I couldn’t bring myself to speak.

  Jaxon slipped his hand around mine and led me out into the hallway, heading towards my bedroom.

  “I’ll come back to you as soon as I can,” he promised, tightening his grip around my fingers.

  I nodded. My heart tugged when I heard him say ‘goodbye’.

  As he left, I stepped into my bedroom.

  “No,” I whispered.

  Something was missing.

  “No!” I cried.

  Oh, god. Where was he?

  “Sam!” I screamed.

  My bedroom door flung open.

  “What’s wrong?” Jaxon called to me.

  “He’s gone!”

  There was a scrap of notebook paper laid across Sam’s camp bed.

  I snatched it up and read the scrawled words.

  Sophie,

  I hope you found what you were looking for.

  I’ve gone to hunt down the Dervalion.

  I had to do something.

  Please don’t worry about me, and DON’T tell Ness.

  I’ll be back soon.

  Luv, Sam.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Up in Arms

  “Sam!” I cried in despair. What had he done?

  Jaxon took the note from me and read it silently.

  “I need to go after him,” I said, making for the door.

  Jaxon caught my arm. “No. You can’t.”

  “I have to!”