Stormbreacher - Book 1 of Titanomachy Series

Chapter 6: Culinary Masterpieces

I had a hard time going to sleep that night. I couldn't, for the life of me, think about something other than my father. And what did I do with Mom?! The longer I thought about my decision to keep quiet, the worse and worse it seemed.

She needs to know, she should know, I could—...well, I told Stinger that I wouldn't, I'd be betraying him.. And...is it really a good idea? Is it more trouble than what it's worth?

Even Dad didn't tell Mom. Like...yeah, he was bound from speaking about it, but...honestly, I didn't think that would stop him from telling her in private if he really thought he had to. But, so far as I knew, he never did, so...was it not helpful for her to know until he disappeared? Until it was too late?

You should've said something...before they killed you...

Did they even kill him? I didn't even know if he was alive or not! God...

I glanced over at Stinger as if he could provide answers—he was sleeping soundly on my desk, snoring and drooling everywhere like before. Something about him was still awake and aware, though—his scales were rippling faintly with cool colors. I'd come to realize that his scales were like a mood ring—white was representative of fear, periwinkle meant he was worried, so on. Stinger, right now, was very periwinkle. His scales were the color of the early dawn, with purplish-blue streaks twisting over his body.

How did this Project: Basilisk create something like that? I thought worriedly. I drifted into an old habit of nibbling on my fingernails as my mind began to race, wincing as my teeth dug into flesh. For what he was worth, Stinger was shockingly intelligent—his brain couldn't have been much bigger than a grape and he was just as smart as a person, with a clear understanding of the English language and still somehow had enough gray matter to control six limbs and fly. Meanwhile, us humans required a whole three pounds of brainstuff to function with apparently the same mental capacity and two less limbs to control. If that isn't pure freaking insanity, I don't know what is.

And didn't Stinger say that there were even bigger dragons than him, too?! Jesus! He didn't necessarily say how big, but my imagination had shaped a massive creature the size of an airplane, somehow skulking undetected through Veridian's night. I doubted that this Project: Basilisk place created a dragon that big, but...

I shivered, and threw the blanket over my head in a frantic attempt to hide. Nope, nope, nope. Too scary. Too...awful. And anyways, I needed to rest. I couldn't afford to be sleep-deprived tomorrow; Mom needed a lot of help moving in. I closed my eyes, and gradually allowed my head to sink into the itchy pillow.

The morning felt...tense. I really wanted to say that I knew why, but I didn't. I was shivering and scared from the instant I woke up, without a clear-cut reason why, and it pissed me off.

The little bastard's making me paranoid, and it hasn't even been a day with him. I thought, and my eyes trailed off towards Stinger. He had moved behind the curtains so that Mom wouldn't find him when she came in, if she came in. I wanted to say that I understood everything that he said, everything about his old home and my dad and what was going on, but I'd be lying. And by Christ's sake, it was driving me nuts.

Gotta love it. All this shit.

Mom usually woke me up if I got up any later than eight, but this morning she allowed me to sleep in until nine. Then she woke me up.

She came into my room and began rocking me gently to wake me up. "Athena. It's very late." She said, and pressed her hand against my forehead.

I pushed her hand off—it was uncomfortably cool to the touch. "And?"