Deep Waters

Chapter Twenty-Two

            Thunder was booming outside as a storm raged on, shaking the house. Everyone was hiding out in the living room, watching the action-adventure film that was playing on the television, doing their very best to hear the dialogue over nature's noise. Unlike everyone else, my eyes were locked on the giant window behind the TV, focusing on each lightning bolt that would strike the land in the distance. Storms were pretty in the way that the trees danced in the wind and the lightning briefly lit up the dark sky, but they were also scary in the sense that the thunder sounded like it wanted to take us all down and the lightning threatened to get closer and closer to us.

To no surprise to me, at once, the TV shut off, and all the backlights in the house turned off. The only thing that shocked me was that the storm hadn't turned off the power sooner. "Oh no," Aria immediately whined. Nemo, who was on the couch beside me, stood up and crawled onto my lap before laying back down.

"Oh, don't worry, a few hours without signal, internet, and power won't kill you," Holden told her.

Or would it? A voice in my head asked. We had absolutely nothing of the sorts. We were stranded out on a farm in the middle of a place that doesn't exist to the rest of the country with no way to contact anybody.

"Well, what if we need to contact Daniel?" she asked. Honestly, I was glad she spoke up my thought because I didn't want to seem like the kind of person to panic about that.

"Nothing is going to happen that will lead to us needing to call Daniel," Sam assured Aria. Though, I think it was aimed toward the rest of us too since we all seemed a little tense. I could admit to feeling more isolated, knowing I couldn't just text Daniel if I needed him. And that wasn't a good feeling when in my situation.

"I'll go down in the basement and hook up the generator," Hazel said, standing up from her bundle of blankets on the floor. "Will someone help me?" Kason and Gavin both offered their assistance before standing up to follow her. "Delilah, do you mind going into my room and getting some flashlights?" She asked, leading me to gently push Nemo off my lap to stand. "They should be in a box under my bed."

Without hesitation, I left the others and walked to her room. The house was dark, but I could at least see where I was going from the frequent lightning flashes coming in through the window. Within a minute or two, I made it to Hazel's room, reached around under her bed and found the box she had been referring to. It was filled with a bunch of stuff I couldn't see, so I felt around until I thought I grabbed a flashlight. Turns out I did, so I turned it on and used it to look for the others. The cardboard box was filled with journals, pictures and small, random objects which I could guess were either keepsakes or junk.

The pictures were mostly of Hazel and Sam, which I found a little entertainment looking through. It wasn't long at all until I came across a picture of Sam that looked to be taken a few years prior, standing with his arm around a girl who looked very similar to me. She had long black hair and light eyes. The only major difference I could see was her hair length and she had a fuller frame than I did. But the number of similarities between us were striking; it was creepy. The girl looked like she could have been my sister. Trying not to think anything more of it, I tossed the picture back in the box and grabbed the rest of the flashlights before shoving the box back under the bed.

By the time I made it back into the living room, Hazel, Kason and my brother had walked back up from the basement. "Water got into the basement," Kason told me. "It damaged the generator."

I sighed. "Great," I muttered.

Sam seemed to not be wasting any time because he was already in front of the fireplace, building a fire for light and warmth. Over the next fifteen minutes, we gathered as many candles, lanterns, and flashlights we could, most of which were stashed in the back of the pantry and set them around the living room.

The net few hours were spent in the dimly lit room, mostly in silence. After a while, the storm settled down, but the power remained off. Sam and Hazel had gone to check on the farm animals, while Marla was reading a book beside a lantern, Gavin and Holden were playing games on their phones, and Aria was sleeping. Kason was carving a small piece of wood he found somewhere with a pocketknife had given him. I was just sitting on the couch with Nemo asleep on my lap, petting him while staring into the dancing fire.

I couldn't get the letter that Charles had sent me out of my mind. What if there was a way to find out if it could be used to get information on Charles? But I couldn't do that without anyone else finding out about it. What was I supposed to do, personally go about some kind of investigation and research on this? I had no clue how to do that. Who did? Olivia. My breath seemed to catch when her name came to my mind. She was crazy smart, or so I'd been told. What if she could help me? Did I trust her? Kason liked her once upon a time, so she had to be a good person. What's the worst that could happen? She could tell Daniel, but going to him for help would be the last resort anyway.

I sighed deeply and leaned my head back into the couch. That's what I was going to do. I was going to ask Olivia for help.

***

Short chapter, I know, but it's all I had time to write.

Who do you think was in the picture with Sam? Why does she look so similar to Delilah?

Is Delilah making the right move to ask Olivia for help? Can she trust her? Will Daniel find out?

Thanks for reading! I hope you are enjoying this story even though there are slow updates. Hopefully, I'll be able to write another chapter this week. I don't think I'll have as much going on as usual.

Love you guys:)

~Emily