The Sankari Legends Book One: The Scars We Hide
Chapter Eleven: Megan

I watched Sabin carefully as I gave him a few seconds to let mywords sink in. Honestly, I was giving myself as much time to get composed as Iwas giving him. I’d only told a few people the secret of who I was, and onlyone of them had not already guessed it because of their powers. But none ofthose people had known me when I was younger, or had known my whole family.

I should’ve realized that I was going to have to tell Sabin, Alia,and Alec eventually, but I didn’t expect having to reveal the truth to Sabin inthe middle a rescue mission to save the twins. Honestly, the situation was lessthan ideal, but now that I’d finally told Sabin, I couldn’t help but feel ahuge pressure being lifted off of my chest. It was as if the secret had beensmothering me, but now that it was out I could breath a whole lot easier.

Sabin, however, seemed to be currently struggling on the whole“breathing” concept. He was staring at me with a shocked and confusedexpression. Even after standing in silence for what felt like hours— but reallywas only a couple of minutes at most— he still hadn’t said anything.

Youcould’ve given him the news a little more gently, Tyler said in my head.

That reminded me that Tyler and Emmalie were still there. I glancedbetween them, then sent them a thought:

Hey guys,uh, would you mind giving us some space? I feel like I need to explain this toSabin one-on-one.

Sure thing,Meg, Tyler answered.

You needhelp, just shout, Emmalie added with a smirk. We’ll be right over here.

I watched them walk off before I turned back to Sabin. He’d watchedthem walk away too, but now was looking back at me.

I took a breath.

“Look, Sabin, I know that isn’t something you hear everyday…”

He held his hand up.

“Honestly Megan, while I never expected anything like that, it’sokay.”

I frowned. “Really?”

“Well, yeah,” Sabin said, nodding. “You can’t help your parentage,and I know you. You always try to do the right thing. So just because you comefrom bad blood, doesn’t mean you have it yourself.”

“Huh, well thanks, Sabin.” I paused before adding. “You know, mydad wasn’t a bad guy. Sure, he was a konna, but he never acted like one.”

“Yeah, I was kind of confused by that,” Sabin agreed. “I mean, fromwhat I remember of your dad, he was always pretty nice. Not at all like a konnanormally would be.”

I nodded slowly. It was true that my dad never acted like a konna.I remembered most of my childhood pretty clearly, and there was not one singletime I can remember him ever giving any kind of sign he wasn’t sankrin. Ifanything, he was the nicer of my twoparents.

“So, uh, have you always known about this?” Sabin asked, bringingmy thoughts back to the present.

I shook my head. “No, honestly I didn’t replace out until I wastwelve, about to turn thirteen. Zig had just turned fifteen and he was leavingfor the academy in a few weeks and I didn’t want him to go. So he and I werecamping down by the river, which wasn’t too far away from our house, but farenough away from Mom’s ever-watchful eyes and sombulate powers. I was just starting to figure out what my powerswere, and we were sure that we didn’t want Mom to know just yet.”

“Anyway, while we were down by the river, Brittany visited. Wehadn’t seen her since the night Satama was attacked, so it surprised us both.”I sighed before continuing. “She told us the truth about Dad and aboutourselves. Tried to get us to join her and the other konna, but Zig wouldn’thave any of that. Brittany left without much of a fight, but she kept comingback to tried and convince me to join her up until the point I left for theacademy.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes. Sabin looked like he wasstruggling to form a question. I stood and waited patiently, though I couldfeel our timeframe for saving Alia and Alec looming over me like a giant clock.Each second that ticked by seemed to vibrate through my core.

“So what’s it like?” Sabin asked. “Being… uh.”

“Being a kalahati?” Isupplied. “That’s the official term for being half-sankrin, half-konna.”

“Yeah, that,” he said. “What is it like?”

I couldn’t help but allow a small snicker to escape from my lips athis question. It was just the fact that he was so awkward about it.

“It’s really not that different,” I answered. “I mean… it wasn’tuntil I actually found out the truth. As I’ve gotten older since then…” I tooka breath as I tried to decide if I really wanted to tell Sabin this. Thenagain, it was too late now. “Since I figured out who I was, I’ve had to becareful. One wrong move and…”

“And you could turn,” Sabin finished. He looked at me with a solemnsort of expression that I couldn’t quite read, but I could easily see the pityfor me that was placed in his eyes. “Megan I… I’m sorry.”

