Raging Sea (Undertow, #2)(55)

“It’s like being dropped into a bottle of soda,” I say.

Riley smiles at me.

“Yeah, just like she said.”

The other children chatter excitedly.

“My head doesn’t hurt at all!” he continues. “Just like you said, Donovan.”

Spangler taps on his tablet, and suddenly Riley’s eyes open wide with surprise.

“I hear a voice!”

I hear one too. It’s telling me to take the shot, but both Spangler and Doyle are watching me like hawks. Fathom takes a step closer to me, presumably to have a better position if he has to attack me.

“What does the voice say, Riley?” one of the scientists probes.

“It’s whispering to me, asking me if I want it to do anything. I swear it’s coming from the pool underneath us. Who is it, Lyric?”

Everyone turns to me.

“A friend of mine named Ghost believed that the voice belongs to the Alpha god, the Great Abyss,” I say, feeling like a phony. I’m the last person in the world who should be explaining the religion.

Cole is the next to get his glove, then Tess, Emma, Jane, Finn, Alexa, Dallas, Priscilla, Pierre, Harrison, and Geno. Spangler hands each kid one with a smile. They help one another put them on, and once each glove is in place and snaps shut, the children’s eyes shine like supernovas. They celebrate and chatter incessantly about how it feels or how their brains don’t hurt or what they want to do with this incredible power they have just been given. Each time I hear a glove snap shut, I die a little more, knowing that another life is forever changed. Chloe is the last one to get a glove, and she holds it out in front of her hands and studies it closely.

“Doesn’t Samuel get one?” she asks, looking to the boy in the wheelchair.

“I’m not sure that Samuel could make it work, Chloe,” Spangler explains.

Chloe frowns.

“That’s not fair. If he can’t have one, then I want to give him mine,” she argues.

“Chloe, now honey, I don’t think you understand.”

Harrison steps forward and pulls Spangler out of the conversation. He has a million questions about the carvings and the metal and how it works. Meanwhile, Chloe looks at me with her sad, tired face. She doesn’t understand that Samuel is a broken kid who serves no purpose to Spangler other than to keep me satisfied.

When all the children have their gloves, the pool is opened and the kids are ushered to its side. The scientists lug their instruments and cameras over and set them up to eagerly watch what happens next. I guess that’s my cue to start.

“All right, I’m going to be honest. I’m not much of a teacher, but I think that starting small and simple is the best strategy.”

“That means you kids can’t throw me in the pool on the first day!” Spangler says.

The children laugh at his joke. They believe that my attempt to kill him was just a stunt.

“The gloves were invented by—”

“Oracles, Lyric. We call them Oracles. We’ve trademarked the name,” Spangler insists.

“They were invented by the Nix, a clan in the Alpha Nation that is known for their work in science and math. The gloves were meant to help the Rusalka with their headaches, because the Rusalka were once part of the Alpha Nation as well. Now, before you start thinking the Nix were being nice, the Rusalka were practically slaves. Their clan did all the hard work, and if they had headaches, everything slowed down, so these gloves—”

“Oracles!” Spangler says.

“These Oracles were supposed to be medicine. Now, like lots of medicines, they had a side effect. When the Rusalka put them on, they found not only that their headaches were gone, but also that they could manipulate water. No one really knows why.”

“Was it just the Rusalka?” Breanne asks.

“No, some Alpha could use them. Ghost had one, and his girlfriend Luna. There was a boy named Thrill. I have a friend named Arcade who is a Triton, and she wears one.”

“Where is she?” Riley asks.

I turn to Spangler, and every eye follows.

“She’ll be here soon,” he promises.

“Great! So, the Rusalka were suddenly very powerful, and they realized they didn’t have to be slaves anymore. Long story short, the Alpha refused to let them live in freedom, so the Rusalka declared war on the rest of the empire, and here we are now.”

“So, the Rusalka aren’t actually evil?” a blond teen asks from the back. I think her name is Sophie.

The rest of the kids have the same confused expression on their faces.

“Thank you for the history lesson, Lyric. Maybe we should move on to your demonstration,” Spangler insists.

I shrug and lift my hand high over my head. The glove goes off like a bottle rocket, and the children watch me in stunned silence. I hear my mother telling me to take the shot, but Doyle is right. It’s not going to work, at least not today. I need to make a plan, and until I do, there are just too many moving parts. I need to wait for my moment, just like I did when the silver bowl wouldn’t go through the slot. Someone will make a mistake. I just have to be ready.

For the next few minutes, I use the pool water to create a number of different objects, from spears to tridents to enormous fists. Anything my imagination can conceive becomes a living sculpture of liquid.