Page 17

Why was it that sand always had a knack for knowing exactly how to get where you didn’t want it? In your jocks, your butt crack, between your toes, your gills… I was partial to an exfoliating foot rub, but right now, I was in for a sand scrub in places where I was not keen on getting one.

The tiny granules had evil little minds of their own. I could just imagine them getting together and plotting the downfall of the human race, one sneaky speck of sand at a time.

At least I was nice and warm—maybe a little weighed down, but who doesn’t like a crushing hug now and again? It was righteous for the soul.

Hmmm. Wait…

I popped one eye open like a sailor looking through a telescope, then another to confirm what my first eye was seeing. Yep, it wasn’t making shit up.

The last thing I remembered was rolling around in the gloriously cool water, feeling the slick moisture over my gills and between my parched lips, not caring about the other Potentials with me.

The weather room had gobbled me up like a whale and spat me out of its blowhole, and I had been ready to accept my fate as a dried-out sea cucumber.

Then the water had come, and it had been a glorious relief. An oasis in the desert.

Then my head had gotten as foggy as a pre-dawn fishing trip, and I’d once again passed out. The Overseer just loved knocking us out. I was starting to think it was a kink of hers or something.

Anywho, I’d just woken up to no water and was currently buried up to my chest in sand.

And I wasn’t the only one.

We were in a cloakroom, yet whoever had owned it had died so long ago that all their clothes and accessories had become dusty…

I wrinkled my nose. Dusty and musty. The floor was covered in sand and Potentials were half-buried beneath the small dunes.

It was like we’d all fallen asleep at the beach and been buried by our siblings as some joke.

Under any other circumstance, I would have found such a gnarly prank hilarious.

Just ask my sister, Zara. She loved this number so much she practically fell asleep at the beach every day hoping I’d bury her.

Alas now was not the time for such shenanigans.

Noah and Ace were asleep across from me with Ace’s head resting on Noah’s shoulder, snoring softly.

The fact that I didn’t have a way to take a picture was totally bogus.

Unfortunately, I’d just have to settle for storing the cute-as-fish-pie image in my noggin.

I turned to Kayden, who was asleep beside me, purring like a little kitty cat. Why were these three dudes so adorable?

“Kayden,” I began regretfully, pulling an arm free from the sand and running a finger right between his flaming brows, smoothing the crinkle there. “Kitty Kayden.”

“Shhh,” Kayden grumbled, swatting my hand away with his big one. His eyes opened to slits, frowning. “My head hurts too much for your dribble right now.”

“No dribble,” I replied, not that I did that anyway. “Just a whole beach-load of sand.”

“Huh?” he grumbled, cracking his eyes wider. “What are you on about?”

I waved my hand before me, collecting a scoop and letting the granules fall between my fingers. “The sand.”

“When did it get here?”

“I dunno, but it’s totally bogus right?” I frowned. “Is it in your butt crack, too?”

“Will you shut it?” Ace’s voice grumbled before Kayden could answer.

Guess I’d never know how his ass fared. “Fine,” I huffed, pouting.

Ace lifted his head from Noah’s shoulder, his cheeks flushed faintly. “My head is killing me.”

Noah roused as well, looking at our surroundings and our current predicament.

His eyes fell on me. “How is it that you seem perfectly fine?” he asked, rubbing his temple.

“You were rolling in the water, taking in more than any of us before you passed out. You should be feeling worse than the rest of us.”

I tilted my head to one side. “Worse?”

“I feel like I’ve had a night on the drink, but without the piss,” Ace groaned.

I shrugged, climbing easily enough out of the sand, and stood slowly to dust myself off. “Haven’t you ever heard the term ‘drinks like a fish’?”

“Sure, but what does that have to do with anything?” Noah asked, shielding his eyes from the sand spray.

Whoops, my bad. “Well—”

“Shut up, bro,” Kayden barked with a jerk. The sand around him shifted violently, making me wobble on my feet. The noise woke the rest of the Potentials who had been snoozing in their own sandy beds. “I want my headache gone, not to get worse.”

“You guys are seriously weird,” said a Potential, poking her head out from one of the shelves. The petite woman was lying on her back above us, watching as she played with her long brown plait.

“Says you, hiding on a shelf,” Kayden snapped.

She shrugged. “At least I’m not buried in sand.”

