Fervor (17 page)

Storm

“
Sam? Sam, what are we going to do? We can’t tell him. It will ruin everything,”
Fiona demanded, expecting her Finder to offer a solution.

Getting beaten to a bloody pulp will ruin everything, too,”
Sarah added, her thoughts panicky.
“We should call for Nathan.”

“
Nathan may not get here in time, and if we involve him, he may find out what we’re doing instead of Royce knowing,”
the older girl countered. “
I don’t think that we should call him.”

Sam was thankful that they had the one advantage over Royce and his cohorts that allowed them to discuss their circumstances without the Controls listening in. That still left them with the current dilemma before them. This got Sam thinking. There were other differences with the Controls that could prove to be useful.

“
I know we’ve gotten out of the habit, but we have to lie. Can either of you come up with a good story?”
Sam asked.

At this point, Royce was growing impatient. He reached down and grabbed Sarah by the wrist, and then lifted her into the air. She squealed, kicking and flailing about.

“
Just do something!”
she thought desperately. The black-haired boy tightened his grip and she whimpered in pain as her struggling lessened.

“
Don’t hurt our Fixer!”
Fiona protested.
“We need her!”

“
Sam, he said that you may need me, but that I can’t fix him, so what does he care what he does to me. Then he said to answer his question or he’ll break me so that I can’t be fixed,”
the smaller girl whined internally. Sam knew that she was crying despite the fact that her face was mostly obscured by her dark hair, and he could tell that the larger boy’s forceful grip was causing her a fair amount of pain. He had to come up with something convincing and fast.

“
Fiona, tell him that we are trying to find a way around the Directives and that we come down here to discuss things away from Francis and Nathan. He doesn’t like either of them, and I think at this point he hates Francis even more than he does me. Beg him not to tell Francis and say it like you mean it.”
Sam offered, hoping that, if nothing else, it would at least buy them some time.

The older girl did as he asked and the three waited anxiously for Royce’s response. The Control turned to discuss the situation with his cohorts, and while they were distracted, Sam carefully felt around behind him until his fingers settled upon the shallowly-covered little box. With a few sharp tugs, he pulled it free and slipped it into his pocket.

Moments later, Royce turned back to face them again. He dropped Sarah into the sand in a careless manner. With exaggerated urgency, she crawled blindly towards Sam, not stopping until she had made contact with her small friend.

“
Royce said that we can plot against the ego-maniac all we want, but not in his territory. He claims that from now on this part of the beach is reserved for him and his friends, and that he doesn’t consider us his friends,”
she reported, her mind still frantic, but her fear beginning to lessen. She was still in pain however, and was rubbing at her wrist, wanting to heal the large bruises there, but not in the right mindset to concentrate properly.

“
Tell him that we’re going,”
Sam insisted
. “Tell him that we won’t bother him here again.”

“
But the message...”
she thought plaintively.

“
I’ve got it,”
he informed her.
“Let’s just go, before he changes his mind.”

The three hurried away, thankful to have escaped Royce’s clutches with minimal damage, and eager to see what Elliot had to say. Sarah did not even bother to ask the other two to stop long enough to allow her to repair her wrist. They scrambled back into the house, rushing past Francis towards Fiona’s room.

“
Wait!”
the Teller commanded. They all lurched to an involuntary stop, as if someone had looped an invisible lasso over their heads and the rope had suddenly pulled taut.

“
No, no, no, no, no,”
Sarah thought miserably. Sam and Fiona glanced tensely at Francis, wondering if somehow he knew about Elliot’s message.

“
What happened to you?”
the Teller demanded, putting one hand on the petite girl’s shoulder and reaching for her arm.
“How did you do this? And why haven’t you fixed it yet?”

“
It was Royce,”
Sam admitted. He didn’t see any harm in pitting the two Bigs against one another. There was already some conflict there. Why not use it to get them both out of their hair?

He felt a gentle knock from Sarah, and he let her in, blocking out Francis and Fiona.

“
Don’t do this, Sam,”
she begged.
“There are already enough problems between Royce and Francis. Don’t make this worse.”

“
What else do you want me to tell him,”
Sam snapped.
“It’s not like we can lie to him.”

“
I want to tell him the whole truth,”
Sarah stated.
“Please, I think it would work in our favour. He’ll help us if he knows what’s going on.”

“
We don’t have that much to gain by sharing this with him, and we have an awful lot to lose,”
Sam pointed out.
“Besides, Fiona would never agree to it, and we really do need her help.”

“
But Sam....”
He didn’t let her finish. He shook her free from his thoughts and focussed his own mind at Francis.

“
Royce was meeting with those other Controls again. He told us that we weren’t allowed on that part of the beach, that it was his territory. He picked Sarah up by her wrist and threatened to break her so that she couldn’t be fixed.”

No lies. All true. And just like that, they were off the hook. Francis frowned and covered his mouth with his hand, before turning silently and walking off into the kitchen.

“
What have you done, Sam?”
Sarah exclaimed angrily, pushing at him quite vehemently.
“He didn’t need to know that. This is going to cause trouble beyond anything that would have happened if we had let Francis in on our secret. Why won’t you trust him? Why won’t you trust my instincts?”