I shook my head. “It’s not your fault Sabin, and honestly I’m fine.I’ve learned to control it. As long as I keep my focus and my heart on the waysof the sankrin, I’ll be okay.”

“I guess you didn’t put this little detail on your application forthe academy, huh?” Sabin asked with a slight smile.

I snorted. “Yeah, like that would’ve gotten me in. Most wantedapplicant right there.” I sighed, letting my shoulders slump. “No, neither meor Zig said anything about that on our applications. Of course, Zig had alreadybeen accepted by the time we found out, but still… it wasn’t something we couldexactly broadcast openly. We didn’t even tell Mom that we knew.”

“Why not?”

“We didn’t want to hurt her any more than she already was,” I said.“When Dad left, it hurt Mom pretty bad. Zig and I didn’t want to remind herabout him any more that we had to.”

“But your mom knew that your dad was a konna?” Sabin asked.

I nodded. “She wrote a letter to Zig explaining everything.I found it while we were at his house. He doesn’t know I found it though, andwe left before I could talk to him about it.”

Sabin winced slightly. He knew I had requested to stay longer, buthe’d voted against doing that. Well, him and Alia. Of course, I’d never toldthem that I still had stuff to talk about with Zig. I sighed and shook my head.

“But that doesn’t matter,” I said. The thought of Alia reminded methat we were on a short time frame to rescue her and her brother. I knew Sabinstill had questions—I could see them brewing on his face—but the giant clocklooming over my head was suffocating. We needed to get moving, before it wastoo late. “Look, Sabin, I’ll answer any other questions you have later, but wereally need to get going. Or else it’ll be too late for Alia and Alec.”

“Right, right!” he exclaimed and shook his head to clear it. “We’vewasted enough time. Come on.”

“About time!” Tyler called from where he and Emmalie were walkingtowards us.

“While you two were chatting about unfortunate family ties, Imanaged to replace where to teleport us in,” Emmalie said with a smirk. She gaveme a look when she mentioned the unfortunate family ties. She knew I had mysuspicions about her—which was something not even Tyler could claim. If mysuspicions were right, then Emmalie could potentially end up being even more ofa threat to this mission than I was. But I couldn’t say anything yet, becauseas much as I didn’t want to, I had to trust her right now. We wouldn’t be ableto help Alia and Alec without her on our side. I just hoped I was making theright decision.

“Great,” Sabin said. “Get ready to go then. Once we get in, we needto be ready for anything, so Tyler and Megan, any weapons you plan on using getthem ready.”

Tyler set to checking his guns. Unlike me, he only carried onehandgun, while I preferred two. Tyler instead used a semi-automatic rifle thathe currently had slung over his shoulder. He also had a belt full of thingslike flash and smoke bombs. I offhandedly wondered how he’d gotten those,considering those were almost always reserved for Weapons Combat Specialists.

I checked to make sure both of my handguns were fully loaded andholstered securely on my hips, along with the extra clips I had stashed on mybelt. I adjusted the knives strapped to my forearms so that my sleeves betterhid them. If needed, I could easily slip them out into my hand. While guns weredefinitely the most effective things to fight with, I’d learned that there weretimes where you couldn’t rely on guns.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and glanced up to see Sabin. He had aserious expression on his face.

“Megan, I have to know… are you going be able to do this?” he askedquietly.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“We’re going up against your sister,” Sabin answered. “I saw whathappened to you when she showed herself to us. I just need to make sure youaren’t going to freeze up on us when we need you.”

I slammed a new bullet clip into one of my guns and gave him alook.

“Don’t worry about me,” I said confidently, even though I had toadmit I’d been thinking the same thing. After seeing my worst fears up closeand personal thanks to Brittany’s takotattack had just reinstated the risk I was putting upon myself and moreimportantly, everyone else that was on my team. But I couldn’t let my fearsstop me from helping Alia and Alec. Especially not when they were at the mercyof my sister.

I holstered the gun I was holding and looked around at the otherthree, meeting Sabin’s eyes last.

“Let’s go,” I said.