“Where am I?” I ask.
The girl walks over and pulls me up to my feet gently. From here, I can see her tan skin and dark brown almond eyes. As she smiles, the deep sadness and weariness in her eyes remain. “This is where you were coming, right?”
“Camp Amaryllis?”
It’s the official name of what Ron calls the magic camp. We gave ourselves the flower names in honor of it, after I first heard about it just three months ago and told Ron I wished I could go there. And she said, then let’s go, let’s go. We had no clue where exactly we were going, but we went, we went.
The girl nods. “I’m Valeria, but you can call me Val. And this is Jayden.”
As she points at the little blond boy, he huffs and looks down with crossed arms.
“And you are?” she asks.
“Chrys, with a y.”
“Chrys, you don’t have to tell anyone about your gift, okay? No one knows mine either.” She looks down at the boy. “Jayden, since you seem so intent on knowing people’s gifts, why don’t you go ahead and tell her what yours is?”
He huffs again. “It’s no secret. You tell her if you want.” Then he stomps his way out of the tent, less graceful than he probably intended due to the gravel crunching under his feet.
After we both watch him go, Valeria—I refuse to call anyone by a nickname other than Ron—turns back to me and tucks a curl behind her ear, but it doesn’t do much to get the hair out of her face.
She looks me in the eyes, a strong unwavering gaze. Her eyes, containing that sadness, hold something else, too. It’s a kind of… knowing, and it’s very unsettling.
“He’s an alright kid once you get to know him,” Valeria says. “But you should know that we generally fall into two camps here. Some, like Jayden, think everyone should know each other’s gifts but others, like me, think it’s unnecessary. Regardless of personal opinions, Amaryllis’s official policy is that it’s up to you to share or not, so don’t feel pressured by them, okay?”
I nod and gesture to the tent around us. “So Amaryllis is literally a camp, with tents and sleeping bags and stuff?”
She chuckles. “No, no. This is just a scouting mission. We’re heading back to HQ once the sun rises.”
“What were you scouting for?”
She puts her hand on her chin and looks up. “There’s a group of giftists around here. We like to keep tabs on them, making sure they don’t have info about our HQ whereabouts and won’t attack us and whatnot.”
“Giftists?”
“Yeah, you know, normies who hate the gifted.”
“Ah, sure…”
She smiles. “Don’t worry. You’ll catch on to all the terminology soon enough.”
“Oh, um, speaking of ‘normies’ my friend is here with me and—”
Her eyes open wide. “No, absolutely not.”
“No?”
“Amaryllis isn’t for normies. She can’t come with us.”
“But she’s my friend and she isn’t a ‘giftist’’or whatever. She’s nice, I swear.”
“Have you told her about your gift?”
“Sort of—”
“Has she seen a gift being used firsthand?”
“I would never use my gift on—”
“Has she seen any gift at all?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then absolutely not. You think she’s nice now, but you don’t know how she’ll react, Chrys.”
“And you think you know? She’s—”
“I do know,” she says through gritted teeth. “Trust me, I know.”
I take a step back, tripping into the chair behind me, forcing me to sit down. Her eyes… I ball my hands into fists on my lap. Her eyes are deep with that same sadness but that unsettling knowing has multiplied and taken over. Angry and furious and sad, so sad.
Valeria closes her eyes and I’m finally released from her gripping gaze. A tear falls down her cheek and she wipes it off impatiently.
I stand up again, shakily. “Okay, I’m not doubting you, Valeria. But Ron is my only friend, and we’ve been through hell together. People like us, us so-called ‘gifted, we’re not the only ones who suffer. We’re not the only ones who need a refuge. If I abandon Ron, she’ll have to go back to hell, and I’ll never let that happen.”
Valeria, still with her eyes closed but no more tears now, sighs. “Fine. I’ll leave it up to Li to decide. She’s in charge at HQ. Your friend can come with us, but she’ll have to be blindfolded. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Chapter 3
By the time I leave the tent, the sun has risen. There are four other tents pitched in a circle near this one on a small patch of gravel. No one else is outside yet besides Valeria and me.
“Do you know where Jayden is? I need to ask him where my friend is,” I say to Valeria, who is walking away in front of me.
She turns back. She looks me dead in the eyes with her lips pursed. I break her gaze.
“She’s still in the truck,” Valeria says.
“How do you know that?” I say, slowly bringing my gaze back to hers, but this time Valeria is the one looking away, sort of past me into the distance.
She shrugs. “I think Jayden mentioned it.”
“You seemed pretty shocked earlier when I mentioned my friend though, like it was the first time you heard of her.”
“It wasn’t the first time. I was shocked you wanted her to come with us.” She points behind me. “The road isn’t far from here. Just go straight that way and you should find it.”
“But why—”
“You should hurry. I’m going to wake everyone up now. Then we’ll pack up the camp. If you aren’t back by the time we’re done, we’ll leave without you.”
Valeria speaks in a dead tone, and her face looks dead too. Weary.
I turn away and head into the forest. Best to just leave her alone. She looks like she doesn’t like being questioned, and honestly, I don’t like it either. Especially when it’s related to my “gift.”
I walk quickly, anxious to see Ron again.
After walking for five minutes