“
You are too naive, Sarah. You are willing to believe that everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt,”
he retorted.
“We have to protect ourselves. We have to protect Elliot.”

Fiona knocked loudly, frowning at them from the doorway of her room. When they opened their minds to her, she chastised them.

“
Quit bickering like preschoolers and get in here. I want to see that message. Don’t you?”

Sam nodded and jogged past her into the room. Sarah followed with Fiona’s guidance, somewhat reluctantly.

The message was different from the others. While they were sure that it had still come from Eliot, his handwriting was messier and less controlled than his prior notes. The scrawl seemed rushed and excited.

“
This will be my last message for some time. I’m being relocated for my work, but it will bring me much closer to the Languorite. In addition to letting me study the facility where it is being kept firsthand, it will also allow me the possible opportunity to review more of the scholars’ notes and get more answers on how exactly the Languorite works and what it can do. I think that I have a lead on a long distance hover, one that can get me from the coast of the mainland to Fervor. I’ll need one if I succeed in stealing the device so that I can bring it to you. It won’t be soon. It could take me a year or more, but I believe more than ever that this can happen. Keep an eye out. If I fail, and I remain free, I will send another message. Then again, the next time that you hear from me, you may be encountering me in person. Keep your fingers crossed, and keep hopeful. E.”

Fiona stared down at the crinkled paper, her eyes wide and her fingers now trembling.
“He said that he may be coming for us…finally, after all of this time.”

“
If he comes here, we won’t be able to hide this from Francis or Nathan. We need to tell Francis about this now, before Elliot gets here. Francis will know how to keep him from being discovered, and how we can let Nathan in on this safely,”
Sarah suggested.

“
Let it go, Sarah,”
Sam sighed with a mental shake of the head
. “We’re not including Francis in this. Besides, there’s no guarantee that Elliot will make it here in the first place, and if he does it could be a long time in coming.”

“
We can talk about this later. I just heard the door, and from the sounds of things out there, Royce may have followed us back here. Hide the message,”
Fiona said. Sam scrambled to bury the evidence under Fiona’s bed as the two girls went over to the door.

“
They’re fighting again,”
Sarah admonished.
“And it sounds worse than last time. I told you, Sam. I told you.”

She blundered through the door and staggered blindly towards the arguing boys, worried at what might come of their newest dispute. Fiona and Sam followed after her.

When the smaller girl reached the Teller and the Control, she involuntarily drew Royce’s attention away from the argument. Sam watched in horror as the black-haired boy’s facial expression changed from that of hot-tempered anger to hateful resentment. He reached over and grabbed Sarah by the hair, yelling something at the waif-like girl.

“
What’s going on?”
Sam pushed at Fiona, fearfully.
“Tell him to let her go.”

“
I already called for Nathan. Royce is long past listening to us, and Francis can’t make him do anything. He’s really mad, Sam. Francis must have confronted him about our encounter on the beach. Royce said that Sarah ratted him out, and he called her a little bitch. I’m scared, Sam.”

Sarah was screaming just as much on the inside as she was on the outside, and had grabbed the arm of the hand that clutched at her hair.

“
You’re in enough trouble as is, Royce,”
Francis stated sternly. He had dropped his walls completely, and Sam knew that this wasn’t a good sign.
“If you do anything to purposefully damage our Fixer, they’ll pull you off of Fervor. You’ll be punished for the assault. You know how they feel about the Littles.”

Fiona continued to play the part of Sam’s ears for the other half of the argument.

“
Royce said that maybe that’s what he wants, off of Fervor, and he doesn’t care about the punishment. He says that he has been punished enough already. He claims that he was cheated out of the benefits that we have all had the opportunity to enjoy. He’s bored, he’s miserable, and we mean nothing to him. He says he won’t let Francis try to intimidate him anymore and just to show that he means it – NO!”

Royce reached over and, getting a firm hold on Sarah with his other hand, he literally tossed her across the room and into the wall. The Fixer’s link to the connection flickered and dimmed.

Fiona cried out the smaller girl’s name and rushed over to her, while Francis grabbed the Control by the forearm. There was a pounding on the stairs outside and Nathan, near breathless, burst through the door. He lurched towards Royce and tackled him.

The two boys brawled without reservation beside the open door until the Watcher finally managed to overpower his opponent. Nathan shoved Royce away from him in order to gain enough space to pull in his legs and then thrust at the black-haired boy with his feet, with all his might. The aggressive gesture pushed the Control out through the open door and he rolled noisily down the front steps. There was a loud thud as Royce hit bottom, and he exhaled loudly, releasing a sound that was part grunt and part moan. Nathan then got to his feet, and stood in the doorway, shaking with rage and panting heavily.

“
You hurt our Fixer, you hurt all of us. This is war, Royce. You hear me! War! Get out of here while you still can, before I change my mind. If I see you around here again, I’ll kill you myself!”
the Watcher roared.

No stutter… and he meant every word of it. Upon hearing this through the connection, Francis felt the need to step in.