Before Beasts, There Was Light--Book 9

Old Brother

Tyson's loud smacking noises woke him. At least it wasn't nakedness or vomiting or any of the other unpleasant ways he had been thrust back into consciousness over the past whatever.

"Could you eat any louder?" Kai groaned.

Tyson added in obnoxious 'Nom nom nom's to that.

"I'm going to burn off your scalp."

"Not before trying Ray's most recent creation," said Tyson. "It's gooooood."

"As your stupid moaning hinted at."

"Better hurry before I eat it all—and you know I could."

Snuffling like an angry dog, Kai wriggled out from the mass of sleeping bags and blankets to squint out into the light. He still felt colder than he'd like to be, but at least the majority of the pain had passed. And the plate of brightly colored sushi brought to light how achingly empty his stomach had become. It seemed like this whole adventure had been spent either starving, exhausted, or in pain.

It wasn't till he had drowsily sunk to the floor, bringing half the bed with him, and started eating that his mind started returning to him: Ayah, her brother, Tala, the warships, the hole in their own ship.

"Didn't this ship get hit?" Kai asked once he'd swallowed.

"Oh, yeah. Huge hole in the side. Max actually got sucked into it, and good thing he did. He was able to keep the water at bay until Tala came."

"I don't appreciate this baited way of storytelling. Just tell me what happened."

"Calm your freaking tits, my mouth was full!" Even so, Tyson shoved three more bites of sushi into his mouth before continuing. "Tala was amazing. He just went up to Ayah, told her to start singing, then bashed his beyblade against the side of the boat. Guess she was able to hear what she needed to from that, 'cause next thing I know she's tweeting like a flute and this freaking ice storm blows in and then it's just freezes. I mean, everything just got iced, like, all the water turned to ice and those big ass ships of death just stopped and started blaring horns and—wait, how come we didn't freeze?"

Kai swallowed his mouthful of fish and nudged Tyson. "Tala?"

"He froze up the hole in the bunk, what else do you want to know?"

"Where is he?"

"Oh! Yeah. Get this: he's the ice blocking up the hole. He even made a big deal of pushing off that weird instinct to just fall asleep and...whatever, until he was down by the hole next to Max. Then he just dove into the water and everything froze. He actually froze Max's feet with the water on accident, so we had to chisel him out. Poor guy has this nasty burn on his arm and it got all cracked up and started bleeding from the cold." Tyson stuffed a sushi roll in his mouth but kept talking, "I'm gonna go check on him after this, see if Ayah's gotten to it yet."

Both the mention of Max's burn (which he had gotten from dumping Kai into a fire in order to save his life), and Ayah instantly darkened any hope Kai had had for the day being a pleasant one.

Tyson seemed to sense the sudden change in Kai's mood, for he quickly swallowed and added, "Uh, you're not going to, like...do anything stupid? I mean, with her brother and her and all."

When Kai just stood up without saying anything and made his way to some clothes, Tyson said, rather desperately now, "Please promise me no stupid!"

That made Kai pause. "What?"

"Come on, you know in all the shows when the dude gets jealous and ends up blowing up at the girl and doing all this crap he regrets?"

"I'm not a TV show."