Page 10 of Black Onyx

We need to get to the bottom of this.

We increase our pace as we make our way back to the room. Mayhem and Storm are lounging on the couches when we get there. Farren is nowhere in sight. A panicky feeling that I don’t understand starts inside me, and I frown.

What the fuck is happening?

“Where’s Farren?” Reaper asks, trying to sound casual, but there’s a tense undercurrent in his tone that has Storm frowning.

He points in the direction of her room, and I relax slightly, knowing she’s in there.

“Think she’s asleep.” Mayhem replies and I catch the worried frown he gives her door.

“Look,” I start, “I think we need to consider the fact that the spear has never gotten it wrong before, and she’s meant to be on this team. There’s something more. ..” I start, but Storm jumps up.

“No. She will never be a part of this team. She’s weak. She’s not even healing!” He exclaims.

I have known Storm ever since we were kids, and I can hardly remember a time when he showed emotion. But he has shown more brief flashes of it in the last few hours than he has for a very long time, and I can't help but feel that there is something he’s not telling us.

“Come on, man. Listen,” Loki tries, but it’s no good.

Storm is in no mood to listen to us and glares harshly before getting up and walking to his bedroom door, his stoic facial features back in place.

“What about you?” I ask my twin.

“I agree with you to some extent.” He replies. “Something more is going on with her, but I’m not sure it's our place to figure out what.”

He gets up quietly and goes to his own room, leaving the three of us in the living area together.

“Well, that went well.” Loki scoffs, hopping over the back of the couch and landing with a bounce next to me.

“They’ll come around. They need to.” Reaper replies.

“What’s the plan then?” I ask.

“Well, we observe, and we try to get her to open up to us. We can’t help her if she doesn’t trust us.”

“I have a feeling she doesn’t trust easily,” Loki says, darkness once again crossing his eyes as his past rises. “I recognise something in her that’s in me, and that fucking terrifies me.”

Without another word, he gets up and quietly makes his way to his room.

“That statement was more worrying than anything else he could have said,” I say into the silence.

“We’ll figure it out. We have to.”

The rest of the night I spend tossing and turning the unknowns about Farren driving me crazy and what’s worse is I don’t fucking know why I care so damn much.

**********

“Someone needs to wake up Trouble.” Storm mutters as he fills up his mug with his third cup of coffee this morning.

It looks like someone else didn’t sleep very well either.

“I’ll do it.” Loki offers.

Just as he’s about to knock on her door, the main entrance to the dorm swings open and in walks a muttering Farren; she shuts her mouth abruptly and darts her eyes to the side as if she’s looking at someone. My mind stutters over what she’s wearing, tiny running shorts and a tank. She’s got far more tattoos than I ever thought the daughter of a magistrate would have.

“Where the fuck have you been?” Storm says his only emotion is apparently anger.

“For a run.” She answers simply, walking to her room and closing the door behind her. A few seconds later, we all hear the shower turn on.