Free Lucas Ryan Versus: The Return by Madison Daniel Page B

thinking the same thing.
    With a light nod, she whispered, “I’m scared.”
    I leaned over to her to ease her fears but when I did, the floor appeared to change underneath us. The white tiles seemed to glow translucent as if covered in glistening water. The lines of the floor slithered in place like a dozen rolling serpents. With a hard swallow, I rubbed my eyes to make sure I wasn’t dreaming again.
    “Lucas? Are you all right?” Morgan asked, quietly.
    “Do you see that?”
    “See what?”
    “The floor!” I coughed, through clenched teeth. She looked below us and everything was normal. I wiped at my betraying eyes one more time and found my cheeks flushed with confusion. Was I going crazy?
    “Lucas, the floor looks…like…the floor. Completely normal.”
    With a hint of desperation, I mumbled, “Great, I’m losing my mind…again.”
     
    More classes went by, more strange hallucinations taunted me. Every time I noticed another missing student, something seemed to play with my sanity. The crawling floors, the see-through walls, the growling air-conditioning vents. By the end of the day I was so flustered that I had forgotten to show up at my after-school detention punishment. When I walked up to Taylor on the football field during his latest practice, he began to laugh.
    “You lost, Luc? What are you doing here?”
    “Huh, I always come and watch you practice.”
    He scooped up a ball in his big hands and threw it across the field like it was the easiest thing to do. “I know, but don’t you have detention?”
    “Oh, crap…I forgot,” I pouted. Taylor laughed again and smacked me on the back.
    “You’ll end up with another week of detention if you skip out on today,” he reminded me.
    “There aren’t enough days left in the semester to give me anymore detention. I’m booked up until the summer,” I said, kidding. Taylor smiled down at me but he could tell I was troubled by something.
    “Isn’t Olivia going to be there?”
    “I guess.”
    “You guess?” Taylor signaled his teammates that he needed a break. “What’s going on, Luc?”
    Sticking my hands in my pockets, I sulked, “I’m not sure, T. Ever since I’ve been back things have been a little off with Olivia and I. I think maybe everything that happened before was too much for her.”
    “Well, saving the world, and her little sister, does take a lot out of you.”
    “It’s more than that. I think my time away changed her mind. I was only gone a few hours, but for her, I was gone weeks. That’s more than enough time to change her mind about me…about us. You know, being a couple.” My hands pulled from my pockets and found themselves at the sides of my face, caressing my temples as a throbbing headache appeared from nowhere.
    “Nope. I don’t believe that,” he declared, as fact.
    “You don’t?”
    “Luc, you didn’t see the way Olivia was while you and Sophia were gone.”
    Fumbling over my words, “What do you mean?”
    “After you disappeared, she was the only one of us that truly believed you’d be back.” His voice faded away. I was shocked to hear that my best friends would give up on me so easily. He winced at my fresh batch of worry. “I tried to stay positive, Lucas, I did…but…I’m sorry. Ro even tried to keep us all believing you’d return but Mo and I lost hope.”
    “T, it’s cool. I understand. You have nothing to be sorry about. That day was no ones fault but General Love’s.” Taylor froze at the very mention of our former nemesis’ name. The General, the despicable demon that wanted the true power of Ripley and was willing to tear a hole in the planet to get it. I was so relieved he was gone for good. “But I’m gonna have to give the Saint twins some grief about giving up on me so easily.” I let a small laugh escape. Taylor eased his stance and shrugged.
    “Sounds fair,” he smiled.
    With our conversation taking a lighter turn, I leaned into him, and asked, “You and Mo are doing