Lullaby (The Fable Series, Book 2)

Chapter Twelve

I'm standing alone on a beach at night.

A cold winds blows around me, whipping the dark ocean into a roaring maelstrom. My whole world is sand and sea and the freezing air, but my mind is lost in the distant patterns high above me.

I lift one hand to point at the black sky, tracing a curved line between five glimmering stars to form a perfect ring.

Silver flame snakes through the distant spaces where my finger passes.

The heavens are burning.

The stars are screaming.

"Silver circle," I whisper.

I wake with a start, bolting upright in my bed. I'm having a panic attack. My heart is racing; my skin is cold and clammy. I must have been crying in my sleep, because my cheeks are wet with tears.

Struggling for breath, I try to remember what happened and how I got here.

A hand touches my shoulder, and I whip my head around, half expecting to see Bea's face melting into the pillow beside me.

It's not Bea, but what I see shocks me enough to stop the panic attack in its tracks. Felix is lying on my bed next to me, head propped up on one elbow.

"Feeling better?" He asks, his hazel eyes flashing with concern as I wipe away my tears.

"I'm fine, totally fine," I mutter, looking around my familiar old bedroom in confusion.

"I'm just a bit foggy I guess. How did I... we... get here?"

"You really don't remember?" Felix says, cocking his eyebrow.

"We were outside Bea's house," I say, remembering it as I go. "Someone was leaving, so you took my hand, you pulled me up... we started running... and then... then..." Nothing. Darkness.

"And then you fell down to your knees, muttering something about a circle," he says. "You were clutching your chest, and you just passed out. I had to carry you all the way here. A guy hiding his face with dark glasses and a hoodie carrying an unconscious girl bridal style through the burbs in the middle of the day. We got some shady looks."

It comes back to me slowly. A circle wreathed in silver flame, flashing into my mind as Felix and I were running away from Bea's house. Falling to the ground under a wave of unrelenting pain radiating from the scar on my chest.

"How did you-"

"Get inside?" He interrupts me. "The key was under the doormat. Not very imaginative."

I nod, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. With my back to Felix, I speak as evenly as possible, hoping I don't give away just how anxious I'm feeling.

"Are my parents home?" I ask.

"You think I'd still be here if they were?" He asks.

That answers that.

"So why were you following me?" I ask.

"I already told you, I wasn't," he says.

"Then why were you outside Bea's house?" I ask.

There's a long silence before Felix answers.

"I'm not entirely sure how to explain it," he says. "But I just had this feeling. Like you were alone, and you didn't want to be. Like I should find you. Keep you out of trouble. Turns out, I was right."

I turn around, studying his expression to see if I can detect sarcasm or lying.

But Felix is just staring up at the Fable poster above my bed, his and the other boys' faces smiling down at us from the ceiling.