“Don’t mind the grumpy catfish.” I waved a dismissive hand at the big guy, who still looked half asleep. “Kitty Kayden is just jealous he’s not perched up there like you.”

“I’m not jealous.”

I winked at him. “Sure, you’re not.”

“What’s the plan?” Ace asked, getting to his feet with Noah doing the same. “We can't stay here, waiting to be buried alive.”

“Well, we’ve got the sand part of the riddle,” Noah replied as he gazed at the sign. “I’m not sure what to make of the leap of faith. Maybe we should just search for an exit, though I’m guessing the door we came through is locked. Not that we want to go back that way.”

Ace tried the handle, shaking it vigorously until the metal knob broke right off from the door. He swore violently.

“As expected,” Noah said. He rubbed his chin like some old-timey detective. “Let’s start by looking for another door and eliminating the most obvious clues. Keep an eye out for anything that stands out of the ordinary or for any patterns, symbols, numbers—anything that could be a clue.”

Ace nodded as he rifled through the clothes closest to him.

I did the same, checking for any objects that seemed out of place, or any hidden handles or levers.

The sand continued its attempts to swallow me, wrapping around my feet and legs every time I moved.

It made my efforts to find a door annoyingly longer and harder. Tricksy little granules.

We’d tested nearly all the shelves and the walls behind the hanging clothes when a grinding sound filled the room. A second later, sand poured like a waterfall from the ceiling, and I quickly shut my eyes, waiting for it to stop.

“Fucking hell,” Kayden growled.

I opened my eyes, to look at the big guy.

The sand was now up to my hips, but I dragged my legs through it to where Kayden had been sitting.

The silly sea cucumber hadn’t thought to get up and was now being buried deeper beneath the sand.

But he didn’t have to be scared, Zane was on the case!

Kayden was the heaviest of us, so his attempts to get out were slower, and the sand quickly covered his shoulders and head.

“Marlin on a motorboat!” I shouted, digging fearlessly. “I’m right behind you! I’m coming!”

I felt his hair, then his ear. I dug and yanked on him, leveraging him out as best I could.

“Fuck,” Kayden howled, bursting to the surface and knocking me on my ass. “I never want to hear you say those words in that order to me ever again.”

“Marlin on a motorboat?” I asked, tilting my head to the side. “I think it would be silly to say motorboat on a marlin.”

“We need to focus,” Noah stated as he folded his arms. “You two are getting side-tracked. There has to be a clue around here somewhere.”

“Maybe we aren’t looking for a way out but a way to survive this shit show, like the last room,” Ace suggested as he, too, folded his arms over his chest.

I looked around at the other Potentials. “Feel free to make suggestions. This isn’t the time to be a seagull and wait for our scraps.”

“What if there is a way to block the magic conjuring the falling sand?” a dude offered from where he was buried up to his chest in the stuff.

“We don’t have access to our magic so we can’t use that to block it,” Noah replied. I smirked at that. “This could be a riddle. We just have to figure out what kind.”

“The wardrobe could be the clue,” the woman on the shelf said as she rolled onto her side. “Could there be something hidden in the handbags or stuffed in the pockets of the clothes?”

Ace grabbed the nearest bag off the shelf, upending it over the sand. A lone spider fell from it and scurried away, obviously shy about having us all stare at it.

“Check everything else just in case,” Noah said as he turned and rummaged through a coat.

I followed suit, sneezing as the dust filled the air around me. It smelled like someone’s grandma.

“Nothing,” Kayden announced after a few minutes. “I reckon we either wait out the clock or eliminate the competition.”

“You want us to fight in the sand?” the Potential with a scar on his face asked, backing away. He’d been silent since Ace put him down earlier. “That can’t be the right answer.”

“You were happy to start a brawl when we first got here.” Ace sneered, narrowing his gaze at the dude. “Changed your tune there, little bird.”

The grinding sounded again, and sand plummeted from the ceiling before the Potential could reply.

Kayden’s voice boomed over the noise, his order making everyone move. “Get to higher ground.”

We scrambled to find purchase on the shelves, climbing the walls like sea snails on the sides of a fish tank to avoid the rising sand.

It was the worst kind of flood and, not only was I trying to stop myself from being buried but also trying to keep the granules from getting into my eyes and gills. An impossible task, let me tell you.