“I’m sorry,” I say, looking at her. “I just… I think I’m getting loopy from the lack of sleep. When morning comes, let’s find somewhere to dump this truck and get some rest, okay?”
“Fine.” Ron turns her attention back to the road and gasps. “Shit!”
“What?” I look at the road.
One second, there’s a little boy standing in the middle of the road illuminated by the headlights. The next second, the truck jerks to a halt like it crashed into a wall—with way more force than it should have due to how slow we were going—and I’m punched in the face by airbags. My head is ringing and my vision is blurry.
I hear my door open.
“Is she awake?” a young boy’s voice says.
“I think so,” a slightly older sounding boy—the kind going through the voice-cracking stage of puberty—says. “I’ll take care of it.”
I feel a hand on my shoulder and then I’m plunged into darkness.
Chapter 2
A sharp slap across my cheek.
I gasp and open my eyes but I can’t see. I feel a piece of cloth tied tight around my eyes. I turn my head all around, trying to see from under the blindfold. I try to move my arms and legs but they’re tied down, confining me to the hard chair I’m sitting on. The tingles on the back of my neck have intensified.
“What is your gift?” that same young boy’s voice from earlier says.
I breathe heavily, mind whirring. Gifted. Yes, that’s what they actually call it. I almost forgot after being alone with Ron for so long. Ron always calls it “magical” instead. Neither of those words capture the true horror of it, but I suppose if I have to choose one, I’d prefer “magical.”
Ron. Is she here? Why isn’t she speaking?
I open my mouth to call for her but the boy continues speaking. “That other girl, she’s a normie. But you…” He whistles. “I need to know what your gift is.”
“Where is she?”
“She’s safe, for now. Tell me what your gift is and I’ll release her.”
“Tell me where she is first,” I say with a clenched jaw.
He scoffs. “She’s dead asleep, like you were. If you shout, she won’t hear you. She’s not here.”
I hear something like gravel crunching, as if he’s walking towards me. Gravel? There shouldn’t be any gravel here. The road was just dirt and the forest should be too. I don’t know where Ron is and I don’t know where I am either.
“Look,” the boy says, “I just want to know what your gift is. Tell me and I’ll let you and your friend go.”
I doubt he actually will. But on the off chance that he will, maybe I should just humor him. What can I say that will get him to leave me alone without telling him the truth? How about a half-truth?
“I… I don’t know.” I pull against the restraints tying my arms to the arms of the chair but they don’t budge. “I don’t know what it is.”
He’s silent for a bit. “That’s impossible. It likely destroyed your childhood. That’s how it is for everyone.”
I frown, trying to push down those memories. Those memories…
I love myself.
“You’re lying!” he shouts.
I flinch. For a moment, I think he heard what my thoughts and caught me in that lie.
“Tell me what your gift is.” His voice has an edge to it.
I relax a bit. There’s no way he’s telepathic, otherwise he’d have already figured out my “gift” without having to ask like this. “I don’t know how it works, okay? That’s the honest truth.”
“No one knows how it works. But the effect—the effect should be obvious. What is it?”
My hands are trembling. I want to ball them up but there’s no room.
I hear more crunching of gravel and I feel a sudden breeze pass over me, as if from a window or door or something.
“That’s enough,” a woman’s voice says—or maybe she’s a teen girl, around my age? “Who authorized you to do this?”
“Tam and I were hunting in the forest and we sensed her.”
“So you kidnapped her and tied her up?” Gravel crunches as she steps closer. “If she’s one of us, she’s welcome here. End of story.”
“But she won’t say what her gift is!”
“Then that’s her choice and you know that.” She says that word heavily, not as if she’s trying to emphasize it, but as if she can’t help but weigh it down. “Untie her at once.”
“But she’s strong,” he whines.
“You think I don’t know that? Untie her.”
The boy mutters as he walks over loudly and releases my legs, then my arms and finally, the blindfold.
I look around. This isn’t a room, but some kind of narrow tent that’s a head taller than me, and I’m pretty short. It’s still a bit dark, but the reddish tinge of sunlight is starting to creep inside. There’s nothing else inside of here except us and the chair, yet it feels so crowded.
The young boy is a blond hair, blue eyed kid with an arrogant-looking face. His head, limp hair hanging down to his cheeks, reaches my chest. He’s wearing a T-shirt and shorts. The shirt has writing on it, but I can’t quite make out what it says in the dim light.
The woman—no, she must be just a teenager—is about the same height as me. She has similar clothes as the boy, but her shirt is purple, whereas his is blue. A long, thick mass of loose dark curls obscure most of her face. I have always wanted that kind of curly hair—the kind that hangs down instead of up, and bounces and dances.
Ron really isn’t in here like that boy said. I feel a ball of panic well up as I wonder where she could be. But I also have no clue where I am,
