Page 56 of The Godhead Complex
“Of course.”
Trish paused and rubbed her forehead. “Don’t be mad.”
“I won’t, I promise. What is it?”
“I left a note on the island . . .”
“Trish!” Sadina almost forgot everyone was sleeping. “Why? What did you say?” They’d all agreed when they left the amphitheater that no one on the island would know the truth. “We were supposed to pretend that Kletter did all that. The poisoning, the kidnapping, so that when we came back everything could be blamed onher!”
“I know, I know!” Trish held the piece of driftwood tighter. “But you had your mom with you and I was leaving my whole family behind. I couldn’tnottell them. I didn’t want them to worry. You know it would have killed my mom.”
Sadina tried to find patience, to keep her promise. She understood why Trish did it, but she didn’t want Trish’s mom and dad telling the rest of the island. “What did the note say?” Sadina pressed. “I’m not mad. I get it. But I need to know what you told them.”
Trish was on the edge of tears. “I don’t even remember. I wrote it right before we left.” She rubbed her head again. “I mostly just wanted to tell them that I was okay, I loved them, and that I’d be back soon. That we were going on an adventure.”
Sadina sighed.
“You’re mad.”
“I’m not mad. It’s actually perfectly understandable.” She openedThe Book of Newt. If Congress hadn’t been split in the first place, then they could’ve just told the truth instead of leaving the island in a big cloud of mystery. “If you trust that they won’t say anything then I trust them, too.”
They sat in silence for a while, holding each other. Dominic started snoring again.
Trish motioned to the book and spoke softly, “Did you circle these pages because they’re your favorites?”
Sadina didn’t know what she meant. She hadn’t circled anything so it must’ve been Frypan. She flipped through the book and to her surprise there were quite a few page numbers circled. She went through and said the circled numbers out loud, “1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233. Page 1 is circled twice, I wonder what that means?”
“Maybe Old Man Frypan is a doodler.”
“Maybe.” But this didn’t feel random. They felt connected. Like a code. She flipped through the pages with her thumb, again and again, repeating the circled numbers in her head until something literally started to add up.
“Trish. Look, these numbers, I don’t think they’re just page numbers . . . these . . . every single one of them, when added to the one that came before it, equals the number that comesafterit. Simple math. Like, look, 5 plus 3 is 8. 8 plus 5 is 13. 21 plus 13 is—”
“34.” Trish finished in wonderment. “But what does it mean?”
“I think . . .” Sadina’s thoughts conflicted with the reality in front of her, they were just numbers but numbers that grew and evolved in a perfectly measured sequence. “I think it has something to do with the Evolution . . .”
CHAPTERTWENTY-ONE
Captive Audience
It had been a long night
One bathroom break, a glass of water, and a couple small loaves of bread that tasted like uncooked flour and sand. They reminded Isaac of when he and Sadina were younger and made sand-pies on the beach. Back then, they’d onlypretendedto eat them. The young assistant that brought the food and gave Old Man Frypan and Isaac bathroom permissions didn’t say a word to either of them and it only furthered the feeling that they were being held as prisoners.
In the morning, as soon as he saw the blonde-haired woman who’d helped take Jackie, Isaac jumped up and frantically pounded on the wall. He didn’t care if the glass broke right then and there; in fact, he’d welcome it. “Hey! Hey! What’s going on with Jackie?!” The glass in front of his mouth fogged up. The scientist walked over to him, clipboard in hand.
“We’re still testing her blood.”
“But she’s alive?” Relief rushed through Isaac’s veins. “You said hours ago that in thirty minutes you’d know if she’d made it—so she did? She made it? She’ll be okay?”
“She’s in bad shape but is on an aggressive decontamination drip.” The woman barely looked at Isaac as she spoke.
He turned back to Frypan to make sure he’d heard Jackie was recovering. He nodded. And Isaac knew what that meant—they had to get out of the pot. “So what happened to her?” Isaac asked the scientist.
“Your friend suffered from a deadly neurotoxin that blocked her sodium channels. This caused her nervous system to shut down.” She paused. “You’re lucky neither of you had the same thing happen.”
The word sodium had really jumped out at him.Was Frypan right about the salt in the stew?“What does all that mean?”
